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Chapter Text

Aemon, age 4

Her mother was sitting in front of a window, sewing him a new handkerchief. He was reading a great tome of Valyrian history to her, quietly sounding words so she could correct him if need be.

A man came storming in, he knew it was his father. The man was tall and lithe and imposing. He yanked his mother from her chair and dragged her into her bedroom. Aemon tried to follow them but his nursemaid intercepted him and scooped him up into her arms. He threw his pudgy hands out to reach, for the book sitting askew on the floor, for his Mūna thumping uselessly on the locked iron door.

The nurse wasn’t fast enough, scarcely had she picked him up did his mother begin to cry. Loud, hiccuping, wet sobs like weak drums, battering at his ears. He started to cry too. The nurse hurried her steps.

Mūna began to scream, and cry, and scream.

This was Aemon’s first memory.

Aemon, age 5

He does not see his mother much these days, he is a growing boy now, a prince, and so must be subjected to lessons. Etiquette, court procedures, history and philosophy, languages, the family trees of all the great houses of Westeros, of which he is expected to rule over one day. There is also weapons training, swords and bows and spears, and dragon training, teaching his little pup of a blue dragon to understand him, to obey him.

It is exhausting work. He does not like it very much. He would much rather spend time in the Godswood, see if he could find lavender and periwinkle based solely on his botany books’ description of them. But he does well in his lessons, better than his father at his age, if the Kingsguards and the maesters were to be believed. He does not believe them. It is hard to imagine King Aemond, sometimes a storm, sometimes cold stone, were ever a young boy like him.

His father is the King Aemond. King Aemond does not abide laziness or tardiness or excuses. Thus, he has no choice but to do well in his lessons. If Aemon does not, then his father’s lips will curl, his eyes will become tainted with frustration, and he goes to scold his wife, for it is she who is responsible for raising her son. If her son is a failure, then she is one also, and King Aemond does not care for failures.

If Aemon cannot recite the set poems to his maester in fluent High Valyrian before the end of the week, Mūna will be once more dragged from her solar to the king’s chambers, and she will start screaming again.

So Aemon ignores his plants and the garden, puts his head down, and tries to learn.

Mūna is with child, he may have a sister this time.

Aemon, age 6

He has always thought his father and his uncle to be blood brothers, so similar was their build and countenance. King Aemond is aloof and stately, Uncle Aegon is somber and silent. Light would glint off the ruby in his father’s dark crown, as they would glint off of the golden hand pinned to his uncle’s breast.

He thinks his father mislikes this comparison, if he ever was to know about it. He does not think King Aemond likes Uncle Aegon very much, whenever they converse it was always courteous and solemn, but he could feel a teasing provocation beneath his father’s calm words, and a simmering rage underneath his uncle’s.

It does not matter much to him. To Aemon, of all the people in the world, of which seems so big and fearful, Uncle Aegon remains one of Aemon’s favorite people.

There is a quiet solidarity between the two of them. Whenever Aegon becomes so frustrated with his work, so angry that he is not good enough not strong enough not big enough not enough not yet a prince not yet a shield he could do nothing; he would go find his uncle. Aegon the Younger’s type of passivity leaves no room for such kind of unproductive fury. Uncle Aegon does not judge his tantrums, and Aemon does not judge his broodings.

They were also the only ones in the entire keep capable of bringing a smile to his mother’s face. Unce Aegon could present her with books Aemon could not yet reach, lemon cakes he cannot make, sweetgrass to braid that he was not allowed to pick. All done with a grand gesture, a jester’s flourish, and his mother would shine a pearlescent smile on them both, as if she cracked open her soul and sunlight slipped through.

That smile never stays long, it would take an ever greater effort next time to produce it, but at least it was there. It existed.

The only time Uncle Aegon ever got angry with him was when he saw Aemon’s dragon, the blue bronzed Gaelithox. He brought the little dragon, now the size of a large sheep, to his uncle’s rooms one day, eager to show him that he can command it with Dracarys to produce fire. Uncle Aegon took one look at his companion and roared to “Take that beast out! Get out! Take it out! Out!”

Aemon had been so frightened he grabbed Gaelithox around their middle and rushed him out of the room, his gangly legs struggling to carry them both to safety.

Later in the evening Uncle Aegon knocked on his chamber door, bearing a tray of ripe plum puddings and an apology.

“I did not mean to scare you,” he said, sitting himself on the bed, where Aemon was curled up under his beddings and trying to burrow into his pillows.

“I was just frightened.” Uncle Aegon admitted, and to his astonishment, he brought his hand onto Aemon’s own, and patted them gently.

“Why are you scared? Dragons are wonderful!” Aemon asked, half with shame and half with anger.

Aegon’s mouth thinned and his eyes turned miserable. Aemon shrank back, he should not have asked, but his uncle pressed on.

“My mother died from dragonfire.” He paused, swallowed, as if the death was once more happening right in front of his eyes once again, “Your other uncle Aegon, your father’s older brother, burnt her alive in front of me. Then he ordered his dragon to devour her whole.”

Aegon rubbed his thumb across Aemon’s fingers, “I have never been able to stomach dragons since. I’m sorry. For how I am, and how I scared you.”

Aegon struggled not to flinch when his nephew grabbed his hand. Aemon realized with a rather frightening clarity that his uncle is merely ten years older than he is.

“Your mother, was she my mother’s mother as well?” He whispered, fearful of the answer, knowing of the answer.

“Yes, she was. The Realm’s Delight, Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen.” His uncle answered faithfully, sporting an ugly, half-wilted smile. This was another thing he liked about his uncle. No matter how horrid, he never minces his words for his nephew.

“Was my mother forced to watch too?” Aemon asked.

Somehow, Aegon the Younger’s smile turns even sadder. “No,” Aemon hears him say, “I think she was in labor by then.”

Chapter Text

Aemon, aged 7

He tucks himself into an alcove and strained his ears to hear Aunt Baela and Uncle Aegon’s conversation. He knows it is not right to snoop, but it is not often Aunt Baela is allowed to the Red Keep and even rarer are his cousins allowed to converse in private. Like with his mother, there always seems to be a retinue of guards and handmaids and squires waffling about them.

By the sound of it, Aunt Baela is on her third cup of wine. Uncle Aegon seems to do his best to try and temper her, unsuccessfully.

“You mustn’t antagonize the king so Baela.”

“And why the fuck not? That cunt deserves it."

There was a family dinner that evening. Aemon was not allowed to attend, so he took himself to the nursery to work on his figures with Baelon, and to keep little Rhaelle company. She would start dripping tears and snot if there isn’t a member of her blood next to her within easy grabbing distance. His nurses thought the king looked angry when he left it. Aemon did not hear his mother's screams afterwards, so he paid it no mind.

“I know he deserves it, but all you do is anger him and make things difficult for Lucerys and her children."

Aunt Baela spat into the fireplace. “What fucking children? All I see are silver haired parasites, chaining her to this shithole.”

Uncle Aegon bellows a great sigh. “Sister. The walls have ears.”

Aunt Baela scoffed, her next words spoken deliberately louder, as if daring the king to take offence and lop her head off, “Please, it’s nothing the One-Eye shite hasn’t heard from me before. And it is certainly not untrue. He was prancing around the keep before the wedding, crowing so loud the gods could hear him. ‘I’ve raped my niece so many times I’ve put a babe inside her and now she has no choice but to marry me!” She gave quite a good imitation of his father’s low tenor, before she descended into a round of morose laughter.

Aemon stuffed a still-pudgy hand into his mouth to stifle his gasps, tears welled in his eyes but he refused to let them fall, determined to hear the rest of it.

Uncle Aegon sighed, softer this time, “Baela.”

Aunt Baela’s laughter abruptly ceased. Her voice turns melancholy, “Jace used to tell me all sorts of stories about the Red Keep, about his uncles. Aegon was uncouth but fun, Daeron studious and kind, Aemond somber but dutiful. He would tell me how little Lucerys would turn her nose up at the lot of them, boys were all smelly beasties you see, but would secretly pass lemon cakes and plum puddings for Aemond, her favorite.”

Melancholy abruptly turned into sobs. Aemon could hear Uncle Aegon shuffling off his chair to embrace her. The sobs grew louder, “And what did her favorite do?! Stole my mother’s dragon! Tried to bash Jace’s head in with a rock! Burnt her dragon to a crisp before kidnapping her to this nest of vipers! Poisoned our father and killed him above God’s Eye! And now! Now! Lucy is on her fourth child and he still locks her door from the outside every fucking night!”

Aemon is abruptly reminded of the iron door in her mother’s chambers. He is grown enough now, he understands what her screams behind it means, the only metal door in a bedroom, in the entire keep.

Aunt Baela’s sobs turn into wails, Uncle Aegon murmurs useless reassurances into her hair. Aemon plies himself out of the wall and trudges back to his chambers, silent tears streaming down his face. He has learned how to cry without making a sound.

Aemon, age 8.

Rickon Stark, son of Cretan Stark, the Wolf of the North, was a stoic young man. He reacted to every Southron lords' boisterous greeting with a blank face and a wordless bow. From the place beside him, Aemon could feel the young wolf was sneering at the lot of them.

