Aegon looked at the dragon egg again.
It was stone, orange scales flecked with gold over a wine-red shell. If you held it up in the light it blinded you.
Nymeria is a golden spear piercing the sun.
He sees her, gold and orange, eyes as viridian as Mother Rhoyne and red wings, red like strong Dornish wine he's developed a taste for.
Aegon's dreams are strange. He dreams of things that were, that are and that will be.
Dragon Dreams, something that had plagued his father.
He never dreams of Rhaegar, to Jon's disappointment. Lemore says it is because his father wasn't a good man and his behavior towards his mother and poor Lady Lyanna angered the Gods.
Jon would never speak ill of him, but Aegon knows the truth. Lemore and Varys believed he should know when he turned six and ten at the second month of this year.
He had coerced a girl of four and ten into leaving with him after staging an abduction in the Riverlands, telling her that he would make sure her betrothal to Robert Baratheon would not happen and that the only way to save her was if she become Elia's handmaiden for her safety.
His father had fooled the Stark girl and held her hostage in Dorne for almost two years.
Jon loved him too much to think Rhaegar anything else than his Silver Prince.
Lady Lyanna was then seduced by his father and impregnated with his bastard, the third head of the Dragon. Mother and baby had died, the lady was too young to give birth, Lemore told him so. The silent sisters did what they could to remove any trace of the pregnancy to protect her reputation, said Varys when he asked why no one knew that she died of childbirth.
But the way some people tell it horrifies him, who in their right mind thinks a girl of four and ten would seduce a married man older than her eldest brother?
He looks like him, he's been told. With deep indigo eyes, and sleek silvery blonde hair. He has his musical talent, his voice, his skill for swords and his love of the harp.
But Aegon knows he has his mother's smile, her nose and her love of travel.
He knows Elia would have loved travelling if her health had allowed it.
He sees his mother, the Princess Elia, singing to him in his cradle, to him and his sister both.
He hears her delicate laugh, feels her soft touch, and knows her like he knows Lemore. He had always dreamed of Elia and her warm tan skin and her brown eyes and thick black hair even when he was being raised by Serra and Illyrio. A mother who loved him and cared for him as much as Serra who looked to replace her dead son with him until death took her away too.
Elia brushes his hair and sings to him when he is troubled, tells him how proud she is of the man he's become and will be. There are always in her rooms in Sunspear never in the Red Keep.
She was the happiest there, Lemore said with a nostalgic smile.
Lemore had been Lemore Sand, who married a guard in service to Princess Deria -Aegon's grandmother- who died from a wound that festered shortly after marrying her. She had a son as well, a babe who died before his first nameday and it was that pain that led her to take holy vows. Lemore had been a companion of Princess Elia, even before she took her vows. Elia was the younger sister Lemore always wanted, and Lemore was the older sister Elia always wanted.
A Septa who acted like a nurse to his mother and him and his sister. A Septa who smuggled him out of the Red Keep inside a basket of clothes for the poor and saved his life.
When he was five, he began to dream of Rhaenys, in his dreams she is always a girl of three who tells him to remind Lemore that it wasn't her fault she couldn't save her. Rhaenys has the Martell coloring but looks more like sad Queen Rhaella than his mother. She loves kittens and dolls and candied ginger like him. They always play together, even when he grows up and she does not.
Lemore wanted to save her, as did Varys, but they could never find a suitable double, always too different, or too old to pass as her. In the end, they had to hope that her sex would save her, but it did not, and Lemore carries that guilt wherever she goes.
When he was ten, he starts seeing Nymeria, first as an egg coming to life, then as a winged demoness who flies beyond a great frozen wall as she follows a great black dragon into the heart of a storm.
He rides her sometimes, and every time she dances with the black dread over a burning city. He sees himself falling from his mount and Nym grabbing him with her talons as they escape the burning city with the mysterious black dragon pursuing them.
