Meanwhile, in another place.
"Oh fuck, no, hell no!" was Henrik's first thought as he took in the darkness surrounding him. "I really died?"
His eyes were wide open, but there was no speck of light around him. Yet, he felt as if he were floating, as if he were inside a heated pool. It was comfortable where he was, and for a moment, he enjoyed himself, forgetting his current predicament. But the reality of his situation snapped him back to his senses.
"That shitty pop-up was supposed to be a scam, not the real deal!"
Henrik tried to speak, but he couldn't. He could only see the darkness, and he was sure he was looking—he felt his eyes wide awake.
"That damn ad," he cursed again, but he also felt a bit excited. "That means I'm currently inside Visenya Targaryen's womb, about to be born before the conquest?"
That thought alone excited him. He would be able to change everything. Fuck the Faith, fuck Rhaenys and her bastardly line. Fuck Aegon.
He would be able to ride a fucking dragon! A fucking beast as big as a mountain and as dangerous as an atomic bomb in a medieval world! A flying weapon of mass destruction made flesh.
And so fucking rich... He would be disgustingly and obscenely rich if he were a Targaryen. Prince of Westeros, heir to the Iron Throne, and later King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.
Well, not so much about the Rhoynar, as they needed to be broken and bent first.
"Oh lord, the amount of bitches I would have. I would drown in pussy." Henrik's smile couldn't be wiped from his baby face, but if someone were to see it, it would appear atrocious in their eyes. After all, his head wasn't so cute as it would be after he was born. The marvels of the human body.
He could already picture his near future: "Visenya on his lap, Rhaenys massaging his shoulders from behind, and the whore of Alyssa Velaryon giving him head while Princess Argella Durrandon massaged his feet. That is paradise!"
As Henrik was amidst his delusions, he suddenly felt something poke him on his side. He squirmed around. It poked tentatively at first, then it started poking him more aggressively, until he cried out. "Ah!"
"What the fucking hell? What is poking me?"
Then he felt a bite on his arm, making him cry out in pain. "Aahh!!" He started thrashing around, trying to free his arm from whatever was biting him. As he thrashed, the world around him began trembling and making whipping sounds, and the liquid around him splashed and whooshed. It wasn't long before he felt a strong suction pushing him forward. His arm was finally free, and he was being forced out of a duct similar to a water slide. The water pressure was so strong that he had no time to enjoy the journey before he was ejected, flying like a bird from the tight, squirming duct.
"It is coming, Princess! The baby!"
The old head midwife, seeing her princess had stopped pushing, barked, "Push! My princess. Push! Don't stop!"
Her barking snapped Rhaenyra out of her trance, reminding her she was giving birth at that moment. She focused on pushing now that she was free of pain. She gritted her teeth and pushed with all her being. Soon enough, she felt a relieving comfort, as if she had finally ejected a hard dump, as she birthed her child.
Outside, Syrax gave the biggest roar of the night, making the capital walls tremble. The sound was heard a couple of miles away around the city.
As Henrik felt himself flying away, ejected from the tunnel of the water slide, the loud sound he heard—not a breath from being born—stunned him, leaving him dazed.
"Bloody murder! Help!" he yelled in his mind. He didn't have the chance to feel relieved at being free of whatever had been molesting him or to take one breath of air before something new was already trying to kill him again with that loud sound. What the hell? His head was fucking hurting as if someone had punched him stupid.
His thoughts were short-lived and fast, because a pair of hands—huge hands—gripped him, catching him midair. The second thing he noticed was that the air of the world hit his skin, cool and abrupt. It made him shudder as his body experienced new sensations for the first time. His sense of smell went haywire; he smelled so many things at once, but the scent that prevailed the most was blood. The light from the chandeliers, candles, and torches in the room entered his eyes, making him squint because it was too bright. His eyes flew open, and after a moment, he could hear sounds normally, though a buzzing still persisted in his eardrums.
Henrik silently took in his surroundings, which were filled with people talking and moving around. His vision was cloudy as he squinted, but even so, he could still make out the forms and looks of the people around him. Even more so, he noticed the woman who held him in her arms, whom he assumed was a maid or midwife. She obviously wasn't Visenya, as she had no silver-gold hair and wasn't in bed.
