Chapter Text
I’m your biggest fan, I’ll follow you until you love me
Papa-paparazzi
Baby, there’s no other superstar, you know that I’ll be
Your papa-paparazzi
— Lady Gaga, PAPARAZZI
I wanna get you out of
My hips, my thighs, my hair, my eyes, my late-night cries
— FKA twigs ft. The Weeknd, TEARS IN THE CLUB
You said, “Baby, let me prove it, look at me in the face
This is the face of someone who loves you, babe”
— Banks, CONTAMINATED
Evergreen. Dark ocean green. Nylon. A canopy of naked ribs.
Aegon is holding the umbrella above both of their heads.
His mother, holding onto his other arm, is standing on only one leg as she tries to rub away a stain on her black tights.
Her right calf across her left knee.
Her black woolen skirt drawn open not like an umbrella, but like one of those bell-shaped flowers that Aegon often grinds with a marble pestle before sprinkling them into his little herby blends.
He quite enjoys it, the image of shapely legs at the heart of layers and layers and layers of crisp-edged petals, suspended, gently swinging like the clappers of a sept bell.
Mother wobbles again. Her shoe grinds on the damp grass.
She’s been at it for ages.
And Aegon’s starving already.
“Mum, there’s no stain.”
“There is a stain.”
“It’s on black fabric. On the back of your leg. Come on, now. No one can see it. Nobody will even think to look for it. Well, unless they’re really into your legs and they just happen to spot the alleged stain. Come on. We should go.”
Aegon, trying to speak some sense into Mother?
Gods. Those Qartheen herbs are beyond fantastic. Six out of five stars. Worth all those golden dragons and, henceforth, Aegon’s recommendation. Not like the cheaper, local ones that he’s been mainlining ever since Mother broke the news and the entire funerary circus started. Should have started smoking those Qartheen babies sooner had he known that they’d make him sound sensible whilst talking to his mother. Imagine that. For five hundred golden dragons, Aegon’s had a pack of high-quality imported special herbs and also the feeling that it’s this easy to be sensible. As easy as rolling a spliff. As easy as offering his lighter to a hot woman by the lacquered bar in the House of Kisses. As easy as tossing back cups of Dornish strongwine after cups of Arbor strongwine in quick succession.
They should make vitamin tablets for this. Vitamin B, Being Effortlessly Sensible To Your Mother.
The umbrella nods drunkenly. Aegon’s moussed, combed-back hair gets sprinkled with whispery rain. Nature’s mischief aimed at Mother’s handiwork. Sad. Sadder than a funeral, sadder than a burial, this drizzly mischief to his hair.
In the stuffy car, earlier: Don’t do this to me today, Aegon. A bottle of mousse. A comb. A bottle of water. A handful of mint candies. Mother’s used to juggling stuff. Her phone kept buzzing and lighting up. Hold this for Mummy. Now. Before I lose it and start screaming at this—at whoever’s ringing like a tone-deaf, inconsiderate, bloody—oh, it’s Rhaenys. In that hotbox, earlier: Aegon’s herby and winey and powdery bored sighs. Mother’s caffeiney and chocolately and winey and nervy clipped words.
The umbrella keeps bobbing along with his thoughts, like a friendly idiot. Aegon adjusts his fingers along its crook handle.
Mother wobbles again, her grip on his arm tightening. Coral-pink nail polish. Clipped nails. Rings on rings on rings. Skin across her knuckles pulled tight.
He would have winced but for the layers between them: his shirt, his blazer. And this is nothing, really. This is one of her gentler touches on him, it hardly registers as discomfort.
Mother’s thumb on her calf is still a furious whirl. The apples on her hat—green apples, Lengii satin and Jade Sea pearls etcetera, a milliner’s fortune—have caught some of the cold whispery rain.
“There is a stain, Aegon.”
A belated reply. She sounds mild, tired.
Aegon shrugs and leaves her to it.
He scans the dregs of his late father’s burial ceremony instead. The obnoxious marquee is white as bone against the late afternoon skies. An absence of media. Banned. Cameras have always been shunned by his family—something about privacy and scandals and stolen, trapped souls. There are dogs for security and also to chase down journalists and sundry camera-toters. There’s the procession of departing cars. Just a small affair, really: Aegon’s full siblings and Rhaenyra’s lot and the Velaryons and the Hightowers; and the other important business people from the airline, oil, shipping, and food industries who aren’t already members of their group of families; and a few upper-rank service staff. There’s the lorry collecting the stacked chairs. There’s the steadily melting air of solemnity and general awkwardness. There are the wisps of silvery rain. What else?
