ABSOLUTION.

the bells of sunspear rang at midday for three days after the birth of PRINCESS MARYSE NYMEROS - MARTELL : the second in line to the sun throne, the heir of the sun & the sun court, the princess of dorne & of the sun !

A meme surrounding family planning, pregnancy & childbirth  best suited for medieval & fantasy setting. Feel free to change whatever you need to make the prompts suitable for you!

Bastard. Bastard. Bastard. The word had echoed in his ears all his life, festering like a wound. Of late, the voice it most resembled was Aurane's, mocking and cruel. Was that how he spoke to Mariah when he dishonoured her, again and again, or did he disguise it to keep her in the dark? Jorah barely heard the prince's jabs about Helaena over the dull roar rising in his ears.

As a child, he had heard tales of warriors who fought with an unnatural strength driven by rage and madness, a red haze descending over them until the battle ended and they found themselves drained of energy and dripping blood - their enemies', their allies', their own. For all of Aurane's provocations, Jorah had always kept his temper in check. And so it must have been that strange berserker rage that overtook him, something other that possessed him. Launching himself out of the chair, distantly hearing it clatter to the ground behind him, he struck fast at Aurane's face, savoring the wet crunch against his knuckles as they both fell against the table.

thanks to the alcohol in his system, aurane does not feel the pain of the broken nose, but does feel its effects : blood splatters onto floor as the prince, in slight surprise, drops the goblet he had been holding.

they stumble backwards, and aurane's hip slams against the small table holding the wine as jorah yells about his usage of mariah's name, and there are more fists to come if aurane does not act now. he can hear criston cole's voice in his head, and while he is still unsteady, aurane has been unsteady before. he can compensate by reaching out, gripping the carafe of wine, and slamming it hard against jorah's temple with his weaker hand, his other slamming palm first into the bastard's chest to shove him away.

when jorah is seemingly disoriented by the first blow, the prince does not give him time to recover before he is shoving him down, kneeling atop him, and landing blows across his cheeks, his jaw. aurane knows that soon he will grow tired with the exertion, but perhaps a split lip will make jorah think better about attacking back.

Jorah never should have told her what Aurane said. She had been furious with him, shoving him out of her room and slamming the door behind him; he had only said it to destroy something Aurane wanted, not out of concern for her, and they both knew it. He had pounded on her door for half an hour before he finally gave up and left her in peace.

Since then, Mariah had avoided both of them. If Aurane wanted so badly to humiliate her, he could do it without her there, as he already had, and she had little and less to say to Jorah and his vendetta. But if she wasn't keeping an eye on her brother, or on Rhaenyra's, then what was the point in being there at all? More than once she had considered simply slipping away in the night without a word, taking Frost and returning to Dragonstone - or home, back to Winterfell - to nurse her wounded pride and heart.

She never should have let him bed her. She knew what he was like, had known for years, but still - she had, stupidly, fallen for his charms. For all the good it had done her.

When the prince finally got her alone - she could not avoid him forever - she was a wall of ice, and when he kissed her, she turned her face away.

it is all he can do to remain silent. he wishes to speak of jorah, how he has been trailing after helaena, what he has called aurane in that very same conversation that caused all this melodrama, but instead, the prince watches as mariah pulls away and quotes himself from a few hours earlier.

aurane swallows and takes a breath. " you have every right to hate me, mariah. " he steps away from her side, to put a touch of space between them, though all he wants is to pull her within his arms and not let go. " i only wish to --. . " what ? explain ? no, explanations would fall on deaf ears, and perhaps hurt more than heal. his fingers twitch for wine, head slowly starting to gain a pounding from the lack of it this morning.

" . . . there is no excuse. though jorah began it, this argument of ours, i did continue it. the goal was to get under his skin, not yours. it was wrong of me, but these are the talks of men. this is what we do, when blows come to blows, and about women besides. " mariah, with her fire in her, may understand more than most women, at least, the truth of it.

A RAVEN HAS ARRIVED FOR THE QUEEN FROM AURANE TARGARYEN: 

" mother --. " aurane's breath is caught in his throat, and the basest of instincts return to him. the nightmare has dug far too deep, burrowed into veins and caused a fire to run through him ; aurane targaryen, all of fifteen, is more frightened than he's ever been before. he wakes and feels the earth tremble beneath bare feet as he runs to his mother's chambers, as if he can still hear the sounds of fighting, dragon screeches, and the noises of men calling for help as their innards fall from wounds too severe. he can still see aegon suffocating on red flowers as he reaches alicent's door, and the guards do not stop the young prince as he stumbles into the room. his instinct is to find his mother's embrace, for who else can shield him from the pain that has so suddenly been inflicted ? tears burn in his eyes as he tugs at alicent, a choking whisper finding its way out : " mama, help. i -- aegon, aemond --. "

(@absolventiia)

it is seldom that the queen is disturbed during the late night hours for the king has not visited her bed in many moons and her children are far past the age where they fret through the night. or so she thinks. the opening of the door to her chambers is not enough to rouse her for she has grown accustomed to the comings-and-goings of servants as they prepare her chambers for her rising in the morning but the frightened tenor of her son's voice is enough to make alicent startle awake with bewildered, fluttering dark lashes. 

the initial grogginess that often follows disturbed sleep is a difficult combatant to best but for the sake of her child, alicent is stern in her handling of it as she blinks rapidly and sits upright while drawing in a steadying breath to orient herself.  ❝ aurane?❞ the distress etched upon his features, a face as dear to her as her own heart, is enough to make her skin prickle with terror. 

❝ what has happened? ❞ who has dared to cause her son such distress? for it can be no small, trivial thing that sends him seeking refuge in his mother's chambers. after all, as much as she sometimes likes to pretend otherwise, her children are rapidly outgrowing the age where they were inclined to take shelter from the world behind their mother's skirts. 

when she speaks again, she is hastily untangling herself from the sheets of her bed to stand while grasping for her son's hands, ❝ what is it? what has happened to your brothers? ❞ it takes considerable self-control to banish the terror she begins to feel from her voice. what has befallen her sons? 

it is so difficult. difficult to speak, breathe, to do anything but cling to his mother's hands as she rises from the bed. he shakes his head at her questions, lilac gaze at some distant point in space as aurane struggles to find himself where he truly is : not in some battlefield with scorched earth where men cry for their mothers, but with his own, who is staring him down and only wanting to provide the help he's come here to receive.

it takes the young prince a touch too long to answer, still lost in some half dream state, and when he does, his answer is cryptic, spoken in disjointed, terrified whispers : " aegon -- he, he chokes on the red blooming flowers. he suffocates on their petals and aemond ! aemond is blind and cannot see and is somewhere cold and deep and i cannot reach him, mama ! they're both so distant. and helaena has needles that prick her skin and leave gaping wounds where thread comes out, and daeron. . . daeron is on fire. there is nowhere left to run. "

❝  “nor  will  they  spare  my  children.”  [queen  alicent]  declared.  “aegon  and  his  brothers  are  the  king's  trueborn  sons,  with  a  better  claim  than  [rhaenyra's]  brood  of  bastards.  daemon  will  find  some  pretext  to  put  them  all  to  death.  even  helaena  and  her  little  ones.”   ❞

at the end of his life, prince aurane targaryen is known for one thing only : a selfish and horrible sacrifice that does nothing more than prolong an already bloody war.

#absolventiia is a multimuse ft. prince aurane targaryen, an original character written into the world of the house of the dragon / grrm's asoiaf universe. created by ashe ( she / they, 27 ). carrd. graphics credit.