His father the king demanded it, and so legions of lords and ladies from every house in Westeros came to King’s Landing to celebrate the birth of his fourth child and second daughter, the Princess Daella. The bards are already singing how the little babe is the King’s favorite, how dotted on her, how, finally, the stone King Aemond thawed at the sight of his second great love.

Aemon could see why they would sing so. Father has never let Daella out of his sight. He would bring his state papers to the nursery and work at a desk in front of the crib. Every nurse and maid that ever interacts with the princess went through three rounds of interrogation by the Kingsguard. Not even a year old and he is already commissioning dresses for her. King Aemond is smiling, the edges of his lips soft, his hands relaxed and his nails trimmed. He has not ever seen his father in such a good mood in years.

Abruptly, Rickon spoke up beside him, “Do you know why your father only allows wooden cutlery for the queen?”

“No. Why?” He asked. He has always wondered about it. For as long as he could remember, Mūna never used even metal or glass spoons. Her quills would be dipped in metal, but she would only write her letters in the library or in his Father’s chambers.

Rickon looked at him through the corner of his eye, and finally let the sneer he was holding back bloom across his lips, “Because she took a dinner knife from the table after she gave birth to her first child and tried to slit her own throat with it. Everyone in the realm knows that.”

The young Stark paused, giving Aemon time to process what he had heard, for the ringing in his head to subside. Rickon continued, almost viciously, “I bet the Queen’s chambers never had any mirrors either, or iron hairbrushes. Her necklaces are kept in a locked box and her curtains are bolted into the walls.”

He is right, Muna’s chambers are exactly as he described. He swallowed, mouth thick, and asked again, “Why?”

Rickon Stark looked at him exactly like how Cregan Stark would look at Father, how Jeyne Arryn and Aunt Baela and sometimes even Uncle Aegon would look at their king, as if he is a puddle of Flea Bottom vomit staining the hems of their cloaks.

“Why do you think? I doubt any lady can look upon the physical manifestation of her misery and feel content. You are your father’s sins. She cannot kill you, so the next best thing is killing herself.”

Rickon ended his speech with a breezy strug and returned to his dinner, leaving Aemon sitting in his chair, his mind splintering into a thousand pieces.

Aemon looked towards the high table, where his mother was sitting and eating with forks made from red oak. He looks at the sapphire crown in her hair, a heavy tacky thing dripping blue jewels down her soft hair. He looks at her mouth, set in an unwavering neutral line as she flits her eyes from her plate to her new babe to the laughing lords feasting around the hall, as if she is not part of this mortal realm, but watching all of them from a place high in the clouds. A place where she can forget herself and her life and what her husband made her.

He looks at the babe Daella, giggling merrily away in the arms of his father. King Aemond has smiled at her and caressed her more times in a single evening than he did for Aemon’s entire life. He knows why. Unlike her siblings, Daella has inherited the colourings of their mother, warm brown in her eyes, warm brown on her head. He could see that their father could not stop touching the straggly wisps of his sister’s hair.

It makes him feel ill, the fact that Aemon knows that the king only just thought himself to be a father when he’s given that babe to hold, but could only seem to visit violence upon his first great love.

King Aemond croons softly into his daughter’s crown. The next course is served. Queen Lucerys swirls the broth on her plate with a wooden spoon.

Aemon quickly excuses himself and flees the hall.

Chapter Text

Aemon, age 9.

When King Aemond storms into Muna’s chambers, Aemon could tell this time will be worse. There are three members of the Kingsguard following him, and he has Dark Sister clipped to his belt. He hasn’t removed the rings on his fingers.

He is a king on a path of vengeance, not a husband taking his dues.

King Aemond ignores his children, huddled beside their mother, their previous companionable reading interrupted and forgotten. He starts to violently rummage through Mūna’s wardrobes and drawers, his face as dark as dragonglass and just as sharp.

Rhaelle muffles a frightened squeak into Baelon’s shirt. Aemon gather them both around him as he quickly takes Mūna’s hand and tries to lead her away, out of the room as quickly as they can, before the king loses his sanity and chops them into mince with his Valyrian sword.

A member of the Kingsguard stops them. His great hulking white frame blocking the door. Rhaelle gives a louder whimper. Baelon bundles her into his thin arms. Mūna remains silent, staring straight ahead at the embellished pauldrons of the white cloaks. Aemon gives a low growl and tries to push past the offensive human wall. Behind them, a chest crashes into the ground.

Abruptly as he began, Aemond stopped. Silence rings muffled and loud. They turn, and see him drag a long, black, winter coat from one of Mūna’s drawers, disturbing the pile of old, musty linen carefully folded on top. The cloak was well-made, fit for a highborn, too big and too thick for his mother’s thin frame.

King Aemond tosses the cloak at Mūna’s feet.

“What is this?” The king asks, his eyes clouded, his voice a dark whisper.

Aemon involuntarily takes a step back.

Muna takes a step forward, shoving him behind her.

“An old cloak,” she answers.

The slap came too fast for Aemon to warn her, the force so strong it slammed Mūna into the wall, knocking over her children. Rhaelle and Baelon latch onto her skirts and plant their small feet into the cold stone floor, their thin arms quivering in an effort to hold their mother up. There’s blood on their mother’s lips, staining her teeth. Aemon paws quickly into his doublet to retrieve a handkerchief, running to her and presses it into her split lip to try and stem the flow.

King Aemond’s right hand remains suspended in mid-air, as if the rage-filled great king could scarcely believe what he had done. He slowly squeezes that terrible hand into a first. A pause. Then he puts it on his sword.

Aemon tries tuck his still bleeding mother into him and away from the dark king, back back back. They bump into a white cloak, who shoves them forward.

King Aemond opens his maw, “I thought something was up when you left dinner early. Unless you wish for the execution block, answer me truly. Whose the fuck is this?”

Once more, Queen Lucerys shoves her children behind her.

“No one’s. The servants must have forgotten to clean the room proper—“

The second hit came even quicker, right over Mūna’s left eye. She stumbles backward from the pain. Her children’s tiny arms were once more, the only thing preventing her from falling.

Black hatred was crawling up King Aemond’s eye, tainting it tainting it. He picked up the cloak from the ground and forced it into Mūna’s face.

“Who were you meeting? Usurpers trying to take my crown? Assassins trying to kill my children? Or did you finally give in and became a whore to the first man daring to ask?”

His face was twisted in an absolute rage. He looked so furious Aemon thought quite hysterically how it was a wonder his mortal body could even contain it. That much anger should easily split open his chest and rearrange his organs and transform him into an actual dragon, here to burn his family to the ground.

King Aemond withdrew his great sword and slashed it clean through one of Muna’s wardrobes. Satin and velvet flew into the air. He was not finished, “What whoring did you do? Who is he? Is this one of his favors, given to you to seduce you?”

Mocking words, cruel words, but the king did not stop there. With great steps he strode towards the fireplace. Mūna, who had previously held her head down and kept silent, suddenly burst into action. She flew across the room, panic and desperation across her features, to grab her precious cloak back. She tried to rip it from the king’s steel fists, but the king turned and grabbed her by her hair, forcing her to look up at him.

He sneered, “You are reluctant to part with it? All the jewels and crowns I gave you and you would throw it all away for a cunt that could only afford a worn coat?”

Queen Lucerys grunted in pain, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Give it back!”

The king’s eyes have turned black completely, the white around them blood red. He arched his wife away from him, still holding her hair, so that her weak arms could not hope to stop him. And then he tossed the dusty cloak into the fire.

The queen opened her mouth in a silent scream, reaching into the fireplace to save her beloved cloak. King Aemond looked even more murderous, if that was possible, and hauled her away with one arm. Her palms were burnt, she kicked and bit, but all she managed to rescue was gray flakes and broken threads.

The king looked down as his desolate wife and scoffed. He dragged her into the half-destroyed bedroom. Her son, Aemon, attempted to follow them, but armored arms of a Kingsguard wrapped himself around him and he could go no further. Baelon, her secondborn, was also prevented from helping his mother by a white cloak, and began to beg and plead with the king to spare her. Rhaelle, a young girl of five, started crying, and was forcefully carried outside by the remaining guard. She ran, still sobbing, to find her Uncle Aegon, to find anyone willing to help her. To help the queen.

Aemon and Baelon struggled and fought, but they were both still too young, too little.

The king’s shouts carried across the room.

“Did I not fuck you enough? Is that it, you bastard? Ten fucking years and I still could not satiate your wanton whore blood? Ten fucking years Lucerys! You are mine! You’ve been mine! You can only be mine!”

The king did not shut the door this time, so Aemon could see clearly, with his own purple eyes, how Aemond slammed his mother face first into the broken floor, the blood on her face smearing on cracked jewels, and tore her dress open, forced her knees apart, and entered her.

A gloved hand slapped across his mouth, stifling his scream. He struggled anew, clawing and biting at the man that held him. A cowardly knight that would only stand guard, sword to protect the queen but not from anything the king might do, and not allow anyone to run away or run towards the brutality happening right before their eyes,

Mūna’s entire body is stiff with pain, broken and pained gasps were stuttering out of her throat. Choppy and intermittent. Aemon could see blood, slowly dripping down a white thigh.

