Hera's eyes snapped open as the echoing of pounding feet rang outside her chambers.
The young girl of one and ten blearily rubbed her eyes propping up on her elbows as she looked around the darkened room.
She silently looked around her room noticing her two cousins weren't beside her anymore.
The girl frowned in thought climbing out of her featherbed.
Her feet found her slippers, shuffling to her chaise she grabbed her dressing gown, putting it on as she walked to the door.
The princess opened the door frowning as she heard arguing echoing across Driftmark.
"Princess." Her Kingsguard Ser Throne quietly greets his bleary-eyed charge as she eyes the torch-lit hallway in confusion.
"What's going on, Ser?" the Princess's voice was raspy from sleep as she tried to wake herself up more feeling as though she was walking through a fog.
"I am unsure princess. I'll I know is that the King and Queen are in the Great Hall." Ser Throne calmly explained to the sleep-addled girl who just stared at the Knight with minor annoyance that he seemed so awake right now.
Hera pursed her lips in indecision, her curiosity warring with her trepidation that the adults would scold her for being out of bed at this hour. But the increasing sound of arguing echoing throughout the keep stroked the fire of her curiosity.
"Let us go to the Great Hall." Hera declared to the Ser Throne who nodded his head in affirmation, knowing there was little he could say to the princess when she had that look of vague curiosity on her visage.
As she walked to the Great Hall, the last thread of sleep slipping away from her like a thief in the night, she couldn't help but feel a vague sense of anticipation as if she was on the precipice of something that could change her life forever.
Grandfather's guards opened the Great Hall doors for the princess, opening it up to a room that was on the brink of war.
No one noticed the green-eyed Princess enter the room except for a hazed purple eye who immediately felt her presence.
"Vile insults were levied against them." Her mother, Princess Rhaenyra, stated calmly holding onto Hera's brother, Luke, her middle brother. Her elder brother Jace was standing right next to their mother huddling against her warmth. Her mother clutched them close with the ferocity of a mother dragon protecting her nest.
Hera immediately noticed the blood on both of their faces.
She frowned wanting to run to them to comfort them and soothe her baby brothers.
But she stood at the edge of the room her minding quickly trying to find out what was going on.
She only went to bed a few hours ago.
How quickly could it go to shit?
Her eyes alight onto her cousins Baela and Rhaena who were gathered in the arms of their shared grandparents Lord Coryls and Princess Rhaenys.
They looked better than her brothers at least. No sign of blood on them. A few scratches and a bruise blooming on Rhaena's chin.
Nothing that couldn't be cured with a poultice.
A quick trip to her herbal cabinet and her loved ones would be good as new.
But as she looked around again, her viridian eyes alighted on a figure being tended to a maester by the roaring fire.
Hera felt her heart pound in her as her feet quickly took her to her Uncle Aemond's side.
She stood next to the chair, letting the master finish the stitching, just observing the damage to her best friend's face in dawning horror.
A vertical line of carefully stitched, angry-looking skin stretched and took over the little boy's visage as he winced in pain.
The milk of the poppy doing little to alleviate the pain.
He raised his eye meeting the viridian gaze of his niece who just stared at him in a daze, disbelieving of the nightmare she walked into. He turned his gaze down, unable to meet her gaze anymore, mistaking it for disgust.
Hera clicked her tongue silently to herself before sitting next to him taking his hand in her causing him to soften towards her.
The Maester finished his work, going over to the queen to discuss his findings with the worried Queen and King.
The prince made room for his niece as he silently turned his left side into her shoulder, resting his head there for a moment.
If a tear or two slipped down onto her shoulder, well she would closely guard that secret for the rest of her life.
"My son lost an eye." Queen Alicent spoke with barely unleashed fury as faced her old friend who dismissed the crimes her son levied against her own blood. Dismissing the loss as if were a snatched toy that they were fighting over.
The Realm's Delight and The Queen of the Seven Kingdoms continued to argue with a fierceness that could rival any dragon.
The pair sitting in the chair could only watch the game of thrones play out in front of them as one trembled in pain and the other quickly calculating the risk of what she was about to do.
"Aemond, do you trust me?" Hera turns to her best friend with questioning eyes who regarded her with an impressively hard gaze for someone under a lot of pain medication.
It must be wearing off. Hera thought. What the fuck were measter good for if they can't even get the dosage right.
