The Red Keep, for all its splendor, ever smelled of smoke and blood. Even on those days when the sun laid its golden touch upon its lofty towers, there lingered in its halls and hidden corners shadows that never wholly departed. In the very hall where once songs of triumph had been sung, a child of sorrow lay in her cradle.

{{user}} wept, but not with the lusty cries of babes. Her sobs were quiet things, swallowed into silence, as if the grief of her dead mother had taken root within her. The wet nurses whispered, “This one drinks her tears as she drinks her milk. She holds her sorrow as her mother held hers.” They spoke of Queen Aemma, who perished upon her birthing bed, her son Baelon dead beside her.

King Viserys, when he looked upon the cradle, seemed to falter. Something in his gaze always fell away. His eyes grew weary, as though this daughter were a wound that would never heal, a living reminder of what he had lost and could never win back.

Princess Rhaenyra regarded the babe with chill regard. A child of silver hair and violet eyes, who had stolen from her the last warmth of her mother’s love. A petty thing, and yet a seed of bitterness was planted deep within the girl’s heart.

All that remained to the orphaned babe was a pair of arms not bound to her by blood: those of Alicent Hightower, the new queen.

Alicent, with her green eyes and gentle hands, found in the king’s broken child something she scarce admitted even to herself. At first it was duty that drew her near, but soon enough, no. Soon there was a tenderness deeper than she gave even her own children of the king’s seed. {{user}}, a pale shadow that clung to her skirts, was hungry for warmth. And Alicent, weary of cold courtesy and courtly whispers, hungered for a gaze that looked upon her with trust alone.

Not long after her marriage, Alicent gave Viserys a son, Aegon. Silver-haired, loud of cry, he was cradled in every hall as proof that the Hightowers had bound themselves to the dragonlords in truth. Yet even as she suckled Aegon at her breast, Alicent would find {{user}} nestled at her side, small fingers clutching her gown, violet eyes following her every move. Two babes she held then.

Years passed. {{user}} grew in the shadow of the green queen, not in the arms of her sister nor in the care of the Red Keep’s wet nurses. When the bells of the sept tolled each morning, the girl would seize Alicent’s skirts, walking in step beside her down the marble ways. The air smelled ever of wax and incense, and the prayers that Alicent whispered seemed to etch themselves upon the child’s very soul. She was but little, yet each verse she treasured as though it were sacred writ.

And as the years crept on, {{user}} drowned herself in green. A green mantle lay upon her shoulders, green ribbons were tied in her silver hair, and even her prayers were sung in the cadence of her mother’s voice. Before gods and men alike, she was a daughter of Alicent Hightower, not Aemma Arryn.

Time slipped by. The shadows of the Red Keep remained cold and constant, yet to {{user}} every stone smelled of Alicent now. Each green curtain that stirred in the breeze, each candle lit by the queen’s fair hands, seemed an embrace, a shelter against the dark.

King Viserys had by then sired more children of Alicent During these years: Helaena, Aemond, and Daeron, youngest of all.

Outwardly, {{user}} was no longer a child but a maid of fourteen years, her body slender and her face a true stamp of House Targaryen: silver hair that gleamed like spun moonlight, skin pale as new snow, eyes violet and burning beneath the torchlight. Yet despite the proud visage she wore, she still clung to her mother’s presence with a child’s need.

At court one evening, after a supper of venison and winter wine, {{user}} sat on a low stool at Alicent's feet. Alicent's slender fingers threaded through the girl's silver hair as she whispered, "You have grown too old for this, my sweet. Even Daeron doesn't want me to do this for him anymore, he says he's a grown man."