"Where is it? Where is my mother?""Where is Visenya?" He was anxious, trying to look around. He wanted to see the true beauty of a Valyrian woman, as described in the books, or at least a beauty of the caliber of Daenerys, but he couldn't even turn his head. He could only look upward, as the woman held his head in place and his body rested on her arms.
Henrik was having a battle inside his mind. Rhaenyra, meanwhile, looked at what would be her son with a bit of a terrified expression, her head also feeling like it was exploding as she heard so many things at once.
"Agh—" Rhaenyra groaned as she felt there was something else inside her about to come out. "There is another!" she yelled, surprised as she pushed again.
The head midwife, alarmed by the princess's yell as she cleaned Henrik's little body in her arms, quickly passed him to another midwife and returned to her place between Rhaenyra's legs. Meanwhile, Henrik was wrapped in a clean cloth with the help of a maid swaddling him.
"It's a boy, Princess Rhaenyra!" the midwife smiled as she called out to the princess, while her partner cut the little prince's umbilical cord.
It was at that moment that Henrik's head felt like exploding instead. "Princess... Rhaenyra...?""Hell no, fuck no. What Rhaenyra? Where is my Visenya? Where is my fucking mother!"
"I don't want any Rhaenyra. I clearly put Visenya and fucking before the conquest!"
"God, why is this happening?"
Rhaenyra, for her part, was watching intently the bundle in the midwife's arms as it was tended to by the women, while again hearing that voice. Her face was a bit ugly as she listened to those words. She was certain now: the voices came from what would be her child, and it seemed nobody else could hear them besides her.
"Push, my lady, the second baby is coming out," the midwife urged.
Maester Mellos entered the princess's apartment and walked as he spoke. "Princess, I'm here. I didn't expect that the childbirth would be at this late hour of the night. Sorry for being slow in coming."
"Here, Grand Maester, take a look. One of the princess's children is already out."
"One? There were two, as I expected." The maester laughed cheerfully. After checking the princess's belly, so large, he had already thought there might be more than one inside her.
He took Henrik into his arms from the midwife and started checking his body. "Oh, he isn't crying," was the first thing he noticed. But the baby had his eyes open as he looked at him, and he couldn't see any external problems. His heartbeat was steady with a good rhythm. Everything looked fine except that he wasn't crying. He pinched the sole of Henrik's right foot softly, and the baby then cried with a furrowed brow as he looked at him.
Mellos smiled. "The little prince is of good health, princess! Congratulations, congratulations!"
"The next child is coming out! Princess, keep pushing hard." As the baby's head began to emerge, she gasped in fear and trepidation. "Oh! Gods!" She looked at the baby coming out of the princess, and her hands started trembling as she awaited the child to come out completely. "Maester!!! The baby... There is something wrong with the child."
Mellos quickly passed Henrik to the midwife beside him and went to take a look. As soon as he saw the baby's face and body, he also gasped.
"What is happening? What's wrong?" Rhaenyra asked quickly as she kept breathing intermittently, in and out, while pushing.
"Nothing, princess. Just keep pushing," Mellos said quickly. "Move aside, you can't receive the baby. Your hands are trembling all over." He moved the head midwife, whose hands were trembling, out of the way. He took over the head of the child coming out and assisted it. As the body appeared, he saw the picture clearly. The child was a little princess, and there didn't seem to be any defects, like missing or extra extremities, as he examined her. But she had little scales around the right side of her face, her neck, and part of her chest.
"Maester, how is it?" Rhaenyra asked as she felt the baby had already come out of her completely. She felt her belly light now, knowing there was no more child to be birthed.
"Gods!" the head midwife rasped as she looked at the baby in the maester's hands while helping clean her.
Rhaenyra was worried by all the alarms around the child.
Mellos started tending to the child, and soon she started crying loudly. The princess smiled, hearing the child cry compared to the suspense of her first, who had been mute the entire time.
The maester examined the little princess and found her to be stable and without signs of any problems. He helped open her eyes to take a look, and his face frowned deeper as he looked at her right eye. He then opened the left one and released it after a moment. Both eyes were normal and active. They were purple, but their pupils were like a beast's—like the eyes of a dragon. Also, on her white neck, on the left side where there were no scales, there was a bright red dragon mark, vivid in red like blood, with a remarkably perfect design. He looked at it with interest.