"Yes." The question was answered without hesitation. Hera felt her heart warm with fondness knowing that what she was about to do would either mend the torn lines that were about to be created or splinter them further.
But she had to try.
She would do anything for her family.
Hera spoke to her uncle cupping his face in her hands as spoke a solemnness that went beyond her years, "Whatever happens in the next few minutes do not break your gaze from me. Do you understand me?"
Aemond felt compelled to answer. In all the years, he has known Hera, which was pretty much his whole life up until now, she always stood beside him no matter what.
If she needed him to stare at her for a couple of minutes for reassurance well then who was he to disagree?
(Aemond ignored the voice in his head that said he would stare at her forever if she would let him.)
The room grew colder, the shadows grew, and the adults finally looked up from their show of fighting and greed as a wind blew across the room. Many felt a chill go through their spines, the Great Hall of Driftmark was an enclosed space with new access to windows.
So, the question on everybody's mind was how did a chill get in?
The question was answered quickly as sounds of chanting filled the once strife-filled room.
The Green and Blacks stared at each other in confusion and mounting horror as they found the source.
In front of the great hearth, Princess Hera and Prince Aemond were engaged in a strange embrace.
Not moving at all but just staring at each other as the princess gripped Aemond's face in her hands.
A language unfamiliar to all escaping her lips,"Is mise bana-mhaighstir a' bhàis, a' chaileag a thug buaidh, seann dhiathan an t-saoghail so, ceann na gairm so a shlànuchadh m' fhuil-sa, agus mar bhuannachd gabhaidh tu mo shealladh."
Rhaenyra and Alicent looked at each other in mutual understanding as they stepped forward in unison.
No matter how far they grew apart they would always be able to communicate with a shared look.
Prince Daemon and Ser Criston Cole followed in the women's wake, each wanting to protect the ladies that held their hearts.
But as the women walked to their children something strange happened.
A bright white light filled the room, emerging from the childern.
It was as bright as the sun causing many to close their eyes in pain.
"AEMOND!"
"HERA!"
The Great Hall of Driftmark rang with the echoes of a mother's scream for their children.
Once the light died down, the mothers ran to their unconscious children, each dropping to their knees.
Alicent Hightower let out a gasp of disbelief as her eyes fell onto her favorite child's face. What was once an angry stitched skin that bisected his eye traveling all the went up all way up to his hairline, now sat smooth unblemished skin.
Rhaeynra Taragaryen gathered her daughter in her arms as her son gathered around their fallen sister. Her darling girl's caramel skin was cold to the touch causing her to quickly shed the outerwear that she had over her stunning red dress. She carefully tucked it around her daughter, brushing her silver hair out of her face as she rocked her baby in her lap.
Zȳhon byka qēlos.
She didn't know what she did to deserve such a gift. Her darling girl was the light of her life. She thanked the Fourteen Flames every day for her firstborn. Her guiding light in the darkness.
"Darling, it's time to wake up."
Hera moaned in annoyance, bating her muñā hand away as it continued to caress her smooth cheek.
Didn't she just get up?
Wait.
Shit.
The Great Hall.
The Accusation.
The Fight.
Aemond's Eye.
"Muñā."
Rhaenyra felt her heart lift in relief at the sound of her child's groggy voice.
(No matter how lively she could be, Hera treasured her sleep and hated it being interrupted.)
The viridian gaze she knows so well opened as her daughter stared straight at her.
"Muñā."
Hera called again, causing Rhaenyra to frown in worry as she quickly noticed something, hoping to the Fourteen she was wrong.
"Nyke kesīr byka qēlos." Her mother reassured as she felt a soothing hand caress her cheek causing her to frown.
Hera rapidly opened and closed her eyelids but all she could see was eternal darkness.
"MOMMA! I CAN'T SEE!" Hera wailed as the storm broke outside causing lightning to flash and thunder to boom as though the Gods of Westeros shared in her pain.
Rhaenyra could do nothing but hold her daughter as she meets eyes with that of
Daemon who tried his best to look reassuring but even he couldn't hide his distress for the distraught little girl in his lover's arms.
Something made him turn his head though, finally turning his head to the side to where Alicent Hightower and her brood stood.
What he saw made his blood run cold.
White-hot anger filled his heart.
Vaguely he could hear Caraxes roar echoing across the Strom.
In Aemond Targaryen's newly healed eye sat a matching emerald.