Ah, there.
Of course. The dead of honour.
The central point of the ceremony is almost lost in this sprawling park, half-wild as it is, one of House Targaryen’s ancient land holdings. See, the old man apparently wanted his ashes scattered under the oldest tree of dragon’s breath in the park. Red blooms and black gnarly branches. Original, that.
Aegon’s preference for his own ashes: under the shrub of one of his special herbs, preferably the Qartheen one. Or, you know, to be stored in an urn. What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned urn? Here’s a very nice idea for Aegon’s urn: gleaming gold chased with rose pink, like the sun at daybreak. He’d make sure that his urn would be placed beside Mother’s headstone—the Hightowers prefer coffins. Little doll boxes. Gift boxes. Antique heirlooms. Aegon squints at the rain droplets on the whitish green leaves overhead. Milky droplets. The leafy veins are throbbing with happiness. There’s a stray crumb of sunbeam in the corner of Aegon’s vision, prettifying the bit of debris on his eyelash. It’s a sign. Yeah. Maybe he should try convincing Mother to go along with cremation. Sharing an urn sounds enjoyable. If they got reincarnated, he and Mother, they’d be reincarnated in the same lifetime. And won’t that be nice? Maybe being her son takes practice. Who knows, maybe this isn’t Aemond’s first cycle, or maybe Aegon has come down with amnesia. Should he tell her beforehand that he’d have his ashes poured into her urn, though?
Aegon yawns hungrily.
He blinks one last time at the leafy milky droplets beyond the umbrella ribs.
“You should probably sit down,” he tells Mother absently. “We don’t want you falling on your arse and breaking a hip or something.”
Gods, he’s raring for a good post-yawn stretch, but unfortunately both of his upper limbs are occupied.
Unfortunately, Mother is still dawdling here when everyone has already left.
“And there’s no stain,” insists Aegon. “You know, you can talk about what’s actually bothering you. No one can hear you now. It’s just me.”
Mother straightens up abruptly. Her dress falls back down to her legs, mid-calf. She looks at him for a bewildered moment.
“You ask me,” she begins in her usual throaty nerviness, her fists clenched at her sides, “what’s bothering me on the day that—that we buried your father. He’s dead. Of course that’s bothering me.”
Aegon would not be bothered if not for the fact that so many people want to talk to him about appallingly boring stuff now.
“Did you love him, then?”
“What kind of question is that?” snaps Mother, lips in an impatient twist.
Aegon scratches his chin. Awkward. He’s never had long-term relationships. Never seen the point. He’s still young. The world is an oyster buffet, and you can take what you want. And Aegon—
“You know,” he says. “Grief and love and all that. Maybe that’s why it bothers you.”
Mother takes the umbrella from him. Grabs it, really.
Aegon raises his brows.
He refuses to jog after her. Jogging, running, for what? Out of breath, sweating, muscles aching, and it’s not even fucking. All that fuss. He dislikes it. And nerviness. Mother’s fussy and nervy enough for the both of them. She’s been fussy and nervy and always hurrying after something his entire life.
Also, he’s really fucking hungry. He wants to leave this place as soon as possible. Seven spare him. He could fuck up a multiple falafel-stuffed khoubz right fucking now. And an entire tray of basbousa. And a whole manakish. And some fried squids. Or a masgouf. And a slice or two of plum cake. Mother’s favourite plum cake uses fireplums from the Reach.
Huh.
Aegon stretches in a luxurious windmilling of his arms. He yawns noisily, greedily.
Ah, fuck, that’s good.
He cracks his neck. Smiles up at the milky droplets on the happy leaves.
They should eat, he and Mother. His treat.
Burials and funerals are about celebrating life, after all. He’s heard that somewhere. From one of the septons, probably.
Yeah, he will invite her to eat with him. Just the two of them. They deserve it after this awfully tedious, bothersome week.
Aegon shoves his hands in his pockets and ambles down the grassy slope. Way ahead of him, the umbrella bobs, boat-like. The woolen skirt swishes, bell-like.
Women. You don’t need to sprain a foot to chase them. Aegon has already imparted this wisdom to his younger brothers. You don’t need to chase women, not quite. You just need to observe them long enough to predict with a respectable degree of accuracy how they’ll respond to a few key things. Catalogue. Be a human camera. Then take it from there.