White is her face, white is her eyes. King Aemond took a break from his vicious thrusting to slap her face into the ground, “Speak, Lucerys! Fucking answer me! Else I’ll drag Aegon in and carve him open! Tell me what you’re hiding from me!”

He flipped her over and slammed her back down again. Her back cracking against broken glass. “You oathbreaking whore.” More thrusting. More blood. “Have you not promised me you would be obedient? Have you not fucking sworn?” A clawed hand raked over the queen’s bodice, ripping it apart. Four lines of bright red gashes bloom across her breasts.

More thrusting. More blood. White drips down. Rage. Untrimmed nails gouge deep into the meat of her hips. The queen feebly tries to push her husband away. The king bats away her efforts and wraps a hand around her throat.

From the corner of her eyes, Queen Lucerys sees her sons, battling her husband’s guards to try and save her. In the violet of their young eyes she sees herself. Something tears. The light in her eyes goes out.

King Aemond keeps thrusting, but the queen has gone limp, quiet. Still. As if she’s stopped breathing, as if her soul has already left her broken body.

Aemon notices, he ceases his screaming. Horror fills his eyes.

The king notices too, soon after, and ceases his insanity too. Realizing, for the first time since they said their wedding vows, Lucerys has stopped struggling. No resistance, none at all. Pliant. Obedient.

Mūna’s eyes have gone blank, milky, corpse-like, death-like. Dead.

Aemon could see the king realize it too. He could see the red rage fading from his eye, a blue fear replacing it.

He withdrew from her. An uncertain swallow, “Lucerys… Lucy… Please, look at me?”

Lucerys did look. Aemon’s Mūna is looking. He could see her eyes but he could not see his reflection in them. King Aemond apparently could not either, for his hands started trembling as they unwrapped around her throat and instead flitted under Mūna’s nose. He hitches a breath of relief. Thin but even breaths tickled his rings.

Aemond took her hand in between his, said, “Lucy. Lucerys. Answer me. Please. Anything at all. Anything at all.”

Lucerys stared up at the unpainted ceiling and responded with nothing. Aemond pleaded with her twice more, she did not appear to hear.

The Kingsguard loosened their grips, Aemon tore away from them and ran towards his mother. He fell to his knees and called her twice, but still she did not hear.

She did not stir, not when her son touched her face, not when her king gouged at her arms.

Lucerys is alive, but is more unresponsive than a tomb.

Finally, Aemond had enough. “Get a fucking maester!” He shouted at his loitering guards. The cowards rushed out to fulfill their lord’s wishes. Maids rushed in, to clean and straighten and destroy all evidence of this crime.

His father stood up and adjusted his clothing.

Aemon tucks himself over his mother to cover her, and ignores them all.

-

Maesters came, one after another, all of them bowing uselessly before the pacing king, all of them confused. One after the other, they all said the same thing.

“The queen is merely sleeping.”

“Pieces of shit!” The king shouts at them, “Good for nothing trash the lot of you!”

Mūna slept, and King Aemond stayed right next to her, never leaving her for a moment. He always had his fingers on her wrist, checking her pulse, eyes on her chest, afraid the last dregs of her vitality would be lost before he had a chance to notice. Mūna would occasionally open her eyes, but could hold no reflection in them. She merely stares blankly up at the canopy, ignoring everything Aemond says to her. Only her fingers move, rubbing against the beddings, grasping at something ephemeral she could no longer reach.

His firstborn stayed with her, tucked himself in a corner of the room. Aemon sent Baelon away, told him to stay with Uncle Aegon while he guards Mūna. The maids do not bring themselves to tug him out, the maesters do not reprimand him. His father does not even seem to notice his presence at all. He could hear Uncle Aegon pounding his fists against the barred door, “what did you do you beast?! Fucking answer me! What did you do to my sister?!, cursing at his father, cursing at the Kingsguard barring the door. Aemon did not eat or sleep, merely curled into his knees and silently wept.

Three days passed like this. Servants came swiftly and was dismissed equally quickly. King Aemond would lift his wife to his chest to rub water into her lips, spoon-feed bits of porridge into her mouth, and pour tinctures down her throat. He would clean her with a damp cloth every evening, and slept on the cramped chair next to her. Nothing he did roused her.

On the fourth day, still no change. Lucerys still draws breath, her eyes remain open, her soul still gone. The maesters pronounced that if she does not wake soon, she might die.

King Aemond sits blankly beside his wife, finally made mortal. If he does not wake Lucerys now, if they cannot wake Lucerys, what would he be then? Everyone else is gone. His mother, father, brother, sister. Even his dragon. Lucerys is the only one left. He only has Lucerys. The last spoonful of dragonfire still lit in his heart. Lucerys must be by his side when he’s alive, and when he’s gone, Lucerys must follow right beside him. The possibility that Lucerys would truly leave first, would abandon him like she did once twice thrice before, is an impossible reality to imagine, no matter how many times he’s confronted with it.

He began to kiss her, her lips, her brows, her arms. His son roused himself, and began to pull himself forward to stop him. No matter how hard he kissed, how hard he rubbed her breasts, the lights in Lucerys’ eyes remained gone.

“Lucy… Lucerys…” The King of the Seven Kingdoms seems at a loss, childlike, as if he accidentally smashed a prized toy of his and did not know how to put it back together again. “Don’t be like this. Please. Answer me. Please!”

Aemond felt like he’s submerged in a nightmare. There are screams in his head. A woman’s, a man’s. Thousand upon thousands. A voice piercing through it all. You promised. You promised you would never make her like this again.

Aemond tore at his hair, eye wild. Yes, yes he remembered. Lucerys laid exactly like this nine years ago, a half-corpse in front of him dripping blood. And he promised. He promised to the Seven, to all the gods of Old Valyria, to every god that would listen. Save her. Please. Let her live. Let her live. No more war. No more death. Let her live. He promised to Lucerys that she will never lie in half-death in front of him ever again. He didn’t want to hurt her. He didn’t want to hate her anymore. He wanted peace with her. That silent tranquility she brings to him simply by her existence, the only thing that could stop the bloody clamorings in his head. He wanted that peace, that brightness, so he spares her siblings, his half-brother, his cousins, her liege lords. No more killing, just silent nights in a quiet chamber, together.

He wanted it. He truly wanted it. He’d forgiven Lucerys for his eye. He did. He truly did.

When his Master of Whispers told him that a maid found incriminating clothing not of his own in his Lucerys’ chambers, his first thought was to scoff. But then doubts had taken over. Cregan Stark came to King’s Landing to collect his son and stayed longer than what was proper. Toron Greyjoy regaled the court with tales of his father Dalton in a recent tourney. Rhaena had sent another present from the Eyrie and threatened to come to King’s Landing again. Aemond had to check. He had to make sure. And when he found that piece of musty winter cloak, Stark gray and lined with Arryn blue, certainly not his, never his. Rage, rage and the loud cacophony of war in his head took over.

He presses his head into his wife’s chest and whispers, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. Forgive me Lucerys. Please, forgive me.”

Lucerys rubs her fingers, and does not respond.

Aemon could see the king has stopped kissing Mūna, instead, he stands and leaves the room, unsheathing his great sword. There was a roar, and a smash.

Aemon hasn’t eaten in three days. His body is weak, but still he roused himself with determination, and crawled towards the bed. A weak weak dragon, inching forward on four limbs. Slowly. Slowly. Bit by bit until he came right beside his mother. He pushed himself onto his knees and, shaking, grasped his mother’s hand between his own.

“Mama?” He cried softly. “Mama?”

Lucerys abruptly stopped twitching her fingers, paused, a realisation, and then closed them around his. As if she was a drowning woman finally given the lone frayed rope that would lead her to shore.

Aemon cried louder, the noises in the other room ceased. “Mama?”

Slowly. Agonizingly slowly, Muna turned her eyes away from the velvet canopy, away, finally away, and looked to him. Her brown eyes, ones that Aemon always found so pretty and everyone found so plain, were still blank. Aemon squeezed her hand again, pleading.

“Aemon,” she croaked, her voice so soft he’s unsure if she had called him, or the king coming in behind him.

“Aemond,” she tried again. “Aemond.”

“Jacaerys forgot his furs at Winterfell before he came back to Dragonstone. Lord Stark just gave them back to me.”

The tears became a torrent, Lucerys’ face twisted in pure agony, great hulking sobs burst through her chest and through her mouth.

“It was the last thing I had of him. Aemon. It was the last thing I had of him!”

Chapter Text

Aemon, age 10.

Lord Joffrey Arryn, successor to the late Lady Jeyne, sent a letter the minute he heard the news, Has Your Grace seen the new castle records unearthed at the Citadel? I had thought Maegor the Cruel terrible enough, but how could he practice such acts on his wives. Horrid. Absolutely horrid. Must be the final sin on his soul that sent him onto the blades of the Iron Throne. Lord Cregan Stark sent an envoy, Bolton and Karstark will be there to attend the celebrations. If they do not come back to me with reports of the Queen being whole and hale, I will come down south with all my banners and see to her myself. The Greyjoys stopped their infighting for a month and a half to band together and burn through as much of Lannisport as they can, Fuck that cunt, if One-Eye wants to kill women in bed there’s whores for that. Lady Johanna Lannister drove them off without much trouble, but asked the crown to pay for all the necessary repairs.

