Chapter Text
The last thing Aemond Targaryen remembered from the final moments of his life wasn't pain. Not the fierce cold of the stormy sky above God's Eye, nor the tearing agony as Daemon's sword pierced his eye while Vhagar plummeted into the abyss. No. The last thing etched into his consciousness was futility. The deep, unbearable futility of everything he and his family had relentlessly fought for, everything they had lost.
The world spun around him, blurring into a whirlwind of blue-black mist. Vhagar, his majestic, ancient dragon, who had been his only true support in life, screamed in agony. This cry, full of age-old wisdom and untamed wildness, tore through the air before being swallowed by the storm. Aemond felt her massive body, hardened by dragon's blood and countless scars, struggling to hold on. But he knew. He had always known this inevitable day would come.
He felt Daemon's hatred – the same hatred that burned within himself for his uncle. The feeling that consumed them both. This hatred was the thread that bound them, and it was also the blade that severed their lives. The eye that had once been gouged out now felt the blow again – symbolically, fatally. "An eye for an eye," the wind whispered then, whether they were Daemon's last words or Aemond's own ironic thoughts.
Familiar faces flashed before his inner eye: Queen Alicent, whose love was a heavy burden for him; his brother Aegon, a weak and reckless king for whom he had given everything; Helaena, his unfortunate sister, whose prophecies were as painful as her innocence; Viserys, the one whose crown became the cause of this bloody carnage. Each of them was a pawn in a game where the pieces were made of bone.
He recalled his rage, his fury, which had fueled him throughout all these years. Rage at Lucerys, who took his eye, rage at Rhaenyra, who claimed what rightfully belonged to his brother by birth. But now, in these final moments, it all seemed so minuscule, so meaningless. Thousands dead, lands ruined – to the destruction of which he himself had contributed – families torn apart – for what? For a throne that would never bring happiness, only more blood.
"Dragons are a power that can destroy the world if used for one's own unholy motives." This was repeated in every book dedicated to the tales of dragons past. Vhagar, his pride, his extension, a magnificent dragon from the time of the Conquest with centuries of knowledge, but even she cannot change fate when riders are blinded by their own ambitions and hatred.
As the dark waters of the lake swallowed him, as the cold embraced his body, Aemond felt the inevitability. He had lost. Everyone who plays the game of life loses. The only thing he desperately yearned for now was peace. Peace from endless war, from endless intrigues, from his own uncontrollable rage. He closed his single eye, and darkness consumed him, promising oblivion.
The darkness, which should have been eternal, turned out to be just a transition. There was no hell or heaven as promised by every religious treatise, only a feeling of compression, warmth, and a strange, yet somehow familiar, heartbeat. Aemond's consciousness, so clear, vivid, and full of memories of his demise just moments ago, was now compressed, limited. It was like a cocoon where he was imprisoned, and the outside world reached him as muffled sounds and indistinct sensations.
He was no longer Aemond One-Eye, Prince Targaryen, warrior and hater. He was... something new. Something unusual. The sensation of warm fluid surrounding him, rhythmic movements rocking him, and a surprising, yet now familiar, steady pulse echoing within him.
It was a womb. He was in a womb.
The shock was as profound as any sword blow. This couldn't be. He had died. He felt Vhagar falling, her death throes. He felt the pain of the sword strike, the cold of the lake water. But now... now he was here. And he was tiny. Incredibly, helplessly tiny.
The memory of God's Eye was as fresh as a wound, yet it already seemed distant, like a dream. New sensations began to fill him: a muffled voice singing a gentle lullaby, soft touches stroking his skin.
"Hush, my little eaglet," the voice whispered. It was a woman's voice, tender, yet full of hidden strength. This voice was unfamiliar to him, yet at the same time, it felt right, fundamental, like a part of this new existence.
As time blurred into days, weeks, and months, the sensations became clearer. He felt his body growing, his tiny limbs forming. He couldn't see, but his other senses sharpened. He felt his mother's pulse, her breathing, even her emotions – tenderness, anticipation, a slight worry. He began to distinguish individual words, though their meaning was unclear to him. Then he heard a name that stirred a storm in his consciousness.
"Aemma."
Aemma. The only person Aemond remembered with that name was Rhaenyra's mother. Aemma Arryn, Queen Consort to King Viserys, who died in childbirth. During his birth? It was too much to comprehend. This woman, whose voice was his only comfort, whose warmth enveloped him, turned out to be Aemma Arryn, his mother.
He began to connect the fragmented pieces. He was in Westeros. He was... in the past? One thing was clear: he was in the body of Aemma Arryn's child. And that meant he was her son. A prince. Again. He had been reborn. Not in another world, as he had desperately hoped, but in the same one, only much earlier, long before most of those he knew.
Suddenly, a chilling realization washed over him. Rhaenyra. His older half-sister, his enemy. She was here too.
The birth was traumatic, as any birth is. The cry, the pain, the bright light, the cold air. But for Aemond, it was also a full return to consciousness in a new body, with all the horrifying memories of a past life.
The first thing he realized wasn't an empty hunger or a need for milk, but shock. The shock of remembering absolutely everything. Every battle, every burned castle, every fallen face. He remembered Daemon leaping onto Vhagar. He remembered his own hand tightly gripping the sword hilt. He remembered the cold steel in his skull.
This wasn't just a memory; it was a reliving. Every detail was vivid, as if it had happened just moments ago. He, Aemond Targaryen, was here, in this small, helpless, fragile body. And it was nothing short of terrifying.
He lay in the arms of the woman he knew as Aemma, yet who was also a stranger to him. Her face, blurred by his still unfocused vision, was filled with immense love and weariness. She smiled at him, and it was something he had never experienced in that other life. The unconditional love of a mother. It was strange, even unsettling, as he associated maternal love with another woman, Alicent, and her love, which had turned into pressure and inflated expectations.
"It's a boy! We have a son, my love!" a man's voice exclaimed.
Viserys. His father. The same Viserys who had been such a weak yet destructive force in his previous life. A man whose indecisiveness and sluggishness in making important decisions led to the beginning of difficult times in the kingdom.
And Rhaenyra. Who, through her own shortsightedness and unwillingness to take responsibility, caused a split at court and within the royal family.
"Hello, little brother!" her voice chimed, so young, so carefree. She was close by. And this undeniable fact was particularly unbearable for him.
Despite his disdain for the two people he knew from his previous life, Aemond felt a strange detachment. This was his new body, his new life, but he didn't feel it was his own. He was like a puppet whose strings had been cut, but who had miraculously come back to life, only to find himself in a new play. He was an outsider observing his own, newly begun, existence.
His past life had been full of anger, ambition, war, and loss. He had seen how it all ended—in catastrophe. And now, given a second chance, his sole, fervent desire was not to interfere. Not to make the same mistakes. Not to become part of this endless game for power.
When he cried (and he cried, like any infant), it wasn't just hunger. It was a cry for lost peace, for the longed-for oblivion that never came. It was the cry of a being who remembered hell and now had to live with that knowledge, trying to find his own path to a quiet, inconspicuous life, far from the eternal intrigues of the Iron Throne.