A couple of things:
One. Aegon likes chases and not-chases of the women variety. He likes having his fancied woman of the hour. What’s the point in wanting without having? Plus, checking off an item on a list? Great feeling. It’s nice to achieve some goals in life.
Two. Aegon has been observing Mother his entire life. This particular venture, though? It’s daunting for an Aegon-shaped camera. Something about her eyes looking right back into him, dark bottomless wells, unhinging time, deranging age. The fall is steep. The last time Aegon managed to get out with himself still reasonably intact, out of breath and sweating and eyes prickling, the unspoken things in there have also been clamouring to climb out.
*
Mother’s not running from him now. Not really.
Aegon has noticed that she has never, ever, really run away from him. Even at her angriest. Even at her bitterest and most biting of moods.
She just needs some air. Some space. To uncoil as much as she can.
Good thing there’s plenty of green here in the park.
The grassy slope levels into a drive before bending around a corner. Opposite direction from the exiting cars. Verdant. Crisp. Leaves and tarmac have turned glossy in the whispery rain.
Even the umbrella. It’s the first thing to emerge from a wreathe of mist.
Then, the black woolen dress. Pleated: each pleat is deep and lush, begging for rummaging hands.
Then, an emerald on an earlobe.
Then, a glimpse of wine-dark hair.
Aegon smiles. He blinks leisurely, cataloguing, capturing.
Mother is lingering by a wrought-iron fence. It’s more greenery than iron fence, though. She is frowning at the vines tentacle-ing all over it, at the profusion of leaves and flowers and berries tumbling from one side of the fence to the other, snaking through the curlicues, barging past the pointy tips of the boundary, frothing past the bars, the different vines winding with one another until they’re all one massive tangle, twisted and overgrown.
Aegon ducks under Mother’s umbrella.
The rising and falling of her chest has evened out.
But then, one never really knows with her. Aegon has seen her talk to people that upset or angered her with an even tone and a pleasantly neutral face, a calm demeanor, with only her half-hidden fingers furiously fiddling with the folds of her clothes as the true indicator of her mood.
After a while she murmurs, “What a mess,” and turns away from the vine-choked fence.
Because she’s the one holding the umbrella, Aegon matches her pace, and in her pace, he senses an amorphous direction. Mother is simply going for a walk.
What a fucking weird thing to do, though: to put amorphous direction and Mother together in a sentence.
Has she planned to go for this particular walk?
In the misty silence, Aegon says, “I was only joking. You won’t break your hip. Thirty-seven is still a spry age.”
That gets him a tart chuckle.
“Thirty-seven.” Mother lets out a sigh. Wistful. There’s the barest hint of maybe pride, maybe gratefulness in it. Her eyes are distant. “Gods. I’m thirty-seven now, aren’t I? When did that happen? And how long have I been married to your father?”
“Was,” Aegon corrects her. “You were married. And that’s, what, almost twenty-two years.” He purses his lips. “You’ve never dated, though, have you? Dated around, I mean. You haven’t. You’ve probably had more cakes during the cake-tasting before your wedding than you’ve had lovers.”
Mother gasps out a laugh.
Her short, startled laugh brings out her dimples. Her dark eyes, usually round as faucet mouths, turn into crescents.
They grin at each other suddenly. Two children inappropriately snickering behind their hands. Her arm briefly bumps against his arm.
The source of his glee: this moment, her face close to his, and she’s smiling uncomplicatedly. When was the last time this happened? The source of her glee: he doesn’t know exactly. He quickly reviews what he’s just said.
And just as quickly her amusement is buttoned up.
Now she’s shaking her head at him. Exasperated. “Aegon, really.”
“What? It’s just an observation.”
“It’s unnecessary, that’s what it is. And, gods, the implications—dated around, when do you mean, before or during my marr—”
“Please.” Aegon can’t wipe the wide smile off his face as he watches her shake her head, green hat apples slightly quivering. “Are there unnecessary observations? I thought that’s about opinions. I thought it’s only an opinion that can be unsolicited, and you know I’m not making any judgments. I mean, I’m not judging your—”
An umbrella rib grazes his hair.
“Watch it.” Aegon laughs, smoothening back his hair. He makes a face at the whole moussed-up, combed-back do. “Ah, now your work’s messed up.”
Mother ignores this.
“Dated around,” she mutters.
