be the serpent

Hand pressed firmly to her stomacher, Alicent inhaled through her nose. Held as she recited to herself, Father, Mother, Maid, Warrior, Crone, and released from slightly parted lips. The nausea was barely held at bay by this exercise but it still worked.

The keep upon Dragonstone was an upfront to her senses and she loathed, not for the first or last time, that the Princess- no, Queen, had gifted this to her children. She understood its importance, however she also recognized that it was giving her son something she could not.

Confidence.

Surely, given time, he will realize how natural he is in his Lordship that this would be the first step towards his proper ascension. Alicent nodded to herself, confirming her own quiet thoughts. Yes, yes, this would work. She just needed to have Faith. She always had Faith.

In the meantime, she must step back and allow him to come into his stewardship on his own. She could not interfere nor could she carry this burden for him. Alicent must light the way.

The Dragonstone Sept was pitiful but also historic. The figures of the Seven Who Are One were carved from the very masts of the ships that carried the first wayward Targaryens to these rocks.

She could not begin there.

Alicent cringed at the final tally of sums that had been presented to her but through her father's work in negotiating her marriage contract and later with the Iron Banks, this did not drain her coffers. Affixing her seal to the documents before her, she gestured with a sweep of her fan for her belonging to begin to be packed from the quarters she had claimed for herself in her son's halls.

It was time she went to her new home.

The Green Sept it could be called or Dragonstone's Grand Sept. The name did not change the fact that it was first and foremost a cathedral devoted to the Faith of the Seven Who Are One. It was nestled in the mountains on the very outskirts of the island's primary port village.

Alicent's quarters were safely ensconced between the grand cathedral and mountains. From her bedroom and front parlor she could look out towards Blackwater Bay, back towards the Red Keep. Further inwards were her dining and entertaining quarters, which all encircled the grand glass domed garden she had installed.

Vents dug into the rock bellowed steam that made the plants installed here to stay in a near constant state of bloom.

This room may also be perhaps why the Sept had it's moniker. It had been dubbed by it's creators as The Green Room.

Dowager Queen Alicent Hightower, Maimie McCoy, She/Her 

Welcome, Dowager Queen Alicent of House Hightower! We’re delighted to see she has arrived safely on her journey to King’s Landing. Around the court the eight-and-forty year old has been praised as devout, family orientated, and cunning,  but some have whispered she is also sanctimonious, coveting, and duplicitous.

Upon her arrival, it is clear that she was unenthusiastic in her support of the reign of Westeros' first Ruling-Queen and while the eyes of our court may be fixed on House Targaryen, Queen Rhaenyra, and the future of Westeros, her true allegiance will always be to the Faith of the Seven.

MOTH/MOTHRA, NINE AND TWENTY, CST,

[Where is Duty?]

Blue eyes stared at her from the mirror, her mother’s eyes. Alicent did not recall what her mother looked like, only knew the color of her eyes were the same because it was often remarked upon. She had a fist around one of the pearls that dangled off her necklace - if she couldn’t breathe because she was choking herself or due to nerves it made little difference in the end. Her throat had been tight, her hands clammy and heart fluttering, all day. Her father was furious, embarrassed, she barely managed her vows in front of the High Septon.  

She had just married King Visery Targaryen, first of His name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm. She was to become Queen Alicent Hightower. It was the day after her ten-and-eightth nameday.

Mother Above, please grant me your blessing, so that this union may be made fruitful. Words she had read from her mother’s journal that she had inscribed the date of her marriage to her father, Otto, came to her and she didn’t know if she was saying them aloud or not. Dear Maid, thank you for your blessing, this gracious gift. With trepidation, she continued unbidden now, Oh wise Crone, please, grant me the wisdom to guide my lord husband towards the Seven’s embrace. 

[Alicent does not care for the traditions of the House she married into after her eighteenth nameday. She abhors them, in fact, particularly the smell of their unholy fire drakes. Her stepdaughter and now her own children reek of it. She protested placing eggs into their cradle, fearing them being burned, but had been shown the wisdom of her trueborn children hatching cradle eggs. This did not always come to pass, but alas, she could not be ungrateful if they claimed the monsters later in life even if she hated the necessity of it.]

[When she is nervous, she twists around her necklace. She is often seen pacing with her hand at her throat, flanked by Ser Criston Cole.]

No one told her the Mother’s gift would be so heavy. No one told her the Mother’s gift could be so soft. Her firstborn, her son, was placed into her arms and she curled over him, as much as she was able to from her mound of pillows. She had never seen a baby so beautiful before. 

