Chapter Text
The sickness had taken Matarys first. It started first with a cough in the middle of his sentences. It was followed by an unquenchable thirst and a sweat that soaked him through his clothes to his bedsheets but did nothing to help with the biting chill in his bones. By the third day, the Maester had walked into his bedroom finding him stiff with blue lips. Valarr followed not far behind, the sickness plaguing him even faster than his younger brother. One morning he awoke a healthy man and the next, he did not wake at all. It had happened so quickly that Prince Baelor could scarcely believe it, even standing in front of the burning pyres. He stayed until the bodies of his sons were long gone and replaced by ash and soot. Looking at what was left of them, he wondered why the sickness had spared him and not his healthy young boys. Or why couldn't it have taken all three of them? How was it possible one moment they were discussing Matarys' upcoming name day and the next they simply no longer existed? It felt strange to him. He kept on with his duties and his routine as if they had simply gone to a tourney and would be back in a few days time. It just wasn't possible that they weren't here. Maekar assured him that his duties could wait, that he should rest, grieve, do something to mourn his sons. But it wasn't until the fourth day, when Baelor walked by Valarr's chambers and saw that besides his bed now bare of covers, nothing had been touched. A cup with unfinished wine remained on the table. Scrolls were messily scattered on his desk, awaiting hands that would never open them. There was firewood waiting to be used by the fireplace. His sword in its sheath was on the lounge chair in front of the fireplace as if he had tossed it there with plans to properly put it away later. Everything was quiet. Still.
Baelor spent the next week in the Sept, all hours of the day, begging for the Stranger to take him as well. And at night, after either waking or getting up after not sleeping at all, he'd go out to the Godswood and beg the Old Gods to wake him up from the nightmare he was enduring or take him as well. Baelor Targaryen was not one to beg in all his patience and steadfastness. But those seven days, he begged enough to make up for a life time's worth. At last, when he had begged himself to exhaustion, he awoke with a hatred in his heart. A hatred for the Gods. A hatred for the sickness. Hatred for his own health. Hatred for himself. He should have sent his boys away to Dorne, where the sickness had not been able to stretch its wickedness to. Diving into his cups, he could be heard throwing glasses at his walls, plates, chairs, books. He was sick of seeing these things being simply there, offending him that they didn't cease to exist the way it felt his world had. Maekar tried to be of some comfort, but Baelor held a hatred for him too and a twisted jealousy of his sons surviving but not his own. It was an ugliness that spiraled him into drunken rages. But after his chambers had been wrecked of chairs and chalices, it became quiet. For weeks it remained that way. Only letting servants bring him more wine and food that was hardly eaten, he spent his days alone staring at his ceiling. Staring at clouds move outside his window. Staring into the fire of the fireplace. Staring into his cup, as if these things held the answers he was looking for.
At last, he had grown tired of drowning in his sweet wine sorrows. He appeared out of his room one evening wearing deep black and joined his brother and father for supper. They did not acknowledge him in fear of scaring him away, so they simply spoke amongst themselves, waiting for him to enter the conversation himself. But he never did. And these days, he talked of trades and money and lords as the Hand of the King, but did not do much talking any other time. He was still quiet at supper, if he decided to attend. He had requested that his son's rooms remain the way they were, to not be disturbed or altered in anyway. At night, he still looked into the fire until he dozed off to sleep, hardly ever sleeping in his bed anymore. He did not smile nor did he laugh. He did not have the energy to do more than what was expected and could not push himself to find joy in anything.
