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"Why.."
Maegor paused in his reading to turn to his mother, a question passing his lips.
"Why what, Mother?"
His mother Lucerys Velaryon, no matter what the court has been trying to peddle for years, Maegor's growing and startling resemblance to the late Laenor and Rhaenys was getting harder to deny, was staring down at his slowly clenching hands.
"Why do you stay? Why do you sit here reading to me? Why..."
Lucerys' voice catches, a temble working it's way into his next words.
"Why do you defend me still? It would be easier to have followed your father's steps, he would respect you more, treat you better, if you had hated me like you should."
At this point silent tears were rolling down his face, his remaining light blue eye boring at his fingers, clenched in his bright green, yet plain, gown.
"The court would not be so venomous to you, you would not be in such constant danger as you are with me, defending me, so why..."
Lucerys finally looked a glance up to his son, his boy, slowly turning into a man. Barely past his three and tenth nameday, yet already nearing the height of most men in their twentieth year.
He stared at the child he carried within himself for nine months, the child he nurtured, yet failed to give the life he deserved, and asked,
"Why do you still love this wretched, useless mother of yours?"
Maegor snapped the book he was reading aloud to his mother shut, the crisp thud of the pages hitting each other making Lucerys flinch quickly looking down, hands bone white in their tight grip around his skirts.
He placed the book on the side table of the receiving room. He climbed to his feet and swiftly crossed over to his mother.
His nearing six feet of height towered over his mother's hunched form, and as quickly as he rose his feet, he went just as quick to his knees in front of his mother.
He reached over, gently prying his mother's hands off his wrinkling skirt, and clutched them between his own.
His hands dwarfed his mother's, he thought idly to himself, as he looked at the still shaking palms between his own.
"You asked me why I stay?" He began, still staring at his mother's small hands. Lucerys always had thin hands, dainty ones servants would use to say to him when he had been younger and not as intimidating, better for needle work or plucking the strings of a harp.
Fit for a prince of leisure and love.
Now, they were scarred, battered things.
Two of them just the slightest bit crooked from when they were broken and halfheartedly splinted together, making the bones heal near correctly but still have the evidence of their break visible.
Countless tiny cuts littered the fingers and palms. Cuts from glass he was forced to pick up with his hands, swiftly at that, or more punishment to follow.
"You are right, mother, that it would be easier to abandon you." He mused aloud, his grip slightly tightening around the trembling digits in his.
"I could renounce you to the entire court, in front of dozens of people who's tongues would wag the moment they left the court room."
Lucerys pulled in a sharp desperate breath, his hands trembling harder, trying to pull themselves from the now ironclad grip around them.
Maegor did not look up from his continued stare at his mother's hands, the gaze slowly travelling up to his arms.
Finger shaped bruises were wrapped around his bicep a dark purple, fresh he supposed, a couple days at most.
Cuts littered there too.
Small ones, barely noticable if you were not close enough to see them. Small lines from a Valyrian steel blade he would assume. Sharp enough to cut quickly, yet the thinness of them implied that only enough pressure went into them to prevent anything larger than one would get from parchment.
And a guarantee they would scar.
Clever, to inflict pain and make your victim think that it wasn't so bad, that these cuts would heal, and would not leave a reminder of the torture that went into them. Only for you too look at your arms and catch a glimpse of the scars that dot them.
Clever indeed. And cruel.
"I could decry you a bastard whore, a worthless slut whose only purpose is to be a bitch selling themself on the Street of Silk. Nothing more than a breeding mare, to fuck once for the chance of having a taste of royal pussy, even if it's used goods." Maegor chuckled to himself, the sound flat, his mother stiffening in his arms at the callous words.
"I could shout from the middle of Fishmongers square, on how it's a pity I came from such a shameless womb. Walk myself into the nearest Sept and fall to my knees before the Mother and Maiden and beg for their forgiveness, so that I may cleanse myself of the taint that you have left me."
He let go of his mother's still hands, and moved his hands up to cup the sides of his face.
A bruise sits on his left cheek, this one an ugly green and yellow, fading from a hit that caused the split lip he can still see.
His right eye, missing from the day he was wed, gouged out in his marital bed. A bright green emerald sits there now, to match the green dresses he is forced to wear, the only bit of finery he is allowed.
His thumb caresses underneath the socket, a gentle back and forth swipe.
"I could do all that and more, and yet.."
He tilted his mother's face up finally, to gaze into his remaining blue eye, darkened now from the heartbreak and deepseated and repressed rage.
He chuckles again, this time with true laughter, at the way his mother, his Muña's eye had darkened to a dark blue-purple tint.
"I would never lower myself to think these thoughts, say these words, against my strong Muña."
He kisses the side of Lucerys' right eye,
"I would rather spill the blood of every remaining dragon, burn this city and land to its bones,"
He kisses the side of his left eye next,
"I would rather carve mine own tongue out, disembowel myself with a rusted dagger, carve my eyes out for this disrespect,"
At those words, Lucerys' hands fly up to grip his wrists, hands clamping down with strength you'd think he did not have with such damaged hands.
Maegor pulls away and looks once more into his mother's eye, watering with tears, Lucerys' has a desperate searching gaze that he uses to stare into his son's indigo eyes.
A sob breaks forth at what he finds, deep soul clenching heaves of despair, anguish, rage, and relief. Relief that his son, the only one he truly has left in this cruel, wretched, and unfair world, does not hate him. Will not leave him.
He lunged forward, breaking his sons hold on his face and clings to him in a embrace. His battered hands and scarred arms, wrap themselves around his son as tight as they can, one hand clutching the back of his shirt, the other holding tight to the back of his son's neck.
Maegor grips his muña back in a gentle, yet firm hold, his large hands rubbing his back.
He can feel the ridges of scars, the knobs of his spine.
From a whip, his mind reminds him. From the food he'd place on your plate.
"My dearest dragon mother, who defended his hatchling with his own body, how could I ever hurt you? How could I leave you wounded amidst these snakes and rats that crawl through our home?" He says aloud to his crying bearer, the fabric of his clothes slowly growing damper with the tears falling from his eyes.
"How could I do anything but cherish you as you deserve? How could I not see your devotion, the blood you shed, the tears you wept, and not love you?"
His muña's long, dark as night hair tickles his cheeks, when he turns his head and places the last kiss to his forehead.
"We are of the sea and sky muña. Our flesh dragon scales, our blood salt water," His face sports a dark grin as he clutches his slowly flagging mother a little tighter, "Forged in dragon fire and tempered by the raging storms of the sea."
His mother, he can feel, smiles at his words.
"The Old, the True, the Brave" he rasps out from a tear heavy voice.
Maegor's grin grows, it's a bloodthirsty thing.
"With Fire and Blood muña, and no Tower can imitate a true dragon."