To Be Sovereign

The son was a mirror of the father. When Alysanne came through her bedroom’s dark wood door, she’d find Baelor waiting for her. See him as every image a Targaryen in late age should be. Silver hair tied back into a small tail that caught sunbeams and glittered gold because of them. A sharp jawline, a razor of a face, a man who looked like he’d cut his own arm off if an infection threatened to spread.
    Many said his eyes were the most terrible aspects about him. Poison drops as a child had stolen the purple and left hazel gems in their place. But Baelor believed that eyes were but a piece of the puzzle. Posture, accent, how you breathed. The rhythm of a heartbeat. The gait of a stride. These things are what separated one hairless ape from the next. And when people saw Baelor, something older than their ancestors, something buried into the fluid of their blood told them that he was not normal.
    Alysanne knew this just as well as her brothers did. Maybe she would see the two swords Baelor brought with him leaning against the fireplace, one longer than the other. Maybe she would know them to be a quiet threat from the Master of Whispers. Subtly was a weapon Sickly Jae tried to master during his own life and Baelor wondered which child would take after him in that regard when they were youths.
    The daughter inherited that head. She believed herself intelligent and sly and cunning and truth be told she could be any of those three things at any one time.
    Baelor’s eyes fall on her like the executioner’s great sword.
    Your desperate deal with Quellon Greyjoy has cost you your crown. Shut the door.