He was getting married in less than twelve hours, yet here he was outside a different woman's chambers.
Aelor Targaryen was becoming quite the expert at handling the cries coming from a birthing chamber, and he wasn't even an actual father yet. After King Aegon's and Aelor Rykker's births he knew roughly what to expect, and as such he was calmly waiting outside Lyanna Stark's chambers as the Northerner screamed in pain.
Eddard Stark was waiting too, though he was certainly anything but calm. The Lord of the North was a father, word having reached the capital that Catelyn Tully had given birth to a healthy boy at Riverrun, but he looked like anything but, pacing furiously down the corridor, grey Stark eyes boring into the stone floor of the Red Keep. Aelor watched him in mild amusement, having given up on calming the screaming woman's brother.
A presence appeared beside him, voice soft as it spoke. "He's going to wear through the stones of the hall. Replacing them will be a pain."
Aelor chuckled. "Sounds like the perfect job for the de facto Queen. Have fun."
Alysanne nudged his shoulder lightly, and the Dragon of Duskendale looked down at her. "You should sleep. We can't have the Regent of the Iron Throne missing his own wedding."
Aelor's eyes became shrouded. "I have been avoiding this situation for weeks. That child is Rhaegar's, and a Prince or Princess of the Iron Throne."
"It is also my sister's, and half-Stark," Eddard cut in, suddenly no longer pacing and instead watching them. The Lord of the North desperately wanted to return to Winterfell, even a blind man could see it, but he refused to abandon his sister, and Lyanna had been too close to childbirth to travel. "Whatever Lyanna's mistakes, her child will be as much my niece or nephew as yours, Prince Aelor."
Aelor nodded, though his eyes hardened. "Aye, it will, but Lyanna is the daughter of a Lord Paramount. Rhaegar was a King. Our nephew is a Prince or Princess; as such, they will be raised in King's Landing."
Stark furrowed a brow. "You can't intend to separate the babe from their mother."
Aelor's Valyrian eyes were as hard as Valyrian steel. "That is exactly what I intend, Lord Stark. Lyanna will return to Winterfell with you and your men, while the child remains here to be raised alongside its brother and sister. The blame for the Rebellion rests mainly on my father and brother, I know, but Lyanna certainly played her own role, and I have not forgotten it."
"Your brother seduced her."
"Your sister let herself be seduced. She was unhappy with her betrothal—as if she was only noble, male or female, to be unpleased with their political match—and thusly ran off with a married man, starting a bloody war that nearly destroyed both of our families."
Eddard Stark had ice in his veins it was clear, for the Quiet Wolf didn't rise to anger as most men including Aelor would have. "And the child? What if they decide they want to know their mother, their cousins?"
Aelor felt Alysanne gently grasp the inside of his arm, and the Dragon of Duskendale bit back the instant refusal that had been rising. Lord Stark had a point; as little as Aelor thought of Lyanna, he couldn't make her child's decision for them. Well, he supposed he very well could, but he would not.
With a sigh, the Prince Regent nodded. "When the child is older, they may make their own decisions regarding their mother. I will not deny them their wishes on the matter. But that is years in the future; as soon as Lyanna is healthy enough to travel, she will leave the capital and will not return, and the child will remain here."
Any further argument on the matter was interrupted as a particularly loud scream ripped through the corridor, and the chamber door flung open, a flock of midwives fluttering out to rush both directions, haste marking their every action.
Eddard Stark froze, face showing clear apprehension. Aelor felt the same; Aegon's birth had been followed by such haste, and it hadn't meant anything good for Elia.
The three important figures were as relevant as tits on a breastplate as the army of midwives rushed to and fro, bringing more and more cloth and water. They nearly missed the elderly woman and her bundle when she slipped out amidst the hustle and bustle, Aelor paying her no mind until she was suddenly pressing a babe into his arms.
Aelor instinctually took it, looking down in surprise and amazement at the tiny babe now in his arms. A dark patch of hair covered it—his, her?—head, grey eyes looking up at him. This one is all Stark, I don't see a single sign of Valyria, of Rhaegar.
"It is a boy, Your Grace," the old crone croaked out, flashing a toothless smile. "Small but healthy."
Aelor couldn't help but bark a laugh at that. Some Visenya you'll make, lad. Rhaegar would be so disappointed. The Prince of the Iron Throne couldn't help but smile at his tiny nephew. It's a good thing I'm not Rhaegar then, isn't it? You'll do just fine for a Targaryen, even if you do look more wolf than dragon.
