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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warnings:
Graphic Depictions Of ViolenceMajor Character Death
Category:
Gen
Fandoms:
House of the Dragon (TV)Warhammer Fantasy
Characters:
Ikit ClawRhaenyra TargaryenJacaerys VelaryonLucerys Velaryon (Son of Rhaenyra)Baela TargaryenRhaena Targaryen (Daughter of Daemon)Daemon TargaryenCorlys "The Sea Snake" VelaryonHelaena TargaryenAddam VelaryonBackground & Cameo CharactersSilverwing | Alysanne Targaryen's DragonOriginal CharactersJoffrey Velaryon
Additional Tags:
Crack Treated SeriouslyCanon-Typical ViolenceThe Dance of the Dragons | Aegon II Targaryen v. Rhaenyra Targaryen EraAlternate Universe - Canon DivergenceCanonical Character DeathCharacter Turned Into a HumanIkit got isekai'd as Jace's twinSkaven Species (Warhammer Fantasy)Death to all GreensHuman ExperimentationScience ExperimentsIkit is his own warningSilverwing still has shit taste in male ridersPOV MultipleBackground RelationshipsBackground Character Deathshow canon onlyDragon RidersAnimal AbuseIkit is an abusive dragonriderTho he's fairly mellow compared to his SkavenselfGood Parent Rhaenyra TargaryenNo beta we die like LucerysDysfunctional FamilyCannibalismBlood and TortureCanon-Typical BehaviorBAMF Helaena Targaryen
Language:
English
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Published:2026-02-26Completed:2026-04-22Words:181,492Chapters:55/55Comments:1,270Kudos:749Bookmarks:159Hits:33,607
The Rat Prince of Westeros
SkilledWarriorKiwi
Chapter 5: Helaena
Chapter Text
Helaena was beyond terrified of her nephew.
At first she held a distant affection for him, just as she did for Jacaerys and Lucerys. She never really interacted with Ikit enough to actually form an opinion about him. When he was first presented to the king she had been too young and couldn't even remember the occasion so it was only when the princess was pregnant with her fourth child and within the later months with the king requesting his daughter come to King's Landing, did Helaena again see her nephews and could actually remember it.
She greeted them with her mother when the princess arrived at the Red Keep as tradition dictated, Helaena happy to see her wayward family and hoping Dreamfyre liked the additional draconic company at the Dragonpit. Rhaenyra was distant but polite, while Jacaerys was a lot warmer towards her. Lucerys was gazing up at the Red Keep in wonder, with Laenor was telling his youngest son the history of the grand building. Ikit was standing by them, completely ignoring the queen's greeting to continue fiddling with an amulet around his neck.
Helaena had stepped forward, to make herself greet him as Alicent kept lecturing her about future duties but from long habit her gaze dropped down to the ground. It was then she caught a glimpse of something attached to her silver-haired nephew. A smear of something abhorrent before the clouds passed and sunlight bathed the courtyard. Something bristled at the back of her mind, making her skin overly hot and tight, and her hands started shaking so badly if she had been holding anything she would've dropped it as she utterly forgot what she was about to say.
As it was, her lapse was seen as a familiar fit of shyness by her mother, and Alicent cordially invited Rhaenyra and her entourage into the Red Keep to their chambers while giving Helaena a concerned glance.
Helaena was left shaking and unsure, returning to her rooms and trying to calm herself down with the easy rhyme and familiarity of caring for her assortment of insects. She cleaned out their cages and fed them, cooing nonsense songs and muttering facts about them under her breath until her shaking finally subsided. She didn't know what it was she had seen, but it scared her.
It also scared her that perhaps it wasn't even like her dreams, and just born from Alicent's distaste that had brushed against her and made herself think of something that wasn't there. It was hard enough already to remember things or notice people, she didn't want the hissing whispers to upset her mind more and the notion upset her badly.
As she grew older she had became aware of her mother's malice towards Rhaenyra, the passive-aggressive jabs, the snide comments, the mutters about how the Iron Throne belonged to a son not a daughter. Helaena was always so quiet and still, she felt some people forgot she was even in a room when Alicent would start her hissing and others would join.