Tight-buttoned, high-collared little prude. Aegon endevours to think of this in fond tones as he observes the tinge of pink on her cheeks, her crumpled brows.
He wants to grab her face with both hands. Wants to turn it towards him again. He wants to scoop out her uncomplicated smile and laughter. Does she not often grab his face, too?
But Aegon has never really touched his mother. Hugs. Caresses. Kisses. Pats. Casual touches and all that. That’s Aemond’s thing with her.
Mother does touch Aegon, though. A lot. She often grabs his chin and cheeks. Or slaps him. Or tugs his hair. Pinches. Squeezes. She gets in his face whenever she’s reprimanding him, and these past few years most of their conversations have only been her reprimanding him or correcting him or advising him. She wants him to take his pre-chosen degree seriously and do well in other university extracurriculars. She wants him to get his head right, to “slow down” on what she calls his “substances, playthings, and wretched parties.” She wants him to stop pausing his studies so that he can finally graduate. She wants him to be involved with the Targaryen airline and oil businesses in a significant capacity and not let his older half-sister and her uncle-husband control and steer most of it. Not once has she asked Aegon what he wants to do with his life. Not once. But Mother always tells him that he’s fortunate. Extremely so. He’s very lucky because their families practically own most of the country.
“I’m starving,” Aegon says loudly. “We should walk back to the car.”
“You don’t look like him, you know.”
Random? Aegon raises his brows. “What was that?”
“When you were very small,” says Mother, slowing her pace, “everyone was saying that you look like Viserys. And we had this birthday party for you, your second birthday. Grand party, I think I’ve told you before, anyone who was anyone was there. And everyone there kept saying it. That you have Viserys’ hair. His eyes, his nose. You were a baby; you didn’t look like anyone to me. Just a shapeless adorable little creature, really. That’s what I remember thinking then. Viserys wanted a son so badly, and there you were. Everyone was celebrating.” There’s a shadow of contempt on Mother’s smile. Her eyes are fixed on the misty drive. “And I look at you now. I’ve looked at you all these years. You have the colour of his hair, yes, and the colour of his eyes, yes, you have his colouring. His drab paleness. But you don’t look like him. No, you don’t look like Viserys at all. You don’t have his face.”
They’ve stopped walking. The whispery rain is barely there.
Mother looks down. An odd curl on the corner of her lips, indecipherable.
Aegon looks at her fingers around the umbrella handle. Steady. Only a minute twitch through her thumb.
Gods, the long queues of sad and solemn faces wanting to shake Aegon’s hand are over, the long hours of theatrics and ceremonies is over, the long week of being called nothing but Viserys’ eldest son is over, the burial is over, so why in the seven hells are they talking about the old man again? Aegon groans.
They really need to eat out, he and Mother. Just the two of them. As a treat.
“Well, thank the gods, then,” he drawls. “Imagine looking like a departed soul. Being a ghost. Sharing a spotlight in the most tedious way possible. Ugh. Not for me.”
Mother’s eyes flick back to his face. “You are so uncouth, Aegon,” she says, scowling. “He’s still your father.”
“Was,” Aegon corrects her firmly, avoiding her narrowed eyes. “And I know who I look like. You don’t need to tell me. I’ve always known. Now, let’s get out of here.”
He pulls the umbrella from her grip.
She holds fast to it, makes an irritated noise.
The umbrella wobbles between them. Evergreen. Dark ocean green. Naked ribs. Aegon tries to be gentle, but he just ends up prying it away from her, inadvertently pinching her, their arms shoving each other, and Mother ends up tutting and hissing, cradling her be-ringed fingers.
“Oh, for gods’ sake, Aegon!” she shouts. “What’s the matter with you?”
He would have loved to cradle her hand himself, but he’s never moved to touch her first. He’s never touched her.
Ah well.
He’s made sure that the umbrella is still above both of their heads, though. He wants to keep her within it.
Aegon shrugs. “It’s just that I’m still a bit taller than you, so it’s better this way. Come on. We should leave.”
Mother grabs his elbow. Viselike.