Even Lord Lyonel Hightower, the new Master of laws, was apprehensive, Your Grace, the Queen is the only reason the realm hasn’t descended back into another civil war. You have not done great work to endear yourself to the Black loyalists. You have no dragon. For fuck sake, don’t kill her.

Young Lord Kermit Tully, the Master of coins, had to be reminded numerous times to stay his hand during small council meetings by Lord Butterwell, Do not kill the king. I know you want to, but don’t kill the fucking king.

It’s been months since Mūna’s last rape, the keep is still somber. Apprehension was on everyone’s faces, rage in some others. The only lords who did not seem to care for what had happened appeared to be stormlanders, mostly Baratheon’s banner men. Lady Elenda Baratheon and her daughters turned a blind-eye and sometimes even encouraged the fetid crowings of “the weak bastard whore that doesn't know how to take cock properly.” The loud cajoling stopped after Bloody Ben Blackwood took the tongue of the loudest knight and threw it onto Ellyn Baratheon’s lap.

Everyone voiced their displeasure. No one moved to unseat the king from his hideous chair.

It was Aemon’s tenth nameday, revelry never given to him before are now put on in an effort to cheer up the castle. There will be many feasts, hunts, and tourneys. Several plays of romance and comedy been commissioned and every which folk of King’s Landing and all throughout the Seven Kingdoms were invited to participate

On the surface, it was all a celebration of the king’s firstborn son. Prince Aemon has grown strong, silver haired and handsome as a dream, already winning jousts and duels against men five six seven years his senior. A finer prince if there ever was one. In actuality, the festivities were aimed towards the visiting lords and ladies, to show off the might of the ruling House Targaryen and to quietly dispel any rumors or allusions that the king is a kinslayer thrice over.

For several weeks Aemon had to contend with long days of drunken lords fawning over the king, fawning over him, whispering about his mother. The older he grows the more he understands what’s being said behind a hand, a fan, a laugh. bastard queen they called her. Whore. Weak. Stupid. Unworthy. How uncouth how improper she can’t still be in hysterics she’s not raised right bastard blood tainting noble Valyria why does the king put up with her? Aemon cannot not wait until his dragon is large enough so he can toss every single one of them in between her teeth.

He did his best to ignore them. Sat beside his mother to try and coax more sweetmeats past her lips, sat beside his brother to tap him out of his books, sat above the feasting lords as they praise him to be one of the foremost accomplishments of the king. As if King Aemond did any of the work.

One more week of this, just one more week left.

A new day. The king sits on the Iron Throne, Aemon stands at its feet, as one noble house after another was announced and welcomed into their halls. Shoulders back, hands folded behind, head high but eyes straightforward, just as he practiced with Mūna. There they come. Butterwell, Penrose, Stackspear. Manderly, Stokeworth, Broome. Rowan, Corbray, Targaryen.

Aemon snaps his eyes up.

“Announcing Ser Corwyn of House Corbray, Lord of Heart’s Home, and his lady wife, Princess Rhaena Targaryen.”

Aemon heard a great answering screech of an unfamiliar dragon, saw a glint of a pink black wing from the stained glass windows. Aunt Rhaena. Lady Rhaena. Fiery Aunt Baela’s lovely twin. She wore a deep purple dress. She’s looking at him with unabashed curiosity and a hint of antipathy. Mother’s Rhaena.

King Aemond stood, a grimace twists his lips for a split second before he smoothed it into a smile. “Welcome back cousin,” Aemon heard him say, “to King’s Landing. I hope your travels have been untroubled?”

Lady Rhaena smiled beautifully, answered deferentially, “It was quite uneventful. I thank you for your hospitality.” Her words were sweet. It did not reach her eyes. There. There it is. Familiar disgust flashing through unfamiliar eyes. Flea Bottom vomit staining her dress.

King Aemond forced himself to nod in equal graciousness, “Of course. My wife has eagerly awaited your arrival, perhaps you should go and see her.”

Lady Rhaena curtsied, “I would be honored to serve the queen again.”

And there the queen was. Ethereal in a gown of blue and gold, floating into the throne room to guide the visiting lords to their rooms, freezing in her tracks as she sees Lady Rhaena. Undiluted shock cracks her face, and long hidden sunlight peaks through. The biggest brightest smile Aemon has ever seen burst across her lips. Lucerys lifts her heavy dress, runs across the room, and flings herself into Rhaena’s open arms with a breathless laugh. All sense of propriety forgotten. Her jewels twinkled in merriment, conveying her joy to the entire hall.

It takes a long moment before she lets go. Lady Rhaena setting her down neatly, and they both take a quick second to tidy their dresses. She turned towards the king, a small grateful smile lighting her lips, and said, “Thank you, Your Grace, for allowing Lady Rhaena this visit.”

King Aemond’s face remains inscrutable, but a corner of his lips lifts up in ease. He waved a hand, “No need for thanks. Targaryens are always welcome in the Red Keep.”

Mūna curtsied, “Of course, Your Grace.”

She nodded at all the visiting lords, looped an arm around Lady Rhaena, and guided them all out the hall.

Aemon glanced at his father. The king is rubbing his fingers as he sits back down, his eyes are cool. There is jealousy in that one eye, but also, startlingly, relief.

-

Aemon saw Lady Rhaena in Mūna’s sitting rooms, talking with her, making her laugh. The princess’s hands weave expert braids around his little sisters’ heads. Rhaelle looked at her in absolute rapture, asking question after question about her beautiful dragon. Mūna seemed tethered, more solid, the caresses she gave Daella have weight behind them. Rhaena recites long winding poems in High Valyrian to his sisters, with Mūna following behind with slow translations. They gave the servants empty bowls to be washed up.

Aemon takes a long breath. Inhale. Exhale. He felt lighter than he did in months.

He leaves them to it, and goes off to training.

-

“They gave you Jace’s rooms,” said Lady Rhaena, coming into Aemon’s quarters unannounced.

Aemon shot up from his place at his desk, floundered for a few precious seconds before replying, “Pardon me, my lady?”

Lady Rhaena took a loop around the room, ignoring his words, cataloging, intimidating, taking her time to pass her judgment. He plants his feet apart, shoulders back, head high. A soldier’s stance. Just like he practiced.

She turned her eyes towards him, looking him up and down. Perhaps finding him wanting. She hums in contemplation, “You look like him.”

Aemon suppressed a grimace. “Yes,” he said, “I’ve been told I resemble the king.”

Lady Rhaena waved a dismissive hand, distaste flashing across her face. “No, not Aemond.” She continues, surprising him, “You remind me of Jacaerys.”

Aemon was taken aback, “My mother’s brother, my lady?”

Lady Rhaena smiles, a soft blooming thing, as if in his hesitation she found something quite lovely to behold. She found a chair and sat down with a groan, and said, “You have his chin and his countenance. A good face. Tells me you’re reliable.”

Her smile turns sad, but does not waver. She continues, “Jace was good. Simple. Uncomplicated. A good brother. A good son. You seem the same.”

Aemon didn’t know what to say. He is slack-jawed, in awe. No one has ever talked about the civil war even though everyone knows what happened. Cold names on colder pages about events that happened on scorching days. No soul and no human behind any of them. He realizes he’s been starved from the past, for the minuscule kingmaking details that nobody was willing to give him.

More shocking still was this comparison. He’s heard his likeness to his father countless times in his very short life. From his hair to his eyes to his name. It is a fact he doesn't like to be reminded yet everyone seems to take great pleasure in reminding him, that he is his father’s shadow, that he is his mother’s pain.

“You look nothing like your father, and you will be nothing like him either,” Lady Rhaena declared. Her sudden vehemence startling him.

Aemon swallowed, sat down numbly in a nearby chair, and asked, “Why are you here, my lady?”

Lady Rhaena strugs elegantly, “I’m here to see Lucerys.”

“You didn’t come before,” said Aemon.

Her lips twist in bitterness, “Not for lack of trying.”

Aemon tilts his head, “Why not?”

Lady Rhaena wilts, and said, “Aemond kept me away, forbid me from King’s Landing. Said if I showed up before the gates he’ll butcher Aegon and Baela and hang their heads by their hair from the battlements.”

She snarls, “Because he knows, that fucker knows, that if I ever saw Lucerys with mine own eyes, nothing would’ve stopped me from taking her on top of Morning and flying her the Seven Hells away from this place.”

She shook herself off like a dragon, irritated about the yoke around her neck but cannot reach far enough to rip it off. Thus it stayed, ten long years it stayed.

“And now, I’ve been welcomed by the king to his hallowed halls,” she sneers, “to cheer up the dying queen he wounded.”

Aemon listens, mesmerized. Lady Rhaena looks at him, eyes intense.

“I would’ve flown with her to Pentos, to Qarth, to Yi Ti. I would’ve flown her to Old Valyria. To the west of Westeros. Anywhere but here. Just to get her away from this wretched place.”

