Archive of Our Own

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Rabbit teeth.

Lucerys is aware he has them, two front teeth a bit too large for his mouth, a bit too protruding to be proper, a bit too...childish.

He had these teeth for as long as he can remember, and even when the milk teeth have fallen out, the new ones grew up in the image of their predecessors.

Rabbit teeth.

Aegon used to tease him about them, relentlessly so, uncaring of how much his words would hurt; Lucerys, in turn, grow used of hiding them behind a palm when laughing.

They all learned to hide a part of themselves, one way or another. Aegon hid that he had a heart, Aemond - that he had a soul, Jace - that he had fears, and he, Lucerys...

All at once. He hid rabbit teeth behind his trembling palm, and by that he tried to pretend to be someone else.

Desperately, painfully twisting his own bones in place and baring teeth in a snarl that didn't fit.

All he was a prey animal amongst predators.

It's only when Arrax falls when he realizes it in full.

This world is separated on those who kill and who are getting killed, on hunters and deer, and he, Lucerys, is a deer.

A rabbit.

A prey.

And so, after the curtain falls and applause quiets, after the door to his cell locks, when the strange, leery men come to him in the middle of the night, saying Prince of Flea Bottom sent them, that they're here to help, he doesn't believe them.

Some deep, profound inner reflex, the prey animal intuition screams to him these men are dangerous, and not just to Lucerys, in general.

Some true part of him tells him they're the enemies.

But he doesn't run, not yet, because the last time he run too fast cost him greatly.

He dreams about Arrax' scream and his dragon's blood on his teeth, blood of a predator filling up mouth of a prey, and how he chocked on it and on saltwater until the shadow covered the skies and Aemond grabbed him, hauled up, despite his struggles and protests, how he pressed him into the saddle of a dragon that just torn Arrax apart and held there in place, forcibly, until Red Keep shone in the distance.

So Lucerys doesn't run, he complies, he follows scary men and when he finally realizes their true intents - a son for a son, little prince, a son for a son - he screams, as loudly as he can, he hollers for guards, meeting wild, frightened stare of another prey pretending to be queen dowager, and, as the commotion he causes distracts the men, he pounces.

He runs through the hidden passages as fast as he can, his feet carry him away as heart pounds in his heart, and there, in the dark between the walls drenched in blood of the builders Maegor slain, he stops pretending, and runs like a prey from a hunters.

He runs till he stumbles and collapses to the floor, scalding his knees and his elbows, and only then he realizes he didn't run empty-handed.

A little, terrified, light-haired babe is pressed to his chest, sobbing.

The child. The one these men wanted to kill right in front of their mother.

Somehow, he doesn't even know how, but he managed to grab for the boy when he escaped, and now the child - Jaehaerys? - wails in his arms, calling for mother.

Lucerys too would want to call for his mother, but his mother is the Queen and just sent paid assassins after someone else's child.

So he does not, but presses the boy closer to his chest and too weeps.

What a pathetic sight they have to be: two prey animals hiding behind the walls built on corpses, calling for their mothers.

Children.

Lucerys has never felt more a child than in that moment.

He wipes his face with the torn sleeve, then pulls at him, finishing that harsh stones have started, and presses the piece of cloth to the boy's face.

"Blow your nose," he commands and, surprisingly, Jaehaerys obeys.

"Good. Now dry your tears," he does it for the boy, tearing another piece of cloth from his worn out dirty clothes. He tries to use the piece of them that's not completely drenched in mug.

"Good. I'll bring you to your mother," he thinks it over. The road to the keep seems endless and full of horrors. "Just not now," he doesn't even know if Helaena is alive. There was another child, he thinks? Oh gods. "She's a little bit preoccupied at the moment."

Jaehaerys clenches his tunic in his tiny palms and sniffs.

"Mama," he insists. "I wanna ma-"

"You will see her," he presses the boy's face into the crook of his neck and prays he doesn't reek of...Blood, sweat, vomit, despair too? That, yes. "You will, I am bringing you back, but after a while," he doesn't even know if she's alive. "For now you'll have to stay with me," he nudges the boy's head with his nose the way he did a thousand times with his brothers.

