Chapter 10: Nucleus

'Interloper'.

And she said my name.

I finally understood why Viserys looked so pale. He must have thought he could hide my secret... but Lyonel Strong came to him with Alys Rivers, presenting my true identity.

He's still staring at me now, silently begging me to deny her charges, but I wouldn't do that.

"...Why? Why do you come to me now? What do you want?" I asked instead. She was an unknown entity, but…

A dreamy smile crept across her face, "All my life, I've only wanted one thing," she intoned. "My dragon prince, the father of my child."

Aemond.

"You're not getting my son!" For God's sake, he's still a baby!

She tilted her head. "Your son? Is he yours?"

"…No." That word I spat with clenched teeth.

"What is this about?" Viserys finally interrupted. Better late than never, I guess, but things had already gone very, very wrong. "You're not getting any of my sons, woman. Do you hear it? None!"

"That won't be necessary, Your Grace. He'll come to me when the time comes, and we shall receive your blessings." Even under the deathly glare of both her father and Viserys, she didn't seem to be fazed at all. "As for why I'm here… Amy, I'm here to help you."

"Help?" Even if she knew who I was, would it even help my case with Viserys? "How?"

Her smile faded. "You need to know the whole truth. I can see what other people can't, the past and the future alike, for as much as I could remember. But the annals of history were absolute. Everything had already been written and set in stone. Neither I, nor anyone, could change history, until…"

Her icy cold finger was mere inches from my collarbone. "Until you came into our world. Your mere existence rewrote everything. A new path now lies in front of us, brighter than ever. Harrenhal will no longer be the end of me... nor yours, father."

Lyonel Strong's eyes widened. "I won't die in a fire?"

"No. You'll die peacefully in your sleep," she replied with a wicked grin.

"Enough with this!" Viserys roared, having finally reached his last straw. "Alys Rivers, you told me you know the truth of my wife. Is there any proof of what you're saying?"

"Proof? I need no proof. The truth is in your heart. Your eyes, they lied. The truth is invisible unless you learn to see it—" Her gaze now met mine. "You've been avoiding it for too long. Face it— you were a protester."

Oh, that's right.

I remember now—

—

July 1st, 2020.

I was but one protester out of many, joining the march in the streets every weekend in the summer, trying to make the government at least listen to our grievances. But no matter how many people were protesting, the only response we got was more and more brutality.

We did everything we could, but all we got were more and more arrests, more and more disappearances. Even my parents, who were originally supportive, warned me not to go out that day.

But I had to. This was the first time in my life... that I felt I could be useful to the world. I believed I was working for a great cause. My parents finally relented, as long as I promised to return home before dinner time.

That was a promise which I would never fulfill.

I traveled by metro to the streets I was so familiar with. By the time I got there, everything had gone wrong.

The police were everywhere, with barricades dotting the streets and forcing us to split and find another route. And with this whack-a-mole they were playing with us, I soon found every escape route was closed off.

Still, I could have come out of this safely. Even when they had found me...

"Here's one! Get her!" A policeman pointed at me as he shouted at his partner.

I should have run, or surrender and let them take me back to the police station. I might be tortured there, but I would still have a chance to survive.

Instead, I foolishly thought since there were only two of them, I would have a chance.

When the police closed in on me, I growled and attacked him...

And he had a gun.

"…Argh…" I was shot, point-blank, on my stomach. The pain overwhelmed me, and I fell on the ground instantly.

"Shit…" I heard my murderer curse, "It'll be on the headlines again if this gets out."

"Now you've done it," His partner sighed. "What do we do with this one?"

"Ahh… It'll be more trouble than it's worth if we bring it back. Throw it into the sea." He suggested with not even a hint of remorse in his voice.

"Won't that be suspicious? Last time…"

There were a lot of corpses found in the sea during the last six months, I faintly remembered.

"You still have the nerve to mention last time? Go get more rocks so that the corpse doesn't float back up."

"Okay…" The partner sighed as he picked up my body.

The harbor wasn't far from where I was. Soon, I was unceremoniously dumped into a rubbish bag, with a lot of rocks...