Aemon swallowed, guilt flaring.

“But I can’t,” Rhaena said, suddenly sounding very tired. “She would’ve left with me ten years ago, nine. Five years ago I could’ve convinced her. But no. Now she will not leave. She has children now. Quite beautiful ones too.” At this she offers him a small grin.

Aemon shook his head, pained, “But she should. Leave us all behind. Claim a dragon. Fly off the edge of the world where she can be free.”

Lady Rhaena’s eyes flashes, her smile dropped, “And leave you all here to rot? To be neglected by your shit of a father? Be poisoned by the sniveling sycophants around court?”

“The king would not have us killed,” said Aemon, uncaring.

Rhaena straightens, “No, but he would send you away to be fostered by this lord and that lady until he’s dead and the court is ripe to take your crown and then your head. That is, if he doesn’t sentence you to treason for kidnapping the queen first.”

Aemon was in disbelief, “But she would be free!”

Lady Rhaena chuckles humourlessly, going boneless again and collapsing in her seat, “Aye, she would. I said as much too. Do you know what she said?”

She takes a fortifying breath, “She said, “people always say children have a duty to their parents, to obey them and bring them glory. I find that parents have a duty to their children as well. A duty to provide them and love them as much as they are able. To love my children is a matter of course, of honor.”

Aemon’s eyes mist over, he struggles not to cry. He can hear Muna so easily through those words, her voice bright and solid, adamant, foundational.

His voice cracked, “But she didn’t choose to have us.”

Lady Rhaena gave him a smile full of sorrow, “But she chose to love you. Everyday she is choosing to love you. We may not understand it, but it’s what she decided. She wasn’t the same girl I loved in childhood anymore, but in this she appears to still be the same.”

Aemon looked down at his hands and fiddled with the rings around his fingers, just so he would not look at his aunt’s mournful face. A sort of desperation wells in his chest. How much has his aunt lost? How much has his mother lost? Who else had been torn away from them?

He looked back up at her, swallowing a lump in his throat, “What’s she like? When she was still a Velaryon?”

Aunt Rhaena startles, surprised at this sudden change of topic, “When she was a child?”

Aemon nods, once twice, too many times.

Aunt Rhaena laughed, “Oh, she was a sweet girl. Hasty and a bit nervous. Stubborn. She was bright though, so full of light and laughter we joked we don’t need candles at Dragonstone, we already have a Lucerys to illuminate the halls.”

“She loved to run, to ride. She loved to dance. Always skipping and tumbling. Leave her alone in a hallway or a stretch of green grass or a strip of sandy beach for a while and she would’ve already taken off her shoes and did two dances and a twirl.” Aunt Rhaena flapped her arms, mimicking a young Lucerys. Aemon stares, starved, pressing it all to memory, to his soul.

Aunt Rhaena’s eyes turn far-away, as if she’s transported to her bygone days and could see once more that laughing glorious girl right in front of her.

“She had no shortage of love, and so she gave it to everyone. The merchants at the docks, the dragonkeepers, the orphans fostering at the castle. She couldn’t remember the etiquette rules very well, but she was so lovely nobody really had the mind to scold her.”

A pause. Melancholy seeps in. She’s back at present now, seeing Aemon in full. Her voice became firm, “She was brave.” Lady Rhaena declared. “She is brave.”

Rhaena took his hands in hers, and said, “She’s much changed, my Lucerys. I cannot be here forever. You must take care of her while I’m gone. Keep her alight.”

Aemon nods, solemn as a tomb, “I will. I promise.”

Aunt Rhaena beams, and kissed his forehead.

-

The mood of that evening feast was almost euphoric. Smiles on everyone’s faces, small folk and highborn alike. King Aemond is relaxed, speaking softly to Daella, making her clap and laugh. Queen Lucerys was even more solid, delighting all the spectacle presented before her as she laughed with Aunt Rhaena and teased Uncle Aegon. Her eyes were two twinkling pools of starlight sent from the gods, a gift she bestows generously upon every lord and lady that comes to give a toast to the high table. She gave that light to Rhaena, Aegon, little fussy Rhaelle, even the king. Aemon, sitting between his parents, could do nothing but bask in her warmth.

Aemon was glad. So fucking glad. Mūna sounds more alive than she did in months. She’s eating again. For the first time since that terrible day she abandoned her handful of nuts and dried fruits and watery porridge, the only thing she could bring herself to eat, the only thing she could keep down. Now, she took big mouthfuls of the goose, the quail, even the pork roast. She ate carrots and turnips, leeks and beans. Aemon watched her clear course after course, and wants to cry in relief, in joy. She did not even decline dessert! Lemon cakes! She asked for lemon cakes!

Aemon wanted to grab Aunt Rhaena by the shoulder and kiss her face, kneel at her feet and crow her virtues to the gods. She has managed in a day what an entire castle could not in half a year. He knows Baelon wants to do much the same. And every time he looked towards his father he could see Aemond release one relieved smile after another.

Mūna even deigns to give him conversations, responding in warm Common to Aemond’s High Valyrian, beaming all the while.

Aemon imagined she hasn’t been this happy to see him in decades.

Musicians and bards are bought out, the floor is cleared, and the dancing begins. Rhaelle loudly demands Lord Benjicot to partner with her, dragging the bemused lord twice her height to the floor in her tiny slippered feet. Uncle Aegon excused himself with stiff courtesy before he took his little lady wife Daenaera to the floor and twirled her into a blooming laughing flower. Cassandra Baratheon came to ask his father for a set, to which he politely declined.

Lady Rhaena turns to Mūna, grinning, “Would you like to dance too, Lucy?”

Lucerys shakes her head, her smile radiant, “Oh no, not at all. I’m content to stay here and watch everyone. It’s equally fun.”

Her eyes turned back to the floor, just in time to see Rhaelle almost trip over herself to wave at her in deep enthusiasm. Mūna waved back, indulgent. Thus, she missed how Aunt Rhaena’s face falls, a great grieving realisation spreads across her features, as if she’d been deluding herself this whole time and have just now been confronted with the reality that the love of her life is a decade long dead. She quickly composed herself, and readied a laugh as Mūna turns back to offer some new remark.

To his left, Aemon could feel his father still.

-

Aemon stood guard in the shadows outside Mūna’s rooms. It is a new habit. He waits with a dagger until he sees everyone has left his mother’s rooms and heard the lock turn on her heavy iron door. Only then would he go off to find his own sleep.

King Aemond is still here, stealing the maids’ jobs, helping Mūna take off all of her finery. Deft fingers unclamp bracelets, necklaces, the heavy diamond crown, and half a dozen pins and strings in her hair. Her heavy gown is next, embroidered with pretty mockingbirds and falcons, off came the overskirt, bodice, corset. The king is methodical and measured. Aemon averts his eyes to the fireplace. His father slips a robe over Mūna’s nightclothes, smoothing it out over her arms. It is his habit, Mūna allows him. Aemon readies his dagger.

The warmth from night air and from a fruitful celebration cast the whole scene in a too-tender glow.

King Aemond talked the whole way through, about nothing and everything. Crooning in Valyrian about the day they’ve had, the meats served at the table, the fireworks presented by the performers, the new Myrish silks presented in court. Muna answers in common, single words. She’s wishing for sleep, candlelight soft in her drowsiness, her body warm and full.

King Aemond stops in his one-sided conversation. He sighs, a tinge of frustration entering his tone.

“Why won’t you speak Valyrian to me anymore?” Aemon heard him ask.

There was hurt in his father’s voice.

Mūna tilts her head in confusion, as if the king has just asked her if the sky is blue, as if this is a most absurd question. She blinks her eyes once, twice, warding off her weariness, “Only true Targaryens are allowed to learn High Valyrian, thus they are the only ones allowed to speak it. I am a bastard, Your Grace, I am not permitted.”

King Aemond freezes, Aemon could see his fingers start to tremble from where they grasped Mūna’s arms.

“Don’t say that,” King Aemond shook her slightly, lost, “Please. Don’t say that.”

Mūna nods, residue warmth remain within her eyes, her face as lovely and as impassive as a statue of the Maiden. “Of course, Your Grace.” She replied, “I’m sorry for upsetting you.”

The look of utter devastation on the king’s face would’ve brought Aemon immense satisfaction, had it not been mirrored on his own.

Chapter Text

Aemon, age 11.

Excepts from The Dance of Dragons, A True Telling, as written by Grand Maester Munkun: —“and through his ingenuity, King Aemond won the support of the Baratheons, and went to catch his bride.”

Aemon was sitting with Mūna in her rooms, buried underneath a pile of parchments, helping her wrangle the Red Keep and its thousand needs into some semblance of order. Where does the kitchen get its eggs? Where do they hire their servants? How many shipments of fresh produce must come in every moon? What rooms and courtyards need to be refurbished? So many questions, Mūna was too tired to answer all of them. That’s alright though, Aemon was there, he would help.

Uncle Aegon marched in, a bundle of black fabric in his right hand, a stack of parchment in his left, going straight to Mūna. Aemon looked up, surprised but not startled, but kept silent. From the look on his face, a sort of restrained thunder, he knows the king has pissed him off again.

