A Bond Between Dragons

the flaming bacon [004]

The sun was beginning to set outside the Red Keep, casting a warm, amber glow through the windows of the royal chambers where Alicent sat with Helaena. The princess was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her hands delicately holding a large, wriggling insect. She observed it with quiet fascination, her lips moving as she counted the rings along its segmented body.

"This one has 60 rings... and two pairs of legs on each," Helaena whispered, her voice soft and curious. "That's 240."

Alicent responded without truly hearing her, she responded automatically, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond the room. "Yes, it is."

Helaena tilted her head, continuing her quiet study of the insect. "It has eyes... though... I don't believe it can see."

Alicent barely acknowledged the comment, giving a practiced reply. "And why is that so, do you think?"

"It is beyond our understanding," Helaena answered, her voice far away.

Alicent exhaled, her focus still elsewhere. "I suppose you're right. Some things just are."

No matter how hard Alicent tried, she was never able to connect with that quiet, strange girl who always seemed to be living in a world of her own. She wished she could understand her. 

Gods, how she wished for it. It pained her that she could not. Helaena's odd words, her fascination with insects, her eerie, cryptic comments—Alicent had long given up trying to make sense of them.

There was a part of her, one she didn't want to acknowledge, that recoiled from her daughter's strangeness. It wasn't the motherly love she had hoped to feel, the warmth of connection that had come so easily with Aemond, and at the beginning, Aegon, but something colder, something that left her feeling guilty and ashamed.

Alicent resented her own resentment, the bitterness that crept into her heart every time Helaena spoke in riddles, her eyes far away, lost in some distant place beyond the here and now. It wasn't Helaena's fault, she knew that. 

The girl hadn't asked for this... whatever it was.

Alicent had tried, in the early years, to connect with her daughter. She had tried to listen, to engage, to make sense of the odd remarks that tumbled from Helaena's lips. 

But with every effort, she had felt herself slipping further away. Helaena's world was so different, so distant, that Alicent could never seem to bridge the gap between them. And after a time, she had stopped trying.

What hurt the most was the realization that she didn't know her daughter. Not truly. She didn't know what Helaena felt, what she thought beyond those whispered words that unsettled everyone around her. 

Alicent saw the way the courtiers looked at her daughter, the way her brothers—Aegon and Aemond—avoided her strange remarks with uneasy glances. And part of her couldn't blame them.

But another part, the part that still ached with guilt, hated herself for feeling this way. She was Helaena's mother. She should protect her, understand her, love her without condition. Instead, she found herself resentful, frustrated by the one child she could not reach. 

It made her feel weak, as though she had failed in the one thing that should have been simplest—loving her child as she was.

Alicent's fingers tightened in her lap as the guilt gnawed at her. She loved Helaena, of course she did. But it was a distant love, filled with an unspoken sorrow for the connection that had never formed between them. Instead, she felt the cold edge of resentment, and it terrified her. 

What kind of mother feels this way?

Just then, the door creaked open, and the heavy footsteps of a Kingsguard filled the chamber. He bowed slightly; his voice low but urgent. "Your Grace."