Chapter Text
He doesn’t know what happens.
Well…he does but he doesn’t understand it.
One moment he is sure he is dead, he is sure that Vhagar is going to kill him, sure that she is going to swoop down and take him and his dragon. Sure that Aemond is going to get his revenge finally for the eye that he took all those years ago and then he is tumbling downwards into the dark clouds that mire the sea that he was once so afraid of, falling down and spiralling and—
He wakes up with a thump with a woman who might be the spitting image of his mother looking down at him her hands on her flat belly looking at him with an odd expression.
“Ow” is all he says.
Luke thinks Jace might be right and he is an idiot because how in the name of all of the dragons of the old and the new is that what he comes out with right now?
His mother’s doppelganger tilts her head to the side and smiles.
“Quite, I go to pray and a hole in my ceiling appears and you drop out of the sky”
Luke groans. He feels like he did that time that Jace snuck him some the ale that Aegon had back when they were all speaking.
“Alright” the woman says with an eyeroll that Luke thinks she has copied off his mother. “Who are you?”
“Prince Lucerys”
“There is no Prince Lucerys”
“Prince Lucerys, son of Rheynera Targaryen Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Princess of Dragonstone, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. Also depending on what side your on The Black Queen and the Realms Delight, also if Otto Hightower is still a cunt the Realms Whore”
The woman blinks and rears backwards.
“What?” she says flatly.
“You heard” Luke says sitting up. “Now where is my dragon?”
But just as he speaks there is a chirping noise and he blinks. Arrax is the same height that she was when she was first separated from him and put in the dragon pit. Now she is a small dragon again, she is not missing any of her body where Vhagar’s teeth clamped down and shook her like a cat in it’s mother’s mouth. There is no high mocking laughter of glee that came from Aemond’s mouth and—
“Dropped out of the ceiling? What do you mean?”
“I mean—” she points at the ceiling. “You fell out of my fucking ceiling boy. To be honest I don’t know how nobody heard you. If I am being honest I don’t know why I am not calling for my guards but what you’ve just told me seems to indicate that my daughter becomes the first Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. And I am not sure if that is foolishness or treason”
There is a pause as her words sink in and then—
“Who are you?” he asks sitting up. Arrax comes and hops on his shoulder chirping into his ear as he stands his head ringing. The woman looks at him and her resemblance to his mother is so strong that…there is only really one person it could be but that…that is insane…
Right?
“My name is Aemma. Queen Aemma of the Seven Kingdom’s. This is the year 105 AC”
And…look…Luke is not proud of what he does next.
He faints.
When he wakes up he is on her bed Arrax curled up next to him sleeping. She is sat by the open windows sipping wine and watching him with a quiet pensive expression.
“So” she sys when she sees him awake. “You are related to my Rhaenyra?”
“She is my mother”
Queen Aemma takes a long gulp of wine.
“That girl can barely command a kitten” she says quietly. “And your telling me that she is a mother? Never mind that but a Queen I don’t…I do not understand…” she shakes her head. “How is it not Daemon?”
Luke pauses. He knows the story but this thing is too insane, too wild, too not happening. He pauses as he scraps up his neck to find his scent gland. He grabs it and swallows as he can feel it twist under his fingers.
In another life he was an omega. Somehow he is an alpha.
What the fuck?
“Tell me everything” she says sharply. “I know you are a Targaryen boy I can see it by your dragon. So tell me what happened. I…I do not know what this is, if it is magic or the Gods or…I don’t know but you are here for a reason and judging by your reaction things where you came from are not good…if it is the future”
Luke pauses.
“You think I time travelled?”
In his head he can feel Jace laughing, he can feel it.
She looks at him evenly and then.
“Tell me what happens to my daughter boy”
And so he opens his mouth and tells her.
Aemma is not a woman to be overcome by a sentimental moment.
She has had five pregnancies and only one of them is alive, that sixteen year old girl who she adores beyond all of her heart. That sixteen year old girl who needs her now more than she has ever needed her in her life. That sixteen year old girl who is apparently the mother of this boy on her bed speaking his hands on his wine cup and a dragon on his shoulder with a low monotonous tone. Who had appeared after she had prayed to the Gods Old and New to tell her what would happen if she did not make it out of the childbed. What would happen to her daughter.
