The Tartered Dragon - Aegon, Son of Baelon)by mootjeman7)

Chapter 3

97 AC – Kings Landing

Baelon POV

He watched his youngest walk into the throne room with that distinct expression of his. He hated that expression, that dispassionate boredom that Aegon often bore whenever they were in the same room. It hurt him more than he would admit, to see that expression on a face that bore his Alyssa's eyes.

Mismatched eyes – one violet and the other the same startling green with hues of every spectrum of Valyrian purple. The same eyes his Alyssa once bore and had delighted him with.

The same eyes that gazed at him with indifference.

He knew he deserved some of it, his absence from his youngest' life ensured that.

Aegon's recovery from his infancy illness had been…different. He was no longer in pain as he had so oft been yet instead he had been…quiet. Subdued. The marked opposite to how his eldest sons had been who'd been boisterous and happy children.

According to Elysar, such behaviour had not been unheard of from children who had once been sickly and were without their mother, as if they were able to sense their mother's absence.

At times, he had wondered if his son had ever really recovered from his illness, so unlike a child of two, three namedays had he been.

It had seemed like the Stranger had left its touch on his son and he'd been left a husk of a boy infant. A mockery that had took the place of his Alyssa. Baelon stared at his son who was only a few paces away reaching the centre of the throne room.

It hadn't been easy for him, to bear the looks of those at court, to bear the looks of his father and his brother about his son. The strange son.

Sometimes it had seemed like there was more to Aegon than any realised, when he saw Aegon's eyes, Alyssa's eyes, were older than they had any right to be.

They seemed…weary and old, pained and numb.

Like his father when he thought none could see.

More than a few times had he looked upon his son with a gaze that wished it had been Alyssa who had survived and not this…shadow.

More than a few times since had he regretted thinking such spiteful thoughts. Alyssa would have been ashamed of him. With a fleeting thought, he thought she may even be looking down at him with a smug smile on her face and laughing eyes that said 'I told you so'.

Here he stood, his Aegon, their Aegon, wide shoulders and of stocky build, a long face that was losing its childish features, he was unrecognisable of the sickly infant who looked closer to death than he did living and, as he stood tall and firm, he could only think Alyssa had been right.

He never voiced how proud he was of Aegon, never in a way in which Alyssa would have done about the man Aegon was now becoming.

He remembered the day it all had changed, the day Aegon at four name days had met Mīsaragorn, the Runt Dragon as the dragon had been known at the time.

It was the only time he'd seen such great unhidden joy in Aegon's face, eyes wide with wonder and awe, as if he had finally found the half of his soul that had been lost to illness and to the Stranger.

His son had finally come alive and had rid himself of the shackles that seemed to have choked the life out of him.

It was one of the few memories since Alyssa's death that he cherished.

And since then, Aegon had only gone from strength to strength.

The acolytes, and then later Elysar, had told him of Aegon's sharp mind, no brilliant mind who had boundless curiosity about the world. There was little that Aegon did not excel in when he put his mind to it yet it was mathematics and history that Aegon truly was interested in.