Uncle Aegon stopped in front of Mūna’s chair, Lucerys tilted her head up with a small crinkled smile, Aegon sighed softly.

“This year’s allotments, Your Grace,” said Uncle Aegon, handing over the stack of papers.

Mūna took them gracefully, flipped through them with a light furrow at her brow.

“It’s a lot more than last year,” she muttered to herself.

Uncle Aegon folded an arm behind his back, “The king felt that because Princess Daella’s dragon egg is due to hatch soon, the castle could do with some added, fireproof, furnishings. As Princess Rhaelle has so, previously, sincerely, demonstrated.”

Mūna’s lips twitched, “Of course.”

Uncle Aegon cleared his throat, a pained apology in his eyes, and placed the bundle of black fabric, gently, oh so so gently, onto Mūna’s lap.

“And he also asked me to bring you this,” he gritted out, stoic rage simmering underneath his words, “To replace the one you’ve lost.”

Mūna put the estate papers onto her desk and slowly unwrapped the bundle. It was a heavy winter cloak, lined with a coarse animal pelt not seen in the south, too big and too long for her, Stark gray and Arryn blue. She slowly brought it to the light. It was a beautiful cloak, completely new and perfectly unworn. She slowly put it down, letting it pool in her lap as she rubbed the stitches with her ink-stained fingers, nicking them with her nails.

Mūna stared at it, as if it were a fascinating spider that had crawled onto her fingers.

She didn’t say anything for a long time. Aemon scratched at the parchment with his quill, staring at her, wanting to comfort her.

Finally, she said to Uncle Aegon, tiredly, “Do you think if I had done what he wanted that day at Storm’s End, things would’ve been different?”

An ugly pause.

Aegon shook his head, solemn as a tomb, and said, “He would’ve stolen you away on his dragon regardless, and you’d just be short of an eye.”

And Lucerys, with a bitter smile across her features, still rubbing at her new cloak, replied, “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

-

“… when she arrived at the Red Keep, safely away from her traitorous family, the Princess Lucerys was welcomed gladly by the king. The young Queen Helaena and the Queen Dowager especially, took her immediately under their wing. Finally, the prince and princess’s ten year long betrothal would come to an end...

Rhaelle’s dragon was now big enough to be housed at the Dragonpit. It hatched on her fourth nameday and she named it Sunstreak. It’s a beautiful dragon, far surpassing Aemon’s Gaelithox and Baelon’s Riptide, with scales encompassing all the colors of dawn and teeth sharper than all the swords of the Kingsguard.

Mūna came with them, for Rhaelle insisted that she would be too inconsolable after the separation and must be comforted. Mūna, as always, indulged her.

Aemon didn’t mind. It was a rare thing for the queen to be allowed outside the Red Keep and rarer still that she had the energy to make the trip. He’ll take his wins wherever he can get them. He could do without her gaggle of ladies and the dozen castle guards following her though, ready to yank her back into their midst at the first sign of her reaching for a dragon to claim.

He’s glad Baelon isn’t here, lest his little brother be tempted to mow them all down with his newly acquired morningstar.

Aunt Baela was here though, introducing her daughter Laena to court and supporting her husband Alyn in his new position as Master of Ships. She stood beside Aemon, the two of them in companionable silence, a small pocket of tranquility away from all the ruckus.

“Oh isn’t he just the most beautiful thing!” said Lady Redwyne, clutching at her pearls, visibly terrified.

“Positively marvelous,” Lady Crakehall, forcing fake joy onto her lips and into her contemptuous eyes.

None of the ladies ever liked dragons.

Rhaelle turned towards them, petting little Sunstreak as she coaxed him into his enclosure, a haughty disdain alighting her jewel of a face.

“I’m sure Mama’s dragon is more beautiful than mine,” she declared, sharp and crisp.

The ladies all gave a bout of awkward chuckles.

“The Queen has no dragon, princess.” Said Lady Vypren, not unkindly.

Rhaelle now turned to Mūna, plowing forward with the bluntness unique to her character, “What happened to your dragon, Mama?”

Queen Lucerys merely smiled, a light, wistful thing, and said to her daughter, “I lost him, years ago.”

Indignation and confusion warred on Rhaelle’s unburdened face. “How did you lose him?” She asked, her pretty brows a twist.

It was inconceivable for a girl mere eight years of age that a dragon, a grown dragon, can be lost.

Mūna smiled down at her daughter, grief coming over her countenance like how the king would lower a cloak onto her shoulders, gentle but unshakable. She patted Rhaelle’s head and turned her back toward her dragon.

“He just buckled me off one day and flew away. I never saw him again.”

Rhaelle’s face was still confused. She knows Mūna is lying to her again, trying to soften the blow of something terrible. She shook her head in indignation, her curls bouncing, and Mūna quickly changed the subject to ward off a coming tantrum.

Aemon turned toward Aunt Baela, his fingers still brushing at Gaelithox’s hard flank, “That’s not what happened, was it?”

Aunt Baela did not turn her body to acknowledge him, but looked at him through the corner of her eyes. Familiar derision flashed across her face.

“No,” she said, “That’s not what happened.”

Aemon lifts his chin, silently demanding.

Aunt Baela crossed her arms in front of her chest, and said, “From what Lucerys told me, Aemond grabbed her before she could even get on her mount, after they’d both been kicked out of Storm’s End. He dragged her to Vhagar, and commanded the beast to get rid of her screeching dragon.”

A pause. Aemon averted his eyes. He continued brushing.

“And Vhagar did. In one bite.”

Aemon stopped.

“And then he raped her when he got back to King’s Landing,” he whispered into Gaelithox’s warm warm flank, staring at his scales, not looking at anyone else.

He could feel Aunt Baela nod.

“Yes,” she said, just as quietly, “Didn’t even stop to greet his king first.”

Aemon takes a deep breath, feeling it stutter in his chest. He should be used to it by now, all the little tidbits of his mother’s past trickling into his ears as he grows older. Trickling like venom, paining his heart. It does not get any easier. He does not want it to get easier. If he wants to gouge his heart out everytime he hears an ugly past he can only imagine how Mūna must’ve felt living through it. Heat builds behind his eyes but he has no more tears to cry.

“Her dragon was named Arrax.” She said, a lament, a stone dropped into a murky pond.

Aunt Baela pats his shoulder, once, twice, solidly, regretfully. Aemon pressed his face into Gaelithox’s shoulder, and struggled to breathe.

-

… Daemon Targaryen was a foul wretched cruel man, who delighted in causing suffering to innocents, uncaring of the consequences…”

Aemon should have been in bed a while ago, but Baelon wanted to stay up and watch the feast close, see how the servants moved to clear everything away, where they went and how they gossiped, so they huddled together in the shadows, watching the lords talk.

It was Mūna’s nameday. The king was still present, speaking with lord after lord that comes to his high table. Uncle Aegon was right behind him, offering him sober counsel. Mūna retired early, Daella tottling after her. Rhaelle went with them. They should all be fine, Aemon lent her two of his best daggers.

The lords were boisterous, halfway through their fourth cups and their third conversations, delving deeper in the past the deeper they went with their wine.

“…But you must admit, that, what’s the name, Blood and Cheese was a foul act,” said Lord Butterwell.

Lord Tully twirled his cup and pointed a finger back, “Yes, I’ll admit it gladly. But you, my lord, must also acknowledge that it was quite provoked.”

Lord Butterwell plunked his goblet down, indignant.

“Provoked!” He cried.

“Really, my lord,” said Lady Sam Tarly, from the far side of the table, beautifully prim, “One simply does not strip Daemon fucking Targaryen’s daughter naked in front of the whole court, whip her half to death for refusing his cunt-eyed brother’s marriage proposal, and not expect there to be some consequences!”

From the safety of their shadowed alcove, Aemon wrapped his arms around his little brother’s head, and pressed Baelon into his chest.

Lord Butterwell wilted. Lord Lyonel Hightower patted his paramour’s hand in an effort to calm her. They were both Greens, and would’ve seen it with their own eyes.

Butterwell grimaced mightily into his cups, but forged on. “Young Jaehaera did not deserve to have her skull smashed in either,” he said.

Lord Manderly butt in, from a table over, hard as an effigy, “No, he should’ve sent them sellswords to Aegon instead.”

Lady Sam laughed agreeably, “We all make mistakes, my lord. Even the great Rogue Prince.”

Lord Peake spoke up then, his face full of grit, arguing for the sake of arguing, “She should’ve just accepted the proposal then.”

All the lords and ladies of the table stopped their drinking and roaring, and took a moment of silence to look at him like he was positively demented.

Lord Ben Blackwood, with a face as dark as his hair, hissed, “If I got a marriage proposal from my kidnapper wherein he went “I know I’ve just come back from burning your grandmother to a crisp and killing her dragon, but I love you, please marry me.” I would’ve fucking refused as well.”

Aemon pressed his face onto her brother’s shoulder, silently asking if he wanted to leave. Baelon shook his head, and clamped even tighter onto Aemon’s doublet.

