1A/N: Title is from Hozier's Cherry Wine. Hope you guys enjoy!
Visenya Targaryen is well aware that she is a cruel woman. Even if she meant to forget this, her dear husband would never allow it. Aegon's might be a subtler, more calculative sort, but her brother is every bit as cruel as she and much more besides.
But Aegon the First of his Name can only ever be a hero and a champion of change, nothing less. So the burden of cruelty, of cunning and trickery can only ever fall to her.
She might even be a little bitter about it if it wasn't a fair truth.
She has buried a sister and thousands more lay beneath her feet, burnt or cut or both. Death isn't unknown to her in any of its forms, so it is a genuine surprise when her chest tightens with something akin to grief as she watches the pallid face of Aenys struggle for breath in his sleep. Covered in sweat, smelling of medicine and sickness both, the boy's chest can barely lift itself enough to draw in the next gulp of air. Even as he burns from the inside however, the weakling struggles on, pathetically.
With precise, practised motions, she takes the cotton rag off his forehead, puts it in the basin of cold water and let's it soak for a few moments, before ringing it off and placing it back.
She hasn't slept for more that four hours in the past two days. She is exhausted. She is angry.
She won't leave him.
Visenya doesn't love this boy one bit. His continued existence is an insult to the Targaryen name and had he not been the son of Aegon, First of His Name, he would have been a forgotten little lord on Dragonstone or some such, only allowed to exist because of the dragon blood inside his veins.
She could leave this room right now and return to hers, leave him for the maids and the maesters to tend to his needs and quietly await his death in her chambers, with a cask of dry red to celebrate it.
He coughs, his lungs full of phlegm, but he doesn't wake even then. She places a hand on his small, fragile chest and carefully counts, making sure he is still stable. Still alive.
He is pathetic. A coddled, weak, sickly boy who bears no resemblance to his father. The child can barely decide on dinner, let alone make the decisions Aegon expects him to, when the time comes.
He is a disgrace and Visenya knows well he is a fool, that any reign of his might be what ruins everything she and her siblings had built.
He is Rhaenys's boy. Her beloved little son.
In the end, she bitterly concedes as she once again takes the rag off his head to cool it, that is all he needs to be.
Aegon will not give her a child. Ever.
He never told her this, never needed to. To her husband, there only ever was and only ever will be Rhaenys. Only her children would come after him, rule the Kingdoms she had helped him bring to heel. So in recompense for her loneliness, the neglect and the scorn they inflicted on her, she would be his equal, his co-ruler and his iron fist. She would end her days revered as such and she had accepted it as a fair trade.
Ten nights in Rhaenys's chambers for every one he spent in Visenya's.
She won't let him forego it, though she is aware he desperately wants to. Their couplings are violent, both of them left looking more like an animal had attacked them than a lover. There is no joy in it, only resentment, anger, bitterness, but Visenya is not a kind person. She will take what is owed her, every bit of it. Even if she hates it, even if she would rather claw his eyes out than let him touch her, Aegon has stolen from her something. She isn't sure if she can (wants) to put a name to it, or even if she would have cared for it otherwise, but he has taken from her what she wasn't willing to give and for that, he must compensate her.
A sickly babe that barely made it through early infancy for an heir, loved deeply and well by both his parents, every little joy of his something Aegon and Rhaenys shared between them like a precious treasure.
She stood to the side, ever watching from a fair distance, as her presence became more and more something tolerated rather than accepted, and knew that the tolerance would eventually dry up too.
That, she thought, was a fair trade as well for the power of a Queen, even as her heart grew colder and colder to all the things she once might have taken for granted, wished for.
But Rhaenys lies dead and broken somewhere in Dorne now. Her light has faded, gone, and the only thing left behind is a child that may not even make it to ten summers, let alone to the Iron Throne.
The Throne she helped to make and to keep.
Aegon will not give her a child. Ever.
So she will take it from him, whether he wants to or not.
"WHAT DID YOU DO?"
His fury might be terrifying, a storm one must weather, but she raises her head defiantly and looks at him with scorn. "What I must."
With a furious cry he grabs the pitcher off the table and throws it against the wall with all of his strength, shattering it, wine and shards of clay flying everywhere. Then he moves on to the cups, the dishes still full of food, then the chairs. He will break everything inside this room, but when he exits it, nothing will be different than when he came in. He knows that as well as she does, and she is satisfied in that.
"Should I ring the servants for more, Your Grace? I am sure Celtigar will be thrilled to know he must account for the royal cutlery as well."
Aegon is panting, but the blind rage is gone from his eyes. There is resignation, but also something else. Something new.
"How are you certain that thing is a boy?"
Disgust.
Her husband, her brother, the father of her son, he stares at her belly with unmitigated repugnance.
There is a barbed wire in her chest, biting at her in ways she thought were long since beneath her.
"He will be what this Kingdom needs him to be."
"Aenys is what this Kingdom needs! My son is the only one-"
"He can't do it alone. You know he can't."