She wanted no part of it; she wanted her bugs and her embroidery and the soft summer sun and Dreamfyre's warm scales. The whispered dreams of blood and death that slid against her like slime in her sleep, well she wanted none of them either and she kept ignoring any subtle hint her mother or grandfather tried to nudge towards her any whiff of the throne.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Rhaenyra will be queen. I don't need to know these things, nor does Aegon," Helaena said, not looking up from her embroidery when Alicent made an off-handed comment about Helaena needing to learn more about the lesser Houses in the Reach for her future station.
Helaena ignored her mother entirely after that despite Alicent's gentle coaxing, stitching at the cloth and ignoring how it just seemed to be all reds and oranges of people burning to death. Later she threw the embroidery in the fire, staring at the fabric as it twisted and burned and hearing distant screams. That night she went for a flight upon Dreamfyre, the dragon's powder blue scales gleaming silver in the moonlight and presence a salve to her mind yet still she was troubled.
But she was used to her nightmares, her clouded mind and disjointed feelings, so when she did meet with her nephews she did not understand the shiver of unease that rippled down her spine or whatever she might've seen. Ikit, the name feeling wrong, off for some reason, was never personable towards her. Instead he was just currently ignoring her which was preferable to the taunts Aegon would snipe at her.
She tried to show Jacaerys and Lucerys one of her millipedes, to make up for how bad her manners had been when they arrived, Jace couldn't hide his disgust but Luke was much kinder to Helaena's little lady. Laenor just looked politely awkward the entire time but he wasn't rude or tried to touch her so he was good enough company.
Ikit apparently had chosen to spend his time with the king, probably seeing that miniature replicate of Old Valyria. Every time Helaena saw the grand replica she just kept wanting to point out things that were wrong or insist it should be covered in red or burning black bones to the point her mother had forbidden her from the room.
Still, with Rhaenyra and her sons in King's Landing Helaena found her dreams that night especially horrible. She kept feeling as if she was falling, bleeding, watching everything burning and woke with the taste of blood upon her tongue and feeling as if she hadn't slept at all.
Again, when she spotted her sister Rhaenyra with her sons down in the courtyard from her window as they left the Red Keep to visit the city there was that lurch of unease when she spotted Ikit's gleaming silver hair, in contrast to the dark brown of his brother's and the warm gold of his mother.
Helaena retreated back into her room, gnawing on her fingers and unable to divine her anxiety. Even using her embroidery did nothing, she just pricked her finger with the needle and all she managed to stitch was a terrible messy form of a rat encased in green with two unknown symbols upon either side. She ended up stuffing the embroidery into her bedside drawer, suddenly paranoid there could be rats under her bed.
The rest of her day passed by just as uneasily, Helaena muttering to herself and unable to think of anything besides green.
But not the deep forest greens her mother favoured, the one that hung from the walls with the Seven Pointed Star emblazoned upon, the hue that filled half her wardrobe. But rather a bright searing green that reminded her of wildfire, the tiny jar she had seen in the Guildhall of the Alchemists. Even that tiny jar was held in extreme caution and that was the green she could think of, a poisonous hue that made her feel ill.
There was also an odd stink she kept getting a whiff of, something she couldn't identify and made her just as nervous.
Then at the end of the week during one of the family dinners, which was mostly done in silence or very wooden plain talk Helaena was oblivious to, that the surge of wrongness lashed out at her again and she finally realized what it was that was causing her panic. Ikit was seated directly across from her, as they were both second born, with the family bloodlines set upon either side with the king at the head, and he seemed entirely focused upon his mutton instead of the smalltalk of his family.
It was here Helaena realized what was bothering her so intently, seated across from Ikit and, after a week of feeling uneasy, she made herself actually stare directly at him. It was so hard, her eyes kept trying to slide away, but finally, finally, she saw what it was. Thrown back against the wall from the light cast by the heavily chandelier and braziers.
His shadow.
It was wrong.
Twisted and vile. Black as tar. And it was in the shape of a grotesque monstrous rat, standing on its hindlegs in foul parody of a human. Attached to Ikit and mirroring all his movements but so clearly inhuman.
Helaena remembered all the times her mother would scold her for seeing things, or talking of things that were nonsense. She tried to use that to rationalize what she was seeing, that it was just another out of sort moment of her mind. Like how sometimes she'd look at Aemond and be confused at why he had so many eyes or how sometimes Aegon would be bloated and twitching as if dying and then she'd blink and everything would be back to how it was.
Instead now all she could see was the shadow attached to Ikit, the rat tail curling around him with its spindly long claws moving in time to his own as he tore at a piece of bread.