Butterwell muttered into his cup, utterly miserable, “The king didn’t actually say that.”

Lord Blackwood scoffed, throwing his fork onto his plate, disgusted, “Well we couldn’t exactly hear what he said over the princess’s violent sobbing, now could we?”

Butterwell slumped even deeper into his cups, as if he wanted to melt into one with his serving plate. Hightower swirled his wine and kept his eyes averted. Peake turned his head away and began conversing to another lord a table over. Over on the high table, the king did not appear to notice the little pocket of silence that appeared in his roaring feast hall.

“Better to propose then than when she got the news of Prince Jacaerys’ death,” said Lord Tully, finally, with a sardonic, lifeless twist to his mouth.

“Yes,” said Lady Sam, raising her goblet to her lips, her smile a deep bloom of sympathetic irony, “She got that on her wedding day, didn’t she?”

Aemon could feel his doublet getting wet. His little brother is crying.

-

“…the Dance of Dragons began with the arrogance of women, thinking they could rival the might of men…”

Rhaelle has taken to exploring the Red Keep now that she has no dragon to pamper. Before, she would take little Sunstreak as her companion when she made mischief in the kitchens or snuck into occupied rooms and solars. Now, she takes little Daella, carrying her little sister like a sack of turnips as she tries to find every secret passageway in the castle.

Daella, bless her, did not seem to mind. Aemon thinks she prefers this than being set on a stack of precariously placed weaponry so Rhaelle could get in a few hours of sword-fighting. Thank the Seven and all the Fourteen Flames Mūna hasn’t happened upon that travesty yet.

Today, it seemed, Rhaelle has finally discovered a secret passage, and dragged Aemon and Daella with her to see where it goes. Baelon begged off to spend time with Mūna. He has new flowers he wanted to show her.

“Through here!” Rhaelle whisper shouted into Aemon’s ear, dragging him by her left hand. Her right went to support her little sister, perched on her back, tiny legs wrapped around her waist. At least common sense hasn’t deserted her, thought Aemon.

The corridor was a musty, dank thing. Worn and cobwebbed. It twisted and turned every which way, narrow and cumbersome. It let them out onto a damp little platform. A sliver of light shined through a crack, allowing them to see into a room. An occupied room.

The crack was hidden within a wall etching, and was hidden in turn by a poorly placed tapestry, allowing the three children to see into the room without its inhabitants seeing them.

Cassandra Baratheon was pacing like an anxious cat, wearing down the rugs in front of the fireplace. Her mother, the Regent of House Baratheon, Lady Elenda, sat on a chair and followed her daughter with her eyes, wringing her hands in her lap. A surprising occupant, Regent of House Lannister, the Lady Johanna, sat next to Lady Elenda, regal and stately, as if she’s sitting on a throne.

“Daughter,” entreated Lady Elenda, “You must stop this foolishness.”

“Why should I?” Snapped Cassandra, “I’ll make a much worthier queen than that pug-faced bitch.”

Aemon could feel Daella suck in a sharp breath behind him. Rhaelle hissed.

Lady Elenda sighed. Aemon could feel that this is a long-standing argument that went round and round and round, without any clear resolution. Perhaps this is why she brought in an unfamiliar face, to talk some sense into her daughter.

“His love wouldn’t be wasted on me,” declared Cassandra, ambitious, resolute, and definitely delusional.

Lady Johanna sneered, so full of scorn it could put Aunt Baela to shame, “You think because he’s built statues in her image and septs in her name that he actually loves her?”

Cassandra stopped in her pacing, whirled towards the lady, and said bristly, “Those are just rumors.”

Lady Johanna leaned back in her chair, her sneer blooming even bigger, “And I suppose that’s what truths become if you ignore them hard enough.”

Cassandra drew herself up, but Lady Johanna cut her off.

“Aemond Targaryen doesn’t know how to love,” she said, as if she’s explaining basic figures to a child simple in the head, as if she’s merely stating a cold truth of the universe. “Do you know how he got married?”

Cassandra shook her head.

“Little Lucerys had to be dragged bloody and bleeding to the sept. She said her vows with three swords pointed at her back. I had a great view of the whole thing.” Lady Johanna said viciously, throwing it all at Cassandra’s feet, “The knights would prod her shoulders with the sharp points whenever she hesitated. She came away with at least five nicks.”

Cassandra held her head higher, holding strong against the onslaught.

Aemon could see red enter Rhaelle’s face, anger clouding her eyes. Daella squeaks softly in confusion, only comprehending half of what was being said.

Lady Elenda shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable. Lady Johanna forged on, “The next day Aemond took his new wife and set out with a host to Harrenhal. The bedding must’ve been disappointing, for he burned as much as he could along the way.

“King’s Landing was taken soon enough,” continued the lady, “because Daemon Targaryen was good at his job and our former prince shit at his. So Aemond took his little wife and his anger and hunkered down at that gods-forsaken fortress.”

“And do you know what he did after he took that stronghold?” Lady Johanna’s eyes were hard flints as they bore into Cassandra, “He tied his little wife to a makeshift execution block, made his knights keep her eyes open, and forced her to watch him slaughter every last member of House Strong.”

Cassandra took an involuntary step back. Rhaelle bit into Aemon’s doublet and tried to muffle her rage. Tears slipped down Daella’s cheeks. She has learned how to cry silently too.

“From its eighty-year-old castellan Ser Simon to three year old babes. All of them died at his word while his bride screamed and begged him to stop.”

A truth thrown unheeded onto the cold stone floor.

“Not even the bastards were spared,” Lady Johanna was relentless, “There was a woman, what was her name, Alys Rivers?”

She brandished her hand at Cassandra like she would a knife, “Little Lucy begged her husband, crawled on her knees and pawed at his cloak, pleading that at least she be spared. Alys could be her handmaid, his bedmate. Anything. Just let her live.”

Lady Johanna’s face was as hard as stone. Lady Elenda hid her eyes behind her hands.

“And do you know what Aemond did?” Asked the Regent of Casterly Rock. Cassandra shook her head, lost.

Lady Johanna spat out, “He batted his wife away and beheaded Alys in one stroke.”

A rotting silence.

Then the great lady sighed, a sort of lament flickering over her countenance, but her words had not gotten any less harsh, “And then he said, so gently the knights struggled to hear, “why would I need another bastard to warm my bed when I already have you?”

Lady Johanna glared at Cassandra, imploring, demanding, “This is the sort of man you are fawning over. This is the man you’re prepared to fight for. You are going to jeopardize your life and your family and your House for him?!”

Cassandra shook her head harder. “But I’m not a bastard.” She cried, dripping tears, “He wouldn’t do that to me!”

Lady Johanna turned her eyes away from her friend’s useless daughter in disgust, seeing her a lost cause. She’s speaking now merely because she must finish her story.

“A moon later Lucerys told him she was with child, and Aemond went out and killed her father to celebrate.”

Lady Elenda pressed her hands even deepening into her eyes. Cassandra fled the room with a tearful whimper. Lady Johanna stared into the fire, as regal and stately as she ever was.

Aemon looked down at his little sisters, both of them were weeping. One in rage and one in disbelief. He sighed, pushed down his own anger, and steered them back down the dark corridor, out into the light.

Perhaps if they screamed their head off in the Godswood, they’ll want to stab their father a little less.

-

and with the Fall of Dragonstone, the Dance of Dragons ended…

Aemon has always been envious of his siblings’ features.

Baelon has the same hair as him, the same silky thin texture, but he has Mūna’s pretty brown eyes and her strong dark brows. Rhaelle has the same coloring as him, but her hair is a wild mass of untameable curls, so coarse and thick you can scarcely hold it in one fist. Daella’s hair is as thin and silky as the king’s, and her cheekbones show great promise to be just as sharp, but she has Mūna’s coloring, so it doesn’t make her feel too bad.

Aemon however, everything he has seems to come from his father. From his long nose, straight silver hair, violently lilac eyes, and long fingers. He’s growing lithe, all long-limbed spidery grace, prowling through the keep.

He wishes he had something of Mūna’s. Her stubby fingers, her button nose, the slight cleft in her chin, the swiftness of her feet. Something, anything.

They were spending the morning in Mūna’s sitting rooms, all of his family. Mūna feels well today, she has stopped coughing. The chill she catched a week prior finally lifted, so they have all delayed attending to their duties to spend time with her. Aunt Baela is reading fables to a keen eyed Daella. Baelon is watching Mūna braid Rhaelle’s hair, trying to learn how she managed all those twists and turns. Aemon huddled in the corner with Uncle Aegon. The Hand of the King has brought state papers outside the Tower of the Hand again, to more easily discuss them with his nephew.

It’s always a chore and a half with the mass on top of Rhaelle’s head, it takes an hour and a half to braid it into a style that won’t come loose before tea, or burst through the ties before supper.

With a snap, the cedar wood brush in Mūna’s hands broke. The third time this year. Mūna’s mouth opened in wide loving bafflement.

Rhaelle looked at the broken pieces of the brush lying on the floor and struggled not to blush.

Mūna chuckled good naturally, picking out the splinters of wood stuck in Rhaelle’s hair and setting them in a nearby jewelry bowl. Rhaelle’s hair is still only half done.

