Chapter Text
It had been his brother's mace that had dealt the decisive blow to his head, but as Baelor awoke, he held no anger towards Maekar. The Prince of Dragonstone was merely confused.
He lay where he was, not opening his eyes as consciousness slowly crept back into his body. Wiggling his fingers, he was relieved to feel merely the stiffness of joints not moved for sometime rather than the wood he had felt them to be in his last waking memory. His skull, however, still throbbed in time with the beat of his heart, the kind of ache that radiated from the wound and was familiar to any knight tested by combat. Each pulse of pain brought the memory of Maekar's blow in the chaos of the Trial, and Baelor lay there hoping his brother wasn't being too hard on himself for a hit landed honorably in battle and that he was letting the maesters see to his wounds.
The pain and worry for his sibling was where the familiarity of his predicament ended.
From behind his eyelids came a bright light ill at odds with what Baelor was used to from the interior of a tent or even the guest chambers of Ashford's keep if he had been moved during his bout of unconsciousness. There were no sounds of a maester and his apprentice working, nor the sounds of servants moving to and fro with the necessary tools needed to heal Baelor's wound.
As odd as the bright light was, the feeling in the room doubled it: a wet heat carrying the smell of orange blossoms upon the slight breeze he could feel. It was nothing like the feeling of the air in Ashford, even when it became thicker among all the tents and people packed near the field. What Baelor was feeling was far closer to his memories of visiting Dorne, but that made no sense as well. There was no way he would have been moved to Dorne of all places. If the worst had happened and he had fallen into a coma, he would have been kept in Ashford, and if he absolutely had to be moved, King's Landing would have been the only place he would be taken.
Finally, his curiosity outweighed the pounding in his head and Baelor Targaryen opened his eyes for the first time since they had closed in Ashford.
The first thing he registered was the fresco on the ceiling directly in his line of sight: lavish, depicting a lunar cycle and dawn and dusk stretching from one end of the domed ceiling to the other. Baelor's confusion could not let him appreciate the magnificence of the art; the style was most definitely not Westerosi and he was not so studied in art that he could use it as a clue to where he had awoken at.
Turning his head to the side took gritting his teeth and pushing past the pain, but it rewarded him with revealing more of his residence. Gauzy curtains billowed inward from a set of wide archways that seemed to open onto a balcony where fronds of some unfamiliar broad-leafed tree swayed against a sky so violently blue that it hurt to look at. Wooden dividers with dragons intricately carved into them had been pulled to the side of the archways to let the light in. Beyond the curtains and the greenery, he caught sight of the faintest shimmer of a river under the light of a midday sun. As beautiful as it was, it was not Ashford and it was not King's Landing; it was wholly alien to Baelor.
He pushed himself upright against the silks and mountains of pillows on his bed—another oddity as he had always favored soft linens and furs and no more than four pillows. If his family were around, they would have ensured his preferences even during his healing. Especially if he was healing.
The pain spiked behind his eyes as he finally righted himself, sharp enough to make his vision swim, and he pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until it passed. Pulling them away is when he noticed something that caused panic to spike rather than pain this time in his chest. The hands he was staring down at and moving to confirm they were indeed attached to his body were his own and yet not at the same time. They were younger, marred only by his oldest scars and not from the ones he earned sparring with his sons nor from the perpetual ink stains that seemed to have come the moment his father made him Hand of the King. There were none of the spots that had come with age and the skin was a shade darker, closer to what he looked like in his youth when his days were mostly spent outside with his brothers.
Baelor needed to find out what was happening to him and where he was immediately. He needed to find Maekar and make sure he was okay. He needed to see that Valarr was safe.
Standing up, his legs carried him before his mind gave the order. That was another strange happenstance since waking. His body moved through the ornately and exotically decorated room with a sureness that had nothing to do with conscious thought. Past the archways, around the exquisitely painted screen divider, into the smaller bathing room, and toward the washstand tucked into an alcove along the far wall. He knew where it was, even though he shouldn't know where it was.
Cool water sloshed over the basin's rim as his hands plunged in. He splashed his face, once, twice, three times, moaning in pleasure at the shock of it against his overheated skin, then drank greedily from his palms after another dip until his parched throat stopped burning. In the antithesis of princely decorum, rivulets ran down his chin and dripped onto the mosaic floor. Baelor didn't bother to wipe it away, his hands gripping the edges of the basin to anchor himself as he took a long moment to simply breathe.
He made the error of looking to the side once the cool water had eased some of the pain.
The mirror Baelor was looking into reflected a shocking sight—and a shocked prince.
