banshee's lament - aemond targaryen.

chapter 5.

Upon the floor were strewn children's toys, like wooden dragons that Helaena had when she was little, along with soldier dolls and princess dolls. Some children's books were left open, some neatly stacked near the settee.

Shera's eye landed on Helaena, who was bobbing a toddler on her knee on the couch. A white haired child approached her, his violet eyes wide. He was the spitting image of Aegon as a child.

"Who's you?" he asked, not afraid to stare— like all children do.

"Shera!" Helaena exclaimed, humming as she hoisted the smaller child onto her hip. "Jaehaerys, this is your auntie Shera."

"Auntie... Shera..." the little boy echoed. "Is she married to uncle Aemond?"

Helaena's face blanched slightly. "No, dearest," she hummed. "She is very close to me, like a sister. Like Jaehaera is your sister."

"Oh," he murmured. "She doesn't have white hair. And she has a dog."

"He's a wolf, Jaehaerys," Shera chimed in. "Has your mumma read to you about direwolves and Winter Kings yet?"

"A woof," the smallest child chimed in, bouncing happily upon Helaena's hip. "A woof, a woof!"

"Well, I should introduce the children. You have already met Jaehaerys," Helaena ruffed up his white curls as he continued to stare at Shera unabashedly. "He has a twin sister, Jaehaera. Who is..." Helaena swirled around. "She is hiding behind the settee," she whispered, leading Shera to look at the pair of violet eyes peeking over the furniture at her. "And this is my youngest, Maelor. He is two years old. The twins are five."

"They're gorgeous Hela," Shera mused. "Jaehaerys looks just like Aegon, I thought I had stepped into the past when I saw him. Maelor, however," she added, smiling at the little cherubic face of the youngest prince, who was blushing and giggling, "looks just like his mumma."

"Come sit, lovey," Helaena said as she put Maelor down on the floor near the toys. "Lunch should be here soon. You look darling in that shade. You look like a jeweled beetle," she hummed, offering her hand to Shera, which she took. Hela's palm was warm, like a toasty fire, but not sweltering. It felt akin to being swaddled with a blanket. "Can I show you some of my bugs?"

"Of course," Shera agreed, feeling genuinely at ease. The solar was lively and lived in, surely because of the children— it felt... homely and not sterile and lifeless like some others' chambers.

Off to the far wall, Helaena led her to a bookshelf, carved in draconic designs and various Old Valyrian sigils that she couldn't quite parse. It was stocked from top to bottom with various books, mostly pertaining to the taxonomy and biology of insects and arachnids— but there were some familiar titles snuck in as well.

' The Winter Kings of Yore: An Account of the North' .

"Hela— you still have this?" Shera asked, her hand thumbing over the positively ancient book, prising it from the shelf. She remembered this was one of her favorite books as a child and would request Helaena to read it when they bathed.

"Of course! I still have this one, too. 'Tis Maelor's favorite." she pointed to another book, nestled next to the other tome. It was much shorter, but its hard cover was more colorful with streams of blue and purple thread embroidered into a moon and an image of a wolf.

' Moonpuppy'. It was a children's book, the only one Shera had brought with her to King's Landing when she arrived at age five.

"Oh Gods," Shera breathed, her fingertips skimming over the embroidery. It wasn't the original binding of the book— the book was well loved into bits, to where the inner pages only remained at one point. Shera and Helaena had worked tirelessly for a whole moon trying to prise it back together. The princess embroidered the cover, trying to make it as close to the original as possible.