¹ 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐒 ━━ 𝐝. 𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐫𝐲𝐞𝐧

i. the gift of life

✧˖° 🌑 ೄྀ࿐
━ [ SONG OF SORROWS ] ༉‧₊˚✧
x. act one... the dragon's daughter
the gift of life ━ ✩・*。

— WINTER, 96 A.C
RED KEEP, KING'S LANDING

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. * 　　　 ✦ . 　⁺ 　 .⁺ 　　 ˚
. * 　　　 ✦ . 　⁺ 　 .
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DISAPPOINTMENT was a feeling not uncommon to Aemma Arryn. Each time the wretched, cold nerves shot down her back, erecting her spine and effectively sagging her shoulders, it almost felt common — entirely too common for a lady, who, at the beckon of her weary hand, could have anything brought to her. Disappointment was not the life she signed up for when she became wife of the prince. And yet, it hugged to her like a second skin; a shadow following her every move, nipping at her heels like the first frost of winter.

When she had been borne in this world, kicking and screaming, there alit a light inside of her soul. A light untained by the strains and horrors of the world that encroached in upon her like a darkening fog, a light that — as she came into womanhood, but to her chagrin, never motherhood — became sullied, tainted, and a flickering imposter of what it once was. With each babe lost in term, each child she watched heave a breath, never to twitch again, the light only dulled. Her soul had become fractured, heart fossilized to the arduous feeling of loss.

She was not unaware of the disappointed glint in Viserys eyes each time a babe was lost, whether before or after it left its mother. In time, she had become the embodiment of the very notion she came to hate; she was disappointment. To her father, who looked on her with angry eyes, an unsaid but oh-so obvious disdain for his youngest, a shadow of thought that she had killed her mother ( even by just coming into being, no fault of hers in truth ). To her husband, who looked on her with sad and downhearted sympathy with each new babe lost to time or a force outside of her command. Aemma no longer wrought disappointment, she was disappointment.

Time and life had been cruel to Aemma. No child she carried to term had yet seen their first name day, let alone the break of dawn. And those she did not, the ones who perished in the dark of her womb, those hurt more. They never even saw life, she never looked upon their face, got to name them. They were shadows, gone as soon as they came.

And so, as she laid, back against the childbed, she resigned to the familiar feeling of disappointment when the babe she had pushed from her womb did not emit a single cry, a breath, nor a twitch to indicate it ever saw life. Her body, battered and weakened, could not even allow the feeling of shock to enter her drowning mind. It was all too common, perhaps she was never meant to see motherhood. Perhaps it were the Gods curse to her, after she had inadvertently killed her mother by way of being born.

The midwife, still cradling the unresponsive babe, gave a dreary sigh. For years, she had served Aemma dutifully, guiding her through motherhood ( or, lack thereof ). It was not the first time she had seen the melancholic anger creep up her fair face, blushing her cheeks red as she once again failed in her duty of providing her husband a viable heir, and she very much doubted it would be the last.

Gentle fingers pressed against the babe's soft skin, right above what she would presume to be a still heart. That was not what she found. Despite the child's evident lack of movement, there, under it's porcelain flesh, she could feel the dull, yet ever-steady beat of the babe's heart. With widened eyes, she immediately began to strike the child, hoping that it would respond to pain, if nothing else.