Title: The Depreciating Asset

Title: The Depreciating Asset

Year and Month: 101 AC, 10th Moon

The machine of state, under my hand, began to run with a quiet, relentless efficiency. The chaos and grief that had paralyzed the court were, to me, merely inefficiencies to be streamlined. As Hand of the King and Prince of Dragonstone, my days were a blur of calculated action. I met with Lord Corlys to oversee the charter for the new Dragon Fleet, ensuring the budgets were sound and the chain of command was absolute. I reviewed Lord Beesbury's tariff reforms, making precise adjustments to maximize economic recovery without sacrificing long-term revenue. I was a whirlwind of decisive governance, a stark contrast to my father, who remained a recluse in his chambers, a king only in title. The lords of the realm, initially wary of my youth, quickly learned that my rule was one of cold, unassailable logic. There were no emotional outbursts, no prideful standoffs. There were only problems and solutions, assets and liabilities.

And as I audited the assets of House Targaryen, my attention kept returning to one particular entry, an item on the balance sheet that was rapidly depreciating in value. My twin sister, Princess Gael.

In the wake of the deaths that had defined the year, Gael had wilted. She had always been a gentle, sensitive soul, a "Winter Child" born with a melancholic nature. But the loss of our mother, followed so swiftly by the loss of our heroic brother Baelon, had plunged her into a deep and intractable despair. Where once there was sweet shyness, there was now a crushing sadness. Where once there were quiet smiles, there were now only silent tears in the lonely corners of the Maidenvault.

The court saw it as a tragedy, another sorrow for the beleaguered royal house. The ladies-in-waiting whispered pityingly. The maesters prescribed potions for sleep and humors for balance. They were all treating the symptoms. I, however, saw the root cause and the inevitable conclusion. I knew her history. I knew that in the original timeline, this despair would lead her to the arms of a travelling singer, to a secret pregnancy, a stillborn child, and ultimately, to a lonely walk into the waters of Blackwater Bay.

From a purely managerial perspective, this was an unacceptable outcome. Her suicide would be a public relations disaster, a stain on the image of stability and strength I was meticulously crafting. It would be a source of immense emotional distress for my father, a distraction I could not afford. It was, to put it in the cold language of my own mind, a messy, inefficient, and entirely preventable liability. I would not allow an asset under my purview, particularly one so closely tied to my own name, to be liquidated in such a disorderly fashion. I had saved a city from plague, restructured the royal succession, and reformed the realm's economy. Managing the emotional state of my own twin sister was simply another project, albeit one that required a different, more delicate set of tools.

My intervention could not be one of overt command. Ordering her to be happy was absurd. Instead, I needed to perform a psychological restructuring. I needed to identify her core vulnerability—her feeling of uselessness and lack of agency—and replace it with a new sense of purpose. My purpose.

I began by observing. I spent more time in the gardens and libraries she frequented, not as the Hand of the King, but as her twin brother. I would sit with her, sometimes in silence, sometimes reading aloud from books of poetry I knew she favored. Initially, she was distant, lost in her own grey world.

One cool afternoon, as we sat by the silent fountains in the Queen's garden, the same spot where I had manipulated our mother years ago, I initiated the first phase of my plan. Gael was staring blankly at the water, her hands limp in her lap.

"You miss them," I said, not as a question, but as a simple statement of fact. My voice was soft, gentle.

She flinched, as if surprised I had spoken. A single tear traced a path down her pale cheek. She nodded, unable to speak.

"You miss Mother's warmth," I continued, my voice a soothing murmur. "You miss Baelon's laugh. You feel that the light has gone out of the world, and you are left alone in the cold." I was articulating her own despair, giving voice to the formless sorrow that was drowning her. This is a basic negotiation tactic: demonstrate that you understand your counterpart's position completely.

She finally looked at me, her violet eyes, so like my own, swimming with a fresh wave of tears. "How did you know?" she whispered.

"Because I am your twin, little sister," I said, offering a small, sad smile. It was a lie, of course. I knew because I had read her file. "I feel it too. The castle is colder now. Quieter." I paused, letting the manufactured moment of shared grief settle between us. "But I have work to do. The work gives me a purpose. It keeps the cold from settling in my bones. You… you have nothing to hold onto. You are adrift."

This was the core of her problem. She was a princess with no function. My sisters were married, had children, had their own households. Gael, the youngest, the winter child, had only ever had our mother. Now she was an ornament, a sad, beautiful relic in a court that had moved on.

"What work could I do?" she asked, her voice hopeless. "I am not clever like you. I am not strong like Baelon was."

