Aegon is sitting, in front of the fireplace, alone in his chambers. His tears are still wet on his cheeks. Helaena walks in tentatively, slowly. She had also cried so much she felt wrung dry. She was prepared for him to ignore her, and she will leave him alone in his grief. They had passed by each other in silence by the stairs after the funeral, the weight of a million things unsaid between them, but somehow still understanding.
"This was his favorite," she said, breaking the silence, handing him one of Jaehaerys' favorite toys - a small wooden black elephant, the size of his palm. He turned over the toy in his hands, running his thumb over its small tusks.
"He wanted to go to Volantis to see them, and I promised I would take him," he said. In his short life their son didn't go farther than Dragonstone or Driftmark. He will never ride his dragon, its egg still unhatched. The egg is sitting in his fireplace, a shade of metallic blue green that shines gold and silver as it reflects the flames.
"I thought you might like to have it. Something to remember him with."
She turned to leave the room.
"Stay," Aegon said, not looking away from the fire. "It's an order." She stopped.
"How was the funeral?" he asked.
"Not good," she only answered. She remembered the hands reaching out to her, her reaching out to her mother, the feeling of drowning and her desperate attempt to flee it.
She was forced to look again at her dead son upon his hearse. His head is stitched by the neck, thick black thread against his white skin. She remembered thinking, what a crude hand. She would have stitched him back in the same gold thread as the shroud that embraced him now. She will sew it back with such care you would think his head wasn't cut at all - that he was whole. It had to be the ugliest, roughest stitches, so everyone could see and weep at the cruelty of it all.
Behold the works of Rhaenyra the Cruel!
"That will never happen again. I have replaced Otto with Criston as the new Hand. We are going to war," he said, voice and eyes hard.
Helaena fell silent, eyes welling up again with the visions of death and destruction - corpses burnt to ash with dragonfire, burning flesh fused into their melted armors, lands and seas red with blood to avenge their son. But she knows her words are of no use. They didn't listen to her before, why would they listen to her now? She can't even make sense of it all until it's done. Why must the gods curse her so, to have these dreams and visions?
She wants to say, no, don't go, stay, this will end with your body burned away. She can see, but she cannot stop fate. She can only watch as they tread this long and bloody road and in the end is only doom.
He wishes that she was angry. He wishes that she will hate him. He wishes she was anything but this, still sweet and forgiving despite his rage. Helaena's forgiveness, as wide and deep as the ocean. To her, he had no sin. To her, he was husband and brother and king.
So he stands and pushes her down to the floor. They both fall into the pillows the twins left on the carpet, their space in Aegon's chambers where they would play. She doesn't fight. He holds her face in both hands, his grip harsh and ungentle.
"You know what we must do."
"Yes, I do," Helaena said, staring back almost defiantly.
"For every son they kill, you will give me two more. Then bear us daughters for our sons to take to wife, just as they made us do."
She nodded, and he pulled off the green velvet robe she used for sleep - and her inner clothing, a pale yellow dress the color of morning glories, the ones that bloom in the first rays of sunlight. His colors, green and gold. He took that off with rough hands too.
He tilts her head just a little to check on the wound that has been inflicted by their sons' killers on her neck. Aegon kisses it, licks his thumb and runs it over the fresh scar, like how their mother would treat their scrapes. With his breath on her neck, a shiver of pleasure from her. He knows her too well. His sister was pliable, easy under his hands.
The nights he was drunk and desired her, she doesn't protest at all and offers her body. He would give in. But in sober moments he would remember his own sins… he would go back to the filth of King's Landing again, where he felt he belonged.
When he was crowned king he allowed himself to indulge in her - for what was a king without a queen to claim and to bed? The last time he slept with her was a few nights ago. But that seemed like a lifetime before - they would put the twins to bed, close the curtains, and he would let himself go and drown in her. It only seemed like a pale memory.
He takes off his tunic and trousers - both of them now naked, firelight making shadows dance on their skin. He touched below her navel, caressed the white scars of old stretch marks from her last pregnancy and the twins' birth, still on her skin like lines of thunder. Soon, her womb may be with child again. He spreads her legs and finds her wanting. He plunged himself in as he had done so many times before.
"Your grace," she said, almost breathless.
"Yes, serve your king," he whispered back. "We will have an heir again. We will name him Jaehaerys just like our little boy. It would be like he was never gone."
