FIRE AND BLOOD [Aemond Targaryen]

Prologue

Visenya's birth was not a happy one.

She came to this world fighting and crying her heart out, right after her twin brother Baelor. But he didn't live for long and neither did their mother, Queen Aemma.

You know, grief is really just love.

It's all the love you want to give but cannot. All of the unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest.

Grief is just love with no place to go.

King Viserys thought he died when the love of his life, Aemma Arryn, did. He accepted he wouldn't feel happiness again because of the thing he had done. He had tortured her. And for that, he deserved every bit of the bad things that the Gods may send him.

Rhaenyra, on the other hand, was afraid that she could never truly show love to Visenya, her sister. She feared that every time she looked at her, she would be reminded of everything she had lost.

Viserys had had children after with Alicent Hightower; Aegon, Helaena and Aemond. But they were not Rhaenyra. And certainly they were not Visenya. Simply because they were not Aemma's children.

At the end, they were both wrong.

Well, Rhaenyra was not entirely wrong. It was true that every time she looked at her younger sister she thought of her mother. They looked so similar that sometimes when she looked too fast at her, she would think that she was seeing the ghost of her late mother. And that pained her. But she didn't take it as a bad thing. Rhaenyra liked to believe she was the angel her mother left behind on Earth for her.

As for the King, raising Visenya brought so much happiness to his heart. It felt like a part of Aemma was still with him. That he was not dead at all. That he had to live to see his daughter become a woman the 7 kingdoms would remember.

She was one of those girls who breathed fire when confronted but loved so gently that it made you forget what she was capable of doing. She was too quiet, or was too loud. She took things too seriously, or not seriously at all. She was too sensitive, or too cold-hearted. She hated with every fiber of her being, or loved with every piece of her heart. There was no in-between for her. It was either all or nothing.

And suddenly, all the love Viserys and Rhaenyra thought was lost from grieving. All the love they didn't know were to put when Aemma died, they put it on Visenya.