"Once again, you make your hasty judgements and you act on them. Aenys is barely five, Visenya. He doesn't need to be anything but a boy, for now." he replies coldly, and she scoffs.
"Of course he does. If he is to rule on the Iron Throne, he needs to be more than a mewling imbecile who won't let go of my skirts."
Ah, there it is again. The bitterness, the fury. That, she can take. That, she is well acquainted to. But she can't bear him of all people to look at her son like that. Not when he looks at hers like the boy is his only light.
"Heartless bitch." Aegon spits at her. "You know why. You know why he can't, not yet."
"He never will." she spits his vitriol right back at him. "He is weak, Aegon, and neither of us will be here forever to keep the Kingdom together when inevitably, he fails. He needs-"
"You don't get to decide what he needs."
She stares him down with every bit of the anger she holds. "This is my Kingdom as well. I am not your consort, Aegon. I am the Queen. And your son is going to be its end if you keep coddling him like that."
He walks up to her, their bodies almost touching.
"Leave. I don't want to see neither you, nor this thing you have created. Go to Dragonstone and live there as if you are dead."
Her stomach drops. "By what right-"
"I am the King. And the Crown has no need of you anymore."
The maester at Dragonstone sent word to King's Landing when the pains took her. He sends a second raven after the ordeal is over, informing the King of the birth of his second son and that his name is Maegor.
It's six years before he arrives.
And the only thing he has to say to her son when he sees the boy for the first time is: "Disappear from my sight."
Maegor looks up at his father, the same intense stare as his sire, purple eyes gleaming with defiance.
"Prince Maegor Targaryen greets the King. Long may you reign, father."
The King scowls, his gaze following the young Prince as he re-enters their castle. "He is just like you."
It's intended as an insult, she knows, but that's fine with her. "He is also a lot like you. Cruel and selfish and strong."
He regards her with the barely constrained fury she had always been able to bring out of him. "That thing is not my son. He will never be."
Visenya doesn't care what he thinks anymore. She has Maegor now and all the things she had to do to get him are more than worth the price she has had to pay. Her strong, untouchable boy. "Let us go to supper together, brother. There is, I imagine, much to discuss."
She periodically returns to King's Landing, always without her son, always when Aegon leaves for his progresses. The sight of him is as unbearable to her now as hers is to him, so Visenya is fine with this.
The boy Prince always greets her personally, with warmth she can't stand. He grows and grows, his young dragon a sight that contrasts sharply with Maegor's lack of one, but she doesn't mind it so much. Rhaenys's boy may have claimed a dragon first, but hers will have the greatest one when the time is right.
He is still as indecisive and unfit to rule at fifteen as he was at five. None of his father's prowess with the sword, his wit, none of his mother's sharp instincts for politics. His mummer's court is just as it appears, not like how Rhaenys wielded her own sort of power through them.
Maegor would be better. She knows it. She can see it not with a mother's eyes, but a warrior's. A ruler's. Her son was better suited, but would never be anything more than the Prince of Dragonstone. He earned that title by his own worth and Visenya had smiled at her lord husband for the first time in over a decade when he had been forced to acknowledge him.
It was enough for now. For Aegon to know that she had secured the Targaryen dynasty by her own strength. Her son might never rule as King, but he would become the Realm's pillar of strength, she was certain of it. Maegor would be all the boy wasn't and together they would be able to maintain the peace she and Aegon had fought so hard for. He would not be forgotten by the histories. And neither would she.
The boy always welcomes her in person, despite what she is certain is strong disagreement by his father. He makes sure to make each visit a feast to be remembered, always looking at her with bright eyes she knows long for her acknowledgement and approval. He demonstrates his mediocre skills in swordplay, he rides with her on his dragon, he keeps her cup full when they dine, as if he is a common cupbearer and not a Prince of the Realm.
She doesn't give to him a single crumb of the affection he begs of her and it is a sick satisfaction she finds in that. He is to be her King and she will stand beside him when the time comes, but Visenya Targaryen will never acknowledge him as someone worthy of her love.
Her Maegor has earned it from her. But this boy, this once sickly and half dead babe, just like his father, stole from her something she wasn't willing to give. So now, he shall pay the price.
And if the soft, silver locks that fall beautifully on the young Prince's back and his lilac eyes make something long forgotten stir in her heart, his laughter bringing back memories long buried in the back of her mind, she still doesn't smile at him with a hint of warmth. Never.
"Why, good-brother, one might think you are afraid of them!"
The little Princess teases at her son, a small chuckle leaving her as her ladies around her awkwardly follow suit. The dragonkeepers have still not taken away the hatchlings brought before him, which he refused to so much as look at before ordering them gone.
Visenya scowls at the brat, her belly already swollen with another child. She wasn't snickering like a hen when Visenya had asked for her daughter to be wed to Maegor, to settle the chittering mouths of the lords "concerned" with the succession. No, back then she had knelt at Aegon's feet, her babe clutched to her chest, as she begged for her daughter to remain at her side.