With the name of their son said, her tears flow again, and she clutches his arm. They can have so many sons, and love them as much, but it will never be the same. Jaehaerys was their firstborn, ahead of Jaehaera by a few minutes. Aegon will never forget the day that he was brought into this world. He almost never believed that something as pure and sacred could come from him.
He presses his forehead to hers, and his own tears come too, falling on her face. Aegon pushes into her harder, if he fucks her hard enough maybe it can even take the pain away. So he forces himself in, holds her by the back of her knees so he can reach deeper. She keeps sobbing, but her hands hold on to him even more. Sour tears and bitterness, exchanged in rough kisses. He shudders as he comes inside her then lets go.
He sits up, presses his back on the hot stone of the fireplace where their son's dragon egg rests as if in mourning. They were of dragonblood, the heat of the flames doesn't burn them even this near. By the fire he drags her up, makes her sit across his hips and she holds him. Holds him like she would hold their son.
He grabs on his shed clothes, feels for the hilt of their father's knife. He unsheathes it and presses the hilt to her palm and wraps her fingers around it. He brings both their hands to his neck, gesturing for her to cut him. Her hands trembled but she understood what he meant for her to do.
Press the knife to my throat. We will bear the same wound.
Valyrian steel cuts clean and sharp, she only had to brush its tip with a feather touch to the skin of his neck, just a little below the jaw, the same spot where she had her scar. Blood flowed in a clear bold line. She presses her lips to it. He will have the same, as a reminder.
He brings her hand holding the knife to his wrist. He wants it to hurt. Helaena hesitantly presses it to his forearm, touching the knife to his skin to make the thinnest of papercuts. It still bleeds clean. Both their hands on the blade, he points it to his heart. Helaena grabs the knife and lets it fall to the floor. He wept. She holds his head to her chest instead, and he's crying again, back heaving as he sobs. Blood still flowed from the thin wounds.
"No. No more, Aegon. Enough. We've had enough," she whispers to his hair. She tries to wipe his tears off even as hers flow again. His blood smears her skin.
She holds his face, and he looks up at her. She kisses him instead and tastes both their tears.
They will never forget. They will forever be haunted by their dead son. And what she can see after - she doesn't even want to look for the true vision of their future will blind her. All their grief, their pain, his throne and her queen's crown - it will all be burnt to ashes, it will all be lost to poison.
This is their only consolation.
She whispers to him. Take me to your bed just as you did years ago. Hold me like your bride again. Take this duty, offered for you, as a sacrifice. In your altar I killed my innocence. Our family's sin, against the world, the blood of our power. Our blood and our dragons.
He led her again to bed - and it's like how they claimed each other for the first time, back when they were mere children forced to this duty.
At the touch of skin to skin, Aegon seemed to be his old self again. He kissed below her ear and caressed her breasts, hands reaching between her legs. He touched her like she was sacred, his hands careful and soft now, as if full of reverence for the womb that bore their children. She reaches down too, and touches him back.
He then proceeds to knead on her breasts like a child and kisses her there. Helaena had chosen to feed the twins with her own milk and there were many afternoons Aegon would just stay by her side and watch her and the twins. Then she remembered Jaehaerys again, when he was a few months old, big purple eyes staring up at her as he suckled. He always stared at her with a smile and laughed when Aegon was there. He was perfect in every way.
And with the memory, she cries again. Aegon seemed to sense it and touched her face to calm her.
"In time, Helaena, I will kill the pretender and feed her to my dragon. No one will touch us again," he said as he entered her once more. He fucks into her hard and fast, even as she was still weeping. He holds her hips and drives in with erratic thrusts. She cries, both from her grief, the pressure of his fucking, of her approaching peak. She holds him as he comes inside her.
He hopes it will take. Helaena is still young enough to bear him more children, and he will give them to her as long as she can take it.
Then they fall apart again, and it wasn't long until Helaena fell asleep.
She dreams of little human dragonlings - boys and girls with purple dragon eyes and little horns peeking out of their silver hair. They smile with tiny fangs and they call her mother. In this dream, she gathers them inside the sleeves of her mourning dress and kisses them one by one.
Sometimes, Jaehaerys would climb their bed in the middle of the night, if he found it difficult to sleep. They would drown him in kisses and Jaehaera would join them, their sweet laughter filling the room. They would all fall asleep together. But that simple happiness was now forever gone. Aegon sat in silence.
As Helaena sleeps, Aegon watches her. With him, she has found some relief. He tries to remember this as much as he could, for tomorrow, he will take his dragon and lead his army to war.
He will burn the world for her, and they will burn together.