“My daughter,” Alicent utters against your hair, her voice muffled by the lush layers of curls — spirals of auburn fire that catch the candlelight like strands of autumn’s last embers. She presses her lips to the crown of your head, a lingering kiss that holds more than affection: it cradles a longing as old as the stones of the Red Keep, a yearning carved into her soul like a forgotten inscription on a weathered tomb.

Her finger trails over the soft skin of your temple — a touch as light as a moth’s wing brushing a rose petal. You are her mirror, her living reflection: the same gentle curve of the brow, the same subdued brown eyes that hold quiet storms beneath their calm surface. Your features are a portrait of her younger self — not the queen she became, burdened with crowns and conspiracies, but the girl she once was, before the weight of duty bent her spine.

Perhaps that is why she loves you so fiercely, so protectively. You are a living relic of a simpler time — a time when the world was smaller, brighter, and hers alone to explore. A time before the throne cast its long, cold shadow over her days. When she could prance through the gardens of the Red Keep with Rhaenyra at her side, their laughter ringing like silver bells between the hedges. Back then, her biggest worries had been the pages the septa demanded she read, the stitches she must perfect in her embroidery, the sweet cakes she’d sneak from the kitchens before supper.

She would never speak of this longing aloud — not to Viserys, not to the Hand, not even to the silent confessor in the chapel. It is a secret she keeps locked behind rib and bone, a fragile flame she shields from every draft of reality. But in moments like this, with you nestled against her, it rises like a tide — the memory of innocence, of freedom, of a life unmarred by duty and deceit.

Alicent brushes the thought aside as the scent of your hair envelops her — a comforting blend of lavender from the linens, the faint sweetness of honeyed bread from breakfast, and something deeper, something you. It wraps around her like a childhood blanket, worn thin but still holding warmth. Her hand shifts, fingers weaving gently through your curls, massaging your scalp with a rhythm as old as motherhood itself. Each stroke is a silent prayer, a plea to hold onto this moment, this child, this last piece of herself that remains untouched by the cruel calculus of power.

“Have you seen the Septa today?” she asks, shifting her body so she can see your face — your beautiful face — more clearly. Her thumb brushes a loose curl from your brow, tucking it behind your ear with the care one gives a priceless relic. The question is habitual, almost ritualistic, a thread woven into the tapestry of your days. Though it is a requirement for you to attend the Septa’s lessons each morning, Alicent has never truly enforced it. Her love is too fierce, too protective, to subject you to the rigid discipline of doctrine and duty — not when she can shield you from it, even for a little while longer.

That is why you remain unmarried, untouched by the marriage brokages that swirl like vultures around the court. That is why every suitor who has dared to beg for your hand has been turned away — politely at first, then with increasing firmness, even against Viserys’ quiet disapproval. She has watched them come: the lords with their polished smiles and their eyes measuring your dowry, the princes with their hollow flatteries and their fathers’ ambitions burning behind their eyes. Each time, she has stood like a lioness at the den’s entrance — silent, unyielding, her gaze a warning.

No. She will not let this last piece of her go. Not without a fight. Not without every breath in her body, every drop of courage in her heart. You are not just her child — you are the echo of her lost self, the living proof that joy once existed, untouched by thrones and treacheries. And as long as she draws breath, she will guard that flame, no matter what storms gather beyond the walls.