Gods, his brothers. Will Aegon be sending assassins after them? Did Luke with his escape just angered the Usurper even more and his family is to pay for it now? Will Daemon be able to protect them?

Daemon.

Prince of Flea Bottom, the one who sent murderers after Aegon's children, no doubt after the celebratory feast the fool had thrown after Aemond's triumphant return with his haul.

They dressed him in rugs and made sit on the floor by the table, chained to its the leg, and all the way Lucerys looked down, not afraid of anyone in the room but a single person whose gaze was trained on him for the entire evening.

An eye for an eye.

His heart aches.

Dragonless and captive, humiliated, dragged through the keep by his hair, yet even that didn't seem to sate Aemond's blood lust.

It seems nothing would.

"Don't cry, little prince," he flinches from his own words, remembering the leery men and the way they whispered into his ear, conspiratorial as if they shared some secret.

"Don't cry, Jaehaerys," the child makes some muffled sound and quiets. "I won't let anything bad happen to you," he isn't sure he's capable of protecting himself, not to mention a small, helpless child. "I am Luke, your cousin."

"Luke."

"Yes," he smiles and presses crapped lips to the boy's temple. "Luke. That's right, that's me. I will keep you safe," his heart aches. "I will not let anyone hurt you."

"See mama-"

"You will," he feels his tears dampen the boy's hair. "You will. I swear on my dragon, I swear."

He grunts, wipes his face with the sleeve practically absent of any clothing now, then grunts some more and moves to stand, carefully so not to drop the child.

"Let's go," he offers. "We need to get out of these walls, they give me the creeps."

"Ghosts," Jaehaerys shares, calmed down by a promise of seeing his mother somewhere in the future, and points at the walls. "Ghosts," now he looks excited, which in no way comforts Luke. "In walls. Do 'woo'."

"I sure hope not," Lucerys shares. "No 'woo'. Absolutely no 'woo' where I am concerned, I can't deal with ghosts right now," he adjusts the hold on the boy.

"Which way, how do you think? I never wandered so far behind the secret passages. We need to find an exit, so...forward?" he leans into the child, breathing in the scent of soap, herbs and innocence. To think he almost died-

"Here," Jaehaerys points to a solid wall and Luke chuckles.

"No, sweetheart, we cannot go there, it's a wall," he taps it with his knuckles. "See? A solid-" and then taps again. The sound comes out hollow. "How did you- You know what, never mind, let's see what we can do," he fiddles with the wall, all the way keeping a hold on the literal child he's not responsible for, Mother Above, and then twists that feels like a torch handle.

It turns with a loud, screeching sound, making both princes wince, and then another passage opens right in the wall.

"This is unnerving," he shares with his little cousin. "Very. These ghosts better not do any 'woo' right not because I'm pretty sure my heart will stop, and then you'll be alone in there-"

Jaehaerys' face scrunches.

"No, no, I'm sorry, I'm not going anywhere, and ghosts do not actually exist, tis old widwives' tales. Let's see that this passage hides from us, shall we?"

They go in and the walls slides back after them, cutting the road to retreat and hiding two princes behind the solid stone.

This is why, a hour later, when another man marches through these halls, desperate to find his nephews, he misses the spot on the wall with the secret passage and goes fourth till he's met with the dead end.

He curse and returns, changes direction and walks into another corridor, opposite from the one Lucerys and Jaehaerys disappeared in.

There's a single lace pressed tightly between his fingers, of a deep green color; a ribbon previously tying back the little prince's hair.

There's also a single cufflink in a form of two dragons intertwined as if in a dance hidden deep in his pocket, still warm from the touch, torn out of the doublet as the bastard was stripped off his clothes and put into rugs.

There's also a dark, solemn conviction in his heart.

Somehow it is the bastard's fault, and so the boy would pay, if only Aemond could find him.

But the trail is growing cold and his senses fail him, and so he chases the shadow of his nephew into the direction completely different from the one the boy actually takes.

Soon he gives up and turns back.

By this time Lucerys and with him Jaehaerys are already out of the keep.