𝑨 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝑯𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 // 𝑨𝒆𝒈𝒐𝒏 𝑰𝑰 𝑻𝒂𝒓𝒈𝒂𝒓𝒚𝒆𝒏

73. Our Little Girl

The tray was set down on the bedside table. On it was a bowl of some hot soup that the maesters had suggested that Aelys eat to get better. In her desperation to get her daughter to get well, this was the only thing the little girl was allowed to eat.

"... Mama... My head hurts..." Alyssa heard her say from the bed, her voice was so much weaker and smaller than it usually was, and if she hadn't forbidden herself from thinking bad thoughts, she would have admitted to herself that Aely's has gotten a little worse since she was last examined.

She cupped the little girl's cheek and tried to smile for her. Taking her soft toy and laying it close to her. "It's going to be fine, my sweet girl. You'll get well and then we'll be able to play again, but until then..."

She paused her sentence and lifted the spoon from the bowl, she slipped her hand under the spoon so as not to spill on the bed and brought it closer to Aelys. "You have to eat this."

Her daughter scrunched up her face and shook her head, her face holding that look of disgust. "But mama, it is no good."

"I want you to get well, so you have to eat this for me, okay?"

Aelys refused at first but her mother's begging and desperate please made her relent at last. Much to Alyssa's delight. For two weeks, she had sat by her daughter's side and taken care of her, doing everything the maesters had told her to do, but nothing had changed. She hadn't gotten any better.

The little girl made a grimace after seallowing the soup. It was some soup with herbs in it and by the looks of it, the soup didn't taste very good at all. But it was true that she ingested it in order to get well.

"Where did you get that from?" Alyssa gestured to the unrecognizable toy next to her.

"Dada gave it to me," Aelys replied, hugging the soft toy. "He says it brings company. She continued, making Alyssa both freeze but also smile.

If there was one thing Aegon Targaryen liked more than sleeping and being with his wife and children, it was the hilt of sitting in a quiet library with a pitcher of wine and a cup. It wasn't something he even thought was a necessity in his life untill now.

How the hell did it get like this? Well, it's because of your idiocy. Replied his inner voice in less than a second. And true it was.

Despite their conversation and his apology, everything was different now. It was as if everything had changed for the worse and they hardly spoke to each other. Every night she changed clothes and went to bed. And the times he tried to get close to her and hold her, she didn't seem to return his affection.

His mother always used to tell him as a child that you should protect those who are close to you, that you should take care of your family no matter what because they will never hurt you, they will never deceive you, they will never betray you. But it felt like the complete opposite.

The emptiness and silence gave all thoughts the room, the silence gave the thoughts a voice that echoed, that took up space and would not stop.

A long and deep sigh left the system. I really have a tendency to just fuck things up. Or so he thought. If he hadn't just left her there alone and maybe listened for once, he might have been with her now, with his face buried in the crook of her neck or in her beautiful hair. In the end, he was the only one who messed him up, time and again he proves that he hasn't learned anything.

He remembers what she had said to him one evening on the balcony in their early stages of marriage.

"You can't live a life where everyone has already decided what you are. Even if the whole world sees you as a disappointment, it doesn't mean you have to be one."