Nearly a year after that day that he had emerged from his chambers, he sat at the small council, twisting the deep green marble ball in its plate. The lords around him spoke of grain and trade, lands to be split, funds to be taxed. The prince chimed in when he felt necessary but did not join in on the banter and crude jokes the rest of the councilmen would throw in. At last, with the sun beginning to set behind them, the king dismissed them. As Baelor began to stand up, King Daeron gently placed a hand on his wrist. Baelor, confused, sat back down. "Is there something else you'd like to discuss?" The king signaled for the cupbearer to fill their cups, the pours seeming louder than usual. Outside the bells tolled and seagulls cried. Inside, the silence blanketed the space heavily. "Baelor," he began. "I understand this year has been rather difficult. And I commend you for continuing your duties faithfully though I know they may seem minuscule now." Baelor stared at his chalice, untouched. "You have always been dedicated to your role as heir. You've understood what is expected of you. And you have yet to let me down my son." A small twist formed in the pit of the prince's stomach. His father had never felt the need to compliment him on his duties and now doing so made Baelor suspicious, as if he was being ambushed with something. "There have been talks of the realm's future, on your future. And what will happen once you become king. And who will lead the realm after you." The twist came stronger now, climbing up his throat. "I have tried to keep these talks from coming to fruition for some time but it now becomes a concern of mine own." Baelor's clasped hands were folded so tight his knuckles were white. "The sickness nearly ended our line. We are only a few accidents and sicknesses away from ceasing to exist. You need to begin thinking of hei-" Baelor abruptly stood, his chair nearly falling back behind him. "I have just lost my boys. Merely hours apart. And now you want me to speak of heirs, of replacements for my sons. My sons. I have attended the council meetings, I have been faithful to this realm, I have done everything that is expected of me and now you seek to make me replace my sons." The king held a surprised expression that was also filled with understanding, with pity. "You know I am loyal to you. You know I am loyal to this realm. But I cannot, I will not do this." He turned and began walking towards the door. "Fine," his father called behind him. "Do not create any more heirs." Baelor stopped and turned around, confused. Was this all it had taken? His expression of discontent and it was all over? "But," his father continued, "your named heir will then be Maekar, who will be a wonderful king I am sure. But what then? Aerion becomes king." Baelor's jaw clenched at the thought. "If not him, then Daeron who will sooner drain this realm of all its coin right behind all its wine. Aemon will not take it. And we have yet to see how fares Aegon with that hedge knight." Baelor's face remained emotionless while his heart pounded in his chest, his hands yet again clenched to the point of white knuckles. The realization that he truly had no choice in the matter filled him with a heaviness at the same time that he realized his father was right. "Our line will cease to exist. And millions of people, people who we will never set our eyes upon and people who will never even know what we look like, they are placing their own futures on us. On doing what is necessary to protect them." His father stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I know what I ask of you seems cruel. I understand the grief that lies within you. But I have had to put aside mine own grief and happiness many times for the realm, for your brothers, for you. This life the gods have placed upon us is a heavy one and we must be selfless for the lives of many others." Baelor's eyes met his fathers, glassy with tears that threatened to come. But he simply said, "I understand," with a nod. His father's hand dropped from his shoulder with a pat. "I only ask for two heirs, I do not expect you to replenish our entire line. And it will be a lady of your choosing." Baelor let out a scoff that almost sounded like a short laugh. "You say that as if it makes it easier." A soft smile landed on his father's face, laced with regret of the burden he placed on his son's shoulders. "They were the best terms I was able to negotiate." Baelor gave a curt nod before turning around and walking out of the council room, leaving his father sorrowfully standing in the same spot.
Baelor walked back to his chambers with such urgency that his steps were heavier and louder than usual. His heart felt as if it was going to pound right out of his chest. The blood in his ears rushed so loud, he did not hear the "Your Grace" that followed the polite curtsies given by the servants he rushed by. Once he reached his chambers he quickly filled and downed a chalice of wine followed quickly by another. He had requested that three pitchers of wine be left in his room at all times instead of the usual one that was custom in the Red Keep. By the second pitcher, he had stopped pacing and drinking his cups back to back and instead looked out into the nearly black sky. When he was child he, like other children, had wished that the dragons still roamed the earth and that he could fly into the skies when he grew bored or afraid. Unlike Aerion, he had grown out of the wishing for dragons, accepting that they no longer existed and the blood that ran through him was what was left of them. But tonight, after many years of never thinking about the winged beasts, he wished they were still alive so that he could fly into the night, into whatever was beyond and never return.