“You said I can talk about it,” she bites out. “I am trying to talk about it now, aren’t I? For all that talking about things does anyone any bloody good.” Words crashing into one another. Her pink lips tremble, a bit shocked by her own vehemence. “But. It’s just. To talk about it, how do you even talk about it? We’ve done all the eulogies, and the condolences, gods, all those eulogies. Mourning him. Celebrating him. Tributes to his life. Have I mourned with them, back there? Am I in mourning? Is this mourning, then? Grief, is this grief? I don’t feel what that word means. I, I haven’t felt what that word means ever since he died. I’m not overcome with a, a crippling yearning, I don’t want to sleep on his bed and sit in his walk-in closet for hours, I don’t want to spray his perfumes on me, I don’t miss him like that, I don’t want him to come back from the dead. I don’t want to die now that’s he’s dead. I want to live more than ever, but. I’m thirty-seven. Is this grief? Am I grieving? This is not joy I am feeling, certainly. I feel, I feel some kind of relief. But not quite. It’s awful and it’s like, like a heavy blanket. It’s cold without it, but with it, I. Oh look at me. Listen to this. What is this? Or have I just gone mad? Gods, what if I have? Oh, gods spare me. By the Seven, what is this? Is it too late? What if I have really gone bloody mad? But. I. I’m thirty-seven. It’s not too late, is it? Nobody goes mad at this age, nobody goes mad anymore and—how long have I been married to your father?”
Mother gulps in some air.
Another. Raggedly.
Another. Shuddering.
She chews on her trembling lip. She blinks.
Haltingly, she releases her choke-hold on him and she grips her own hands, rings clinking.
Aegon stands still. Focusing on her body’s tremors that he can taste in the cracked air between them. On her lashes, clumped with moisture and misery. On her dark eyes, almost black now.
He thinks he knows something of what she can’t put into words. After all, he’s been observing Mother for what seems like his entire life.
They’re closer than an arm’s length from each other. It should be so easy to hold her hand now. It should be so easy to take her into his arms, to embrace her, to comfort her.
All around them, the leaves are rustling. Glossy green. Above them, the skies are darkening. Dusk saunters ever closer. And the air is bloated with rain.
Mother hugs herself, blinking rapidly. Her eyes: leaky faucet mouths. She looks weary and frayed. She looks painfully young.
In this moment, she makes Aegon feel like a grown-up. Or something close to it. Because he’s a massive cock-up, Aegon. What’s a grown-up, anyway?
But there it is.
This is far from a new occurrence, but he, too, can’t put this into words.
So Aegon just fixes his grip on the umbrella. “Yeah, you can talk about it. Take your time. You can take your time, you know that, right? We have all night. We have all the time in the world.” He stuffs his other hand, his empty hand, inside his pocket. “Come on, it looks like it’ll pour. Let’s walk back to the car.”
*
Mother is thirty-seven, and she was married to Aegon’s father for almost twenty-two years.
It’s always odd, remembering these facts. Odder than usual on this day.
Not for the first time, Aegon tries to imagine what she was like on the day he was born. Her sixteenth birthday party was in full swing. String and flute music. Stuffed bell peppers, her latest pregnancy craving. A grand roast trifecta of boar, venison, and salmon. Lots of dancing, lots of toasts and well-wishes. Hothouse flowers. Lavish gifts. The massive tiered cake was being plated for the guests when Aegon decided to crash the party.
“I think I just froze,” she once told him, her bare legs dangling over the lid of his empty bathtub, he in between rounds of retching into the toilet. It’s her favourite story to tell him. Her small talk for him instead of the weather: the event of the first creature coming out of her body. It’s his favourite story to hear from her. Aegon enjoys every retelling of it: her deflowering in the opposite direction.
“I was so nervous,” she’d go on. “Frightened, even. I felt like I was about to faint, like I wanted to faint, but my body also couldn’t manage that. Does that make sense, do you think? Yes? My thoughts narrowed down, I remember, to the cake. I kept thinking I haven’t even had my cake yet. I’d been so looking forward to it, I really was, we had a cake-tasting with the most well-regarded pâtissier in King’s Landing. And I had such a wonderful dress on. But thank the gods that you came quite quickly. Without fuss, too. Be brave. Take a deep breath. Push and push. Ta-da! That’s it! A boy. Robust lungs. Ten fingers and ten toes. An adorable little creature. Mummy is also healthy and well. No fuss. Remarkable for you, though, isn’t it, no fuss? Can you believe that? I’ve had my cake a few hours later. It was lovely. Very lovely. Oh, we’d hired a woman to nurse you. You were fed whilst I was eating my birthday cake.”
