Chapter Text
The System dropped her on the day of her wedding.
Yeah, that wedding.
In hindsight, it made sense. For the timeline in the show to fit (even if only barely), Aegon the Second would have to have been conceived on the wedding night, or close to it.
Guess this means this was the closest day it could drop me for me to be both Queen and use the Boon, was the only thought Alicent (she couldn’t be anyone else, not anymore, not if she wanted to remain sane) allowed to pass through her mind. She was in her… solar? Drawing room? What was the medieval version of a living room? Anyway, she was there, and there were people around her, who had woken her up that morning, and were now helping her onto her dress.
It was pretty. But after a lifetime of being told she would eventually wed in white the cream colored and red dress was… something to get used to.
She had also thought it’d be her father to walk her down the aisle, with her friends as bridesmaids and her childhood church’s pastor conducting the ceremony.
Suddenly, she realised she was crying. And as the women around her, some clearly noble with their dyed cloth and jewels, others clearly servants, tried to comfort her. It was disjoined affair. Half seemed to think she was crying out of happiness.
Fuck this, she wanted to say, fuck the game of thrones and fuck the System and fuck the Quest. How was she meant to live to old age here, dreadful world that it was, when from her womb would arise one of the factions necessary for the Dance to happen.
Should she just kill herself…?
[WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!]
[Failure to complete the quest will result in complete erasure of the soul!]
Fuck.
“My Lady?”, called one of her–ladies? A Redwyne, from the grapes, “Are you calm now?”
Her other attendants, two ladies who were clearly Hightowers and two more girls dressed in the plain garbs of servants watched her face attentively, as if she were some Roman Emperor and they were gladiators waiting for her to raise her thumb.
So she forced a smile, “I’m fine now.”
They frowned.
[WARNING!]
[Informal speech detected!]
What the fuck.
“I mean–I meant–”, Alicent breathed in a deep sigh, willing herself to calm down and not punch the air where the System window had just appeared, “I am calm now, yes. Merely…nerves.”
Thank God I did not say anxiety. Do these people even know what that is???
That seemed to do the trick, as the women calmed down in their scrutiny and finally excused themselves to leave her alone.
Aching, Alicent tried to search for familiarities around her. Unlike the modern world, the walls were clearly pure stone, and tapestries had been draped over them (as one would paintings or pictures) in order to make one’s surroundings more appealing to the eyes. This had the effect of making her feel as if she was inside an insane asylum, but someone had had the bright idea to paint the otherwise white walls.
I feel like I could walk through those things, like my cousins and I walked through hanged towels and sheets once, even though I know that there are walls behind, she thought.
Finding herself suddenly all the more depressed, Alicent shifted her focus to the mirror.
It was probably what could be considered good quality in the middle ages, but to her the black dots and faded edges felt like a personal slight. Just another reminder that her home was lost.
I can’t believe I had a heart attack at 27, I wasn’t thin, but I wasn’t over weight…
She must have lost herself in thought farther than she’d thought, because she was startled when someone suddenly knocked on the door and a herald (?) announced “The Princess here to see you, Madam.”
Rhaenyra. The leader of the faction that would one day kill her children.
The herald, or whoever was in charge of the door, did not wait for an answer before allowing said princess of the Realm to pass through.
Was this a power play…?
Of course it was a power play. Right when she’d thought she was safe to emotionally break down. Honestly, fuck the System.
Rhaenyra Targaryen did not sweep into the room as much as she stormed in. She walked in as if she belonged there, in the Queen’s apartments. Which, Alicent realized with an internal flinch, had not so long ago been her mother’s apartments.
And here Alicent was, contemplating tearing off the tapestries and painting the walls.
She was younger than Alicent remembered—no, that wasn’t right. The actress that had played her was in her twenties, but the girl in front of her was very clearly fifteen, which meant, Alicent thought with disgust, that the body she currently possessed was fifteen, too.
‘Fuck Viserys’ joined her internal chant of ‘Fuck the System’
The young girl’s gaze flicked over Alicent, taking in the gown, the jewels, the veil. Her stare was lingering, and judging. Alicent briefly remembered the outfits from the beginning of the show. It must be, she mused, sort of like seeing your friend change from long skirts to crop tops after you went away to summer camp.
“Alicent,” was all the princess said.
Not Lady Alicent. Which properly wasn’t even the correct address now that she was about to marry the king. But still. Rhaenyra was clearly a teenager, with how unsubtle the slight was, but luckily for Alicent, modern workplace culture was a thousand times worse than whatever Rhaenyra could possibly throw at her short of dragonfire.