Well…she has to give them this, the Gods have a fucked up sense of humour.
She doesn’t know what offends her the most. That her husband would have her cut open, that the boy she loves like a son would joke about her death, that Alicent Hightower that little slip of a thing would do what she could not and have not one son but three or that her daughter is…well…shameless.
Actually the last one doesn’t bother her that much. Aemma remembers Harwin Strongs father when he was young and she cannot blame her darling daughter for type but at the same time she can blame her for being so obvious about it. And really Leanor!?
And that is before Otto Hightower plunges the entire realm into war and the dragons begin to dance.
“So…” she says again taking a gulp of wine. “You…mean to tell me that where you come from…my daughter and that in your…time…the dragons were going to war because Otto Hightower wanted his grandson on the throne instead of her?”
“Essentially”
“So who killed you?”
There is a smirk on his face that she doesn’t just like. He knows who kills him she realises. This boy knows who is the death of him and from what she has heard she suspects that it’s the infighting from the Hightower part of the family.
She taps her nail on the desk.
Otto Hightower.
Aemma is under no illusion when it comes to that man. Daemon cannot stand him and her husband considers him a trusting friend. Aemma is halfway in both camps. Otto would sell his soul, his children and his right hand to be as close to the throne as he can, but at the same time he is a good administrator and she remembers how hollow he seemed when he lost his wife…she knows that a worst case scenario for the man is Dameon as King, it’s him who keeps pushing her to have another, keeps pushing Viserys for an heir or at the very least to rip up a hundred or so years of tradition and name someone else as the heir to that fucking throne.
And Alicent…
Look…Aemma knows realistically that the girl is not responsible for her father. Children are not responsible for their parents actions. If that were true both her daughter and her brother in law would not be alive right now. But Alicent fucking Hightower…oh it rankles it irritates her right down to her very core of her bones.
And three sons. Three! As if she has not laboured and screamed and prayed and begged and forced her body and her heart and her mind to continue pushing for this heir that her husband so desperately wanted.
“So” she says again. “The Gods sent you back in time to warn me of the future facing my daughter”
“Eh—”
“To stop the war of the dragons”
“If you say so”
She looks at the alpha in her bed and sighs.
“Go to sleep” she says not unkindly. “I will try and figure this mess out”
“Won’t anyone comment on a strange alpha in your bed?”
She giggles in genuine amusement. She had not thought of that. It has been a long time since she’s had anyone in her bed not her husband and his visits have now become a bit desperate. They both know the countdown to the end of her having children has begun.
“No” she says thinking vaguely that it’s a good thing her husband is away negotiating something in Dragonstone and her daughter is three floors away no doubt with her replacement gigging in bed when she should be asleep. “Nobody will mind”
She had sent away her twittering attendants, she had wanted a night in prayer wondering if she should still push on with trying to have another child. She did not expect an answer in this form. In the form of her grandson coming out of the ceiling to tell her about the end of her entire family and the slide of the realm into war. Honestly! There were other ways that she could be told to tell Viserys to leave her room and not come back surely!
Anyhow.
The boy’s eyes drift close and Aemma tucks him into bed. He looks exhausted shaking beneath her covers and she thinks that this morning he had a life and now he does not, the world that he knows has fallen away and…and he is her grandson. All of that and it would still be a woman with a heart of stone who would not tuck him in and brush back the dark curls with her ringed fingers feeling them thick and heavy running through her hand.
“Sweet Dreams Lucerys” she says the way she still sometimes says it to his mother. The way she did it when his mother was small, when her darling girl was small and the world had seemed so big and little Syrax was curled up next to her like this little dragon is curled up next to him.
“Love you Mumma” he mutters sleepily and Aemma swallows feeling the pain lance down her spine deep into her gut. To have a boy say that to her has been the greatest ambition of her life, the deepest desire…and now it cannot be. Not at the expense of her daughter.
She gently tucks him back into bed and the dragon watches her and curls around her master and tucks her tail under her like Syrax used to do and closes her eyes and sleeps too. A dragon reborn just like her rider.
Wonderful.
Then she stands and begins to pace.