Aegon has seen an old portrait of her from around a couple of years before that day. Done in oils. Gilt-framed. A book on the lap of her lace-trimmed sapphire dress. Sapphire-encrusted barrettes on her auburn curls. The shape of her eyes, the lines of her nose, the curve of her lips: she almost feels like a long-lost sister. Sweet and pure where Aegon, at that age, already reeked and was fascinated with despoiling everything he touched. In the portrait: her silken cheeks and a pink, plump smile that reached her eyes. She was as adorable as a doll. You’d want to keep her and spoil her.
There are also the jagged marks on the skin around her fingernails. Red, tactfully faded, but Aegon has scrutinised that painting for so many years that he knows that those are not a mistake of the painter or the work of time. Twiddling, nervous, angry, exasperated thumbs. Aegon knew, even then, that what he has always wanted is to take her hand in his. To hold her.
He also tries to imagine what she was like at his age now, twenty-one. Well, for this case, he has some memory of it. An animated show that they used to watch together: talking animals, dragons and lions and wolves amongst the lot, a trifle bowl of mischief and dangers and love. Aegon’s still got a clear impression of how much Mother enjoyed that show. Mother, cuddled up with him on a sofa as she giggled at the screen occasionally. Aegon’s wide-paged exercise books on reading and writing were on the table, completed for the day. Clever little baby, she often cooed at him, pinching his cheeks and planting kisses on his forehead. He remembers her telling him that she liked helping him with his exercise books. At that time, she hadn’t finished her secondary education yet and she’d recently given birth to her fourth and final child. Aegon remembers not minding studying because of how much he adored the air-conditioned tranquility of her sitting room. Milk and biscuits and fresh strawberries. In one corner: the animal-shaped balloons that they’d twisted together and often played with together after study time. Aegon chewing on Mother’s long sweet-smelling curls as he watched the show, their show, and giggled along with her. And later, for hours, to his father’s slightly puzzled yet fond indulgence, she and Aegon would excitedly talk about their favourite characters, arms tight around each other.
He was her adorable little creature, her constant companion in the huge friendless castle for most of the day, just the two of them, back when he was still the only one of her children who could actually talk with her.
The memory makes Aegon’s lips twist. An amorphous longing stirs in his chest. A familiar muscle. Well-used, weary, frayed.
This, now this must be grief.
The tinted car window weeps silently.
Beyond it, the traffic lights have splashed onto signboard lights, street lights have threaded through the rain, glowing shop fronts have melded with cars.
His reflection is smeared with wet lights.
Aegon traces a droplet’s languid progress and thinks of the milky dew on the leaves, earlier. Why do you not have your memories as a baby, the entire catalogue?
The droplet pauses over her reflection behind his.
Her cheekbone and the contour of her brow on the dark glass, nothing more, behind his cheekbone and the contour of his brow, as though she’s bled out from him, the photocopy ink not yet dry, or as though she’s about to possess him and haunt him from the inside out. Murky puddles on the tinted glass.
Mother is looking at him.
A shiver touches his spine.
Aegon doesn’t speak. He doesn’t turn around. He lets her have her fill. Lets her finish looking at him.
He’s not that uncouth.
*
He used to agonise over this: her disapproving looks, her disappointed looks, her scoldings, her anger, her disgust, all directed at him. Slaps. Pinches. Curses. When I Was Your Age ranting lectures. Where Would You Be Without Me Fixing Your Messes ranting lectures. Where Would You Be Without Me. Why Are You Like This. Unfiltered thoughts not fit for polite company, not even for Aegon’s siblings. Unpolished words. Rough edges. Spills. Smudges. Ugliness.
With Aegon, Mother reveals an un-Motherly face.
She becomes the girl in the portrait. The girl in the sapphire dress, Alicent Hightower. Sort of.
But this time, she doesn’t need to lash inwards. The skin around her fingernails is no longer redly jagged.
To Aegon, she complains about his half-sister. She bitches about his father. She grumbles about her own father. She criticises the septons assigned to the Grand Sept. She gossips about the society matrons and the highborn cads, their sex lives and legal troubles, the headlines all over the rags. She rages at Aegon that this is what will happen to him if he didn’t get his head straight and if she hadn’t been fixing his messes for him: a feast for the vultures, a one-man circus for the courts of law, a warning from mothers to young daughters, an utter disgrace to her name.
