The King's Whore - Aegon/Aemond

Chapter 26

“Helaena, sweetheart?” Fern's voice was feather light. She gently closed the door behind her.
Helaena did not look up.
She sat in the dark, her beautiful blonde hair a mess of knots. Her eyes were red with tears. Yesterday's dinner sat uneaten on the table.
“It's Fern.” She says again, trying her best to coax the queen from her agony. She'd been like this for days now. Unmoving. Unspeaking. Hollow.
Ever since it had happened.
Ever since she'd lost her son in front of her.
Fern stepped closer. “Have you eaten today?”
She already knew the answer. Helaena wasn't eating. Everyone in the Keep knew that. No one knew how to help her.
Where Aemond and Aegon had turned to frenzy of anger, Helaena had sunk into herself so deep that Fern feared she'd never find her way back out again.
She sat down beside Helaena, touching her hand. The only response she got was a flinch.
Fern's heart shattered.
Sweet, beautiful, kind, Helaena.
She did not deserve this.
No one deserved this.
Fern thought about Rhaenyra all those miles away on Dragonstone grieving her own son just as Helaena was.
Surely she could not have ordered such a thing to happen to her own sister, knowing the agony it would bring. Surely.
Aegon had said it was Daemon. That did not mean Rhaenyra had agreed.
But then again... Perhaps she had. Perhaps that Targaryen fire ran hot in her blood, and perhaps she'd cared more about revenge than those poor innocent lives.
Fern bit the inside of her cheek.
She had an attachment to Aegon. She loved him because he'd always been good to her when no one else had. But, in truth, it was not Aegon that she pitied.
It wasn't Aemond either.
Those boys reaped what they sowed.
She cared for them, she sympathised, but they were not innocent.
Helaena... Sweet, gentle, broken, Helaena. She was the innocent.
And Fern had grown to love the queen dearly.
She'd never had siblings, but Helaena had once told her they could be as sisters. And Fern took this position with the utmost dedication.
She softly picked up the hairbrush from Helaena's table, smoothing out locks of her pretty pale hair.
“I helped have your dress made for the funeral..." She said as she combed through Helaena's knitted hair. “So you don't have to worry about anything, alright?”
The brush stuck in a knot.
Delicately, with care and attention, she eased it through. She made sure it never once made Helaena so much as uncomfortable.
The Queen kept staring blankly out the window.
“Your mother thought that green would be appropriate. You've always looked pretty in green.”
Still nothing.
Not so much as an acknowledgement.
Nothing at all until a soft knock sounded at the door.
Fern looked over. Stood there in the doorway, a servant behind her, was sweet little Jaehaera.
The small girl was only half dressed, the buttons of her gown all skewed and her hair in two tall bunches on the very top of her head.
Helaena saw the girl, her only daughter, and her face paled. Fern noticed how the Queen's breathing grew faster. The panic, the agony, the despair in her eyes.
“Hello, Princess!” Fern said cheerily, hiding any hint of fear of worry or pain or doubt. She knew she had to stay strong.
For Aegon.
For Helaena.
For sweet little Jaehaera.
For the family she'd been brought into.
“Now don't you look very gorgeous today!” She picked the young girl up. “Would you like me to fix your hair, sweetheart?”
Jaehaera nodded. Her eyes were fixed on her mother.
She'd always been a quiet girl, but she'd grown quieter since her brother died.
And quieter still since losing her mother in the process.
Fern scooped her up and smiled. “Come on then, Your Majesty.”
As they left the room, Jaehaera played with Fern's hair. And Fern's eyes kept wandering to the little girl. Stuck there.
There was something strangely comforting, in a time of such grief and misery, in having someone to look after. This small, innocent, little being that Fern could hold and care for.
It helped to take her mind off of all that was happening.
It helped to ease the pain just a little, to worry about someone else.
Fern sat Jaehaera down gently.  She picked up a comb, and just as she had for the girl's mother, she softly brushed her hair.
Jaehaera sat patiently, kicking her legs back and forth, as Fern combed through her silvery locks.
“You look so beautiful.” Fern smiled, kissing the girl on the cheek.
Jaehaera gave a small smile back. “Like mother?”
“Just like your mother.” Fern said gently.
“Fern...” The little girl began shyly after a moment of silence. She bit her lower lip, fiddling with her skirt. “Are the men going to kill me next?”
Fern's heart cracked open at the question. “No, my love! Of course not. No one is going to hurt you. Your father isn't going to let anything bad happen to you. Not ever.”
It was true.
For all of his faults, the love that Aegon had for his children was real. And Jaehaera... His precious only daughter... Fern knew that Aegon would protect her with his life.
Right in that moment, the King and his brother were preparing to burn the realm to the ground for Jaehaerys and for Helaena. Queen Alicent had been made to sue for reason and mercy while Aegon saw red. He wanted revenge. And all of them knew there was no chance of peace now.
Aegon would either kill Rhaenyra or die trying.
Fern touched Jaehaera's little freckled cheek. The girl looked so much like both her parents. She had Aegon's nose, and both of them scrunched it in the same way when they were worried about something. She'd seen that expression on Aegon so many times over the years, when she'd held him in her arms at the brothel and when she'd say beside him after the coronation.
She kissed Jaehaera's forehead. "Your father is going to stop the bad men from doing anything to anyone ever again."
"But he can't bring back Jaehaerys."
Fern sighed. "No, my love, he can't."
"He's sad just like mother is."
Fern nodded. Yes, he was. Losing their child had cut through Aegon just as it had Helaena.
He'd tried to comfort his sister, tried to go to her... But when he'd found that he couldn't reach her, all Aegon had been able to do was focus his grief and rage on revenge. Bloody, fiery, brutal revenge.
"Have a rest, darling." Fern said gently. "I'm going to see your father and make sure he's alright."
Jaehaera nodded, climbing into bed. She reached and grabbed her little toy dragon, passing it over to her father's mistress. "Will you give him my Sunfyre?" She asked softly, eyes of pure innocence.
Fern nodded, taking the little toy. "I will, my love. I'm sure it will help him very much."
Jaehaera smiled and lay down.
When the door to Jaehaera's bedroom closed, Fern was alone for the first time in hours.
She felt the emotions start to stir, the pain and heartbreak and devastation. The tears welled in her eyes but she took a long breath and lifted her chin.
She had to stay strong.
For Helaena. For Jaehaera.
For Aegon.