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Alicent’s breathing is heavy as she stares blankly at the outside of her bedroom from one of the barred windows.
Her body feels tired, she feels like she can just close her eyes for a small moment and simply never wake up.
Like the princess in the stories, Alicent thinks briefly before she starts to very gently sob at the memory of her youth and her naivety. Like in the songs that I used to hear from the bards as a child.
Back when life still looked like the ones told in the songs. Oh, what would she give to be young and naive again!
The door opens but Alicent doesn’t pay attention to it. She stays in her place, sitting on the divan and looking out the barred window.
“Mama! Mama!” A small high-pitched voice rings through the room. The sound of small footsteps hurriedly making its way towards Alicent can be heard.
”Mama!” The voice of the small child exclaims (as if she’s calling out to Alicent), loud and high-pitched as always, as the child practically throws herself at Alicent in a hug.
Alicent glances towards her side, where the child is hugging her. She looks down and sees a small silver-haired child with pale skin and wearing a velvet red dress with gold accents.
The child’s hair is done up in braids, in Valyrian braids. The same style of braids that Alicent has seen before in all of the portrays hung on the walls.
”Sweetling,” Alicent manages to murmur out softly, her hands hesitantly caressing the child’s small head.
The child looks up and smiles widely. “Mama, it’s me!” She exclaims.
”Which one?” Alicent asks. “You all look so much alike that I have a hard time telling you apart,” She laughs softly at that, holding back the tears.
Most of her children look like Rhaelor to the point that Alicent finds it a bit painful to see the visage of her jailer and kingly husband in the essence of her children.
The child pouts, looking angry. “Mama it’s me, Rhaelora!” The child cries out. “I wear red all the time! And I have my hair like how Visenya did,”
Rhaelora, one of my twins then, Alicent thinks. The ones after Aemond and Alyssa, after the triplets.
Alicent simply hums as she gently touches her daughter’s braided hair, tracing over the bumps.
“Alyssa liked braiding her like how Queen Visenya did,” Alicent muses out loud. “She always tried to bring in a wooden sword,”
”That’s because she’s silly, Mama!” Rhaelora declares. “She’s always trying to play with all the boys with swords, like she was a boy! She’s always arguing with Aemma,”
Aemma, Aemma, Aemma.
The name seemed familiar, and Alicent’s mind wanders towards a sad-looking women in blue.
”Aemma, the Queen?” Alicent asks, but not to the child in her arms but rather more to herself.
Rhaelora frowns at that. “What queen mama?” The girl demands, her voice a bit angry. “You’re the queen, mama! No one can take that away from you. And Aemma is just a princess, like me!”
Princess?
Princess!
Truly how amusing life is!
Her mind is like a labyrinth, and her sanity like that of a scrambled egg.
”Princess,” Alicent giggles softly. “How silly, I barely remember anything. Much less being queen,”
”Mama, are you okay?” Rhaelora whines. “You’re acting weird, and I don’t like it,”
Excerpt from “The Queen in Chains: The story of Alicent Hightower and her imprisonment”
By Alys Weair
It seemed that almost as soon as Rhaelor Targaryen was crowned king, his wife -Alicent Hightowe- was imprisoned deep within Maegor’s Holdfast, so as to keep her away from anyone else.
Many have speculated and wondered about the reason for the Black King to imprison his lady wife deep within the Red Keep, with the very clear instruction given to the Kingsguard that no man outside of the King and the children born by the Queen are to be allowed to even approach the chambers of the imprisoned Queen.
Not even the young Queen’s own father and brothers were allowed to see her, something that rattled many at the time.
The Queen rarely left her chambers, the only time she was seen outside of the room where her husband had imprisoned her was during religious days when the Queen was supposed to lead and pray.
Whenever the queen was seen outside of her prison, she was always wearing dark green and her face was covered by a white veil.
Many began to whisper and wonder if the woman in green was in reality truly the imprisoned Hightower queen.
Could the King have had his wife killed in her sleep? Perhaps to make room for Lady Laena Velaryon or perhaps for Lady Harra Strong- both rumored mistresses of the Targaryen king.
In the end, from what historians have been able to investigate in regard to any truth in these rumors, the veiled woman in green was the Hightower Queen.
Surviving records from the time, which include diaries and letters, mention how the Queen had a tired look in her eyes.
In the diary kept by the High Septon during Rhaelor’s time we can read the following passage about the High Septon’s meeting with the Hightower Queen:
”…She seems so deeply tired, almost as if her very soul had been sucked out of her. I can’t help but wonder what has been done to the poor woman, what has His Grace the King done to the Queen to have her look so dreadfully tired? One has to wonder what the King does to her within the confines of her imprisonment other than fill her womb with children…”