She does this with him everywhere. She, huddled in his empty bathtub, her three phones on her lap and her wine glass in hand, whilst he pukes his guts out in the toilet. She, sat on his bed whilst he groggily and nakedly and sometimes grumpily listens on under the sheets. In the breakfast room. In his car. In her car, during those Sunday mornings when she herself used to drag him back home. On the pavement by a corner shop in the middle of nowhere. Outside a public bathroom one time in Lannisport. At the back of function halls and ballrooms during the last third of any event that they’d had to attend or host. In her wing of the ancient family castle, in her bedroom as she gets herself ready for his father’s funeral, she with her hair done and wearing only a bra and a half-slip, irritably telling him to sober up, her nervy fingers fixing his tie because he just got manhandled in there by Aemond. In his wing of the ancient family castle, in his bedroom, countless times. In the carpark of a Naathi coffee chain, Mother sipping her unsugared black roast in between bites of the liquor-filled chocolates she’d brought along, her phone buzzing non-stop. In the back of one of their cars on the way to the burial. In the cold, green hush of the wild park.
Her freakouts. Her breakdowns. Her red-rage rants. The aftermaths of her anxiety’s adrenaline rush.
Aegon sees Mother’s anger and irritation and melancholy and pettishness in their purest, most unadulterated forms.
Aegon is very lucky, in a way. Fortunate. Extremely so.
It’s nice, in a way.
Did the old man ever have this?
Yeah, Aegon has decided, it’s nice.
*
Did the old man ever—
Wait.
The old man. Targaryen.
There are no old men in the main Targaryen line anymore. His uncle Daemon is his father’s younger brother, nothing more than Father’s and Rhaenyra’s rabid dog.
Hierarchy is baked into Westerosi culture. Even in families. Especially in families like theirs. And Uncle Daemon has always ranked below Aegon even when Aegon’s father was still alive.
And.
The oldest Targaryen man in the main line now?
The most senior man in the entirety of House Targaryen now?
That’s, gods, that’s Aegon.
Gods.
Aegon has always known that this will happen. He is Viserys’ Eldest Son his whole life, after all. But the sheer reality of it, like all realities catching up to him, is surreal. Verging on incomprehensible. A headache in a dream. A dream in the middle of an eye roll. He’s never imagined that reality would catch up to him like this: in the quiet misty green, his mother’s leaky eyes, his mother looking weary and frayed and painfully young, murky puddles on a tinted window, overly tangled vines.
What the fuck was that?
Aegon wants to throw up. Get black out sloshed, high, pussy-drunk. Lock away himself in his secret flat in town and never think about contracts and timetables and ethics and protocols. Blearily blink at Mother’s hands on his sticky skin, roughly shaking him awake. Aegon wants to put his arm around her shoulders and draw her into the shelter of his coat. He wants to crack his knuckles and keep holding the umbrella. He wants to fold it and string it close with her still inside it.
The next time they walk together, Aegon wants to set the pace.
He can, now, can’t he?
Fuck.
Fucking fantastic, those Qartheen herbs.
*
Aegon nearly falls flat on his face whilst stepping out of the car.
Ugh. Godsdamned sons of—fucking rain. Fucking wet streets.
Thank you, umbrella. Sturdy, handy little bitch.
“Where are we going?” asks Mother.
“A very good place,” he promises her, then turns back to Cole at the wheel: “Well, have a good evening. You’ll get a text from Mother tomorrow.”
Cole looks like he has misgivings about this outing, but Aegon just raises his brows. Smiles. Pats the car like it’s a cow’s rump. Off you go.
He finds Mother standing beneath the awning of a closed meat shop, peering at the phone box beside her. Scratched paint. Scrawled numbers from nameless people and small pasted numbers with brusque enticements. Soggy posters of lost pets and lost kids.
She turns to him with a frown. “I still don’t see why Criston couldn’t have just taken us directly to the place you’re talking about.”
That district, it’s not the kind of place where you roll in in that car with those covered plates and dark-suited men open your door for you and form a wall around you. No. It’s a normal place with normal people. And Aegon has long reconciled with the fact that his family is so far from normal, they’d be powering a dozen therapists’ careers for years.
But he doesn’t tell her that.
He doesn’t even know if any of his family has admitted this to themselves. Aegon has, but he doesn’t see the point in seeing therapists. Giving strangers that kind of ammunition? No, thanks. He’d rather fuck a dragon.
Aegon opens the umbrella.
“It’s better to walk there,” he simply says.
*
“There” is Aegon’s favourite bistro in his favourite district in all of King’s Landing.
