Salvation - Aemond Targaryen / Aegon Targaryen

Maiden's Day Part 1

TW: False Pregnancy

"I remember my first Maiden's Day in King's Landing."

Queen Alicent had summoned her to the King's Solar two nights before the Maiden's Day celebrations, a near week since the sermon they had attended as a family. The moon was high in the sky, Jeyne yearned for sleep, but Queen Alicent's maidservant had come to fetch her and she could hardly deny it. The elder woman sat at her desk—the King's desk—and twisted the intricate wedding ring on her finger. Her face was solemn, as it usually was, and tired.

"Oh?" Was all Jeyne said, shifting in her seat.

It was odd, informal, intimate. The only light that streamed into the room came from the half dozen candles melting into wax puddles on silver plates below them. The wicker shutters to the windows had been drawn closed, though beyond it the sound of the city could still break through. The sound of screams, laughter and dragons was muted but ever present.

Alicent nodded. Her hands fell to the table, grazing delicate finger tips ran across pieces of parchment used and new. "I was... twelve. I was new to the Keep much like yourself. Alone, scared."

"I am sorry." Jeyne frowned.

The queen only waved her hand. "Don't be." Her hand came to rest beneath her jaw. Her fingers moved to stroke the skin of her chin as if she had a beard. "I remember it fondly."

"If you were alone...?" Jeyne paused. She knew the answer before the question finished forming. "Princess Rhaenyra."

Whatever joy had briefly come to her disappeared at the mention of the Princess of Dragonstone, replaced by the look one got when remembering in anguish. It was common knowledge the girls were fast childhood friends. But her cousin had married the King, and in turn bore him four children. In the near twelve years since their estrangement, Rhaenyra had wed her uncle and bore him two children in addition to the three she had from her deceased husband. She knew the king had been furious, it was said that his monstrous roar had been heard from its origin on Dragonstone all the way in the Red Keep.

From then on...no one else knew what had happened.

"Be that as it may, I met other women there. Your lady mother, Lady Johanna Lannister..." Her hand moved to run across her hair, threading through waved curls that had grown wild when taken from their pinned position. Jeyne wondered if—so long ago—Alicent had the same conversation. If years ago, it was her who spoke to her father, her who fretted over finding her future husband.

Suddenly, Queen Alicent was holding her. She had reached across the table and grabbed Jeyne's hand, stroking soothing circles in her palm. She was pleading silently with her eyes, lips glossed and pursed as if she were trying to fight what to say. She opened her mouth, closed it, and looked away.

"Your grace..." Jeyne frowned. "Are... are you alright?"

"Helaena..." Alicent looked as if she wanted to share something more, some secret. But she did not. The Queen withdrew her touch. "I should have done things differently with her. Jeyne, you know that I have tried, right?"

"Of course, your grace." She folded her hands together in her lap. "You have given me more freedom than I know what to do with. Thank you—"

"I have only ever done what was asked of me." Alicent locked their eyes together. "Duty, sacrifice. Service above self, that is the role of women."

There was a certain pain behind her words, a heat behind them like a fire. "That is what we do, what a good and faithful woman does."

"Of course, your grace." Jeyne replied.