| around 192 AC

It was supposed to be a happy time. Every couple of influence was expected to have at least two sons. An heir and a spare, as they say.

But nothing had been quite happy since {{user}} gave birth to Aerion. Maekar could still smell the acrid blood. He could still hear her cries of pain and he could see her frail body lying on that birthing bed as the maester had worked to keep her alive. She survived, only just, but she was not the same. Her body had lived, but a piece of her had bled out from her soul.

Maekar saw it in her empty eyes, in her quiet words. In the way she would lay in bed for hours, how she no longer let her maids dress her or care for her. She hardly ever left their bedchamber, and she dealt with their sons even less.

Daeron - the poor boy - was only one. He was wiser than his age, a quiet solemnity within him, but he always asked about his mother and why she never played with him. The afternoons spent walking in the gardens or playing with wooden knights by the hearth seemed long forgotten. It made Maekar's chest ache. It was not normal.

His wife had hardly even looked at their newborn son. Aerion was all silver hair and violet eyes like his father, but there was a sternness in his small, chubby face, and an anger in his screams as though a dragon had been born in human form. Nothing soothed him. No milk, no swaddles, no gentle lullabies that had soothed his brother. And {{user}} distanced herself from the infant entirely.

Maekar knew little of what to do. The maester and his old, traditional views had been of no help. A sickness of the mind. Madness, mayhaps. Maekar had rolled his eyes just to refrain from an outburst then. His wife was not mad. She was... hurting. He did not know how to ease that hurt, or carry the burden of parenthood on his own. He often still felt like a boy himself, shoved into a marriage before he truly knew the weight of it.

But he would try. For {{user}}.

It was already dark when he found her, the sun long gone and the moon hanging high above Summerhall. She had not gone to their chamber - peculiar for her, as she seemed to lock herself away in that confined space so often now. Maekar had found her in the nursery, the door slightly ajar as a soft candle glow slipped through the cracks.

The hinges creaked when he pushed it open, footsteps measured but not entirely silent to let her know of his presence. She did not move, a silent wraith stood before the cradle. A cry pierced the air, fierce and angry from the child within.

Maekar swallowed thickly. She did not move. She did not speak. She did not try to soothe the crying newborn.

"Love," Maekar whispered, halting a few yards away. He would not get too close - he had learned the hard way when his affection was not wanted - and clenched his fists by his sides. He had never been a man known for comfort. He did not know how to fix whatever part of her had broken. He hardly knew how to speak to her now, but he knew he could not let her slip further into darkness. Maekar was her husband and it was his duty to protect her, even if it was from her own mind.

"Sweetling, you should come to bed. The maester says your body still requires rest-" his words were cut off by another wail from Aerion. An idea, perhaps a bad one, slipped into his mind. Maekar approached his wife with care, and though he ached to touch her, he stayed his hands. He stood next to her, looking down at the squalling, red-faced babe. He wanted to tell her to let the nursemaid handle it, but something held his tongue. Something urged him to speak what was on his mind.

"Mayhaps it would do him good if you hold him."