Later that evening, Aegon was racing through the corridors, Mother had said not to run inside, but Mother was not here, so it did not count, that's when he tripped over his own feet and went sprawling. His knee hit the stone floor hard, and pain shot up his leg, sharp and hot.
"Ow!" he cried, looking down to see blood welling up from a nasty scrape. "Ow, ow, ow!"
Tears sprang to his eyes. Not because it hurt that much—though it did hurt, but because he was three and no one was around to see him be brave, so what was the point of being brave?
As he was trying to stand up and go to the maester, like a ghost materializing from shadows, Rhaegar was there.
Aegon had not heard him approach. Had not seen him coming. But suddenly his little brother was kneeling beside him, his face as blank and expressionless as ever, and he was pulling something white from his pocket.
A handkerchief. Clean and neatly folded.
Rhaegar pressed it gently to Aegon's knee, his movements careful and precise. The white linen immediately bloomed red with blood, but Rhaegar did not flinch. He just held it there, applying steady pressure, his gold eyes focused on the wound with the same intense concentration he gave to everything.
Aegon stared at his brother, momentarily forgetting to cry. "You... thanks?"
Rhaegar's eyes flicked up to meet his for just a moment, and there it was again, that brief flicker of something. Something warm. Something that might have been concern, or care, or even love, though it vanished so quickly Aegon could not be sure he had seen it at all.
Then Rhaegar stood, nodded once in that weird, stiff way of his, and walked away. Just like that. No words. No explanation. Just silent help and then absence.
Aegon sat there on the cold stone floor, holding the bloodied handkerchief to his knee, and felt a strange tightness in his chest.
'He helped me,' Aegon realized. 'maybe he heard me crying and came to help.'
It was the first time Aegon could remember anyone helping him without being asked, without expecting praise or reward. Father helped when Aegon asked, but always distractedly, his mind clearly elsewhere. Mother helped, but with lectures about being more careful. The servants helped because... they had to.
But Rhaegar had just... appeared. And helped. And left.
'Maybe he is not ignoring me,' Aegon thought slowly, the idea forming with difficulty in his three-year-old mind. 'Maybe he loves his big brother very much that he couldn't even properly speak to me.' aegon with all the brain of a 3 year old came to this conclusion.
Aegon looked down at the handkerchief, now thoroughly stained with his blood, and felt a weird sort of protectiveness settle over him.
'My weird little brother' he thought. 'Maybe I shouldn't teach him a lesson afterall, I have to show my magnamity as a prince. And he is my brother, And he helped me. So I suppose I should help him back, maybe I should help and teach him to talk more?...'
"yes!! That's what I will do from now on" Aegon declared
But He would still call him weird, of course. Because he was. But maybe, just maybe, weird was not the same as bad.
***
(Queen Alicent's POV)
Alicent Hightower stood before the sept altar, her hands clasped in prayer, but her mind was far from the Seven. It was with her second son, as it so often was these days, that beautiful, terrible boy who haunted her waking hours and caused her such worry.
The sept bells rang for vespers, their sound echoing through the stone chamber, and Alicent found herself reciting prayers by rote, her lips forming words her heart did not feel.
"Maiden, protect my children"
"Mother, grant them health"
"Crone, give them wisdom—"
But what wisdom could help Rhaegar? What protection could shield a child from whatever darkness was troubling it.
She thought of that morning, when she had brought Aegon to the nursery to encourage brotherhood between her sons. She had found Rhaegar sitting alone in the corner, always alone, always in corners or shadows or places where he could observe without being observed, and she had asked him to greet his brother properly.
The look he had given her...
Alicent shivered despite the warmth of the sept. Those eyes, her own eyes, inherited through her husband's blood, had looked at her with such intensity, such naked emotion, not possible to express from such a small child, that for a moment she had almost believed she saw love there. Desperate, aching love.
And after a few minutes he was back to his usual distant, cold demeanor, his mask on, which infuriated her to the core.
She curses herself for not knowing what is plaguing her son, what is the reason for his still, cold silence, his inability to form an expression, or have a proper conversation with anyone.
'Aegon laughs and plays and demands attention like any normal boy. But Rhaegar.'
All these clouded the queen's mind, and her worry was turning more into caution and fear these days, though she is ashamed to feel such, about her own son.
She remembered his birth, that terrible night when balerion's roar had shaken the Red Keep, viserys thinks that she doesn't know anything about that matter because she was still recovering after her labor, but she knew better, and when Viserys had looked at the newborn babe not with a father's love but with a prophet's fervor, She knew that her husband was lost to something.
"Rhaegar," he had named him.
"The dragon prince. The one who was promised." All the pressure and her husband's eyes of expectations was carried right of the birthing bed and had made her son what he is now.
Even though the king acted indifferent about it and paid no heed to her questions about his behaviour on that day, as he would simply dodge it, successfully not answering anything.
Alicent felt that the problem, the source of the problem of her son's was exactly hidden within whatever her husband was trying to hide
Even now Alicent remembers the day she had held her second son and felt only cold dread. But,still she loved her son, though he is different from others
Even though the boy had been strange from the beginning.
He had walked at seven months, far too early, unnaturally early. He had spoken his first word at one year, clear as a bell: "Dragon."
But after that... silence. Days would pass with nothing but that blank, beautiful stare. Weeks sometimes, he would speak with her sometimes, albeit a few words, making her feel relieved that her son had not gone mute, but mainly he would give a nod or a gesture to show he understood anything at all.
The maesters said nothing was wrong with him.
"Some children are simply quiet, Your Grace," Maester Orwyle had assured her.
"He is healthy, strong, clearly intelligent. Give him time."
And Alicent had given him time. A year and more. And the boy only grew stranger.
She finished her prayers and rose from her knees, her joints aching. As she made her way back toward the royal chambers, her mind churned with worry and guilt.