aegon / @sunfyred said: ❝ i'm afraid. ❞ ft. alicent hightower (king & conqueror prompts - accepting)
victory is so close that alicent can practically taste its sweetness upon her tongue and yet the reservations of her eldest son briefly make her pause. she is asking much of him (and helaena) but it is not only she who asks but the gods themselves. to disregard her son's inheritance would be to make a mockery of the laws of the realms and who is she to do such a thing?
for a moment, she sees not her eldest son, soon to be crowned king of the seven kingdoms, but her firstborn, the silver-haired toddler she had watched take his first steps across the nursery. she sees not the man he has become but the child he once was and she feels her heart stutter in her chest. no longer is he the child that she can sit upon her knee and soothe with honeyed words and a gentle kiss to the brow. this should be the moment where she firmly chastises him for an admission that their enemies would all too easy fault him for given that fear is so synonymous with weakness but she finds herself compelled not to offer admonition but soothing assurance as if he is naught but a child with a bruised knee.
'do not be afraid, aegon. the gods are with you: the realm's rightful king.' she replies calmly as a beringed hand extends forward to gently thread through her son's silver tresses. he, along with his siblings, are her magnum opus, her life's greatest achievement and she will stop at nothing to see them thrive, even if she must coax them through their own fears to do so. 'you were born for this. you may not believe it but I have believed it from the first moment i held you in my arms.' so much time has passed that aegon now has children of his own and yet, she can remember the moment he first drew breath like it was yesterday.
nothing could have prepared her for the sheer ferocity of love she had felt first for her eldest and then for his siblings in due time and that fierceness had not abated with time, but rather grown in magnitude. 'fear is natural but do not let it cow you into hiding in the shadows. let it drive you to overcome all that stands in your way.' in their way for whomever and whatever threatens her son also threatens her.
'and you will never walk alone. I will be with you, always.'














