Chapter 2
Viserys
Viserys was in a terrible mood.
In truth, he felt like he had been in a foul temper for most of his life and it had only gotten worse in the last few years since the death of his mother. He wasn't sure when it truly began, but he could think of one specific incident that made him question his place in the world and whether the truth of himself was really the truth.
In the midst of his and Dany's play as young children, he had been hiding beneath the stairs in Magister Illyrio's house when he happened to hear the conversation of a pair of servants walking by.
"You don't think that the queen would have – "
"Silence! Do you want to be whipped? You will be if you continue such treasonous talk."
"Green eyes Yava? Which Targaryen has ever had green eyes?"
The words were spoken much more quietly and punctuated with darting eyes and turned heads as if to ensure that no one was around to hear them.
Viserys stayed out of sight until they had disappeared, but the damage had already been done.
Bastard.
The word had followed him around for the last few years since their mother had died and he knew all of his questions wouldn't be answered. He wouldn't be able to rage at their mother and demand why she had been unfaithful, why they weren't dragons after all, despite everything that she had said.
Despite her words, Viserys had never quite believed her when she said that their father was a god. What god would take notice of a human after all? Even though she was a queen, Rhaella had remained in the background on a good many incidents throughout Aerys reign. What was there about her that could possibly have been enticing to a being of immense power?
Viserys had simply quietly accepted the fact this his mother had succumbed to the madness that was characteristic of so many Targaryens and that her case was just a more subtle one from the overt insanity stories that he had heard.
He had feared that for a time they were the get of Tywin Lannister as the green eyes were so characteristic of the house of lions. Lord Lannister had left court not long before the war had begun and so the timing wouldn't be completely off for a tryst between the two of them.
Perhaps it had even been revenge against Aerys for recruiting his son to the Kingsguard.
But Viserys had never brought up these concerns to his mother or sister, and after that, there simply wasn't time. Rhaella had died, leaving them all her journals, stating they would answer any of their questions.
But Viserys hadn't even been able to touch the things let alone read them.
Daenerys didn't have any such qualms and was herself relieved that they had not been born of Aerys. She had soaked up the tales her mother had told them about Aerys being a madman and had decided that being a bastard was better than the child of such a monster.
Viserys himself was more confused. If their mother's insanity about their origins was true, wasn't it also possible that the story of Aerys' madness was not?
He didn't know what to believe at that point.
So he had turned his head while Daenerys delved deep into the journals and accepted their mothers truths. He gritted his teeth the first time he had seen his sister wearing the strange ring on a chain around her neck and did his best not to look at it. He didn't open the journals and turned away from Dany's stories about their father.
But some doubt had leaked through over the years. His sister had begged him to read them, knowing as she did, that he was in turmoil about everything they had been told.
And like a rock being worn down by the sea, or a tree standing beneath a hurricane, he had eventually acquiesced and forced himself to read some of them.
And the truth he had been forced to confront there, was just as painful as the knowledge that he was illegitimate.
Rhaella had kept careful journals ever since the day she had married Aerys, up until her death. There were meticulous notations about politics, the inner workings of court life and their older half-brother. She certainly didn't write like someone who was mad. Each of her entries were precise, methodical, and detailed to the point where Viserys wondered if she had simply written about everything that had happened to her and around her every day.
Viserys had devoured the section about his older brother in the days before the war and tried his best to ignore everything else.
But after a certain point, his curiosity became too great to ignore and he found himself neck deep in the journal entries where his mother had met their sire.
His name was Loki. As far as she had been aware, he had no title and wasn't even from their realm at all, coming from beyond the stars. She had written of his powerful sorcery and the fact that he had been far too beautiful to be human.
He was a god, she said, some reincarnation of the Seven perhaps. The later entries suggested that he had come from a place called Asgard, a realm of intense beauty and light and magic far different from their own.
He had enchanted her with his sorcery and she had written that he had been far different than any man she had ever met. He was fierce and prideful, arrogant, and yet humorous and made her smile and laugh more than anyone else ever had. She had written in detail about his magic and the spells that he had shown her. There was far too much there for Viserys to dismiss it outright as the ravings of someone slipping into madness and had felt ill at the thought.