Alicent swallowed. Dipped her head—she would have bowed, but she didn’t know how and had had barely five minutes to breath much less learn etiquette.
“Princess.”
[WARNING!]
[Insufficient deference detected!]
Oh, for—
She forced herself to continue before the System could decide to scream again.
“Your Grace, princess,” she corrected, hoping this time she was correct. Lifting her eyes just enough to meet the girl’s gaze, “you honor me with your presence.”
Rhaenyra’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile.
“Do I?”
Ah, she thought she was trying to joke around.
Well, fuck it all. Now Alicent understood all those bereft mothers online complaining about their teenage kids. By God, or Gods?, was Rhaenyra the definition of a teenager. A surly, spoiled, politically dangerous teenager who would one day—if Alicent did as the system wanted—preside over the deaths of her children.
Be nice, she told herself. Be kind. Be harmless. Be the kind of person she does not feel she needs to kill later!
“I had hoped you might come,” Alicent said, and that, at least, was not a lie. The early bird gets the worm. “Today is… a great change for us both.”
Rhaenyra stepped further into the room. Slowly. She was circling her. At that moment Alicent couldn’t help but compare her to a cat. It should be threatening, especially since in this analogy Alicent was pretty sure she was the mouse. But she couldn’t get the image of a white cat with purple eyes out of her head and…
[Do not laugh, USER001.]
The serious tone of the system killed her momentary good mood awfully quickly.
“It is a change for you,” Rhaenyra said as if to fill the silence, “For me, it is more of an inconvenience.”
There it was.
Of course Rhaenyra still resented her, of course she still felt betrayed that her best friend had for all intents and purposes proven to be the same as all the ladies of the court. Alicent… Alicent felt annoyed anyway. But Alicent kept her smile soft, smaller now, something that might pass for humility.
“I would not wish to be an inconvenience to you, Princess.”
“No?” Rhaenyra’s eyes snapped to hers, quick as a whip. “And yet you are to marry my father.”
There was no answer to that that did not sound like a joke.
So Alicent did the only thing she could. She bowed her head.
“It is the King’s will.”
When in doubt, blame the patriarchy.
Rhaenyra huffed—a sharp, derisive sound.
“Yes. That is what everyone says.”
Another silence. Heavier this time.
Alicent could feel it, the weight of the moment, as if this instance would decide the trajectory of her new life. It most likely would. It most likely already did.
She needed to survive.
Carefully, she reached for something safer.
“You will always be his first priority,” Alicent said quietly. “Nothing in this marriage changes that.”
That made Rhaenyra pause. The acknowledgement of her issues with her father’s attentions if not his affections was obvious to Alicent onscreen, but, she suddenly reflected, maybe it was not so obvious in real life?
“He named me his heir,” Rhaenyra said, chin lifting, daring Alicent to deny it.
“I know.”
And she did. The System had made sure of that, if nothing else.
“And I honor that,” Alicent continued, choosing each word like it might explode in her mouth.
Rhaenyra studied her then. As if trying to decide whether Alicent was lying, or simply stupid.
“And what are you to me, then?” Rhaenyra asked. “If not a rival?”
The question hung between them.
Alicent forced herself not to flinch.
“I would like us to be friends again,” she said. “If you’d allow it.”
Not an enemy. Not a threat. Please don’t burn me alive.
Rhaenyra’s lips pressed together. She did not look convinced. But she also did not look entirely displeased. So Alicent tentatively counted it as a win.
“Hm.”
It was the sort of sound one made when choosing to postpone a judgment.
“I suppose we shall see.”
She turned then, as abruptly as she had entered, already dismissing the room, the moment.
The door shut behind her with a soft, final click.
For a long moment, Alicent did not move.
Then—
She laughed. Collapsing on the bed even as the ornaments in her hair threatened to pierce into her skull.
“Well,” she whispered to the empty room, “that went—that happened.”
[NOTICE:]
[Primary objective remains unchanged: Ensure the occurrence of the Dance of the Dragons.]
“Oh fuck off.”
She turned on herself to look at the mirror. And saw a girl in red and cream, with tear-streaked cheeks and eyes that were as foreign to her as her surroundings.
“Why do you need the Dance to happen?!? You shitty System! What even is the Dance anyway!?! Just a civil–”
[The Dance, definition: an internal conflict within House Targaryen (that eventually results in continent wide civil war) for whom shall sit the Iron Throne. Must have no less than two factions.]
…wait a fucking second.