The face and the body he was looking at displayed the same predicament he saw upon the skin of his hands moments ago. It was young; far, far younger than the face he donned a helm over in preparing for the Trial where grey had already begun to thread through his hair and lines had settled at the corners of his eyes and lips. This face belonged to a man barely past his youth, sharp-jawed and sun-darkened with a familiar twice-broken nose which sat slightly crooked and lent his features a roughness that offset what might have otherwise been too-pretty features. It was all framed by an ink-dark mop of hair that Baelor would be insisting be cut if he were looking at Valarr. It almost seemed like he was looking at Valarr too, if it weren't for the too-dark hair, lack of the silver streak, and the broken nose. He had always laughed off the courtiers who claimed Valarr was his mirror image, believing them to be currying favor rather than speaking truth and always only seeing Jena in their eldest, but looking at his younger reflection, he could see what they all saw.
It made his chest tighten painfully.
The only thing that was different apart from his youth, and Baelor couldn't tell if it made it all the more confusing or brought some sort of strange comfort, was the color of a single eye. His left was the familiar brown from his mother, but the right now looked back at him in a deep indigo.
Baelor brought his hand up slowly just to confirm what he already knew. In the mirror, the reflection did the same. His fingers touched his cheek, the reflection's fingers touched its cheek. He closed the unfamiliar purple eye, the reflection winked back at him.
"No," he whispered, and the voice that came out was that of his younger self's: higher and less sure of himself and surprisingly, carrying a slight accent he didn't immediately place the origins of. "No, this isn't—this is just a dream."
The door in the main room opened and closed with two soft clicks and someone made their way to the bathing room but Baelor was too in shock to notice.
"Master!" The boy's voice was high and sharp with alarm, and most odd, speaking in bastard Valyrian. Baelor spun around. The boy had no face he knew and was wearing no uniform he recognized. He rushed toward him with his hands outstretched. "You should not be out of bed! Let me help you back and I will fetch the healer and notify the mistress that you have awoken!"
The words master and mistress hit him like a lightning bolt of shock after all the mystery that came with waking up. Baelor stumbled backward, his bare heel catching on the edge of the wash basin's stone pedestal. His arms windmilled in an attempt to regain his balance and failing that, catch himself. The servant cried out in alarm once more, lunging to catch him despite being almost half his size, but his fingers only grazed his flailing arm as Baelor's weight brought him down to the floor.
His shoulder found the floor first, then the back of his skull met the unforgiving tile with a dull, hollow 'thwack'.
It was where his brother's mace had found contact before, still tender, and the room spun above him. The boy's scream followed him down distantly as if he were sinking into water.
"Master! Master!"
Perhaps thankfully in his body's attempt to spare him more pain, Baelor was swallowed into unconsciousness once more.
The second time Baelor woke up, it was still in the incomprehensibly familiar room. Opening his eyes slowly, he could see that it was now dark outside and the harsh glare of the sun no longer bled into the room. Intricate brass lanterns now hung from iron hooks and cast latticed patterns of amber light across the walls and ceiling. In the low light, the stars in the fresco seemed to shimmer from what must be gold paint. Candles flickered on every surface and the air was thick with the cloying scent of incense battling against the heady night jasmine sweeping in from the balcony.
There was a maternal hand in his hair warm against his scalp as long fingers with cool rings threaded through his hair in slow passes, nails scratching comfortingly across his head. Baelor turned his head toward the direction he felt the hand was coming from.
Pain lanced through his skull once more to a point just behind his left eye and he squeezed both eyes shut with a grunt that came out more like a whimper in his weakened state.
"Shh. Shh, my sweet boy. Slowly."
The voice was low and honeyed, comforting as his own mother's had been though she hadn't spoken to him or scratched his head like that in some time. Considering he was still in the unknown room, he doubted Myriah would be the one sitting beside him now. When the pain in his head finally subsided to a dull throb once more, Baelor opened his eyes again.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed beside him, one arm resting above his head on the pillows and the other now rubbing comforting circles on his temple and forehead. In that moment, the maternal look of love in the woman's eyes, her actions, and her voice made Baelor tear up and quickly blink the tears away. Before his vision fully cleared, the visage of Queen Myriah Martell swam in place of the woman sitting beside him.
But it wasn't the queen.
The lanterns and the candles cast a light upon the woman that made her silver hair shine. It fell in unbound waves past her shoulders, so pale it looked white against the deep plum of her dressing gown. Her violet eyes were vivid and unmistakable as to indicating the blood of the dragon flowed in her veins. They watched him with the particular intensity and relief of a parent who had been sitting vigil for some time and was only now allowing herself to believe that the worst had passed.
No matter the expression, he knew that face.