“Excellent food,” he tells Mother as they cross the narrow street, “excellent establishment, they’re discreet even if they recognise you. Also, d’you know, I’ve suspected for some time that the proprietress is a bastard from either Dragonstone or Driftmark. Silver curls, the prettiest shade of brown lips I’ve ever seen, jaw-droppingly gorgeous, sharp as fuck. Come to think of it, maybe she’s a descendant of a bastard. Whatever.” Aegon grins. “You know how those Valyrians got around on their islands.”
He can tell that Mother’s ears aren’t completely tuned into him.
That’s okay, though, because she’s so adorable like this.
Mother’s large dark eyes are gulping in everything. The shops jostling into one another. Occasional little craters on the brick road. Neon signs that light the way for those in need or in want of freshly-washed laundry; or ice cream; or baqlawa and other pastries; or braids, twists, or a trim and hot oil treatment; or full-body massages; or voice and dancing lessons. Since the rain has stopped, the road and pavements are also lit with kiosks and carts carrying all sorts of goods: groundnuts, oranges, flowers, pet goldfish swimming in little plastics, books, cigarettes, prayer beads, fried plantains, arayes, ka’ak. Singing. Laughing. Chattering. Lovers here and there. The sizzling of palm oil threaded with a briny ballad threaded with the grilling milkfish threaded with the mewling of cats. People brushing past Mother like she’s just like everyone else.
Mother tugs at his arm. “What were you saying?”
Her minty breath near his jaw. Dimples on her cheeks.
“Nothing,” Aegon says, laughing. “Nothing.”
“No, tell me.”
“I said your smile looks lovely.”
A frown darts past her face. She clearly wants to frown, but here she is, laughing as well, laughing at what he’s just said.
“No, you little fool.” Fondly, like a nickname. “It’s about another woman. Tell me when we get there.”
“There’s no other woman,” Aegon says easily. “There’s never been.”
“Aegon, what are you talking about?” Mother’s laugh still lingers on her neon-wet lips. “You’ve been with plenty of women. Need I remind you, I’ve met quite a few of them.”
“Yeah, met.”
Mother sure has seen him and his women. In various states of undress, grogginess, and randiness.
They shoot quick wide smiles at each other. Almost childish, like he and his mates during fresher year. Mother punctuates hers with an embarrassed, exasperated headshake.
Bicycles wheel past them. Blown bubbles bob and pop in the air. The evening smells of fresh oranges.
“Are we there yet?” she asks, just as they’ve arrived at the door.
“Yeah. Right on cue, huh? How do you do that?”
Aegon pops a bubble just above her shoulder. His knuckle grazes the emerald on her earlobe.
Mother swats away his hand and, halfway through, squeezes his fingers and holds them in a way that means he can’t even hold her back. In a way that makes him ridiculously think that she’s never held hands with someone before. Warmly and sloppily, she keeps holding four of his fingers as she takes in more of her surroundings. The lazy bubbles. The crisp aftermath of rain. The light-threaded evening. The cherrywood doorway of the bistro, its mullioned window. Aegon, still looking at her.
They gaze at each other.
A heartbeat passes.
“I know what you’re doing,” she tells him.
Aegon’s stomach flutters like a kite. Hoarsely, giddily, “Oh yeah?”
“Of course. I’m your mother.”
“That doesn’t even make sense. I’ve always thought that never made—”
“It makes sense sometimes. Like a, let’s see.” Mother thoughtfully lets go of his fingers. She reaches up and tucks a chin-length lock behind his ear. A moussed, combed-back do escapee. Her rings tickle the shell of his ear.
“Like a broken clock,” she finishes.
“You just called your mother instinct a broken clock.”
“Well. Well, it’s right twice in a day.”
Aegon makes a face. “That’s so—”
“Oh, come now, Aegon,” she tuts briskly.” I’m trying to say something here.”
“Okay, then say it. Gods.”
“This is.” Mother gently clears her throat. “I mean to say, I know what you’re doing. And this is possibly one of the nicest things you’ve done for me.”
“Nicest,” Aegon echoes, and fuck, he’s smiling so widely, so ridiculously too he’d bet on it, he needs her to slap him back to his senses, gods. “Yeah, I can be nice.”
Her hand rests on his hand holding the folded umbrella.
“I’ll refold it nicely,” Mother says. “They do have an umbrella stand inside, I presume?”
They’re already at the door. Aegon humours her. He can be nice.
He gives her the umbrella.
Aegon’s now empty hand hovers near the dip of Mother’s back as he tilts his head at the door. “After you.”