Beneath this entry there had included a very detailed drawing of the man in question, a picture that Dany had stared at countless times. Viserys had only been able to look at it on a few separate occasions, noting the strange clothes, slicked back dark hair and green eyes that looked far too much like his own for it to be any sort of coincidence.
He was then forced to confront the fact that his mother had not been mad at all, but rather had fallen in love with a very powerful man who had claimed himself as a god.
There was no doubt that Rhaella had loved him and had written about any of the personal details that he had told her. Her records had been impeccable, and impossible to deny and it painted a picture that couldn't be ignored by Viserys.
So he had stopped reading.
He knew it hurt his sister because there were times when she wished to discuss these things with him, but he just couldn't bring himself to open himself up to sharing all of the vitriol that raged through his mind and heart on a daily basis since hearing the news.
It was just too painful.
So he hid, he hid his hurt, he refused to discuss it and silently cursed his true father for his abandonment of both them and their mother.
It didn't matter to him that his mother had said that this Loki did not know about them. To Viserys it was obvious that this man…god…being…had never cared for her and thus would never care for them. Bastards had to bear the sins of their sires and make their own ways in the world. They would rise or fall on their own merit.
Silently, he had been looking into nobles about the city, good men who might be able to take care of his sister and make sure that she was comfortable.
They would never sit the throne of Westeros and any dreams he had had of being king had gone up in smoke at his mother's news.
The throne was tainted and he himself would taint it by sitting on it.
He was no Targaryen.
He didn't know what he was.
The sound of familiar footsteps roused him from his musings and he snorted quietly to himself. "Have you come to tell me how unreasonable I am being?"
There was a long silence and he could practically see his sister taking a breath behind him. "No. I do not think you need me to tell you that right now."
Viserys didn't answer and continued looking out at the ocean. There was another sigh behind him. "Will you not look at me at all?"
Suddenly Viserys was tired. Slowly he turned on the flat rock he was sitting on and raised an eyebrow at her. The large stone was sitting on a short rocky outcropping a few feet above the sand of the beach. They had found it when they were children and would often sneak away to play games on it when their mother wasn't looking.
As they grew older, it became a place to retreat and think which Viserys found himself doing more and more. Sometimes when he was very angry or upset, he would simply stay on the rock for hours. Then when the sun had long since set, he would trudge back to the house, time having worn out his temper.
With the way he was feeling now, he might be out here all night.
The rustle of fabric caused him to look up and see that Daenerys had come around the rock to face him. Her silhouette blocked out the sun and her shadow fell across him. Her arms weren't crossed but he could feel the frustration radiating from her.
"You've been out here for hours," she said, her tone accusatory. "I didn't know if you were coming back."
"I always come back," Viserys replied.
"You have never been this angry before," his sister countered. "I did not have to worry about you disappearing prior to this because I knew that there was little elsewhere that you could go. But you've never been out this long."
Viserys shook his head. "Do not ask me to go back."
"Why not?"
"I think you know."
"No," Daenerys said, her tone turning sharp. "I do not know. This is the single greatest thing that has happened to us in recent memory. I do not understand why you are acting this way. We have dreamed of this for –"
Viserys shot to his feet so fast that his twin stumbled back a step and then leaned in so they were nearly nose to nose. "No. You have been dreaming of this moment. I have been planning the many ways I would curse him to his face if he ever came here! Do not ask me to explain my unhappiness or rage to you for you know it full well. He does not deserve the extent of my emotions or my trust. I do not understand how you can give yours so easily when he has wronged you just as much as I!"
Daenerys recovered from his tirade rather quickly but it didn't erase the shock on her face at his outburst. "He did not know about us Vis. He would not have left otherwise."
"Sure of that are you?" her brother said with a bitter laugh. "I imagine in this Asgard, that the shame surrounding bastards is just as heavy, perhaps even worse because he is a god. Mayhap he didn't come back because he was ashamed of his tryst with mother and wished it had never happened."