[Alicent loves all of her children. Would burn herself at the stake, for her children’s sake. But Aegon, her firstborn, her baby boy, is something else. While many would think Aemond or Daeron was her favorite son, it was always going to be her first son that held a precious part of her heart. She does not remember rage quite like the rage she felt watching her step-daughter steal her son’s birthright.]

[There was once a time when she loved the Princess, only daughter of King Viserys and Queen Aemma. She belonged to Aemma’s household so it was common enough that she saw her. Even more when she married. That affection curdled in her stomach, the acid of fear eating away at it as year after year Viserys reaffirmed the girl as his heir.]

The Rogue Prince returned to court, victorious, resplendent, alive. He dared crown himself King of the Narrow Sea. 

Oh. He had everyone fooled - Viserys, Rhaenyra, the Small Council. Absolutely eating from his hands. The Queen Consort was not in attendance to receive him. Nor had she wished otherwise. But she had heard enough. 

She screamed. She ranted. Her apartments did not survive the rampage as feathers flew through the air and furniture was overturned. She knew better than all of them. He did not return to proclaim his loyalty, his devotion, no no she did not need to hear the words to feel the poison in them. 

“I thought he would have fallen,” She confessed later, to her father, the only confessor that would hear her sins. Some words she had learned were not to be uttered in a holy house, to do so would be sacrilegious.  “Had there not been scor….” At her father’s reproachful look, she cowed. Yes, yes, that was right. Even the walls had ears. Alicent downcast her eyes, hand at her throat, the other bracing her middle. It kept the ache of her swollen belly from her back a little, a small comfort during a comfortless time. The Mother’s Blessing is nothing without Her Suffering, she quietly and often recited to herself. 

“You were overcome from your….condition. The maids have been taken care of,” was the terse response, providing a plausible explanation for the state of her quarters. “The Grand Maester will have tea provided to…” The quill in his hand encompassed her being. Alicent bowed her head. “Yes, father. Thank you.”

[The coffin of her affections for Rhaenyra had begun that day. She had wanted her step-daughter to realize her place, in both the Realm and in her father’s heart. To bear with it the burden and responsibility. The wisdom would have come later once she had grown and had a child - she planned on being there, at the end, but not if it meant suffering still the Bane of Targeryens which was Daemon Targeryen himself. However, she knew the princess’ affections for her uncle. She knew of his reputation as a blackheart. Her father had educated her quite thoroughly over the years of his character. 

When Ser Cole approached her, out of worry over his charge, well, Alicent knew what must be done.

Even if it meant closing her eyes as her husband was above her.]

“Cease this infernal fidgeting,” The snap of a fan opening barely drowned out the sound of its impact seconds before unfolding. Alicent glowered through her reflection back at her handmaiden. “You will crease my gown.” 

 The woman bobbed her head, dipping low into a curtsy. Alicent turned with narrowed eyes, fan a flutter, until the woman sank so low to the ground her nose nearly touched to polished marble and rich carpet before she was satisfied. She gestured with the fan towards the door, wordlessly dismissing the women that had flocked around her dressing room like a flock of headless hens. The hens rushed to comply with their mistress’s command and left her in blessed silence and solitude. 

Now alone her fan slowed from fluttering to gently swaying, the gems and gold filigree catching more and more of the room’s light to shine back into her reflection at the mirror. 

Alicent knew she must look above reproach. She licked a tip of her finger and leaned in closer to the small ornate mirror on her dressing table, gently correcting some of her lipstain. A dark glorious red to offset the brilliance of her emerald gown. 

It was her anniversary celebration afterall. 

She was five summers into her marriage with Viserys, had borne him not one but two sons and a daughter.  She was Queen. 

Yet the harlot from his first marriage remained his precious heir. 

Abruptly, Alicent straightened in her seat before standing out of it. Her hands smoothed the fall of her gown. Adjusted her chatelaine, to which her gilded fan was affixed, and swept from her halls. 

The tourney was set to begin, opening the week-long celebration her husband had planned. 

[Many things could be said to describe Alicent Hightower, Queen Consort of Viserys I Targaryen. One would be to describe her by the color of her gowns from this moment on - another would be to comment on the sheer wealth displayed by her golden fan.  Styled like the ones in Essos, this one was a folding fan but instead of delicate cloth or wood for its construction it was thin gold plates, stamped through with imagery of the Seven Who Are One and the famous Lighthouse of Oldtown. Its top fires which usually burned a lively red and orange were decorated with fine cut emeralds. To match her gowns, the consort was to say, my favorite color. Like her words, this too was wielded too commonly as a sharp tool for correction.]

Her favorite color was blue. Like her eyes, like her mother’s eyes.

