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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warnings:
Graphic Depictions Of ViolenceMajor Character Death
Category:
Gen
Fandoms:
House of the Dragon (TV)Warhammer Fantasy
Characters:
Ikit ClawRhaenyra TargaryenJacaerys VelaryonLucerys Velaryon (Son of Rhaenyra)Baela TargaryenRhaena Targaryen (Daughter of Daemon)Daemon TargaryenCorlys "The Sea Snake" VelaryonHelaena TargaryenAddam VelaryonBackground & Cameo CharactersSilverwing | Alysanne Targaryen's DragonOriginal CharactersJoffrey Velaryon
Additional Tags:
Crack Treated SeriouslyCanon-Typical ViolenceThe Dance of the Dragons | Aegon II Targaryen v. Rhaenyra Targaryen EraAlternate Universe - Canon DivergenceCanonical Character DeathCharacter Turned Into a HumanIkit got isekai'd as Jace's twinSkaven Species (Warhammer Fantasy)Death to all GreensHuman ExperimentationScience ExperimentsIkit is his own warningSilverwing still has shit taste in male ridersPOV MultipleBackground RelationshipsBackground Character Deathshow canon onlyDragon RidersAnimal AbuseIkit is an abusive dragonriderTho he's fairly mellow compared to his SkavenselfGood Parent Rhaenyra TargaryenNo beta we die like LucerysDysfunctional FamilyCannibalismBlood and TortureCanon-Typical BehaviorBAMF Helaena Targaryen
Language:
English
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Published:2026-02-26Completed:2026-04-22Words:181,492Chapters:55/55Comments:1,270Kudos:749Bookmarks:160Hits:33,669
The Rat Prince of Westeros
SkilledWarriorKiwi
Chapter 30: Jacaerys
Chapter Text
"You missed supper," Jace called out.
Baela lowered her crossbow as Jacaerys walked up the stony mountain path to her. Her voice was light as she answered, "I wasn't hungry."
A target post, three heavy wooden poles, were already riddled with several bolts. It had probably once been a small watchtower, base of crumbled rubble and other bits of rotten wood poking forth.
The air was warm, as it always was on Dragonstone, while the sky was so heavily overcast it was if they were surrounded by fog. Far down below the ocean stretched out to the horizon.
"I don't think anyone was, really," Jace grumbled, hand on the hilt of his sword as he joined Baela's side. "Too many empty seats about the table."
"Do you know where he went?" she asked, even as she raised the crossbow again.
"Harrenhal, I would think." Jace knew better than to mention that, perhaps, herself and Daemon felt themselves at odds with each other due to the similarities but he simply answered her blunt.
Baela sighed, before she fired the bolts; the three pierce the wood with dull thonk. It was the one of the Myrish make, firing a trio of shots which Baela was more than adept at over years of practice. She had one of the sharpest eyes with the likes of a crossbow or bow.
"It feels surreal. It's been only a few weeks but he's still gone. Yet still I keep waiting for him to show to breakfast or supper," Jacaerys said. The pain within his chest flared again, the horrid ache of sorrow and rage that had seized him when he first received news at the North of how Luke had been murdered. And now Jacaerys was back on Dragonstone, unable to do anything. Not even be on lookout with Vermax. The queen wouldn't let him. He took a deep breath, fighting down the grief.
Not even a moon since the usurpation began and now the two greatest casualties were an envoy and a child. Jace balanced between grief and fury, and tried to bury himself in speaking to those on Dragonstone, the maids and soldiers and villagers, to show them the crown prince was there. He was the prince to the queen, he couldn't be seen weeping. He had allowed himself when they burned what little remains Rhaenyra had found on the beach, and that following night, before he forced a cold composed mask upon himself.
Joffrey was still banned to the keep after he swore an oath of vengeance against Aemond and Vhagar when he heard the news. Apparently Tyraxes was on a type of lock down by the dragonkeepers, so Joffrey couldn't actually attempt his vengeance if he did attempt it.
He had also just snapped, 'Now they know how we feel' when told of Jaehaerys which Jace wasn't really sure to address. Grief and anger, it was difficult to control them both at times, and Joffrey was focused entirely on his ire. Jace felt in part it was Joffrey's attempts to avoid grieving over Luke before them all, to accept it. To cling to the composure of fury.
As much as Jace hated King Aegon and Aemond what happened to the Jaehaerys was horrific. All of King's Landing had seen the little boy's mutilated body carted through the streets until he was burned upon a pyre within the Dragonpit and his mother had been blamed for it.
Rhaenyra the Cruel. Rhaenyra the Monstrous. Things that all began to spread, the Greens using it as if to shield their own actions in killing Lucerys and starting it all.
Baela meanwhile dropped her crossbow, letting it hang against her leg, "No one expects you to get over it so soon."
