“I know how the laws of succession work. But Aerys lost your family the right to sit the throne. He had Brandon and Rickard Stark brutally killed. He would have had my uncle Robert and Eddard Stark murdered too, even though they were innocent of any crime and were barely out of boyhood. How could Jon Arryn not go to war against your father when asked to execute two boys who were like sons to him? How could Eddard Stark not fight against the man who had committed such atrocities against his family? And how could uncle Robert not support his dearest friend in that, and work to rescue his betrothed from her kidnapper, your brother Rhaegar?”
Did Viserys even know about any of this? He was so young when all of it happened, younger than Shireen was now. He would have been kept away from it all, and it might be that no one had ever told him about it. The Targaryen supporters who had sheltered him and his sister in their exile wouldn’t have wanted to tell him about the terrible things his father had done. But Viserys must have memories of Aerys, perhaps he remembered that his father could be cruel and violent…
Shireen continued, still speaking softly, gently. “How could any lord serve a king when they knew that he could slaughter them with impunity whenever he wanted? Aerys broke the rules on which the Seven Kingdoms are based- lords serve the king, and in turn, he offers them protection and a guarantee that they’re not going to be executed at the king’s slightest whim. If they don’t keep to those principles, no man can be king and no woman can be queen. Aerys could no longer rightfully rule as king, and could no longer hand down his title to his children.”
Shireen considered. “Negotiation isn’t exactly what I had in mind. It just seems to me that this is the meeting that normally comes at the end of a war of succession. Two claimants come together, face to face, in the throne room of the king or queen’s castle, and their fates are determined…”
He stood in silence as she went over their shared history. He hadn’t been told this version. Only the one skewed by those who wanted to see him on the throne that and from what his young child mind could recall which had gotten hazy over time. He could still recall what kind of man his father was and he barely recalled his brothers taking to the Northern woman. He had been raised by a paranoid abusive man and it hadn’t done him any favors later in life, he knew that much. But he heard the truth in the young girls voice and he grimaced. “I never said my father was a good man or king. He was far from it. My brother did your Uncle wrong. Both parties partook in bloodshed. I will get what it mine with fire and blood but I do not want to be like my father. I do not want to be seen as he was.”
His shoulders dropped, he was already the Begger King, the Khal Raggat. He wouldn’t be the second Mad King. No negotiation? Viserys knew he hadn’t been exactly raised in true Westeros politics but what the Baratheon was saying confused the young man. “By the people? To the death?” Viserys had no idea what the young girl was getting at. If Viserys had gotten here before he and his sister had conquered parts of Essos he’d want to kill the girl and get it over with but he stayed those thoughts knowing how the people he wanted to rule over would see him if he did such a thing, he’d be no better than The Mountain or any of the Usurpers themselves or his men.
Goldnwulf 