When Visenya Velaryon was born paler than the winter snows barely six moons after the wedding of Rhaenyra and Laenor, the whispers started there. Bastard. No matter how hard Rhaenyra tried to claim she was Laenor's daughter, her resemblance to Daemo...
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"This is a terrible idea."
"No, it's not. Vhagar is large enough to build a house on. She can hold us," Visenya said to her little brother. Aemond helped her with the wrap around her body, both babies wrapped securely against her chest. It took a bit of patience and finagling to get them both secure.
"Has no one told you about your grandparents, Alyssa and Baelon?" Aemond raised a brow, finishing the wrap.
"I mean, kind of," Luke replied. "But they're barely a week old."
"And? Their eggs are close to hatching. They've been moving, so these children will be dragon riders." Visenya said in a high pitch as she looked at her children. "Right, my little dragons? Mama's sweet little ones."
Aemond smiled at her interaction with them and then looked at his dragon. "You haven't ridden Vhagar in a while."
"You rode Vhagar?" Ellyn asked with a shocked expression.
"Once," Visenya said, glaring at Aemond. "He coerced me into it not long after our wedding. I still hated him at the time and he told me if I didn't Vhagar, he'd let Vhagar eat me."
Luke snickered and Aemond had a smirk on his face, his eye full of the memory. It amazed him how much their dynamic had changed during the last two years. Before, he would have genuinely been content with disposing of her. Now, well ... he couldn't live without her. The fire in his chest would only flicker with the oxygen of Visenya.
She was everything he needed. Her parents were her greatest enemies, and yet they were her greatest strength. She would not have the fire within without the dragons that made her. She was the best and worst of her parents.
She had Daemon's temper, but she knew how to channel it. She was more Daemon than Rhaenyra, something they both knew but never acknowledged. Daemon himself was the image of his own parents, Baelon and Alyssa. Fire and Blood carried through them, each generation just as fierce as the last. It made them strong, but it also got them in trouble.
She had Rhaenyra's soft touch - apparently only used for her Strong sons - and Daemon's wit. And despite all their abuse, Aemond found it hard to hate them at times like this because they created Visenya, they made the love of his life. Visenya Targaryen was the future of their house, the future of Baelon, Alyssa, Jaehaerys, and Aegon the Conqueror himself. A line that seemed to be dying.
Baelon and Alyssa's line seemed to only go on through Daemon - Viserys was so unlike them that one might not believe he was their son. It's not like it even skipped a generation through him because neither Aemond nor his siblings had that fire. Aemond was full of violence but he lacked the fury. He felt like he possessed the spirit of Ser Criston more than any Targaryen. At least for now. He was finding parts of himself the more he aged, and the more Visenya helped him discover himself.