[She loves Dreamfyre despite the dragons being abominations. When Helaena claimed her, she watched from her balcony, her hand at her throat and heart in her ears. Criston had to brace her against him, steadying her other hand against his plated arm. Her shoulder pressed against his chest. My daughter, Oh Gods, my baby girl. She does not remember her tears, her crying. Her baby girl would be safe. Her daughter was flying.]

{Where is Sacrifice?}

“Those boys are bastards,” She hissed, standing atop the ramparts as she looked down upon her children and…those creatures train at arms. Foul. 

Silent at her elbow but she knew her guardian well enough that she did not need to turn to him to assure herself of his presence. Her heart always beat so rapidly that it was quite unmistakable to know when he was near and when he was not. The close press of his body to hers, excusable by the narrow catwalks, made gooseflesh out of her shoulders and bare forearms.  “There is no way such plain faced creatures came from House Velaryon,” Even if they tried passing them off as Baratheon or Arryn looks, Alicent knew better. 

She lifted her fan, just high enough to obscure her lips. “Send for the Maester, I must write to my father.” A beat, as if unfamiliar, “please.”

“As you wish.” 

Alicent smiled. 

“Your Grace.”

{Does it need to be said?}

{This is not the first or the last of the rumors that would be spread by the viper who made her den amongst the dragons. What is a dragon if not an overgrown reptile? Any hearsay or rumor that would be whispered about the Black Queen and her brood, or supporters, would always trickle back to the painted smile that first spilled them.} 

They say the Green Queen poisoned the King. You jest! Surely that tart knows who has been feeding and fucking her. You don’t shit where you eat!

Viserys Targeryen, First of His Name, her husband and father of her children, had been sick for a very very long time. She knew it and so did the rest of the Realm. 

It was pathetic how she clung to that seat of swords. Didn’t she know the tighter you squeezed a knife the deeper you cut?  Alicent had learned that at a tender age. Shame no one thought to teach Aemma’s daughter. 

She sat at his bedside, cradling his limp…claw. To call what she grasped a hand would be to ignore the reality she both saw and felt. Most of his hand had been lost to the rot that plagued him for years, leaving just three fingers and a thumb. The bare minimum the Maester had said he would need in order to function in his duties. 

Her gloves would need to be burned. Along with this gown. The air was stale and fetid, the windows shuttered against the sickness outside. 

Dust motes were the most lively thing in this room. 

“My condolences, my Queen. I assure you the King felt no pain and went quickly, during the hour of the bat.” Grand Maester Munkun intoned blandly. Alicent barely heard his words as she looked at what remained of her husband.  

She wanted to rise and claw out what remained of his face. 

Alicent did not know how long she sat in silence, the dust motes wafting through the light that broke through the shutters to her husband’s chambers, before she found her voice.

“Where is my son? Where is Aegon?” 

No one remained in the chambers to answer her. 

{Oldtown was renown for its sweet hippocras, a tipple the King was apparently very fond of by the way he did not protest against her pressing the rim of the cup to his lips as she supported him. She had been relegated to nursemaid more than wife, a duty below her station but now she was free.}

{This one is open for interpretation. Alicent, watching her influence diminish and the deals struck between her children and the Princess Hand, realized she was tired. So very tired and so very angry but there was no one left to hear her cries, to mistake her tears of relief for tears of grief. She did not know how to feel but she knew somehow she had long overplayed her hand and lost.  A temporary retreat was needed.}

How odd it was. How unfamiliar it all seemed.

Alicent stood in what had been her chambers of twenty and three years. 

Most of her gowns had been packed away. Her jewels separated out from what were the Targaryen family gems and her personal collection, the ones Viserys and other nobles vying for favor had gifted her over the years. Her personal collection was locked securely in several iron lockboxes, buried under the many layers of her gowns, while the Master of Coin had retrieved the other collection.  It would be catalogued, cleaned and stored for future Targaryen generations to use. 

Everything of hers was being swept into ships to depart with her sons and daughters belongings to Dragonstone. 

“Your Grace,” Clanking, metallic steps broke her revelry and she smiled. “Ser Criston,” Her sword and shield stopped before her - far enough they could be seen apart from the doors of her chambers as prosperity dictated but close enough she could smell the bergamot and orange scent of him. He had been her solace these past moons. “The ships are ready to depart.”

“Very well, thank you, my knight,” With a rallying breath, Alicent pressed her hands just below the apex of her stomacher. She turned to face her protector with wide, beseeching eyes, “Will you still accompany me?” 

“Will you still defend me and my children, Ser Criston?”

{She loves her knight like all maidens love their knights. They whisper that she cuckolded the king, in his later years, for while he aged poorly his queen had not lost her beauty or her grace. She was said to be as slim and slender as she was in her youth when she was wedded to the King. It is natural afterall for a woman like her to have hunger. But for what and for whom?}