Jaehaera Targaryen had no friends in the Red Keep. Or anywhere else, truly.
Such a fact was widely known for, as much as the ladies of the court had tried, none had been able to surpass the barrier of apathy that had seemingly accompanied the young queen since childhood. To her, though, it did not matter. She preferred her silence and quiet, much more so when opposed to the chatter of people who thought her stupid.
For those girls did not wish to be her friends. Most of them mocked her behind her back just as everyone else did. Only, they desired her support for their own advancement. And yet she still had ladies in waiting, just as any royal consort should. They were useful for some things.
Still, when a knock came upon her door, Jaehaera flinched at the sudden sound.
As soon as she managed to compose herself enough and called the visitor in, a pretty chestnut-haired girl entered the room. One of her ladies in waiting, precisely. She looked like she was there for something, and it made her nervous enough to stutter when she acknowledged her.
"L-lady M-Myrielle."
"Your Grace." The maiden curtsied, a sweet smile plastered on her plump lips. "I have brought you dinner. The king supposed you wouldn't be too inclined to consume your meal in the main hall."
She never was. Aegon knew it well and, if she'd been capable of it, perhaps she would have smiled at the fact that he cared enough to accommodate her.
Only then she noticed the lady bore a tray of silver with a bowl of soup, a platter of meat and a cup of steaming liquid upon it.
A tea. She liked tea, the feeling of the infusion warming her throat as it went down. It calmed her.
She looked at Myrielle. "P-put it on the t-table."
The Peake girl nodded her head as she carried the tray to the place the queen had indicated.
Jaehaera stayed on the threshold, her back to the lady, not wishing to speak to her. The older girl was tall, her brown eyes lively, and the dark blue dress she wore hugged her body in a perfect way. She spoke without flaw, never nervous or uncertain. In front of her, and everyone at court who like her fit in perfectly, the young queen felt powerless despite her position.
From her place at the entrance she immediately noticed when Aegon arrived, dressed—as always—fully in black.
His deep purple eyes fixed upon hers as soon as their gazes met.
"Jaehaera." He appeared almost surprised to find her in front of him, despite the fact that those were her rooms, but soon enough he straightened his shoulders and spoke.
"I... uhm... I wondered..." He played with the rings adorning his fingers. "May I join you? For dinner?"
In response she shifted aside to let him pass and started to follow him, just as Myrielle turned from the table and noticed them. "Your Grace!"
Her sudden squeal made Jaehaera jump.
Aegon turned toward her in that exact same moment. When their eyes locked, he beckoned her to his side with a tilt of his head.
"Lady Myrielle," he acknowledged the other girl, then, all while extending his right arm at his side and opening his hand for his wife to take. A silent offer, one that she accepted without hesitation. She did not know why but, where touch usually bothered her, Aegon's was calming, like being immersed in a pool of hot water.
Myrielle curtsied.
The chestnut-haired maiden was slightly older than her, perhaps around her nineteenth or twentieth year, but not married yet. Jaehaera had never thought much on it. She hadn't cared to ask her why.
As Myrielle curtsied to the king, all sweet smile and rosy cheeks, however, she felt a discomfort she had never experienced before.
The Peake girl looked pretty, healthy, happy. She smiled brightly for Aegon.
Jaehaera wondered if he might smile back at that, like all boys smiled when a comely girl gave them attention. She wished she could be healthy and happy, too.
But Aegon did not return the smile.
He stood rather still, stiff, his lips pressed into a thin line.
"You should not be so loud," he instead told Myrielle, his voice flat. "It bothers us."
The girl immediately lowered her head. "Pardon me, Your Grace. I shall be more mindful."
He merely nodded. When Jaehaera gazed upon his face she thought that, despite his fears, he looked every inch a king.
Neither of them spoke after, but Aegon, still holding her hand, led her to the table.
Myrielle curtsied. "Your Graces." And quickly left the chambers.
The meat had been cooked rare, and the taste made Jaehaera's stomach turn. She left it almost untouched, preferring the creamy soup and the bread that had come with it.
Aegon himself did not seem quite pleased, though she could not know for certain. He never looked truly content with anything.
They ate mostly in comfortable silence, and yet Jaehaera felt anything but.
She kept thinking of her encounter with Myrielle, the way she looked at Aegon, and even if she did not understand it, she knew it had bothered her.
Aegon was the closest she had to a friend. He had been there when no one else had, and not because he had been forced to. He had only had to marry her, but he'd been kind. He'd been the only one to be kind not because she was queen, but because he wanted to be.
But as long as she'd known him, he'd been sullen and grieving. What if he missed laughter and cheerfulness? She couldn't give that to him. Myrielle, and the girls like her, they could.
The thought made her stomach close up faster than the food had.
Suddenly, Aegon's familiar voice pulled her from her thoughts: "Jaehaera? Are you... unwell?"
When she focused on his face, she noticed he was staring at her. His eyes were mesmerizingly deep, a pool of purple so dark it almost looked black.
Words chocked in her throat. She only managed to shake her head no.
"You look... not well." His voice was soft with her, so different from the tone he'd used with lady Myrielle. It was a voice that calmed the whirlwind within her mind, if only a bit.
"Do you want to rest?" Aegon asked. "I can leave you, if you prefer..."
"No." The word left her mouth before she had even had the time to process it. "I-I don't want you to go." Then, she'd worry again.
"Alright..." He rose from his seat and came to her side. "But you will rest?" he asked, offering her a hand to help her up. "Please?"
His tone had an edge of urgency to it.
