Alysanne observed her grandchildren as they played. Baelon's youngest ran as far as his stubby little legs could carry him, one of his hands holding onto a stuffed red dragon. Meanwhile, his older, more sensible and calmer brother tried his best to keep up with the little drake.
Baelon and Alyssa whispered and giggled lowly in a corner while Aemon, her eldest, made silly faces at the little girl sitting in Jocelyn's lap.
Alysanne's heart lightened at this warm scene and pressed a kiss on the soft silver curls atop Viserra's head, which caused the little girl to giggle. It seemed impossible for her youngest to sit still, but Alysanne was nothing if not an experienced mother.
And like any good mother, she quickly noticed that one of her daughters was not in the room. This revelation caused her mind a small pinch of worry, especially when considering who was missing. 'Where had that silly girl gone?' She wondered, exasperated at her daughter's uncanny ability to slip away.
"Aemon, keep your sister company." She adjusted her grip and stood up. Aemon, the dutiful son that he was, accepted his new charge.
Alysanne left the room and glided through the red walled corridors of Maegor's Holdfast. Her annoyance grew as she did not find who she was looking for.
"That troublesome child," Alysanne muttered.
She was about to give up on her search and call for a group of maidservants to search through the lower floors- the only problem was that there were no servants to be found.
'How strange,' Alysanne thought to herself. It was highly unusual for there to be a complete lack of guards or maidservants. She was completely alone in these long corridors. A draft from a nearby door blew in and Alysanne shuddered. Her curiosity led her to slowly nudge the door open- this one, she remembered, was one with a view over the Narrow Sea.
She sighed with relief as the objective of her search stood staring out over the open balcony.
"Saera!" Alysanne walked over to her daughter. "What are you doing here? And where are your handmaids? Didn't I tell you not to go underfoot without your handmaids? What if you slipped and fell or were injured in some way?" She berated her troublesome daughter. Saera, on the other hand, acted as if she had not heard her. This simply made Alysanne angrier.
She took a step forward, aiming to force the disobedient girl to turn around and face her. Before she could do so, the ground beneath her feet shook violently. Shrill screams of fear and pain assaulted her ears.
Alysanne tried to take Saera into her arms and run to her other children, but her daughter was as hard and unyielding as stone. It did not matter how much she tried or pleaded, Saera did not turn around.
In the distance, the sea rocked violently and steamed as if a fire had been lit underneath.
It was the last of it and her daughter that Alysanne saw once the floor beneath her feet ceased to exist. She screamed as she fell. Her fall was abrupt and surprisingly painless, yet the terror that had seized her had not allowed her to think about that overmuch.
She lifted herself up from the rubble, looked around, and saw only ruin and more rubble. A thick black smoke rose from the direction of the shattered Great Hall where the Iron Throne presided.
Her heart clenched as her eyes witnessed the terrible sights before her. In the courtyard, bodies of household guards wrapped in Targaryen livery lay broken and bloodied. Alysanne let out a choked gasp as she saw a Kingsguard torn in half, as if some great demon had gripped him by his legs and pulled them apart.
She was too afraid to walk any further, and no matter how loudly she called out for Jaehaerys, her sons or her daughters- nothing but crackling flames and billowing ash answered her.
Alysanne did not know how long she stood there, keeping her bile down, but she was sure it was an eternity. It was the light lockstep thumping of armoured feet that jostled her frozen body to action. She bunched her gown high enough to give any Septa a stroke and ran as lightly and quietly as she could, her strides as long as she could manage.
Alysanne did not look back to see if she had been seen or what sort of men those footsteps had belonged to, to do so now would be foolish. She had a dragon to get to.
She knew the halls of this keep well enough to reach her intended destination without the aid of sight. She knew which passageways opened outwards and which had to be pushed in with a firm shoulder.
Before she knew it, the dark underpassage had fallen behind and the Dragonpit loomed.
Here Alysanne did not cower nor did she slink into the shadows like a sneak. This was the Dragonpit, the stables of the greatest creatures to ever grace the world- dragons. Her family's dragons, and a Targaryen does not cower before dragons. Foolish was any man or woman who dared enter here with swords or spears. Nothing but death and fire would await them.