Aelor almost didn't hear Ned Stark's worried voice. "My sister?"
The crone's voice was much calmer than the Lord of the North's. "She is bleeding heavily, but Grandmaester knows what he is doing. They nearly have it stopped. She will be weak for a long while, but she shall survive."
The crone had been right—Lyanna Stark certainly looked weak the next morning, but she was also most certainly alive. The tiny, pallid woman burst into his chambers amidst the shouts of protest from the guards stationed outside, looking like all the Seven Hells but also with no small amount of fire burning in her eyes. "You will not take my child from me!"
Aelor raised an eyebrow from where he stood, half dressed for his wedding. His black tunic and cloak with its three-headed Targaryen Dragon lay on the bed in his otherwise sparse quarters, and the dragonlord had sent his aides from the room. He waved the guardsmen clutching Lyanna Stark's arm off, the man backing out of the room with no amount of relief on his face.
And the dragon faced off against the She-Wolf.
"I will take your child from you, Lady Stark."
She staggered forward, and Aelor was concerned the young woman was going to faint there in his chambers. "He is my son."
"He is my nephew." Aelor stood to his full height, voice final.
"Jon belongs with me!"
Aelor cocked his head to the side. "Jon? Is that what you call him? I'm afraid that isn't going to work, Lady Lyanna. 'Jon' is Valyrian, not Northmen. As such he will be raised here, alongside his brother and sister."
"But not his mother? Think of what that will do to him!"
Aelor was rapidly losing his patience, not that he had very much to begin with. "I am thinking of him, Lyanna Stark. What will he be in the North? A bastard? Jon Snow? The bastard boy of a foolish, selfish girl who decided she didn't want to marry the man she was betrothed to so she eloped with another already married one and started a war that took thousands, including his father?"
Lyanna Stark's voice was much stronger than her body, eyes as feral as the sigil on her family's banner. "He is a Stark!"
Aelor lost what remained of his control. "He is a Targaryen!" It was a bellow, thrown full in the face of the weak woman in front of him. "He is the brother of a King, the blood of the dragon. He is the blood of old Valyria, the son of King Rhaegar Targaryen. His place is here, and here he will stay."
Aelor whirled around, stomping to his bed and grabbing the tunic, trying to get a grip on his temper. "I will hear no more of this. I have a wedding to attend."
Lyanna looked progressively worse, and what was left of the compassionate part of Aelor Targaryen wondered if going through with this would kill the She Wolf. The rest of him—the Aerys part—couldn't find the capability to care.
Lyanna must have realized she would get nowhere with demands and switched up her tactics, though she still willfully ignored his dismissal of the subject. "Please, Prince Aelor. He is all I have left of him."
"Of who, Rhaegar?" Aelor spat out. "He was my brother long before he was anything to you, Stark. Maybe he honestly loved you as he said; even I don't know the truth of it. But your actions helped put him in the grave, along with countless others of my friends and near-family. What am I to do, forget all of that simply because you are a woman? Weren't you yourselfknown for bemoaning how women were treated so differently than men?"
"Then let me stay, Prince Aelor. Please. I'm begging you. All I want is to be near him."
For just a moment the Dragon of Duskendale began to give in, but the image of Renfred Rykker dead on the banks of a river, Elwood Harte gripping the spear that had killed him and Balman Byrch holding his dead younger brother flashed in the Prince's mind, and his heart hardened. "You are loved by your family, Lyanna Stark; you will still be held in high esteem in Winterfell. In King's Landing, however, you will never be anything more than the whore who ran off with a Silver Prince because she was too spoiled to understand there is no room for love in the game of thrones. Whatever my own thoughts, you deserve more than that. You will return home with your brother; if your son wants to see you in future years, I will not stop him. But it will be hischoice, not yours."
The She Wolf broke down into tears, sickly body convulsing with the cries. "Guardsman!" The Dragon of Duskendale called over her sobs, turning back to the looking glass as he buttoned his tunic, face now utterly emotionless. "Escort Lady Stark back to her room."
"I have no time for her tears."
The union of Aelor Targaryen and Alysanne Lefford was a happy occasion after so many months of pain and fear.