It was not a face he had met, but rather a face he had seen in a book: a very old, very dusty copy in the library of Dragonstone that held the description and a small painted image of every lord and lady, prince and princess, king and queen that had belonged to the lineage of House Targaryen. He was being fawned over by Princess Saera Targaryen. A much older version of her was sitting at his side, as the portrait in the book had been commissioned before her disgrace and exile. The woman he was looking at was decades past the portrait but her beauty was unmistakable.
Then, like water breaking through an ill-built dam, memories that did not belong to Baelor Targaryen flooded his mind: Saera's laughter as she chased him around the hallways and luscious yard of their manse in Volantis, the place he was now. The smell of her amber perfume whenever she bent over him to kiss his forehead before bidding him goodnight. Her voice raised in fury at a merchant who tried to cheat her. The way she held his chin tightly between her fingers after he had lost a fight and told him how there is the blood of two royal lines in him and to never let anyone disrespect him.
Muña.
"There you are," Saera said while breathing out a sigh of relief Baelor felt ghost over his face.
He tried to respond, but his throat scratched, dry as it had been when he woke up the first time.
"Don't." He watched as she reached behind her and took a cup from his bedside, bringing it to his lips. When Saera tilted it, wine sweetened with honey moistened his dry lips, ran over his tongue, and down his throat. Baelor drank until she pulled the cup away. "Enough. The healer said small amounts."
"What…" The word scraped out of him, barely audible. He swallowed the film the wine and honey left behind and tried again. "What happened?"
Saera's expression softened by a single, almost imperceptible degree. She set the cup down and returned her hand to his hair. "You are in your room. You have been asleep for a very long time, Baelor, and you gave your poor mother quite a fright earlier when that foolish boy burst in on you like he was an assassin." The smile vanished as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a cool displeasure that thinned her lips. "I've had words with him and he will not be attending you again, regardless of how fond you were of him. A dog would have shown more sense that to startle an injured man out of his wits."
A rustle of movement near the doorway caught Baelor's attention. His eyes shifted from his mother to the two servants standing just inside of the doorway, hovering with the tense, anticipatory stillness of people who had learned that Saera Targaryen's moods could pivot quickly and without warning, leaving very few in the vicinity safe from her wrath. Memories of that side of her came back too. Her drunkenly insulting him with fury in her eyes for being too much like her father. Her hysterically crying and claiming he loved his father more than her and that is why he was leaving Volantis, even though he swore to come back. Her admitting that even though she loved him the most compared to his half-brothers, she would love him more if he looked Valyrian rather than Dornish.
One of the servants tentatively cleared their throat and pulled Baelor out of his onslaught new memories.
"The healer, mistress. Shall I—"
"Yes, yes, fetch him. Tell him my son is awake and if he says there is nothing he can do for Baelor, tell him that I will burn down his stupid little clinic so that he will have no one to tend to but my son."
The servant who spoke disappeared while the other remained silent and watchful, ready to be called upon a moment's notice.
Saera looked back down at Baelor and a tremor of genuine fear swam in her eyes as she beheld her son broken in bed. Her hand moved from his hair to cup the side of his face. Her palm felt cool and dry against his fevered skin. "A week, Baelor. Seven days and seven nights I have waited for news that you were awake or that you had drawn your last breath. Do you understand the agony I was in? A week!"
He understood nothing yet he understood everything. The two truths sat inside him side by side, irreconcilable, and the pressure of them against the inside of his skull was worse than the wound itself. Memories of a life in Volantis he swore he did not live flickered with the memories of his life and family in Westeros.
The healer arrived quickly, most likely due to the threat. His face creased into a wide, genuine smile when he saw Baelor's open eyes.
"Ah! Excellent. Excellent." He set his satchel on the bedside table and bent close, holding up a single finger. "Follow this, if you please." The finger moved left, right, up, down. Baelor tracked it, though the motion sent dull waves of nausea rolling through him. The healer grunted approval. "Good. And your name?"
"Baelor Martell." Speaking came easier this time.
"Very good. The fact that you have regained consciousness so quickly after the second fall is most encouraging. Most encouraging indeed." The healer straightened and addressed Saera with the careful deference of a man who understood exactly who was paying him. "The initial injury was severe. A fracture to the base of the skull, which I treated with a poultice of comfrey and—"
"I don't need to hear about your poultices again," Saera said flatly. "Tell me what I need to know to ensure he doesn't fall unconscious again."
The healer inclined his head, unruffled. "He must continue to rest. Complete rest, my lady. No exertion, no bright light, and absolutely no sudden movements. The brain is a delicate instrument, and he has rattled it twice now: once on the Long Bridge, and once on your very fine floor. He is fortunate. Extraordinarily so. A fall from a chariot at such a speed speed to strike the stones as he did…" He shook his head. "…I have seen men die from less. He is young and strong, and that is what saved him."
