Alicent Hightower raised a bastard - The Stranger's Child.
Except she didn't.
Naenyra looked nothing like the Targaryen beauty that her father expected. She was, as her mother always wished, a Hightower at heart, and how she looked only proved it...
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Alicent never thought that she would have to fight for the legitimacy of her children, that the devotion she had shown Viserys since they married, should have been enough for him to be content in believing that she was his. Her first act of dedication was setting aside the name she had so proudly given her daughter, in favour of the one Viserys no longer wanted her to have. Naenyra.
"Viserys, if you just looked, you would see that she is yours - please!" Alicent begged, tired of hesitating beside a crib, desperate to get him to at least glance at her again. If he looked, then he would see; Alicent believed fiercely.
"Rhaenyra is right, Alicent. Look at her hair, when has a Targaryen ever had that kind of hair?!" He fired back at her, the sound startling the newborn as wide dark eyes sought after their mother.
"When has a Targaryen ever been married to a woman who doesn't have Valyrian hair?!" She fired back. "It is my hair that she has, Viserys, not the likes of Rickard Thorne who has fought off vicious accusations by none other than your hypocrite of a daughter!" The backhand sent her falling to the floor, pain like a fire in her cheek as shredded fingers caught on the stone beneath her. Alicent focused on a crack, of the sharp bite of her teeth into her cheek, and the desperate will of begging her eyes not to well.
Viserys seethed. "I thought I told you when Jace was born that your accusations were false, that the gossip of maids had gotten to you and that I would not hear it."
"But you are happy to hear it about your own daughter, the same one that carries your smile." That silenced him, had him still as he looked down at his wife. "Why would I lie to you, Viserys? What do I gain from sleeping with another? The loss of my husband? My family? My place in court?" She asked, her chin lifting to look him in his light eyes. "I love you and our children, Viserys, and I would never do anything to jeopardise that."
She could see the cogs turning in his head, his chance to weigh up what she was telling him. "Please, just look at her." And Viserys did, he came around the cot before daring to look in at the babe that lay nestled in lace. Her hair was odd, he couldn't deny that as auburn locks had begun to curl around her crown but two single strips of white sat at the very front.
He supposed she couldn't have gotten those from anywhere else, that neither Rickard nor Alicent had white hair within their family, either. "She is mine, that is clear, but you are in there too." Alicent said, finally pulling herself from the floor and swiping clear her dress. The shape of his fingers were clear on her cheek, the outline of each finger he could trace with his fingertip. Guilt did not swarm him, even when he reached in to touch at the babes cheek.
Two large eyes blinked, dark in shade just like Alicent's. "I do not want to present her to court until we are certain, on her seventh nameday."
Her mouth opened in disbelief. "Her seventh nameday? Viserys, you cannot be serious."
"I am serious, Alicent, and then, when we can see that she is mine, she will inherit her name." Her head shook, dark curls tumbling around her shoulders.
