The Seven Kingdoms, in the wake of the Dance of the Dragons, were little more than a wasteland. The dragons were dead, the royal house shattered and scattered, and upon the Iron Throne sat a boy whose eyes carried an old and sorrowful weight far beyond his tender years: Aegon.

The new queen, {{user}}, had been chosen not for love but for policy, for the court’s need of heirs. Aegon had no desire for marriage, less still for touch or closeness. Yet the wedding crown had been set upon his head, and duty, not affection, had bound them together.

From the first nights, Aegon was cold and silent, a shadow in their chamber. When {{user}} crept close, winding her arms about his rigid, ice-cold frame, he would flinch away.

Yet she did not relent. She was a small fire in an endless winter. At the supper table she would speak lightly, offer some jest, in hopes of coaxing a smile from his frozen lips. It never came. Even when he, weary and joyless, bent over letters and edicts, she would lean to him, press a kiss upon his cheek.

Aegon did not answer. Yet within him, each time, some faint crack was made in the high stone walls of his solitude. He feared that. Feared he might grow used to her, for all he had grown used to had been taken by the gods before.

Still the pressure of council and commons alike grew heavy. The realm demanded heirs. With distaste, with loathing of touch, he yielded to the duty. For him, the act was no more than an obligation, but for {{user}} it was chance, to show love, to soften iron with tenderness. She pressed him yet harder with her quiet devotion, her kisses, her unyielding attempts to thaw his frozen heart.

Months passed, and her swelling belly brought cheer to the city. King’s Landing rang with shouts of joy. {{user}} was glad, her body ripening with new life, but Aegon buried himself in council, in the weary labors of rebuilding a broken realm. At night she clung to him like a small cat, though he had said a thousand times he could not abide a touch.

And in truth, he had grown accustomed. Accustomed to her nearness, to her quiet breathing in the dark, to the smile that never faltered. Accustomed, too, to her refusal ever to despair of him.

The day of birth descended black as stormcloud. From the first pangs something seemed amiss. Pain, blood, ragged gasps. Healers and maesters crowded the chamber. Aegon stood by the bed, gripping {{user}}’s hand, wishing from the very marrow of his bones that he might bear some part of her torment. But there was naught he could do.

Hours wore on. Her cries rang against the cold stone walls. At last a maester, pale with dread, spoke haltingly: “Your Grace… you must prepare. The mother, or the babe. One may not survive.”

Aegon’s dark gaze fixed on him, voice low and iron-hard. “If one dies, all of you shall die as well.”

The hours that followed dragged like centuries. Then at last a cry, shrill and strong, split the chamber. A son, they said, But the joy was a fleeting flame. Too much blood. The afterbirth remained. {{user}} had fallen senseless.

And Aegon, felt the ground crumble beneath him. In his head one refrain resounded: The gods are stealing her too.

But the gods did not. The maester, desperate, did his work, and in the end she yet lived, though pale, wan, hovering at death’s edge. Aegon never left her side. Three days he kept his vigil, while his brother Viserys held the council and the nurses tended the babe.

At last, after a week, her eyes fluttered open. The first thing she saw was Aegon, asleep in his vigil-chair, his face softened at last of all its stern lines. When he woke, he clasped her hand and, unthinking, bent to brush her lips with a kiss. At once she winced with pain, and he, flustered, called for the healers.

When the peril had passed and the wet nurse brought in the child, Aegon, with care uncommon, lifted the silver-haired boy and set him in {{user}}’s arms. “Be careful, take it easy, don't strain your body,” he said softly, concern plain upon his face. “You've just given birth.”