88 AC – The First Moons of the Year
The storm roared over Storm's End, as if the old gods were screaming their fury through the wind and raging waters. Lightning tore through the sky with the precision of divine blades, illuminating the black walls of the ancestral Baratheon castle. The sea, restless and wild, battered the cliffs violently, echoing like war drums. It was a night when fate trembled with the windows — a night when the world seemed to hold its breath.
Inside the fortress, the clamor was no less. In the suffocating corridors, servants whispered, eyes turned toward the upper floors. There, in the stone heart of the castle, Jocelyn Baratheon was in labor.
Sweaty, exhausted, her strength fading with every contraction, Jocelyn clutched the sheets with rigid fingers. Her face was bathed in pain and determination, and still, there was more than suffering in that room. There was something ancient, a silence between the thunder — a sense that the forces of the world were watching that birth.
At her side, Rhaenys Targaryen, her eldest daughter, stood firm. Her gaze never wavered. Clad in a scarlet cloak with golden embroidery, her violet eyes burned with focus. She held her mother's hand tightly — not out of despair, but like a root. Like stone.
"You will survive this, mother," she said, without hesitation, her voice steadier than any prayer.
Jocelyn squeezed her hand in response, sweat mixed with silent tears. She felt she was carrying something greater than an heir. It was as if her womb bore the weight of an entire bloodline.
The midwife, an elderly woman with steady hands and eyes long accustomed to pain, murmured softly. Life struggled to emerge, and death lingered in the shadows, as it always does when the blood of creation mixes with the blood of loss.
With one final scream, Jocelyn brought her son into the world. The child was wrapped in warm cloths, and for a moment that felt eternal, made no sound. The silence, broken only by distant thunder, fell like a blade upon everyone present.
Then, his eyes opened.
Grey. Deep. Restless.
He did not cry. He only looked. And in his gaze there was something none of those present could name. It wasn't fear. It wasn't pain. It was... awareness.
"Aegon," Jocelyn whispered, her eyes filled with tears. It was a name that hurt and burned, like embers buried in the heart. "In honor of the first. The brother who could never reign."
Rhaenys remained silent. The girl looked at her brother as one might look at a dragon newly hatched. There was power there. Sleeping. Watching.
"He will be great, mother," she said at last. "But he will not be like the others."
That same night, far off in the dark sky, Aemon Targaryen returned riding Caraxes. The dragon's wings sliced through the clouds like razors. He came back from the sands of Dorne, where war had ended through strength and fire. But steel weighed less than doubt. A feeling tightened his chest — and he trusted his feelings.
Upon landing on the cliffs of the castle, Aemon smelled the rain mixed with blood and the ashes of war. He entered the castle in haste, crossing halls as if his heart already knew the way.
In the chamber, he found Jocelyn lying down, eyes glazed with exhaustion but alive with pride. The baby slept silently in her arms.
"Aegon," she said, offering him the small bundle.
Aemon held his son with hands that had killed kings, but now trembled before such a small life. The baby's grey eyes met his with a weight no shield could bear.
"The name is fitting," he murmured. "For one who bears the burden of two worlds."
Aegon Baratheon Targaryen was born in the midst of the world's fury. But even the storm quieted to hear him breathe.
He was silence. He was promise. He was fire and blood, wrapped in thunder and stormy seas.
The future awaited him — and he, the future, was already looking back.