She marched her way through the Dragonpit, frowning at the absence of any Dragonkeepers. Silence ate away at Alysanne's courage and boldness, and the cold settled into the growing cracks.
Every peek into the dens lining the cavernous corridors yielded the same result- an utter absence of dragons.
Alysanne's anxiety compounded with each step. The shadows grew longer and the air grew colder, while the thunder outside played an ominous beat.
The beat seemed to reach a crescendo as her destination lay before her- Silverwing's den.
She pulled on the wrought iron bars of the gate and was met with nothing but more darkness. Worst of all, there was no sound of her Silver Queen's breaths and the den lacked her draconic warmth. Her panic spiked and Alysanne stumbled forward, grasping at the dark emptiness like a blind woman, desperate to feel the scales, tail, horns- anything!
The darkness suddenly lit up as if the moonlight had slipped in through unknown means and Alysanne gasped when she saw- not Silverwing- but three smashed dragon eggs. Their cracked shells were still sticky with yolk and the poor drakes were so badly mangled and crushed that Alysanne could barely tell what they had looked like. She collapsed to her knees, her heart overburdened with continuously growing grief. She sobbed, for the little drakes and for a Silver Queen who did not answer her call.
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Alysanne woke with a scream of horror on her lips and quickly found herself being pulled into Jae's arms. She tucked her head into his neck and sobbed.
She was still shaking when she left her brother's embrace. The tremors persisted but she had come to her senses. 'It was just a dream,' she sighed with relief, though the fear and gut-twisting horror had not entirely abated.
Alysanne nodded and mumbled her thanks when Jaehaerys passed her a gold-rimmed goblet that he had filled with the Arbor Gold he kept in a cabinet nearby.
Her husband watched her drink, his purple eyes catching the low glint of the moonlight- moonlight much like the one that had illuminated her path in that horrid dream. She shuddered and Jaehaerys covered her hand with his much larger, callused one.
"What did you see in a dream that makes you tremble so, my love?" His voice was filled with concern so pure that it made Alysanne almost swoon.
She tried to smile, tried to retrieve her hand and never speak of what she had seen- or what she thought she saw. The details were growing fainter the longer she spent in the world of the waking and the sane.
But Jaehaerys had an infuriating habit of catching the scent of secrets and digging until he found them or something close enough to provide him with reasonable satisfaction.
So she told him. A tale of madness and horror, of grief she could no longer justify- why did she weep in the dream, she wondered now. She felt so silly.
Jaehaerys listened patiently, however, unaware of the turmoil her mind went through as it recounted the tale. The more she spoke, the more the tale fractured, some details she remembered clearly, others she had lost sight of.
Her brother fell silent once she had nothing more to say. "You must think me a fool," she slumped, the long strands of her hair falling over her eyes like a curtain- a curtain that Jae did his best to pull back. She giggled and pulled away as his fingers trailed their way down her cheeks.
Jaehaerys smiled good-naturedly, "To be afraid after a night terror is nothing unnatural, sister. Yet, it was naught but a dream. Do not linger on it any longer."
Alysanne knew her brother had the right of it, but she could not shake the ill feeling or the nagging doubt that she was too afraid to give voice to. Her brother must've seen her hesitation and so sighed.
"You fear that these events may come to pass?"
Alysanne nearly flinched even though she heard no mockery in his words, "I hope not, dear brother, but it is not something without any precedent- in our House, that is."
Her brother pursed his lips, Alysanne knew now that he had already made up his mind and nothing she could say would change it. "Alysanne, The Dreamer is said to have dreamt of Valyria's fall for moons with alarming consistency before her father took action. One bad dream does not make a mystical prediction," he sighed and took the goblet from her clammy fingers. "Go to sleep, my love," his lips pressed warmly upon her temple. "You have nothing to fear. I shall be by your side until the end of our days."
Alysanne flushed and hoped her bedmate could not see it. "Hmph, you'd best, husband."
She felt his strong warm arm wrap around her waist and his breath huff pleasantly down her neck. Alysanne Targaryen fell asleep, her last coherent thought being of Baelon and Alyssa's impending marriage and the grandsons of her dreams.
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Author Notes: Yes, my friends, we meet again. Yes, there is another chapter after this one. It'll be up once I've proofread it.