As she sat there on Daena’s bed, Elaena couldn’t stop her hands from shaking as she twiddled her fingers anxiously. She couldn’t believe she was really doing this, that she’d let Daena talk her into it. It was madness, complete and utter madness and yet it was also her only hope.
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Edit: Chapter 3 was hidden for a while and a lot of the Elaena POV had to be trimmed to get it unhidden so do read the chapter over on the website or on Google Docs for the full scene!
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Fifth Moon, 169 AC
Elaena Targaryen
As she sat there on Daena’s bed, Elaena couldn’t stop her hands from shaking as she twiddled her fingers anxiously. She couldn’t believe she was really doing this, that she’d let Daena talk her into it. It was madness, complete and utter madness and yet it was also her only hope.
She had always liked Daeron. Though he had been three years her younger, they had been close as children, playing and reading together and keeping each other company as they both understood what loneliness was like. Then her brother, Daeron’s namesake, had died and Baelor had become king and Elaena and all her sisters had been locked in the Maidenvault.
Elaena had never forgotten that Daeron had protested her imprisonment and they had both mourned her confinement and how it had so sharply limited what they could do together. Yet that hadn’t stopped them. Though they could no longer go and play outside, they had read together and played inside the Maidenvault for many years as Daeron had been among the few males that Baelor had allowed to enter.
Then slowly but surely, Daeron had drifted away from her and Elaena could do nothing but watch as her only friend was taken away from her. Baelor had taken Daeron as his personal protégé and filled his head with nonsense, and that Dornish whore he had been betrothed to swayed him more and more with her flowery prose and oh so romantic letters.
Daeron had come less and less to the Maidenvault and Elaena had resigned herself to being lonely again. All alone in the Maidenvault with nothing but her books, vapid ladies, and sisters she envied as much as she loved.
Then, just as she had lost all hope, Daeron had changed yet again. He’d started coming to the Maidenvault more often, almost every day, and… he had looked good. Really good. There was a quiet confidence and strength in the way he carried himself now that hadn’t been there before and it had drawn Elaena in like a moth to flame, especially as he had dedicated himself to his new training as Aemon’s squire, filling out in all the right places with strong lean muscles.
His mindset had changed too. No longer just Baelor’s mouthpiece or a fool swooning over a Dornishwoman he had never met. He was so much more like the boy she had once known yet stronger, more confident, and more handsome in every way.
And Elaena had fallen. Hard. Like a parched man in the desert who had just found the sweetest spring water. She had always liked Daeron and her options were limited, trapped as she was in the Maidenvault, but with all the newfound changes within him, she had found herself falling more and more under his sway without him even trying.
She knew in her heart that even if she had been free and able to have her pick of all the men in the realm as a princess, her eye would still be drawn to Daeron as he was now. So tall and strong, so handsome and brave, with those kind eyes that understood and accepted her for everything that she was. And that roguish mischievous smirk.
Oh, that boy. He would tease and flirt with her without a second thought, never knowing just how much deeper he was burrowing into her heart with every word. And it hurt, it hurt that he only had eyes for Daena.
Daeron had been her friend first. She had kept him company when no one else had ever paid attention to him, and just when he had begun to change, just when it seemed that he might finally be receptive to her affections and Elaena could finally have someone who loved her, her sister had to just steal him away, didn’t she?
Elaena was self-aware enough to know she was not truly angry with Daena. How could she be? Her elder sister was even more desperate and alone than she was, already considered an old maiden by the reckoning of their people. Daeron was her last chance for love and marriage and Elaena could not begrudge her that.
Yet it hurt, nonetheless. She had always wanted to be like Daena, so beautiful, strong, daring, and charming. Everyone had always loved her. Everyone had always wanted her or Rhaena who had her own motherly charm and voluptuous body hidden beneath her baggy robes. Nobody had ever wanted quiet, skinny, and plain little Elaena, notable only for her striking hair that she’d long since cut short to spite her brother anyway.
And it hurt most of all that someone she thought might have finally wanted her for her had ended up choosing her elder sister instead. As so many always seemed to do.TRIMMED - READ ON WEBSITE/GOOGLE DOCS
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Eleventh Moon, 169 AC
Baelor Targaryen
“Please, Your Grace. Will you have nothing at all? Not even water?” his cousin Naerys asked insistently but Baelor refused. He had already had some water and bread at noon and that would suffice for the day.
“No. That will be all Naerys. Some of us have the strength to resist the temptations of the flesh, unlike your son,” he replied bitingly.
