Chapter Text
Hera’s eyes snapped open as pounding feet echoed 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 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 Tristian Throne quietly greets his bleary-eyed charge as she peers at the torch-lit hallway in confusion.
“What’s going on, Ser?” the Princess’s raspy voice was naught but a whisper as she rubs the sleep from her eyes feeling as though she was walking through a fog.
“I am unsure princess, all that I am aware of is that the King and Queen are in the Great Hall.” Ser Throne calmly explains to the sleep-addled girl who just stares at the Knight with minor annoyance that he seemed so awake right now.
I mean it is for her protection but it's still annoying. Hera internally grumbles to herself wishing for the comfort of her bed.
But alas her interest alas aroused the longer she stood in the cold hallway fighting a shiver that wanted to wreck through her thin frame.
Hera purses her lips in indecision.
Tilting her head, mused ebony locks drifting to her right shoulder she internally warred with herself.
She knew if she went to investigate the worst she would get is a light scolding from the adults for being out of bed. It would really be a smart decision to save herself the lecture and return to her tempting feather mattress that was practically calling her name.
But the increasing sound of arguing echoing throughout the keep stroking the fire of her curiosity.
“Let us go to the Great Hall.” Hera declares looking to Ser Tristan who nods his head in affirmation, knowing there was little he could say to his charge when her curiosity was peaked.
Stifling a sigh, the Sworn Shield follows the little princess eyes alert for any threats that would seek to harm the heir's heir.
As she walks 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 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.
“...It was a regrettable accident.” Her mother, the Crown Princess Rhaenyra, states calmly, ever composed in front of the King's court as she holds onto Luke, her middle brother, her pale hand combing through his snow-white curls as tears continue to stream down his cheeks. His twin Jace was standing right next to their mother huddling against her for 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 her baby brothers.
But she stood at the edge of the room to observe her mind 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. Uncle Daemon stood next to his daughters, pale lavender eyes ever watchful over the room, eyeing any threats to his family.
Hera observed her cousins who looked better than her brothers at least.
No sign of blood on them.
A few scratches here and there.
A bruise blooming on Rhaena’s cheek.
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 hearth.
Hera felt her heart pound in her chest as bile rose in her throat, her feet quickly taking her to Prince 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, raw angry-looking skin stood out against the alabaster of his visage as he winces in agony.
The little boy fought not to move his face too much trying so hard to contain the whimpers of pain that wanted to escape each time the needle pierce his skin.
The milk of the poppy does little to alleviate the pain.
He raised his eye meeting the viridian gaze of his niece who just stares at him in a daze, disbelieving of the nightmare she walked into. He turned his gaze down, unable to meet her emerald gaze anymore, mistaking it for disgust.
Idiot.
Hera fondly clicked her tongue in a silent chastisement to herself before taking his bruised, calloused hand in hers causing him to look up at her with a vulnerable lilac eye.
Hera gave a strained smile, her emerald eyes filled with worry, and a gleam of calculation, not knowing how she could fix this.
Hera gripped his hand tighter in reassurance causing Aemond to tighten his hold around hers as well. The two children held the other's hand in a white-knuckle grip as thunder echoed across the sky.
The storm was about to break.
The maester finished his work, going over to the boys' parents to discuss his findings with the worried Queen and King.
The prince made room for his niece as he silently turned his uninjured 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 leashed fury as she faced her old friend who nonchalantly dismissed the crime her son committed against his kin.
She snarled in rage and indignation as she felt herself shake. Her precious son was so brutally maimed. He would bare this injury for the rest of his life. This handicap will impair him in so many conceivable ways that Alicent couldn't help the growl that escapes her lips.
But here was the precious Realms Delight dismissing that loss as though it were a child throwing a tantrum over a snatched toy.
Not a cruel, unjust injury that harmed and damaged her boy.
Her son.
Alicent's lips curl into a sneer.
A mothers madness overtaking the redhead.
She would show them that she was as fierce as any dragon righteous fury lightening her features as her ember eye narrowed onto her once beloved friend.
The Heir to the Iron Throne and the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms continued to argue with the other, each a fierce mother defending their child.
The pair sitting in the chair could only watch, one 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 the milk of the poppy.
It must be wearing off. Hera thought. What the fuck was the maester even good for if they couldn'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 loved ones.
Hera spoke to her uncle cupping his face in her hands as she spoke, noting sadly the flickering of his damaged helix as it tried to follow the sound of her voice.
“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.
If she needed him to stare at her for a couple of minutes for reassurance, 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, along with one question echoing throughout the mind of each person in the great hall.
The Great Hall of Driftmark was an enclosed space lined with two giant hearths on either side of the hall. There wasn't any access to windows due to the specified defense that the Valeryon ancestor who built the castle wanted to enact.
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 Black factions 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.
Just staring at each other as the princess gripped Aemond’s face in her hands.
A language uescapedr to all escaping her lips with ease that intrigued as well as frightened, “Is mise bana-mhaighstir a' bhàis, a' chaileag a thug buaidhaseann 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.
Well, stranger.
A bright white light filled the room, emerging from the children.
It was as bright as the sun causing many to avert their eyes to avoid being blinded.
“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.
Rhaenyra Targaryen gathered her daughter in her arms as her sons bracketed her side. 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 ebony curls out of her daughter's 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. A slight smile appeared on her face despite the situation knowing that her child hated being woken up from her sleep.
(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.
“Muñā!!! Nyke kostagon't ūndegon! Nyke kostagon't ūndegon!!” 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 whispering words of comfort as she helplessly looked to 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 Storm.
In Aemond Targaryen’s newly healed eye sat a matching emerald to his niece’s eye.