Chapter Text
Another sunset descended upon the ancient estate that had been standing for hundreds of years outside the now metropolitan city of King’s Landing. An image of grandeur and opulence, of a centuries old dynasty that, in the past hundred years, traded their crowns for soaring skyscrapers. To the common man of Westeros it gave the illusion that the Targaryens no longer ruled Westeros with an iron fist as in a bygone era of Kings and Queens. But a dragon always rises from the ashes, and so when Jaehaerys Targaryen, near the end of his rule, signed the agreement that dissolved the monarchy, he in turn took their royal fortune, and started a company.
That company grew, multiplied until it became a corporate empire that exceeded even that of Old Valyria’s breadth and influence. Targaryen Incorporated.
Sitting on the modern-day throne that was the CEO’s chair was the now widowed Viserys Targaryen. The man who never wanted to sit at the helm of such a business empire, but when his old grandfather staunchly refused to hand the reins over to his older cousin, Rhaenys, Viserys was forced to abandon his dream of living life on one of the family’s dozens of country estates with his little family, and instead to pick up the mantle to continue the great family dynasty. For all his weaknesses, Viserys had to admit, he didn’t want to be remembered as the Targaryen who ended their family’s great legacy.
But not ever dragons, whether armour or in suits, are immune to tragedy. Aemma Arryn, his wife, had died in labour. His great love, albeit his cousin- though such things were foreign to the every man, it was all be expected of Targaryens- was dead.
In the months after her passing, his eye landed on another young, beautiful woman. Alicent Hightower, his CFO’s daughter. It seemed almost a sign from the Seven that Alicent always happened to be there, when he needed comfort. Of course, Viserys didn’t see the masterful hand of her father, Otto, pulling her strings, presenting his barely graduated daughter to the CEO in the advancement of his corporate ambition. Just as he was blind to such blatant manipulations, so too was he blind to much else- the closeness of his only daughter, Rhaenyra, perhaps too close to be just childhood friends. The way that young Alicent always hesitated in the midst of Viserys’s advances.
But who was a girl to disobey her father?
And in his attempt to ease the gaping wound of guilt and grief within him, Viserys Targaryen made headlines a mere few months after the death of his first wife, and cousin-
“Business Tycoon Viserys Targaryen announces engagement to young Hightower heiress, Alicent Hightower.”