Naerys recoiled at his words but Baelor did not care. Words could not describe the disappointment he felt in the young lad. For so many years he had seen the boy as his own heir, raising and grooming him to follow in his footsteps, to keep the peace and honor the alliance with Dorne.
Instead, what had the boy done? He had spat on everything he had taught him and repaid him for his kindness with treachery. He had dishonored himself, made himself an oathbreaker by proving unfaithful to the betrothal with the Princess Myriah Martell and he had seduced and despoiled Baelor’s own sisters! Sisters whose chastity he had long guarded and protected for their own sake and the sake of the whole realm.
Baelor, the King himself, had held back and restraint his own lusts for the greater good, but Daeron had no such self-control. He had proven every inch his father’s son. Every inch the unworthy lecher that Aegon was.
He had spoken to Daeron himself but a few times, each time desperately trying to understand, to ascertain how it had all gone so wrong and his own protégé had betrayed him. But Daeron had only been smug and unrepentant, saying that Baelor had been wrong to deny his own sisters love and affection and lock them away and that he had taken care of them in ways he never could. Baelor had been so infuriated by his words that he had had to remove himself from the room and return to the sept before he was consumed by the tempting rage to strike the boy for his insolence.
It was times like this that Daeron reminded him of someone. Not just of his unworthy father, but of Baelor’s own elder brother, the boy’s namesake.
The Young Dragon, they had called him. And oh, how he had been such a sight to see. Tall, handsome, brave, and clever. Every inch the perfect Targaryen king. Like something out of the tales of old. Everything Baelor could never be. They had all loved him more than he. Aegon, Daena, their parents, Uncle Viserys, the whole realm, everyone.
For who would care about bookish, frail, and pious Baelor above clever, charming, and charismatic Daeron? Daena certainly hadn’t, not even when they had been wed briefly and she had all but thrown herself at him and attempted to seduce him like some whore in a cheap brothel. She had done all of that while Daeron was still in her heart and Baelor had never forgotten that.
Perhaps it was a mercy he had made the decision even before then to be celibate. It was a good thing he had had their marriage annulled, Baelor had always told himself, even when the shamefully arousing thoughts of Daena nude and squirming beneath his touch always came to mind. Better to not partake in forbidden fruit instead of having her in his bed while she lusted for someone else and disgraced their wedding vows.
Daena and all the others had never been able to see what Baelor could see. They could not see the darkness in his brother’s heart. The savage conqueror, the brute, the warmonger. They could not see the deadly sins that had taken root within him, the pride and wrath that would surely doom him.
Baelor had opposed his brother’s war on Dorne. He had fought it with everything he could. Praying and protesting that his brother might stop, that he might reconsider wisdom, and when that was no longer possible, he had prayed that his brother’s soul might still be saved, that the Seven would not strike him down and give him retribution for the evil he had wrought.
For Daeron had dishonored the vows he had sworn as a knight. He had brought war upon a people who had done them no true harm, and his armies had ravaged Dorne, destroying its crops, raping its women, and killing its young, breaking every oath and vow they had sworn as knights. And Baelor had known that the Seven’s judgement would not be long coming when that had happened.
Knights were supposed to defend and protect, never attack and despoil. Knights were supposed to defend the young and innocent, to protect all women. Knights were supposed to be good and loyal men, faithful and pious to the Seven and peaceful by nature, raising their weapons only in need and never for any glory not offered to a higher cause. They were supposed to be like his cousin, Aemon the Dragonknight, the truest knight Baelor had ever known.
That was what his boyhood mentor, Septon Maynard, had taught him. When his mother had died young in childbirth, and his father and uncle had brooded in their melancholy and sternness while they governed the realm, it had been Septon Maynard who had taken him under his wing and taught him important truths about the world.
Truths he sincerely wished his brother had had the chance to learn. Truths he had tried and failed to impart to him once they had come of age and he knew he would be judged for that in the seven heavens when the Father asked him where his brother was and he would have no answer for why he was not with him.
Daena and many others who had loved his brother or been of like mind with him could not understand. They would argue that his brother’s war had been justified, that Dorne had raided their lands countless times, but Baelor knew his brother had never cared about any of that. His war had been only to sate his own ego. Nothing more, nothing less. The Seven called for them to turn the other cheek, to love thy enemies as their neighbors, and Daeron had brought nothing but hate and death to them.