“Hey, System, when you say there has to be two or more factions, do you like…already have the factions decided or…?”
[ANSWERING USER001]
[By nature, the Dance is a war for succession that must include dragons, and therefore must be within House Targaryen, the only dragonriding house remaining in the world of ASOIAF.]
[Following that logic, for the Dance to happen within USER001’s lifetime, as it must, one of the factions must be Rhaenyra, the king’s chosen heir, and the other faction must be the one that opposes hers.]
Alicent thought of the girl she’d just tried, however pathetically, to befriend. She was a spoiled little shit without manners, as girls her age were bound to be. But she was very much that, a girl.
A girl who would either die, or become a butcher.
Alicent… Alicent had no time to think about this. She could already imagine her maids coming back any second to help her with the final details. All she could, all she could ask…
“Hey, System, does that other faction have to be my kids or…?”
[No. So long as there are two factions fighting each other during the Dance. There is no requirement that one of the claimants must come from your womb.]
System, why are you writing ‘womb’? It’s creeping me out.
Okay, so the Greens didn’t need to exist. It could be, she realised, any other faction like in those AU fanfics. The Blues, the Reds, or whatever.
The issue was, however, that her Aegon, as the king’s oldest legitimate son, would be the natural rival to Rhaenyra’s claim. And, most importantly, there was no limit to the amount of factions that could participate in the Dance. Which meant manufacturing a new rival for Rhaenyra to fight would not guarantee her children’s–or her–safety.
She was lost in her thoughts when suddenly a notification for an update of the system arrived in her inbox. Not that she knew what it was at the time, it took a while of needling the System to know she had a whole homepage she could access.
Hopefully this thing has google, she thought.
Spoiler alert: It did not have Google.
It did, however, contain her ‘boon’. The one the System told she had picked for herself in the Immatirium (She had a brief Warhammer 40K induced panic there, until the System revealed it was pulling her leg).
And. It. Changed. Everything.
In front of Alicent, the words:
[Babyshower:
- Pick your baby's gender!
- Has up to seven uses!
- Can be used on others! (1/1)
- WARNING: does not guarantee your survival or that of the child (for that see: Pull an Alysanne!)
- Only available for USER001: you can tell how many babies you’re carrying and the SYSTEM will tell when you can use the Boon!
]
Shinned in toxic green letters.
I don’t have to have Aegon, Alicent thought, near hysterical.
The one thing about Westeros that played in her favour was the patriarchy. No one expected women to fight in the bloody wars that plagued the continent. No one expected them to die for them. No one wanted them to inherit unless there were strenuous circumstances.
Who cares about Rhaenyra’s birthright! I’m taking my daughters and getting out of here.
The safest way to do that was fostering. Those would have to be followed by betrothals and marriages if she wanted the girls to stay there for the duration of the Dance.
Yes, yes she could do this. She could take herself out of the running.
The only issue is, she thought frowning at the System window that had popped up as she finally made up her mind regarding her children’s gender, is who will rival Rhaenyra in this case.
It made Alicent vaguely sick, but she needed to…needed to play the game of thrones.
Only for a bit! Til the second faction was established. She could never lead it, of course, and she could never allow her future children (thinking too much on their conception put the feeling of a gaping hole in her stomach) whom she would…likely come to love, to become part of this.
But who could contest Rhaenyra, if not her brothers?
There was of course, the issue that was Rhaenys now Velaryon, Queen Who Never Was, and honestly should’ve been considering all the shit Viserys is about to throw the whole family into.
Rhaenyra would marry Laenor Velaryon, there was never a question of doing otherwise. Alicent knew the show invented some bullshit reason of covering up the fact that Rhaenyra lost her virginity. But as the system often told her, plot holes were filled with material from the original work, in which Laenor had been chosen as Rhaenyra’s consort likely since before Rhaenyra started entertaining suitors.
For some reason (had they never heard of artificial insemination?) those two were not going to have trueborn sons.
Which, Laenor would still support Rhaenyra, Alicent thought so, because she’d be his wife. And he’s a good man by Westerosi standards. But that would not change the fact that their children would not have his blood, the blood of Prince Aemon Targaryen, once heir to the Iron Throne. The only thing keeping Corlys and reluctantly Rhaenys on Rhaenyra’s side would be the boys’ betrothals to the twins Laena Velaryon has with—
Fuck. Was she an idiot?
Yes, this could work. This would really work. It is only one chance she had to make it work. So it must work.
She must make Daemon Targaryen into Rhaenyra’s rival for the Iron Throne.
[Mission Progress: 0.8% Complete!]