On his five and ten nameday when Illyrio gets him a Lyseni courtesan to make him a man, he begins to dream of a maid with hair brown like sable and eyes blue like the sky.
Some nights they just talk, or dance or he chases after her in a crowd and finds her in a hidden little corner of a castle. Other nights she is wearing red roses in her hair and nothing else in his bed. Those nights she calls him husband, but this time the dream is different.
Her skin is soft and sweet under his hands and her lips are softer and sweeter yet, but she pushed him away when he cups her face with his hands and kissed her ardently in Lemore's cabin, "You are to marry another, Aegon. We cannot keep doing this."
But I am wed to you, in my dreams you are my wife, he wants to say, but he is awake then and he is reminded that this mystery woman might not even be real.
She has a name, it's there on the tip of his tongue, but no matter what he tries, Aegon can never seem to remember it and frankly feels too embarrassed to tell Lemore, or Duck, or Yandry about this dream. Griff was out of the question, he was like a father to him, one doesn't talk to their father about a girl you fuck in your dreams.
"Dragon dreams again?" Griff asks used to the pensive state he wakes up in after such.
"Yes, Rhaenys asked why she does not grow up again." He lies to the man who he loves more than the father he never dreams about.
"You'll avenge her and then the poor child will know peace." Griff says as if it were that easy.
Today Aegon turns six and ten and wonders how much longer he must wait to go home.
"She will make a fine bride for Young Griff." Varys tells his long-time friend and co-conspirator. "Well-connected and well dowered. It does not hurt that we would be fulfilling a certain ancient pact his house made with hers."
That was not speaking of having the Knights of the Vale on their side. Even the Martells would not be able to find fault in a match like that.
Aegon needed a proper Queen, Lyanna Dustin had the makings of one. He was sure of it.
She tied the North, the Vale and the Riverlands to the Iron Throne. Her strange ability allowed her to aid Aegon navigate kingship and if the crown prince inherited his mother's ability, the realm would thank him for it.
"You already promised him to his cousin, the Dornish Princess. This will be an insult to them, especially when they learn her name." Illyrio pointed out.
"It is not set in stone, Arianne would not make a good queen, even her father is reluctant to name her his heir. Lady Lyanna has something the maesters call a perfect memory, everything she has seen or heard or learned is never forgotten." Varys kept his voice low, even he knew not to trust his own abilities this much.
"The poor boy will be miserable then. He can barely win an argument with a person with average memory, let alone a bride cursed to always remember." The Magister japed.
Besides they had Dorne on their side and would have them still once they know Aegon may take more after his father, he still had things that marked him as Elia's son. If that was not sufficient, the boy had her life-threatening intolerance to sesame seeds.
"Her mother's aunt as well as her namesake is Lady Royce of Runestone, if we were to have Lady Lysa removed quickly, Lord Yohn Royce would be Lord Protector as the late Jon Arryn decreed in his will." Varys giggled. Lysa Arryn had modified the will at Littlefinger's request unaware that there had been two legal copies. One kept by Bronze Yohn and the other by Stannis Baratheon.
Bronze Yohn was supposed to be the Lord Protector and be interim Warden of the East until his heir came of age. A shame Stannis could not prove Lord Arryn's will hiding in his lands.
But Varys could right this wrong soon enough, perhaps Lyanna could convince Ned Stark to reopen the matter. If Lysa Arryn does not hold the Vale, then Littlefinger will not be a pebble in their shoes.
"She is a beauty, good form, Aegon needs a woman who will not be as sickly as his late mother." Illyrio looked at the girl like he was selecting a whore for his use. "Does she come from fertile stock?"
The eunuch answered his friend's question, she would not be of use if she could not fill the royal nursery with little dragons. They cannot have Aegon leave the world without heirs. "Her mother has three younger brothers and a late elder sister along with a bastard sister who wed into one of the vassal houses, the Ryswells of Morvark Castle are known for their bounty of strapping sons and fine daughters. Lord Royce has six children with his Ryswell wife, would have more if their last child had not ruined her mother's womb."