Sinking, sinking, sinking… into darkness. To turn into fish feed, or into another unidentifiable corpse months later for my grieving parents to collect if I were lucky…

Papa, mama, I'm sorry.

I can't come back home again.

I didn't even become someone you can be proud of. Dying a hero's death. Protecting someone.

Worthless. Meaningless.

If I could have another chance to do things right…

—

"I..." Tears were dripping down my chin when I finally came back to reality, or whatever 'reality' counted for these days anyway. "I... died, didn't I…"

Was my life in Westeros all just a dream of mine, during the last moments of my life?

"What are you saying? You're alive! You're here..." Viserys' hands were warm as they tightly gripped mine. "You're right here with me!"

I mutely stared at him, my jaw wide open. Did I imagine all of this, just so that there could be someone who loved me?

And I thought he's the delusional one! But it was me all along... even in my dream, I had to borrow the image of another woman...how pathetic.

Alys finally broke the uncomfortable silence. "Whatever your fate in that world may have been, you are in this world now. When you made your last wish, your mind was entangled with this world... bringing this fictional realm to life."

"You're more than just my dying hallucination?" Ignoring the desperate Viserys shaking my body, I crackled like the madwoman that I was. "Ha… haha… I'm asking a character of my own imagination… whether they're real or not!"

"What you believe is true, actually is." She calmly answered. "There's no point in asking. You've already recreated the world in your image."

"Blasphemous!" I screamed into her face. "You're saying like I'm God…"

"You're no god, but you... your essence... your heart... affected everyone. Have you not been surprised by the kindness of people around you? This is the world you've yearned for."

"Then why am I still… me?!" In a fit of rage, I threw down my gloves and showed her my hand, or where a hand should have been instead of the empty hole in my arm. "Why am I not just... just Alicent? Then I don't have to... I can…"

"I just want an ordinary life…" I continued, sobbing. "With friends and family, people I love…"

Then it flashed in front of my eyes.

The mirage of my invisible arm, flickering.

"You..." It was Viserys' turn to be surprised. "Your face... it just..." He had been holding me in his arms, but now he released me, his face laced with shock.

"It... just?" I saw my own hand for a second. Not Alicent's hand under the gloves. My hand, with a crooked pinky.

Does that mean…

"The image - glamour, as we Westerosi call it - that represents you is the one that most suits the situation you're in." Alys explained patiently. "Now that you remembered the truth, it's no longer absolute... it all depends on your mind."

"No..." Viserys mumbled. "That's only an illusion... you're my wife."

"If I say I wish to be your wife... that I wish I'm her..." I glared at Alys. "Then why can't I be her? It all depends on my mind, isn't it?"

"You still don't believe you're her," she sighed. "Your sense of self is too strong to allow that. You promised your parents to believe in yourself... a promise you take more seriously than anything."

"Is that so? Then I..." I ground my teeth. "I would rather let the real Alicent come back! Let me die normally!"

"And let the Dance happen as it was supposed to?" Alys's voice chilled me to the bones. "Let the people you love die horribly?"

I froze. If I had never come here... but wasn't this all a dream anyway?

No, even if there's even a one-in-a-million chance for this to be real...

The room suddenly shook. My eardrums were nearly shattered by a ghastly roar almost as loud as an airplane taking off.

"What's that?" I asked as I covered my ears.

"Dragon! Caraxes!" Viserys shouted at the top of his lungs. "It's Daemon! How dare he..."

"We'll have to arrange defenders right now!" Lyonel drew his sword even as he spoke. "Otherwise..."

The two men briefly exchanged glances before running out of the room, "Stay here!" Viserys ordered as he left.

Only Alys stayed with me. "Time is running out," She reminded me in a tone far more serious than she ever spoke in. "Listen carefully. Your body is but an extension of your consciousness, your will, the essence of your soul. If you can overlook the lies your eyes told you... you can do anything as long as you believe in it strongly enough."

"Are you telling me to go outside and fight Daemon? This is outrageous, I don't..."

"And wait here as everyone you love dies around you? I don't think you'll do that." She smirked.

"...Damn it!" I was already dashing out of the room even as my lips opened. If Daemon was going to kill everyone…

Of course, I wasn't going to stand by and let him do it!