Baptism | Cregan Stark

two





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The realm was at peace and prosperity at the birth of Aegon the second. In 109 AC, the young prince had his second name day. Everyone rejoiced, except for the princess Aelyna. The young girl of merely five was forced to spend another year under the watchful guide of her uncle Viserys. Aelyna Targaryen was born to prince Daemon Targaryen. Her mother nothing but a drunken mystery to the prince. On a summer dawn the servants found the young babe wrapped in cloths left at the Red Keep, attached to her nothing but a parchment for the king to see and only him.

The child was a bastard, evidence of Daemon's disregard of the union of he and Rhea Royce. There were rumors of a plan, to keep the child hidden, to send her far where she could not harm the union of Rhea and Daemon. Was.

Despite the brute nature Daemon possessed, the prince remembered the first time he held his daughter. The moment she took his hand, he took her as his own. Aelyna carried a trait of her grandmother that Daemon and Viserys ached since her passing.

Her mismatched eyes.

One violet, the other green. How could he abandon a child with the face of Alyssa Targaryen. The babe never sat still as a babe, from the moment she stood on her legs she crept through the castle. Viserys had called her a little spider. Always finding her in secret crypts and passages of the Red Keep. Despite Viserys' demands, Daemon was unable to remember her mother. Not a name, nor a face belonged to Aelyna. As though she had ever even existed.

Her first memory not her father or her mother, but rather the insults hurled to her face.

Bastard. Whore- child.

Even under Daemon's care she could not ignore the way the highborn ladies looked down on her, like the vermin she was. To them she'd always be a great joke to jester while they stuffed their faces with cakes.

To Daemon, she was his gift.

The girl was growing and forgetting what it was to have a father. The war in the Stepstones continued on, abandoning her to rodents of the red keep. Her uncle, the poor fool, playing pawn to everyone's ambition. Even at five she could tell that no one who was not them was an enemy. Aelyna kept her strained eyes on her uncle as he played with young Aegon.

"Well, isn't this splendid." Viserys laughed to his company in the carriage. The young queen Alicent, herself, Rhaenyra and Aegon, accompanied with a few servants. Rhaenyra and Aelyna shared a knowing glance to one another, both desiring to be anywhere but there. "The whole of our family off to celebrate an adventure in the Kingswood."

"It's not like we had much choice." Aelyna remarked in Valyrian. The child only ever spoke high Valyrian in the company of others. Daemon had taught her from an early age on that those who could not speak their mother tongue, was no friend to her. Perhaps ignorant of him, but the prince refused to take the risk of having the child harmed from making friends from his enemies and foes. "I'd rather take a trip on dragonback to the Stepstones."

Viserys sent only a warning look to his stubborn niece. Aelyna much like his council had grown tired of the war. The carriage shook roughly as Aelyna took the hand of her cousin. The pairs eyes straining to Alicent, as she protectively held her stomach.

"Should you be traveling in such condition?" Rhaenyra asked the young wife

"The maester said that being out in nature would do me well." Alicent tried to reassure them

"The maesters are idiots." Aelyna retorted. A slight smirk formed on Alicent's face. Though the child only spoke one language, she had spend enough time around her to know when she was calling one an idiot.