Lyanna Royce was quite popular in court, even Cersei Lannister could not say she did not like the Lady of Runestone. Even with her brown hair and equally brown eyes, Lady Royce was still considered one of the court's beauties at the age of three and forty.
The woman was courteous and witty but did not suffer fools. She loathed sycophants, chided Lord Renly like a mother whenever his japes turned cruel and was the only person who could get King Robert to stop drinking and whoring for the duration of a royal dinner.
She was as formidable as her husband.
They can persuade Aegon to make Lord Royce his hand, the Bronze Yohn would do well in such an office. His sons were proof that he would not be as soft with Aegon as Jon Arryn was with Robert and his wife would make sure her great-niece could keep the Court running as smoothly as Runestone.
Once they reach the next part of the conspiracy, the Lords of Runestone must be included. And what better way to gain their friendship than by smoothing the trade between the Vale, North and Essos.
Being a Royal Handmaiden is tedious.
Not necessarily because the work is difficult -it really isn't- but because her mistress does things to fuck with her. Her cream and gold dress is stained with Dornish red and will never be beautiful again all because Cersei 'accidentally' spilled her wine while Lyanna served her and the King because the cupbearers were ill.
"You should not have provoked my cousin, my lady. You wore a dress finer than hers and she asks that her ladies do not overshadow her." Lancel says the first smart thing he's said to her since they were betrothed.
"I am not doing any of the sort, Lancel, but I suppose she may misconstrue it that way." Lyanna feigned innocence. Her dress was nowhere near as attention grabbing as what the queen was wearing, but King Robert had commented on something about it and that had been how her beautiful new dress came to be ruined.
Lyanna wondered how Varys would manage to remove Cersei if he's not letting her interfere with Ned Stark's investigation.
She could not tell him, just hint at it.
But Varys gave her lessons on queenship, told her which books to read, who to befriend and gave her enough monies to barter for better accommodations and hire a maidservant for her personal use.
You'll be queen, my dear girl, you'll be even better than Queen Alysanne, he told her when she asked why it was taking so long.
"Lord Royce said you developed a fondness for building, I have to say your sketches are quite something." The eunuch said as he flipped through her sketchbook. "Clever way you designed the new Sept for Lady Stokeworth, I'm sure the Mother's midwives will enjoy the seven pointed star shining light on them through the Myrish glass."
Varys had a habit of appearing out of thin air. Something Lyanna found annoying after a while.
Two months here already. Lyanna had turned six and ten the day the king arrived at Winterfell; she would be having her next nameday on the fourth month of the next year.
"Lady Tanda will be glad she won't have to hire that building master from Braavos. I have seen his sketches and buildings, and I was not impressed with the price. You would think he put the stone bricks in place himself." The northern girl told her new friend.
Lyanna had a knack for building design, something that concerned her grandfather and grandmother. It was unladylike, only men are builders.
Her mother encouraged her to take up unladylike pursuits like building design, hunting, sums, politics, and all that.
Lyanna -who had already mastered most of the feminine pursuits by the age of eleven- was extremely glad to comply.
"I have a favor to ask you, my sweet and strange lady," the perfumed eunuch began with an indulgent smile, like one gives a child. Lyanna knows he will reward her like all the times before, but she will always be suspicious of this man. "I need you to convince Lord Stark to reopen the matter of Lord Arryn's Will."
"What do I gain from this, my lord?" the blue-eyed girl asked.
notes:so i fleshed out Lemore, and made aegon a real targaryen for drama.
Aegon here was born in the equivalent of October on 281 and Lyanna the equivalent of April 281, and Westeros has twelve months in a year in this fic to make things easier for me.
I do intend to make Jon Snow Aegon's half-brother, but here Varys knows he exists and just doesn't care because if he did he would be a threat to Aegon.
please let me know what you think, i welcome praise and criticism :)