Ikit then noticed her watching him. He didn't sneer or smile at her but something gleamed in his green eyes, the exact same hue as of the green she dreamed of, that made her hastily drop her stare to the floor. Her skin seemed hot and suddenly she wanted to do nothing more than flee to Dreamfyre.
The shadow kept moving even after she forced her gaze away. She could see it, hear it, flittering about at the edge of her senses.
Her grip was so tight on her fork, holding it like butcher's knife and ignoring the warning glare her mother gave her at the uncouth manner she was eating the lamb. Helaena just wanted to run away, far away from that green fire within the black.
Luckily Aegon throwing up gave her the perfect excuse to all but run from the room, Helaena not even bothering to say farewell as she made her escape as Alicent started scolding Aegon. It would just be passed off as her usual absent minded rudeness.
Still shaking, Helaena had swiftly retreated to her apartments and huddled so close to the fire she was nearly crawling into it. She hissed and shoved away one of the maids when the woman tried to pull her away, the maid so shocked at Helaena raising her voice that she quickly left.
Helaena hunkered back down, knowing that maid was one of those devout to Alicent so no doubt her mother will be knowing of Helaena's black mood. Hopefully Alicent would just think it was due to Rhaenyra's presence and leave her alone. Her mother never understood, no matter how hard Helaena tried to explain. Instead she would just try to take her to the royal sept 'to soothe her worries' regardless of how immensely unwelcome Helaena felt there.
But despite her pleading to the flames, even trying to touch the fires and getting burnt fingertips for her troubles, nothing came to her mind. No words, no phrases, no string of nonsensical mutterings that if she brooded upon she might understand later. Instead it was just that looming dread, feeling like sharp teeth were gnawing at her throat.
At one point she pulled out the patch of embroidery she had done earlier, the one with the twisted silver rat surrounded by green. The symbols she didn't recognize, not even from her dreams; one almost like a diamond with a stripe going downwards, the other almost like the common letter R but with the sharp point of an arrow. Overwhelmed she shoved it back into the bedside drawer, nothing any clearer.
She remained stiff and unsure even as night fell fully and she refused to leave her rooms, as she knew the embrace of her bed awaited her.
She did not always know when the disjointed dreams would come but now it was pressing against her skull like fingers, burning her marrow and making her shiver as she eyed the plush duvet. The dreams were waiting and they were going to be especially cruel, she just knew it.
But even after seeing that disturbing thing latched onto Ikit Helaena had to wonder what had happened on Dragonstone. Was his shadow always like that? She couldn't even remember and she didn't know if it was due to her usual muddled memories or just lack of interaction with her nephews. Was he born with it? She couldn't remember. Why didn't her mind work? She was so sick of it.
Helaena was trying to push past the fog that enshrouded her, one that kept her distant and dazed. It was so hard to focus some days, some so bad she could not even raise from the bed, but now she desperately had to know what she had seen. What was it? Why was it that twisted rat thing attached to Ikit? Was it a demon? Some type of curse? She had to do something. But Helaena didn't know what.
Some days she thought she herself was cursed to have none believe her. Her own brother thought her harebrained and would mock her often. Aemond would listen but he wouldn't listen. Otto and Alicent cared not for her words, and Viserys was didn't even seem to notice her.
Helaena tried so many times but the words just would not be uttered clear. She couldn't speak it plain and she never knew why even if she knew she had to say the words. She knew they were truth, even if no one else cared to listen and she couldn't understand them either.
But the shadow, there was something dangerous. Something so, so dangerous about it. As if it wanted to swallow her whole, that now that she witnessed it the chaos was trying to slide long sharp talons into her brain.
There was no choice left to her.
Tentatively, as if she was approaching a strange cat, Helaena laid down on her bed. No sooner did her head rest upon the pillow did the swirling smoke within her brain dragged her down into unconsciousness.
Helaena's dream was of rot and ruin, as she lay curled upon a small refuge of sand. Stripped to the skin she shuddered and flinched, fingers digging into heated sand.
The domain around her was piled with mountains of waste yet between the filth was trinkets, baubles, gemstones and even fragments of ancient knowledge. Strange green stones with numerous hard facets dotted the rolling hills of filth, glowing with a foul light. The air was clogged in roiling reddish clouds that stunk like sulfur while the sunlight itself was tainted green.