Baelor was not deaf. He knew the whispers. He knew how some of the so-called pious dared to question his faithfulness to the seven. They claimed he was ignoring the dictates of the Warrior by choosing peace over righteous war. That he was defying the Father by not demanding justice for his murdered brother beneath the sacred truce banner.
How little the fools understood. The fact that Daeron had died under the banner of the Seven was proof that he had been marked for death by the Seven for his unjust war. He had not been struck down by treachery but rather divine punishment. The Dornish had merely been the instruments of the Seven’s will.
Baelor had instinctively known what had to be done to make things right and alleviate the Seven’s burning anger upon his family as soon as word had reached of his brother’s death. He had repented of his brother’s war, returned the hostages he had torn from their homes, and risked life and limb to save his beloved cousin, Aemon.
And the Seven had rewarded him for his faith. They had proven him right. If he had not pleased them, they would surely have left him to die when he had been bitten by all those snakes while saving Aemon.
So what did it matter that everyone else had always loved Daeron more than he? What did it matter that Daeron had been the one desired by Daena, the one their father and Uncle Viserys had always been proud of, the one all the nobles had loved and adored while Baelor was ignored and mocked even to this day as King?
What significance did the complaints of the impious have to him? What sting could their words have when they loved the darkness more than the light? The Seven spoke to him! The Seven had chosen him! They had chosen him to be his disciple, the frail and bookish second son, for they had seen as Scripture said, that true wisdom and goodness lied in a man’s heart and not in the strength of his arm.
It mattered not if Daena and all the rest cared not for him. He had all that mattered and that was faith and he was grateful that the Seven had made him this way, that they had ensured he would never be as strong or handsome as Daeron for it had ensured he would not make his mistakes.
He who exalted himself would be humbled and he who humbled himself shall be exalted. Daeron had sought glory; he had sought to complete the work of the Conqueror and cement his legacy in history. And all it had earned him was an early grave. Baelor humbled himself, he did everything he could to follow every last word of Scripture and restrain himself from the easy path, from seeking glory, and power, or military might.
The difference between him and Daeron, was that Baelor was all too aware of his own failings. Daeron had been blinded by his pride, his arrogance, and his wrath. Baelor fasted relentlessly to tame and control his own fatal flaw, his accursed lust.
In another world, perhaps the fire in his loins might have made him as despicable a lecher as his cousin, Aegon. But Septon Maynard had taught him better than that. He had taught him that the so-called Exceptionalism Jaehaerys the Conciliator had imposed upon the Faith was a sinful heresy and false doctrine, the reason for the Dance and all the other tragedies that had befallen their house.
Baelor had steeled himself, done his best to wrest control of his own self, to be the master of his flesh instead of its servant. And it had been difficult, oh so very difficult.
Even knowing Daena had loved Daeron more than him, that she had all but thrown a tantrum when her betrothal to him had been announced, even knowing that it would be wrong, that it would be a sin in the eyes of the Seven to bed his own sister, he had been so very tempted to take her for his own when Daeron had handed her to him as his wife. It had taken everything he had to resist when Daena had started dressing in white, showing off the way her bountiful curves filled out her dress and the way she’d tease and move to pull it off, to try and entice him to sin with her.
Perhaps the worst part of it all was that Baelor knew he could have been happy with her. He could have loved and cherished Daena as his wife. But they would have been living in sin, and for the sake of both of their immortal souls he had held back even when she did everything she could to make him break.
He almost had. The year he was wed to her was the greatest and most pleasurable torture he had ever had in his life. He had prayed to the Seven for strength every day and when he was finally King and the matter of Dorne was settled, he knew what he had to do.
His lust had grown too strong. In the months he had spent recovering at Storm’s End after saving Aemon, Baelor had felt his own ego and pride growing. He had done a great deed doing what he did, risking his life against a thousand vipers to save his kin. Even Daena had to admire him for that and finally acknowledge him over Daeron he had thought.
That pride had simmered. It had grown like a weed, infesting his heart and his dreams with thoughts of finally claiming her as his reward for his heroic deeds. And not just Daena but Rhaena and Elaena too. They were no less desirable than Daena, no less beautiful than her. They had been young at the time but Baelor had known that they would flower and blossom into truly lovely women. Rhaena with her sweet motherly demeanor, so charming and pious, as faithful and zealous for the Seven as he. Elaena, with strikingly beautiful hair and her clever brilliance and quiet strength.