"We're barely allowed to mourn," he said bitterly. "We must be the queen and crown prince. We cannot be a grieving mother or brother. And then Daemon ran away after causing all that."
"Sometimes I think I hate him," Baela agreed, an ugly snarl in her voice.
"He caused the death of a six year old," Jace said.
Baela grunted, expression pinched. At first it had been thought of wild accusations from King's Landing but Jacaerys had heard the quarrel between Daemon and Rhaenyra, then the Bloodwyrm had left from Dragonstone and the Rogue Prince was ignoring all ravens since while Rhaenyra was irritable at any mention of him. It was plain to see.
Jace didn't even know what to think. A young innocent boy had been murdered as vengeance. But Lucerys had been killed as an envoy, and before that Visenya had died from the stress of the usurpation. Yet still, to slay a child who wouldn't even understand the treason his parents were committing...
"He would think it was fitting," Jace found himself saying, eyes unfocused as he stared across the sea.
"What would be?" Baela looked over at him, dark eyes worried at his tone.
"Jaehaerys. The slaying of him. He wouldn't think it was dishonourable, horrific. He would think it was what we should've done, gleefully. Same with killing Jaehaera, Helaena, anyone else. Burning down King's Landing, he wouldn't care. He won't care about a dead child. No, he would simply think we should kill them all."
She looked even more confused, "Daemon?"
"No, Ikit."
"You don't know that, Jace. You don't know he'd find glee in a slain child," Baela said, voice gentled.
"But I do know," he said, turning to face her. "I suppose I just never understood it as a child. Or him, but I don't think anyone could ever understand him. How he behaved when we were young, I suppose it was easier to just laugh it off. Think he was being strange or making dark jokes as he always would. But I don't think that was it. He genuinely thought that way and I don't believe it's changed."
"Do you hate him?" Baela asked. "For not being here?"
Jacaerys was silent for a long while, looking back at the wooden poles and the bolts still embedded in them. It was complicated, the feelings Jace felt for his twin. But it was a truth, that he never once understood Ikit and only now as a man grown did he truly know that.
"Do you know when I stopped speaking to my mother for moons after he left?" Jace said instead. "How I blamed her for not keeping him here."
"You stayed at Driftmark for some time then, I remember it."
Jace sighed, "I did. I thought it was her that drove him away. Especially since he chose to tell me before he left. But when I finally did listen to her, after counsel from our grandparents, she told me what Ikit told her at the Whispers. That my brother told her part of the reason he was leaving to Essos wasn't just about wanting to learn the higher mysteries, but also that he wished to protect us from him."
"Ikit said that? What was he possibly afraid of doing?" Baela asked.
"I don't know but he felt he was a risk to us which is why he left. And then there are those rumours from Essos. I know most would simply be words but..."
"You think enough of them speak a truth," Baela said quietly, her sharp eyes roaming over his face.
"As much as I want him here a part of me worries what he would do. Now Luke is...after Luke was murdered. I know Ikit would think Jaehaerys being killed in retribution is acceptable and something to applaud. That he would have done so himself," Jace said.
The two stood in silence for a long moment, Baela focused upon him while Jace continued to look out across the sea. The blockade was in place, the Gullet sealed. King's Landing was slowly being starved. The Vale was standing upon Rhaenyra's side and already preparations were being made to send Joffrey with Tyraxes and Rhaena with Morning to them. Aegon and Viserys, there was some debate if they should be kept close or fostered to Winterfell or even across the narrow sea. Lucerys proved the Greens would kill them all, shared blood be damned.
Aemond the Kinslayer, something King's Landing and the traitors held in pride considering how Aegon the Older had thrown a feast for his brother. It made him wish Ikit was here yet at the same way wary of it, and he said as such.
"You would know your twin more than I would," Baela just said evenly.
"I remember once, when we were about seven years old, we were learning about past Targaryen kings," Jace said, gaze not leaving the sea as he rocked back on his heels. "And I remember how he was most excited to learn of King Maegor. He didn't seem to care much for King Jaehaerys or King Aenys, or even Aegon the Conqueror. But for some reason the first Usurper King interested him so much. So that afternoon Maester Gerardys had an entire lesson dedicated to him, the life and death of Maegor the Cruel. How after King Aenys died and Maegor returned from his exile and claimed the Iron Throne for his own."
The sea was a distant noise, the eternal waves battering against the rocky crags and beaches. In the far distance he heard a dragon call, but had lived on Dragonstone long enough to knew it was the Sheepstealer. No doubt bothering a shepherds flock.