A strange noise consumed the air, drowning out anything else, and it took Helaena some moments to realize the noise was the squeaking and squeals of millions upon millions of rats. All swarming across the land, scrabbling over the piles of waste, gnawing at the green stone, biting and clawing each other.
Helaena shifted up onto her knees, the little pile of sand barely larger than a rug. She must not leave it, she knew.
Off in the distance there was a gigantic bell tower, so high the very top was nearly lost in the crimson clouds. The deep toll of the bell the only other noise besides the noise of the horde of squeaking vermin. Hanging from the tower was a great tattered banner, fluttering lazily in the wind.
The symbol emblazoned upon it was an upside down equilateral triangle, done in sharp, overlapping lines. Three bars crossed. A cursed triangle.
It made Helaena nauseous just looking at it.
Then something moved in the far distance, straightened up in a silhouette horribly similar to the shadow she had seen latched to her nephew at dinner. A twisted figure that perversely mimicked a man, yet held the furred limbs of a rat along with the long naked tail. Its head was a pale pointed rat skull, the profane triangle glowing upon its forehead. Huge spiraling horns framed its head like a mimicry of a twisted crown.
It was so tall she wouldn't even reach its ankle standing. Was it even taller than Vhagar, the last of the Conquest dragons?
Its head turned towards her, eyes glowing red like distant stars.
The thing would be able to see her, Helaena knew instantly. It would be able to touch her.
It would be able to hurt her.
It would be able to kill her.
Her flesh was burning as Helaena struggled to tear her gaze away from the great demon. The sand began to slowly swallow her bare limbs.
The hair on her nape went on end and Helaena found herself clawing desperately at the sand, trying to burrow into it as she felt the ground shake from great footsteps approaching. The crunching of dozens of rats being squashed underfoot, the idea she was bleeding, her bloodied hands dug into the sand, she had to leave, she had to leave, where was Dreamfyre, she wanted her mother-
Helaena jolted awake to find herself wrapped so firmly in her blankets only her face was free, pale like the moon and dotted in sweat. Her hands were twisted in the blanket wrapped around her like armour, heart hammering in her chest as she stared at the window. It was still night.
She could hear the distant sounds of King's Landing but the squeaking of a million rats were gone. The great demon was gone. She couldn't see the triangle anymore, the sickly green, the crimson eyes. It couldn't reach her.
There was someone in her room.
She couldn't hear them or see anything, but Helaena had never been more certain of anything in her life as she went stiff.
Slowly, very slowly, Helaena made herself roll over.
Ikit was sitting on her bedside table, staring at her with eyes that glowed like torches in the night. And in his hands were the embroidery she'd done earlier, with the silver rat.
In the darkness she couldn't see the shadow but she could hear it, slithering, skittering.
For a long moment Helaena just stared at Ikit the way he was staring at her. She didn't know what to say. She couldn't think of anything. Even the fog inside her head was silent. How long had he been watching her?
Finally Helaena managed to say, "Nephew."
Ikit leaned forward, making Helaena cringe back into her blankets. He asked, voice a raspy hiss, "Who do you interpret the will of?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I don't know. I don't know why I know these things. They don't make sense."
He raised the embroidery, using one overly long nail to trace the two symbols. "What are these? Why did you write-sew them? What did you see?"
"I don't know why I made that," Helaena said, her voice barely a whisper. A part of her felt certain Ikit would be able to tell if she was lying, and she didn't find any use in trying anyway, so she answered honestly, "I don't know why I see these things or say them. I just do. They don't make sense. The dreams don't either. They're nightmares and nonsense."
"Bah. A broken-shattered seer. You should be a mage-priest, a grand being who interprets the will of whatever God you are bound to and enforces it upon everyone else," Ikit said, the disappointment in his voice making her think of her mother as he leaned back. "Instead you are fumbling, neglected and useless and blind. Your insides should fire-burn with such a gift but you cringe and squeak and do nothing like a gutterbred whelp."
"I don't know what you want."
"Nothing now. Maybe later," Ikit said while giving a careless shrug. He then hopped off the table, brandishing her embroidery, "I'm keeping-taking this."
"That's fine."
It was only when dawn broke hours later, Helaena having lay awake on her bed the entire time and staring at nothing, did she realize he hadn't gone in the direction of the door and instead seemed to have seeped into the shadowy walls.
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