Every living Targaryen, from the black haired babe Aelor had named Jaehaerys to the Infant King to the Dragon of Duskendale himself, gathered in the halls of the Sept of Baelor, the very same sept that had months ago been a fortress under siege. The Valyrian Prince, silver haired and scarred, had draped the three headed Targaryen dragon cloak over the Westerlander heiress, tan of skin and beautiful. An olive skinned little girl had clung to his leg as he did so, dark eyes taking in all, and even now she sat atop his lap at the head table back at the Red Keep, overlooking the ocean.
Musicians played as nobles from all over Westeros danced. Ashara Dayne laughed in the small arms of young Viserys Targaryen, who had clung to the Dornishwoman almost as ardently as he had his sister. Greatjon Umber, having stayed in the south to head the men escorting the Starks home, laughed and bellowed with Grandmaester Colmar, the two giants towering over nearly everyone else in the vicinity. Lyanna Stark clung to Jaehaerys Targaryen in the corner, treasuring the last moments with her child that Aelor had—under the direct request of a sympathetic Alysanne—granted the She Wolf. Leo Lefford grew increasingly drunk, celebrating his greatest plot that had only been successful due to his daughter's sheer blunt personality.
Malessa Rykker and her father privately enjoyed the festivities, young Aelor Rykker's hungry bawls both frequent and loud, though no one seemed to mind. Mace Tyrell thrice attempted to make conversation with Aelor at the head table, mentioning each time how he had recently been blessed with a young daughter who would surely grow into a beauty of fable and how well a match a Tyrell would make a Targaryen. The first two times Aelor politely directed him elsewhere, and the third the Lords own mother—Olenna Redwyne, the Queen of Thorns—shooing him away like an annoying pet.
Aelor and Alysanne watched it all, Rhaenys going to Malessa just long enough for the Dragon and his bride to squeeze in a dance before they returned to the table and the Princess her uncle's lap. Gifts were presented throughout the festivities, from daggers to books to an ornate chair from Lord Tyrell clearly meant to replace the simple stool Aelor used when he held court.
It was a gaudy thing the Dragon of Duskendale wouldn't be caught dead in, but he thanked the Lord of the Reach all the same.
Varys was one of the last to present a gift, appearing like a shadow as he always did. The Spider was oddly enough one of the few men Aelor halfway trusted, the chirping of his little birds and the webs he wove having saved the Targaryen dynasty just as often as Aelor had.
"Lord Varys," the Lord of Duskendale greeted, smiling.
"Lord Hand," the bald eunuch replied, bowing in that odd way of his. "I must congratulate you on your wedding. And you, Lady Hand; you look absolutely stunning."
Alysanne smiled at the compliment; Aelor did as well, since it was true. "Thank you Lord Varys. It is a pleasure to meet you."
"The pleasure is all mine. As is this introduction, if I may. Prince Aelor, I would like you to meet an old friend of mine. He has with him a gift, not only to you, but to House Targaryen as a whole."
The Spider turned and gestured, and a large—and Aelor meant large—man shuffled out of the crowd. Almost grotesquely obese, the foreigner had his hair and forked beard died an odd color of yellow, marking him as a man from the Free Cities. Judging by the small fortune of gold and gems adorning his hands and neck and his clearly expensive clothing, Aelor figured him to be a merchant. A very successful merchant, as each finger bore a ring of ameythyst or ruby or black diamond. Sometimes they bore two.
"Prince Aelor, may I congratulate you on your marriage!" The big man said as he approached, stopping to bow. Attempt to bow, more like. His belly makes that a difficult process. "I am Illyrio Mopatis, of the Free City of Pentos."
"And an old friend of mine," Varys chimed in.
Aelor nodded in greeting. "A pleasure to meet you, Lord Illyrio. My wife and I thank you for your attendance."
The fat man smiled jovially. "I believe you will thank me more for my gift than my attendance." The merchant clapped his hands together, and two servants appeared out of the crowd, bearing between them an ornate chest. "Our mutual friend Varys and I have spent many years and many resources tracking these down. They are gone to stone, petrified from age, but that makes them no less beautiful or symbolic for House Targaryen."
The two servants lifted the lid, and Aelor felt his heart leap into his throat even as Illyrio spoke again. "One for each of the heads of the Dragon."
Within that chest, one black with ripples of scarlet, another pale cream laced with gold, the third green flecked with bronze, sat three dragon eggs.