She glances over at Maegor, who simply looks at Alyssa Velaryon with an intensity that makes the young girl avert her gaze. "I am afraid of nothing, good-sister." he replies coldly. "I am simply waiting for the only one worthy of me."
The entire feast goes dead silent immediately. His words are loud, spoken clearly and soberly, with the full weight of them understood by everyone present- her brother included.
Even she herself feels a stab of terror at her gut at his words, her goblet frozen midway to her mouth.
She wonders what Aegon is feeling, but her brother shows no emotion. He merely continuous to eat his meal, as if Meagor hadn't spoken at all. Visenya both hates him and is grateful for that.
The people at the table slowly begin recovering, with the Prince quickly laughing it all off, ordering for more lively music and taking his pregnant wife to dance the song with him.
And so the feast resumes.
"I am going to assume those aren't your words coming from his mouth."
It's not an accusation, but a statement of fact. She supposes she should be thankful that Aegon has at least that much understanding of her. He had called her to his rooms the morning after Magor's declaration, supposedly to break their fast together.
What a load of shit.
She answers either way. "No, they aren't. I have encouraged him to claim a dragon myself in the past, but his heart is set."
Aegon chuckles, but there is no humour in it. "Your creature has a heart then? I would have thought you found such things worthless."
Long gone are the days when her temper would be ignited over this insult. "He is your son. He is your blood as much as he is my own. You can deny it all you want, but Maegor is living proof that there was once more for us."
When he answers, there is only exhaustion in his voice. "There was never an 'us', Visenya. You never cared for me anymore than I did you. We were each other's duty and now, we are each other's curse. And whatever way you choose to fool yourself with, that abomination is no son of mine." She bites her lip to hold in the vitriol threatening to spill. He isn't done and she will not yield him the reaction he craves from her. "Whatever it is you did back then, however you used me to bring your creature about- there will be a price to pay for that. You know this as well as I do, so I would highly suggest you start praying to whatever gods you believe in that he doesn't end up being the doom of everything we have built."
She already paid it. She paid it the very night of his conception.
"Maegor-"
"-should have been strangled the second you pushed him out."
"Stop it."
"Had I been there when you did, I would have crushed his head with my own hands."
"Stop it."
"He is nothing but misery waiting for its chance. It's funny that you couldn't spare Aenys so much as a kind word, but a mother's love has blinded you of all people so absolutely to what that thing is. If gods exist, this is the worst jape ever played on us."
She can recognize the smidgen of truth to his words, which is the greatest blow of all. Visenya isn't blind to her son's nature. He is cruel, ambitious and determined, so much like her, like his sire. But he is also smart, keen to prove himself worthy of his father, of having the dragonblood and she has taught him well. Maegor might be all of those things, but he knows his place. He understands his purpose and accepts it.
"It all comes right back to him." the bitterness in her voice is not something she can hide anymore. "To her."
"I suppose it does." he agrees and takes a sip from his cup. "Does it even matter?"
No. It really doesn't anymore. "Maegor doesn't covet the boy's throne. He doesn't dispute it. He will stand beside him."
"Aenys's throne."
"What?"
"My son. His name is Aenys. You won't die if you speak it outloud."
She purses her lips. "Aenys's throne then." My throne. "I have been nothing but loyal. Even if I never owed you no such thing. To question that is to question me and all I have given you."
"You took as well. We are too old to play these games, sister. Let us be truthful to each other just this once."
"I have always been truthful to you." Even if you never deserved it.
He doesn't reply.
The next time she sees Aegon, it's on his funeral pyre.
Queen Visenya, wrapped in a black velvet dress, approaches her brother and husband and King for the last time, Blackfyre held tightly in her hands. She takes a long look at his face, and for a moment he looks young again, the ravages of time wrought by Conquest and Kingship gone from his face. She places the sword on his chest, bends to place a soft kiss on his forehead, as custom demands and goes to stand next to her nephew.
The boy is barely holding back tears, his princelings and wife standing beside him. The little Princess (Queen now, I suppose) stares stonily at the pyre yet to be lit, holding hands with her husband in an attempt to console him. Visenya dislikes the girl, but she likes her eyes. A strong look, someone with enough political savvy that may be worth looking out for.
She chooses not to linger on why she evaluates this woman as if she is an enemy, not a worthy successor.
Her gaze travels to Maegor. On the surface he is stone-faced, clad in mourning attire befitting the Prince of Dragonstone. But she is his mother, the one who raised and trained him and he cannot hide from her.
From the moment he found the news, there has been an air of expectation around him, of tension under the surface waiting to burst and for the first time since she birthed him, Visenya feels afraid of her son.
Vhagar lands and her presence is like a balm on her trembling soul.
She straightens her shoulders.
"Vhagar."
She is still the Dowager Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.
She will protect the succession. She will protect Rhaenys's boy. Even if it is from her own son that she must do so.
"Dracarys."
A/N: Happy 2025 and thank you for reading!