TO LOVE A KING || Maegor II Targaryen [BEING REWRITTEN]

013▪️ DAUGHTERS OF DEFIANCE

Dawn broke like a whisper over Oldtown, brushing the sky with pale strokes of gold and rose. The wind was gentle, but crisp, carrying with it the scent of brine from the Honeywine River and the chiming bells of the Starry Sept in the distance.

Sunlight trickled between the tall towers and narrow alleys of the ancient city as fishermen roused their boats, merchants opened their shutters, and the sleepy hum of the South slowly stirred to life.

High above the world, perched like a watchful eye upon the realm, stood the Hightower. Its ivory spires stretched towards the heavens, cloaked in fog and pride.

In the uppermost echelons of the tower, where the walls were draped in tapestries older than memory and the windows opened to endless sky, a young woman stood in silence.

The wind whooshed in through the open window, catching the auburn strands of Alicent Hightower’s hair and sending them dancing in hues of copper and red. She closed her eyes, letting the coolness kiss her cheek, her mind adrift to distant days long gone.

The first memory that shimmered in her mind was one of innocence: a wide, sun-drenched meadow beyond the castle gardens, a small pond glistening in the light. There, her mother had chased her and her younger sister Naiomi with laughter in her voice and love in her eyes.

Deceased. Lady Alyrie Florent, ever elegant and kind, would sit with her daughters under shade trees to break bread. They would eat bowls of beef stew or lemon pie, their fingers sticky with honeyed cakes, as Alyrie spun tales of noble dragons and wicked knights.

She embroidered as she told her stories, bright flowers, fierce stags, and searing suns woven with loving hands into cloth. On other days, she plaited their hair with ribbons, took them to pray in the Sept, or led them to the gardens to pluck apples and plant spring roses.

Alicent smiled faintly at the memory, those gentle days filled with stories and sunlight.

More vivid still was the memory of quiet afternoons by the pond, where water lilies grew thick and still. Alyrie would walk with Alicent and Naiomi to that secluded place, and they'd sit on smooth stones, soaking in the calm.

Sometimes, their eldest sister, Charlotte, would join them, book in one hand, biscuits in the other, curling beside the weirwood tree to read aloud while the girls listened with wide eyes.

She remembered Charlotte's voice, soft and assured. Her scent, lavender and parchment. Her laugh, clear as the Sept bells. Back then, the world was gentler. Full of motherly warmth and sunlit joy. Those memories now felt foreign, like fairy tales from another girl's life.

But time was cruel.

It had been ten years since they last saw Charlotte. Ten years since she vanished from their lives like a page torn from a book. Alicent could no longer recall the shape of her sister's face, and even Naiomi, for all her wistful dreams, could no longer describe her.