A long silence followed his words and when Daenerys spoke again, her voice wavered. "Do you truly think that?"
"I do not know what to think anymore," the other blonde said spreading his hands. "All we have are mother's journal entries and she is hardly an unbiased party. What young woman wouldn't be swept off her feet and flattered from the attentions of a god? It's more likely that whatever she felt was in her own head alone."
There was a sharp intake of breath and Viserys didn't have to look at her face to know that it bore the same pained expression that it had when their mother died, when Barristan died. "You don't mean that."
"When have I ever not meant anything that I've said?" Viserys asked, spreading his arms. "Tell me what is more likely Dany? That he didn't know about us at all or that we were bastards that he is ashamed of and abandoned and mother was nothing more than a quick lay that he –"
The crack of her hand across his face cut off his words and a charged silence filled the absence of them.
For a moment, all Viserys could do was stare at his younger sister in shock. She had never gotten angry with him in their lives to the point of violence so to experience it now was astonishing.
He knew absently that he had gone too far but was too stubborn and too ashamed of himself to take the words back.
Tears were pouring down Daenerys face and he immediately felt horrible. "Dany –"
"Don't," his twin bit out. Her hands were clenched down by her sides and she was breathing hard. "I may listen to your angered words and your rages and think you justified in many of them. But don't you ever…ever…insult our mother in such a way again. You may not agree with any of her decisions, but she never loved us less and she was not the sort of woman to leap into bed with a man at a moment's notice. And you know this full well."
Viserys stared out to sea and swallowed hard. He did know it.
There was a long drawn out sigh from in front of him and he turned back to his sister. She was scrubbing at her cheeks and he felt another pang of guilt shoot through him. "When you are in a better temper, come back to the house."
She took a step away from him and then turned back. "You may not want him here…but I do Vis. For so long it's been just us. We were all we had but something's always been missing. I didn't realize that I could miss someone so much that I had never met. And now I have and it's everything I've ever wanted. I won't let your anger ruin that."
And then before he could respond, she turned and made her way down the rocky hillside, back onto the beach and away from him.
After a long moment, the energy that had been keeping the prince upright vanished and the blonde dropped heavily back onto his stone perch. He rested his head in his hands, feeling both guilt and disgust coarse through him.
He muttered a curse under his breath, followed by a heavy sigh.
Very often in the last few years, he would pace the room or the shore and rant to Dany about something or other while she perched nearby and simply listened to him. Many of Illyrio's slaves felt that his temper was truly terrifying and so Daenerys was the only one who could be near him when he was truly incensed.
He had the self-awareness to recognize when he was being unreasonable and often calmed when his twin called him on his own hypocrisies.
She had always been good at talking him down from a proverbial ledge.
And now she was angry with him too.
He tried taking a few deep breaths like his mother had suggested he do when he was younger, but only succeeded in feeling silly after a few minutes; the sound too much like a raging bull for him to achieve any semblance of calm.
He cursed again, but the very idea of getting up and going back to that house, seeing his…father, caused his stomach to churn.
He thought about how he had felt when he saw the man for the first time. He loomed over the rest of the patrons of the market, drawing attention from the passersby and no small amount of admiring gazes. Viserys had a feeling that even if he had been dressed like the average Pentosi citizen, he would have stuck out to the average eye.
His eyes when they had met his own were piercing and intimidating and there was an energy about him that drew him in but at the same time made him want to run in the opposite direction.
If these were all the things he felt upon a first perusal, he wondered what his mother's impressions had been, how she had felt when she spent time with this god, what they had said to each other, how they had met even.
There's only one person alive who can answer those questions.
He jerked slightly at the pathway his thoughts had wandered down and his fists clenched.
The next question was whether he was brave enough to receive the answers to those questions. Viserys swallowed hard and glanced back down the shore to Magister's house that was just visible in the distance.
Not now, he thought to himself, hands beginning to tremble. Not yet.
Happy Tuesday! This fic is going to alternate between the perspectives of Vis and Dany and their very different and unique personalities. Let me know what you think. I am having a lot of fun writing this story and I hope you're enjoying reading it!