Jace voice was soft, eyes unfocused, as he spoke, "We learned how Maegor beheaded the grand maester who voiced against his ascension. The battles during the usurpation, Stonebridge and the Great Fork. Queen Visenya burning down several Houses in the Reach, then Maegor took Balerion to the Westerlands and did much the same. Threatening to burn down the Starry Sept in Oldtown due to the Faith Militant. The Battle Beneath the Gods Eye where King Maegor killed his nephew, Aegon the Uncrowned. Tortured Prince Viserys to death, who was Lucerys's age. His Black Brides and killing some of his own wives. Killed all the builders of the Red Keep once it was completed. Hunting down Poor Fellows with Balerion. Queen Rhaena Targaryen escaping on Dreamfyre with Blackfyre and her daughter, his nephew Jaehaerys and niece Alysanne rising up against him. And how he was found dead on the Iron Throne. Do you know what Ikit asked me after we learned all that?"
It was a rhetoric question but Baela still asked, "What was it?"
Jacaerys looked down at himself, how he was clad in black and red with a dragon upon his chest. Ikit always favoured the blues and silver of the Velaryons.
After a moment Jace finally answered her, "He looked at me and just asked 'that is it?'."
"He wanted to know more about Maegor?" Baela frowned, her thick curly hair being tugged by the wind.
"No, he was confused as to why Maegor was called 'The Cruel' when Ikit believed he hadn't done anything to warrant the title," Jace explained. "Back then I thought he just wanted to argue with Maester Gerardys which he did oft, but now that I think back upon it he seemed genuinely confused. He said that Westeros must have never seen true cruelty, if what they thought Maegor did to everyone was cruel. 'If he was so cruel then why didn't he burn down the Starry Sept and have Balerion eat their children' I remember him ranting. 'Why didn't he enslave them and work them to death or twist them into beast things' or 'why didn't he sacrifice them to his gods in great bloodied fields'. It was like he was offended Maegor had that title, when Ikit believed he wasn't cruel at all."
"Blood sacrifices...Sounds almost like he's speaking of Old Valyria," Baela ventured cautiously.
Jace's laugh was humourless, "He told me several times he wished he had been born back in Old Valyria, before the Doom occurred. I always thought he meant the magic, entire families with dragons like ours. The Valyrian steel and all the knowledge of spell craft, being part of the most advanced civilization in the world. And him speaking of Maegor like that was simply him wishing to argue over our lessons. But now after growing up, remembering what Mother told me with the Whispers, and even just hearing the mutters of what he's done in Essos..."
"You think he was being sincere."
"I do. And...I don't know what to think anymore," Jace admitted. "He was always so strange. So skilled and smart and knew so much. Sometimes it was like speaking to an old man, not someone who should be my own age. I know some people thought he had dreams like Daenys, but those one spoke to him of ancient knowledge and magic from Old Valyria's time. I don't know what to think and it's why I don't know if I want him here because now I think he will have no limit whatever so ever to what he'd do. Then I think of Lucerys and wish Ikit was here so he would do those things."
After a moment Baela moved, pressing closer to Jace as she linked her arm through his.
"Wanting vengeance against your enemies is normal," Baela said quietly, her hair brushing against his shoulder as she leaned against him. "I know our queen still wishes to seek a peaceful resolution for this war but I think for men like Aegon and Aemond they need to die for it to happen. What else can we do with them? Even sending them to the Wall will do nothing, they've proven oaths mean nothing and even grievous sins such as kinslaying is to be celebrated. They are like rabid dogs, naught but else to do but put them down."
Jace felt his breathing hitch, confessing in a voice barely above a whisper, "I yelled at Luke earlier that day. When I met with him before we went to Mother. I told him to stop acting so timid, stop being so insecure, we were now sons to the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. I berated him. He needed to be strong and hold up our status, he had to be brave, I berated him with those words. And now he's dead and the last thing I did was lecture him. Maybe he died thinking I would be disappointed in him, that I already was. That he died thinking that he was weak-"
Baela pulled Jace around to face him, crossbow discarded on the ground as she gripped him by the shoulders. Her expression was fierce, lips pulled back in a draconic snarl as she snapped, "You will cease this at once. You loved Lucerys, you love him. He knows that, in whatever afterlife had taken him. He knew it before he left, no matter the words you uttered before. To the bosom of the Seven or the warmth of the Fourteen he has been taken it does not matter. You could not anticipate the actions of that craven Whoreson Aemond. None of us could."
"I just don't know what to do," he admitted, eyes burning. "I feel adrift, lost. I hate that I want Ikit to return to Westeros and do whatever horrible things he could think to do."
"That is why we aren't the queen," Baela said, pulling him into a hug. Her breath was warm on his ear as she continued, "She doesn't wish to reign over ash and bone, she doesn't want to lose more of us despite our thirst for vengeance. So for now we grieve and await our queen's command."
Jacaerys wrapped his arms around Baela, burying his face in her hair and savouring her scent, and for a brief moment everything felt lighter.
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