Chapter Text
I
“I know it's wrong -
God, it's all kinds of wrong -
but I just want to lie down with you
and wake up with you, just once,
just once ever in my life.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
Waking up is the same as dying, sweet and slow as poison, like drowning without notice, easy and patient. Aegon gasps once, twice, and then opens his eyes, waiting for the pain that had been his company since his escapade on Rook’s Rest, that aches so fiercely as the emotional wound that festers his mind, the fact that every single one of his loved ones are dead, and all because of him. Because of his indulgence, his negligence, his fears. The physical pain, either way, never comes, and he moves his legs - his legs! - slowly and deliberately, observing his surroundings. It must be a dream, isn’t it?
It is his chambers, his princely chambers, before he even became King of the Seven Kingdoms, but the body laying in the bed isn’t his. The legs are smooth, slender and long, sweet at the bare ghost touch. His nails are well made, and his skin has a youthful rosy color. The weirdest part, he thinks as he sits straight, is that Aegon Targaryen has breasts, very soft and perky breasts. Who would think that? He stifles a humorless laugh, running his hands through his chest and belly, smooth and sweet. What a pitiful excuse of a joke, this dream, where he is whole and hearty but womanly. Then, he gets up, and tests his legs, knowing that when he wakes up they won’t work again, broken and battered against his wooden chair. He swiftly twirls around the stone floor, giggling, and the giggles aren’t his own, they are delicate and feminine.
Aegon Targaryen looks in the mirror and then she screams.
His mother looks very much the same, red curly hair, fair skin and ablaze green eyes. It’s her expression the new part - preoccupied, full of worry, almost kind, while she surveys his head with her hands, tender and never aggressive. The Kingsgard behind her doesn’t look at him with the same disgust, but worry, new faces he never knew.
“What made you scream, Gaia, dear?”
Of course, he should ask who this girl Gaia is, but the answer is very much obvious. Whichever body is this, is his now. Hers, actually. First, his mother is calling him by this name, and of course it could be a delirium, but feels very real, the way the cold floor wraps around his toes, his mother's careful touch, his hands on her dress, holding on like a lifeline. The girl in the mirror is also painfully familiar - the same wavy ashy-blonde hair, the same purple, almost green-blue-sea eyes, his mother’s smile. This is a very weird dream, or a very crazy reality. Aegon is pretty sure he wants to live in this place better than his broken old life.
The last thing Aegon remembers is embarking in his litter, and drinking a whole flagon of Arbor Red, dejected and defeated. Then he fell asleep, quickly and not ever painfully, poisoned by his own men, he knew, maybe Larys or maybe Corlys, any of the vipers that surrounded him after Rhaenyra’s death. And then, this. Whatever weird magic, he didn’t truly understand, but if it was any kind of second chance…
“It is nothing, mother” He hears himself, a sweet girlish voice, well toned and low, a strange thing indeed. “A bad dream that scared me a little, that is it.”
Alicent Hightower doesn’t seem convinced, and Aegon - No, Gaia, until he understands what the fuck happened with his cock, thank you - never loved her more than now, the way she holds her daughter’s face with love, not a little too strong than necessary, a mother’s touch, the kind of touch she never gave to him before. Aegon bites his lips, dull of uncertainty, plush and full and red, and waits.
“Mother, is Aemond well? Helaena? Daeron?”
Mother looks at him like he is from outside of the world, but relieves him of her touch, backing away a little, clasping her hands in her middle. Maybe she is thinking of it as a need for reassurance after a bad dream, maybe she too thinks her daughter is crazy, maybe she knows somehow Gaia is gone, and a stranger is left in her place. Even then, she says:
“Of course. Aemond is carrying on with his duties, and Helaena is at the gardens with her companions.” Mother told him, smoothing the front of her dress slowly, kindly regarding him. Her. Dear gods, it would be very confusing all the time, wouldn’t it? “And Daeron is doing whatever little children do when left unattended for more than an hour. Which I hope isn’t using Tessarion as a pony again.”
Aegon snorts very unladylikely. It is something so out of place, all of them healthy, hale and together again. He used to dream about it, agonizing in pain. He used to hear Aemond’s voice, and it was the only thing that made that torment bearable when he was stuck in bed, with only the Grand Maester as his companion. He had to live through the hell of each of their passings - first his sweet Jaehaerys, beheaded like a criminal by his own aunt, then Aemond, dying alongside the only thing he loved in the world, his old war criminal dragon, leaving him all alone in his court of viper (at least Aemond was always true to his hate). Sweet Helaena’s he only heard about, how she threw herself off the window of Maegor’s Holdfast, how she agonized after their son’s death and went crazy. Now, here they were.
Aegon didn’t understand everything about this new world. What was the girl’s whose body he possessed role? How would he navigate through this life? Would he ever go back to who he was?
Trembling, Aegon Targaryen killed the man, prayed to the fourteen gods of Valyria for forgiveness, and then let the girl be born.