Jaehaera nodded, placing her hand in his. Now that she looked at it so closely, she noticed how it had grown large since they'd been children. Now, his hand enveloped her own with ease.
Her gaze then rose to his face as she stood and let him accompany her to the bed. He showed almost no trace of worry, but she saw the way he bit his lower lip and he breathed more deeply. She'd learned to know when Aegon felt calmer, and when he felt preoccupied too.
"Now, you are worried" she recognized.
"It is nothing."
She shook her head. It wasn't true.
Aegon sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed at her side. "The court bothers me, as always," he confessed. "But... I don't want you to worry about me. They vex you enough as it is."
For a moment, she considered telling him the whole of it, how all of the ladies and the lords made her feel inadequate. Only, even if she'd wanted to, she was unable to put those thoughts into words.
She tilted her head to the side instead. "I thought... They must obey you," she considered.
"They... do, I suppose." Aegon stared at the red stone wall, adorned with vibrant tapestries. "Even if most of them don't like it."
Jaehaera kicked her slippers off her stockinged feet. "I think you're a good king."
For a moment, he was silent. Then, he squeezed her hand, letting out a small sigh. "Thank you. You might be one of the few."
She hoped that was enough for him. Enough to make him stay. She couldn't learn to laugh, she'd never known how, but she could be good to him. As good as she was capable of.
"Do you... want to sleep?"
For a while they had sat in silence—for how long, she could not have told—and it was with those words that Aegon broke it. He looked weary.
She was tired herself, Jaehaera realized.
She nodded, lifting her legs to lie on the bed, but her gown was so heavy and uncomfortable that she could not find a comfortable position. As much as she rolled and turned, her corset chafed her skin and its hooks pierced through her flesh.
When she sat back up, intending on removing her clothes, she found that Aegon had fetched a soft silken nightgown for her.
She barely bowed her head in thanks as, with stiff hands, she took the nightdress. She headed behind the changing screen to disrobe.
Jaehaera was not used to dressing herself. Her servants had always done that for her, and as bothersome as it was to have all those hands on her, it was the only way she'd ever known. She found that day that unlatching a dress was harder than he'd expected.
She found no other option than to peek from behind the screen and call: "Aegon?"
He turned his head, tentatively, as if he were unsure it was the right thing to do. He'd barely looked at her, it seemed to the young queen, until she'd asked: "H-help me?"
The king gaped for a moment, as if he'd been taken by surprise.
She kept staring at him until he regained composure. "Yes, I'm sorry... I..."
He approached and she turned her back to him so that he could unfasten the laces that held her gown closed. After he was done and the golden dress she'd worn pooled to the floor, he hesitated before asking: "The... corset, as well?"
She nodded—it was all she could do, that or sleep in discomfort—but Aegon's fingers remained still like stone.
"Y-you are nervous." Again.
She did not find a way to express that she was, too. Nor could she explain why his hands, even in such an intimate position, did not cause her the same discomfort her maids' did.
"I... I don't want to do something wrong," said Aegon, his voice cracking ever so slightly.
She did not understand, and so she turned to face him, tilting her head, her brows furrowed.
"It's..." It seemed as if the words had risen to the height of his throat, about to burst, but then he exhaled and shook his head lightly. "I'm sorry. You needn't worry."
But Jaehaera did worry. She worried when Aegon was sad, when he was scared, because she knew what it was like to be so terribly alone and frightened and not have anybody who would listen. And—selfishly perhaps, but she too was human—she did not want him to keep things from her as if she were too slow. Not him too.
She turned to face him. "I-I can understand," she protested with as much firmness as she was capable of, despite her stutter. "T-tell me."
"I don't wan-" He stopped mid-sentence, air choking in his throat. He let out a shaky sigh before speaking again, voice as light as a whisper. "I don't know."
Jaehaera understood him enough to know that that was not the truth. However, she knew him well enough not to push him on it, too.
"I... I will finish here, and then we will rest," he said, inclining her head toward her.
She turned around and allowed him to undo the laces to the corset.
He was quick about it, or as quick as a boy could be. Jaehaera only knew that he did not linger after it had been unfastened. She felt him pull away from her, heard the sound of his boots tapping on the floor step after step.
She finished dressing by herself, removing the thin chemise in favor of the warmer nightgown.
When once again looked past the changing screen, she saw Aegon had removed his boots and was in the middle of unbuttoning his doublet, too. A sliver of white beyond the raven black fabric showed that he wore a tunic underneath.
The young queen approached with soft steps, feeling an odd sort of tingling in her stomach as she did so.
Aegon had shed the doublet and now he lay, staring at the ceiling, with his hands folded on top of the covers, over his chest.
It was not the first time she spent the night with him—as his wife, by law if not by fact, she was allowed to, and for that if anything she was glad—and yet a bed they'd never shared.
As their chambers were connected, all that it took was for the door in between them to remain open. But this time, Jaehaera realized as she thought of it, she did not want a wall between them.
Aegon had seemed to understand, and he scooted over to his left when she arrived in front of the bed, giving her space to lie down.
"Good night, Jaehaera," he said. The worry that had seemed to overtake him just moments before seemed to have faded, even if it had not disappeared completely. He turned his face to her as he spoke. His expression was soft as a caress.
The girl almost felt her heart jump at the sight of his face so close, his eyes looking right into hers with their perennially burdened, and yet inhumanly beautiful, depth.
"G-good night," she practically whispered.
That night, her dreams were not the usual kind. The morning after, when she awoke with droplets of sweat sprinkling her face, she knew it was not for fear. And that novelty was, in itself, terribly unsettling.