"No," I agreed. "You are not. Your strength is of a different kind. A kind this castle has forgotten, but desperately needs." I leaned forward, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Mother was the heart of this court, was she not? She knew every lady, every lord, every servant. She knew their children's names, their secret sorrows, their quiet hopes. Her charity, her kindness… that was not mere pastime, Gael. It was a form of intelligence gathering. It was how she kept her finger on the pulse of the court. It was a source of great power. Her power."

I could see a flicker of interest in her eyes, a break in the clouds of her despair. I was reframing her mother's memory, changing it from a source of grief into a legacy of power.

"With her gone, that heart has stopped beating," I said. "The castle is just a machine of stone and ambition now. I can manage the machine. I can make it run efficiently. But I cannot make it human. I do not have that skill." This admission of a "weakness" was a deliberate move to make me seem more relatable, to build trust. "The people are afraid, Gael. The lords, the servants, the smallfolk. They see a grieving King and a Hand who is… like me." I let her fill in the blank: cold, distant, efficient. "They need to know that someone still cares. They need a heart."

"Me?" she breathed, the idea so foreign to her it was almost frightening.

"You," I confirmed, my gaze steady and reassuring. "You have her face. You have her kind heart. People look at you and they see her. You can continue her work. Not just as charity, but as a vital function of the state."

I then laid out the details of her new "position." I was not just giving her a hobby; I was giving her a formal role, a department to run.

"You will take over the Queen's charitable works," I explained. "But you will expand them. You will create a new office, the Office of Royal Almonry. Lord Beesbury will grant you a budget from the treasury. You will have ladies-in-waiting, scribes. You will be responsible for the orphanages we are building. You will oversee the distribution of food to the poor of the city. You will hear the petitions of the smallfolk that do not reach the Small Council."

I was giving her agency. A staff. A budget. A title. I was turning her into a manager.

"But this is not just about giving bread," I concluded, driving home the true purpose of my plan. "As you do this work, you will listen. You will learn the mood of the city. You will hear the whispers in the market, the complaints of the merchants, the fears of the mothers. You will become my eyes and ears among the people. You will provide me with intelligence that I cannot get from the lords on the council. You will be the heart of the realm, and you will report what you feel… to me, the head."

I had just offered her a partnership. I had taken her greatest perceived weakness—her gentle, empathetic nature—and reframed it as her greatest strength, a vital strategic asset for the Crown. I had given her a purpose that was both noble and essential.

Over the next few months, the transformation was remarkable. Gael, armed with a title and a mission, slowly began to emerge from her shell. At first, she was hesitant, leaning heavily on the ladies I had assigned to her. But as she began her work, visiting the orphanages, speaking with the poor, a new confidence took root. The people of King's Landing, who had adored her mother, transferred that affection to her. They called her the Winter Rose, a fragile flower bringing kindness to the city's darkest corners.

She would meet with me once a week, formally, in my office as Hand. She would present her reports, her ledgers of expenses, her requests for more resources. And she would tell me what she had heard. She told me of a baker's guild that was angry about a new tax on flour, allowing me to adjust the policy before it became a riot. She told me of a growing resentment towards the Dornish traders at the docks, allowing me to increase the Gold Cloak presence there to prevent violence. She was, as I had intended, becoming the perfect sensor for the city's emotional and social climate.

I had successfully managed the depreciating asset. I had taken a liability, a princess spiraling towards a messy and inconvenient suicide, and turned her into a productive, valuable part of my administration. Her sadness did not vanish entirely, but it was now channeled, repurposed. She had a reason to get out of bed in the morning. She had work to do.

One evening, she came to me, her face glowing with a quiet pride I had not seen since we were small children. "The new wing of the orphanage is complete, Aeryn," she said. "The children have beds and warm blankets. One of them… she gave me this."

She held out her hand. In her palm was a crudely carved wooden bird.

"She said it was for the kind princess," Gael whispered, her eyes shining with unshed tears. But these were not the tears of despair. They were tears of joy.

"You have done well, sister," I said, my voice even. "Your work is a credit to our House."

She smiled, a true, radiant smile. "Thank you, Aeryn. For believing in me."

I simply nodded. She saw a brother who had believed in her. I saw a successful project, an asset that had been turned around and was now generating significant returns. Her happiness was a pleasing, but ultimately irrelevant, byproduct of her newfound efficiency. The books were balanced. The potential crisis was averted. And my control over the Red Keep, from the high politics of the Small Council to the emotional state of my own family, was now absolute.