The thought of her daughter the way her son has described her, lonely, alone, unsure of what to do next, trying to rule, being put in a position that she should have never been in makes her want to find her husband and smack him. The darling idiot has never been good at thinking through the consequences.
But Otto has.
She sighs and walks the other way.
She cannot get pregnant again. That is the main thing. And to be honest it’s almost a relief when she comes to that conclusion. She cannot be pregnant again, in truth she doesn’t think she can bare it if another child dies in her womb or in her arms. She has been granted the gift of a daughter and the chance to protect her and that will be enough. She will make it enough. No…it is enough. Rhaenyra has always been enough.
If she stays alive she keeps Otto Hightower off her throne. Of course the odious snake will move towards Daemon unless…
Unbidden her thoughts stray to Alicent and…
The best way to keep Otto off her throne is to marry that daughter off. But Otto will not settle for anything other than the best for his daughter. And she knows that Daemon has pretty much marked his niece as his own.
Well…that worked and it didn’t did it?
She wonders if her daughter really loved Harwin Strong. Really, really loved him?
If Daemon is still the heir Otto will move against him and the realm goes to war. If Daemon is married into the Hightower faction then he is safe. And a part of her is genuinely amused by the thought of what Otto and Daemon will do in a small castle together. Then she can secure a husband for her daughter or at the very least a clean future.
Now. How to explain the boy?
She knows that bastards riding dragons are a hot topic for her husband. For his father it was almost unheard of but she knows Viserys has worried about the lack of dragon riders. She has never ridden, he does not anymore, Rhaenyra is far too young and far too inexperienced, Daemon, love him dearly, is an idiot and she doesn’t trust Coryls lot as far as she can see them.
If the boy was to save her? From some random assassination plot? Lannister’s perhaps? They seem to be making themselves fat off her daughter’s misery and they’ve not done anything stupid for a good two generations. Or maybe the Starks…oh no nobody would believe that, the Starks eat honour with their bread and they are far too passionate when it comes to defending themselves. You could put a Stark on trial for stealing a loaf of bread and you would get a six hour passionate defence.
She could make it Otto’s brother? No…she needs Otto here. To coin a common whore’s phrase Aemma wants to see the man in the tent pissing outside than on the outside pissing in.
She can legitimise the boy. Viserys for all his faults loves her and she adores him. She can get Luke legitimised as a Alpha Targayren (something they are in short supply off) with a dragon—some distant nephew from the many family branches of this tree and get him under her guard. Then she can use what he has told her to secure her daughter’s happiness.
It's going to be messy and she knows that some people will suffer. She cares less about Otto and Alicent…well…like she said before, its not the girls fault her father is a cunt with a capital C. But while there is breath in Aemma’s body she is not going to let that little silly slip of a thing pop out three sons in the bed where Aemma has bled and screamed and held her own dead sons begging the Gods for a mercy they never granted her.
No.
She turns and walks out to the balcony. There is a full moon tonight, a far cry from the storm Lucerys said was coming.
What was it he had said.
The Dance of the Dragons.
That was Rheynes phrasing it she can tell. Woman always was dramatic.
Aemma is not a dragon queen, she knows what half of the realm think of her, she knows for all his kind words and honeyed smile Otto thinks her useless, tired and plump and not worth worrying about. Adore her as he does Daemon thinks the same.
Otto, Dameon, Viserys, and in the middle her darling girl and that red headed friend of hers caught in the middle their friendship, their great love ruined beyond all repair.
No.
Not on her watch.
She stalks back to the room and goes to the chest of draws.
Nobody knows she has this, nobody knows that she keeps a vial of this but she has maids and maids have loyalty and Aemma is not a stupid woman.
She grips the vial of Moon Tea and swigs it down in three gulps wincing. Then for good measure she downs her wine to rid herself of the taste.
It’s nothing she has not been thinking about. She cannot, she cannot mourn anymore children.
Aemma nods to herself and then she catches a glimpse of herself in the looking glass and she pulls herself up to her full height and straightens her back every inch the Queen.
The Queen.
Aemma.
Not fucking Alicent Hightower and the Seven and the fucking endless Green dresses.
AEMMA.
And she is going to help her grandson save her daughter.
And if anyone, anyone gets in her way…well…they will find she doesn’t need a dragon in order to set the world on fire.
Just watch her work.