He had wanted them all more than he thought possible. The dreams had come to him and they had been seductive and alluring. Visions of him as a mighty warrior king, like Hugor of the Hill. Pious and knightly and capable all in one. Mighty enough to surpass even his brother or the Conqueror.
All of Westeros would adore and worship him but none more than the three sister-wives he had claimed for himself. He had felt every last stroke and caress of their reverent love in the dream. Felt their kisses upon his skin and the warm embrace of their bodies.
He had woken in a cold sweat many times in Storm’s End, haunted by that same vision and feeling terrified by how much he longed for it. And when he finally recovered and returned to King’s Landing, he had known he had to do. What difficult choices had to be made to save himself and his sisters and the realm itself from his own shameful lusts lest the Seven strike him down for blasphemy, incest, and adultery as they had struck down his brother for his pride and wars.
He had had his marriage to Daena annulled and then he had confined her and their sisters to the Maidenvault where they could not tempt him or anyone else with their beauty and bring about the realm’s ruin and the Seven’s wrath through it. Then for good measure, he had taken publicly vows of celibacy akin to that of a septon with the High Septon and the Most Devout as his witness, praying and hoping that the pressure of such publicly witnessed vows would hold him to his word.
Fortunately, it had. With the Seven’s grace, he could do all things through they who strengthened him. He would fast endlessly as penance and punishment, to weaken his treacherous flesh and deny it sustenance which it might use as strength to have him break his vows and damn his soul and that of his sisters.
And how had he been repaid for all this dutiful sacrifice? How had he been repaid for safeguarding entry into paradise for his kin!? With treachery and sin!
His protégé, sad to say, had fallen prey to the same lusts that he had, the same ambitions for glory and greatness as a handsome warrior who conquered foes and women alike. He blasphemed all tenets of chivalry and knighthood, the stations instituted by the Seven, by betraying his King and taking the maidenheads of his sisters.
How dare he? If there was anyone in the world who might deserve such a prize, it would have been the one that had sheltered and protected their souls for years on end even to his own pain and misery. Every day he had held himself back and restrained his cursed lusts, cursing and weeping that the only women he had ever desired had been born his sisters and Daeron thought he was allowed to just have them!?
The boy was flawed and weak, just like his namesake. He was ruled by his flesh instead of ruling it as Baelor did and Baelor’s only consolation was that unlike him at least, he had not committed the sin of incest. The union of cousins was not considered incest by the Seven. Nonetheless he was guilty of many other sins beside such as fornication, lust, and more. And the… obscene actions Daeron had inadvertently seduced his sisters to commit with each other had surely defiled them with sin in the eyes of the Seven
With his preferred heir having fallen to sin and taken the sisters he had sacrificed so much to protect down with him, Baelor saw now that there had never been any point in thinking there was any hope for his family, any way of leading them back to the Light of the Seven. The certainty of that truth grew in his heart as undeniably as the bastards in his sister’s bellies.
Yet still he prayed. He prayed that the sins of his cousin and sisters might be forgiven, that his own failures would not be held against him, that there might still be some small chance of salvation for House Targaryen.
But the Seven were silent. They did not answer. Why?WHY!?
Had he not obediently followed all their commands and dictates? Had he not heeded the teachings of Septon Maynard who had taught him as a boy? Had he not sacrificed so much and brought so much pain and misery to his own self for the sake of his kin? Why had the Seven forsaken him? Why would they not at least answer him?
He redoubled his efforts. There was no use in falling to despair. Melancholy would help no one. He had seen that for himself during his father’s reign.
Baelor had to keep faith. The Seven would surely give him a sign of some kind if he just prayed a little longer, if he abstained just a little more from food or drink. They would surely see his penance! They would surely give him a way to save his kin from themselves!
And so Baelor prayed and fasted. Vigorously and zealously, he pleaded for pardon, for succor and grace.
The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. Eventually his body could take the suffering no longer and when Baelor finally shamefully yielded to its demand for at least a drop of water as relief, his strength failed him and he fell upon the floor of the castle sept.
All his life Baelor had striven to see the light but only darkness greeted him.
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Author’s Note: Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! We finally got Elaena’s POV and all that complex characterization and spicy stuff. Then came Baelor, it was honestly a struggle getting into his head at first but once I figured it out with some help, it came quite easy. The guy is truly quite pathetic and delusional. He’s somehow worse than an incel, he’s a volcel lol? Either way it was very fun to make him suffer for it.
Please let me know your thoughts, suggestions, and questions in the comments below or over on Discord!