The Long Bridge. The words hit something inside Baelor's skull like a key turning in a lock, and suddenly the images were there vividly: torchlight streaking past in a blur of orange and black. The thundering of many hooves on stone. The chariot lurching beneath him as the wheels caught a rut and the reins cutting into his palms as he fought to keep the Sand Steeds in line. His own wild and reckless laughter, if slightly drunken, being swallowed by the roar of the crowd lining the bridge's rails. The night air against his face, hot and sweet and tasting of the river. Then the snap of a harness giving way, the sickening sideways lurch, and the world spinning into darkness
"—listening to me, Baelor?"
He blinked. Saera was staring at him, her brow furrowed.
"You drifted." She turned to the healer. "Is that normal?"
"Quite normal, my lady. The mind needs time to reorder itself. I will prepare a draught for the pain and return in the morning." He bowed, gathered his satchel, and retreated to where he'd arrived from.
The moment the door closed behind him, the hovering servants descended. Pillows were adjusted, linens smoothed, a damp cloth pressed to Baelor's forehead with a gentleness that bordered on reverence. For all Saera's concern for him, it was the servants who did the actual physical caring. A platter was carried to him laden with small dishes that were surely not the best for a healing man. Dates stuffed with almond paste, thin slices of cured meat, flatbread still warm from the oven, a bowl of something that smelled of saffron and slow-cooked lamb; it looked and smelled delicious by he was used to plain porridge whenever under a maester's care. Saera took her offered wine without acknowledgment. She sipped, watching over the rim as a servant carefully raised Baelor's head and brought the cup to his lips, having fulfilled her motherly duties with the one action that day.
"You could have died," Saera said. The words were conversational, almost light, which made them worse. She plucked a date from the nearest dish and bit into it, chewing slowly. "You could have cracked your skull open on the Long Bridge like an egg and bled out before anyone thought to pull you from the wreckage, and for what? A chariot race. A game." She took another sip of wine. "I blame those friends of yours. Tessaro and that other useless boy. They goad you on, they always have, and you are fool enough to let them because you have your father's blood in you, and your father's blood has never met a stupid risk it didn't want to embrace with both arms."
She was building momentum now, long rehearsed and rearing to finally be released. The servants moved around her like fish around a stone in a river, silent, practiced, invisible. At least Baelor had her attention before she could think to punish anymore servants.
"And speaking of your father; it was those horses. Those damned horses." She slammed her cup down against the table. "Sand Steeds, he sends. As if a Sand Steed is a creature meant for a bridge in the middle of a city. They are desert animals, Baelor. They are bred for open ground, not cobblestones. I told him when the last mare arrived, I said Ryon, these animals will kill someone, and what did he say?" She didn't wait for an answer, which was fortunate, because Baelor could not have given one. "'They only need a firm hand, Saera.' A firm hand! You had a firm hand on those reins and it did not stop them from throwing you into the stones like a sack of grain."
She stopped and drew a breath. Her fingers found his hair again, and the stroking resumed, slower now, as if she needed the rhythm of it to steady herself.
"I would not have survived it," she said quietly. The sharpness was gone from her voice, stripped away to something raw underneath. "If you had died. I would not have survived it, Baelor. Do you understand me? You are—" She pressed her lips together. Took another breath. "You are everything I have done right in this world, and there is precious little else on that list."
The silence that followed was heavy. No one had said anything like that to Baelor before. No one had ever need to. He lay still beneath her hand, his skull pounding, his thoughts a churning mess of two lives trying to occupy the same space. He wanted to speak and say I am not who you think I am, or perhaps I am exactly who you think I am and also someone else entirely, but the words wouldn't form. They dissolved before they reached his tongue, lost in the fog of pain and exhaustion and the terrible, vertiginous strangeness of being touched with love by a woman he had only ever known as a name in a history book, yet also knew as a mother.
"I sent a letter to your father," Saera added, almost as an afterthought, reaching for her wine again. "Three days ago. He'll worry and likely drop everything to come here, continuing to worry the entire way, but he should. Perhaps it will convince him to stop sending those wretched horses and finally listen to me."
Father. The word triggered another pulse from that second well of memory, not a flood this time, but a single image like his mind was taking pity on him and not overwhelming him more than he had: a tall man with sun-darkened skin and a close-cropped beard, laughing as he hoisted a small boy onto his shoulders in a courtyard drenched in golden light. The man's eyes were brown and kind, crinkled at the corners, and the boy was shrieking with delight, his small hands fisting in the man's hair.
Ryon. Father.
The image flickered once, twice, and then the darkness at the edges of Baelor's vision crept inward again, soft and inexorable, pulling him down. With a full stomach and the twilight creeping in from the concoction the healer gave him, the murmur of his new mother's voice, was lulling him to sleep like he was still a child.