“Oh I wish I had my mother’s brush for this hair,” she said, using her own fingers to pick apart the knots, before pressing a soft kiss into Rhaelle’s cheeks. “She had hair as thick as yours, and her wooden brush never broke.”

Rhaelle pouts, kicking her feet into the rug. Baelon reaches over and pats her legs in sympathy, his big eyes lighting up towards Mūna. “Can you find it Mama?”

Mūna gave a low chuckle, indulgent, “Oh I think we misplaced it during our many moves.”

The maids brought forward a whole silver tray of wooden brushes, each more intricately carved than the last. Mūna flicked her eyes over them and dismissed them all with a soft shake of her head. All of them are too weak then, too decorative.

Mūna hummed, lifting a big braid for Baelon to hold so she could pin the smaller ones underneath, “No matter, I know what it was made from. I think I can get the smiths to fashion one just like it for you.”

Rhaelle twirled the small rings on her finger, “I could just use a metal brush, Mama.”

Lucerys looked down with a gentle smile, reminding, “And have your hair frizzing all over the place again?”

Rhaelle blushed even harder. Mūna chuckled, and kept braiding.

Aemon turned towards his uncle.

“She didn’t actually lose it, did she?” He asked, not looking up from the reports on some border skirmishes with Dorne.

He finds that this was all a familiar refrain now. Whenever Lucerys was with her siblings, she would be honest about her past, but when she has to divulge bits of it to her children, Mūna dumps a bowl of sugar on top of it and tries to pretend it was absolutely nothing. Perhaps she thought she could shield her children from the ugliness of the world a little while longer. Perhaps it’s how she managed to survive for so long. It never works. Aemon and his siblings lived in a wicked world. Lucerys is the only good thing in it.

Uncle Aegon also did not look up from his papers, something about Bravossi tariffs. He merely bent closer and whispered, “When he seized Dragonstone, Aegon II ordered the castle be stripped of everything belonging to its previous inhabitants, and all those personal possessions be burned.”

And there it is. The almost expected cruelty.

Uncle Aegon continued, “He ordered the Red Keep be done the same after he returned to King’s Landing.”

Aemon suddenly wants to laugh, manically, hopelessly, in genuine surprise.

A brutality with no part from his father. How novel.

“So you have no…” Aemon hedged.

Uncle Aegon still did not look up, he merely straightened his spine and picked up his quill in a perfect Maester’s grip. Even sitting his posture was so exact it made Aemon wonder if he practiced with Mūna in the evenings as well.

“I’m sure there will be some artifacts of Queen Rhaenyra left at Driftmark,” was what he said.

-

“And the king is magnanimous and generous, and gave his enemies his gracious forgiveness. And so the Dance of Dragons ended, and King Aemond ushered in a new age of peace.

“Aemon?”

Mūna’s voice called from behind him. Aemon whirled around, trying to hide the scissors behind his back, but the cracked mirror and the locks of roughly cut silver hair strewn about the floor answered for him.

“Are you alright?” She asked.

She should not be asking him this question. Mūna looked rough. There are dark circles under her eyes, her fingers are cracked and bleeding, and her cough has returned again. A drum-tower’s ramparts collapsed two days prior, and she’s been running herself ragged trying to fix it, wrangling the unwilling stonemasons and smiths no I would not kill you after do I look like Maegor just because my mother had Maegor’s tits does not mean I have them too for fuck sake to do some proper repairs.

Aemon stuttered a breath, once, twice, and forced a smile onto his face, “I’m perfectly fine, Mother.”

Mūna tilted her head, and slowly walked into his room, picking her way around the broken hair on the floor.

She stops in front of him, and slowly tugs his hands out from behind him. She takes the scissors from him and sets it gently on a nearby dresser.

She takes his hands in her own. There are nicks on his palms, small bleeds. She takes out a handkerchief and dabs at them. Aemon suddenly notices that his hands are the same size as his mother’s. When has he gotten so big?

“What happened?” She asked again.

And what could Aemond say? That suddenly, for no reason at all, he felt this overwhelming rage and hatred towards the world, towards himself, that all he wanted to do was to take a knife and slash open his face, gouge out his eyes and rip out all his hair, just so he would not have to look upon the familiar visage in the mirror any longer? That he wants to take Gaelithox and fucking burn down this stupid fucking castle and the entire fucking realm and especially his father and that stupid Iron Throne?

How in the world could he say that to her?

“I”— Aemon swallowed, “Just didn’t like how my hair looked today.”

Perhaps he has also learned how to soften the blow to the people he loves.

Mūna frowned, looking into his eyes. She brought a hand to his face and tilted it back and forth. Aemon tries to give her a reassuring smile. Mūna frowned harder.

She takes his hand and leads him gently into a cushioned chair. He collapses with a lot less bone than he wished. Mūna takes a place behind him, takes the scissors, and slowly starts to snip at his hair, trying to fix the uneven tears his momentary madness had wrought.

”What really happened?” She murmured.

Aemon’s chest stutters again, once, twice. He opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again.

No, he can’t ask.

He swallows, “We were learning, about the end of the Dance…”

Lucerys’ fingers stilled as they brushed through his hair.

“Is that what brought this on?” She asked.

Aemon took a deep breath, “The maesters weren't very clear, with their explanations.”

He closed his eyes and bent his head down. Never before had he asked Mūna directly what she’d endured. He’d been so afraid of that cautious but insurmountable grief that would overtake her features at the mere mention of her dead family that he could only bring himself to ask someone else.

Mūna’s fingers do not resume their brushing for a very long time.

“The period before the ending was a terrible time,” said Lucerys, her voice a rasp of indecipherable emotions.

An understatement, thought Aemon, tearing at the dead skin around his nails.

Mūna’s fingers did not tremble as she made the first cut. Snip snip snip went his hair, becoming even shorter.

“Aegon went back to King’s Landing to reign for a few short months before getting poisoned. The Tullys and Freys merged with Lord Stark’s Northmen to push Aemond out of Harrenhall and back to the Red Keep. They had the city surrounded, Borros Baratheon slain on the side of the kingsroad, Hightowers cowered in Oldtown, yet still Aemond wanted to fly out on Vhagar and continue the war, to kill as many people as he can.”

Snip snip snip, went his hair.

Aemon kept his eyes closed and his head down. Mūna moved in front of him to cut his fringe.

“And so I”— Mūna’s voice stuttered, there’s a dull ache in her voice now, “And so I told him if he does not sue for peace, I will throw his son out Maegor’s Holdfast to be impaled on the spikes of the dry moat below.”

Aemon gouges four red crescents into his palm. He does not open his eyes.

Mūna is snipping behind his ears now.

“Aemond laughed in my face and told me I’m not vicious enough to do it. He was right, I couldn’t. I was crying even as I said the words.” Lucerys swipes away a piece of hair that landed on Aemon’s cheeks.

“And so I wiped my eyes dry, and told him again that if he does not make nice with the Blacks, I will instead slit my own throat in front of him.”

Mūna gave a soft, breathless chuckle. Aemon gouged another four red crescents into his palm.

”He laughed harder at that. And said, “You are not strong enough to take your own eye, how can you take your own life?” His entire garrison laughed with him, as little as they are. So I took out the knife hidden in my sleeve, and showed him.’’

Aemon could imagine it, the disbelief, the horror. A black scene with blacker humor, as morbid as the Sept murals depicting the Seven Hells, a princess so powerless this was the only way she could hope to influence her husband and save the realm.

Mūna continued, “When I came to, almost a week later, he told me he'd made peace with the Blacks. Lord Cregan will lend him his armies so order could be reestablished in King’s Landing. My brother will have a place at court and will be given the position of Hand of the King when he comes of age. Baela can go back to Driftmark, her titles intact. Rhaena will not be forced to hand over her dragon and could continue to be fostered at the Eyrie until she eventually chooses a husband for herself. I do not have to see Alicent Hightower, Larys Strong will be executed. My grandfather will be interred at Driftmark until he eventually dies of old age. No one will be punished for treason if they called, or continue to call, my mother Queen.``

Mūna's voice turns resigned, her lips must be neutral line again, “And all I have to do is to be his obedient little queen, and never try anything like that again.”

”And so I did,” She sweeps his shoulder, brushing off strands of cut hair, her burn scars tickling his neck, “And I didn’t.”

She caressed a finder over his eyelids, willing him to open his eyes. He did, a tear slipped out, involuntarily. Mūna wiped it away.

A small bitter smile sat on her face, but her eyes, her hands, they were so kind, so so kind as they touched him. There was such grief on her face, but she looked at him with such fierce love it made him want to weep.

“Oh my rosebud boy. My beautiful, beautiful boy,” she said, tilting his head up to look him in the eye, willing him to understand, “It’s not your fault. It’s never your fault.”

Aemon wants to believe her. He desperately wants to believe her. He wants to believe that his father was the only one to cause her pain. Not him. Never him. Aemon was innocent of all this. But he was not. He could never be. He was born of rape, of forced marriage, of forced pregnancy even, gods know Aemond would not allow his wife moon tea the fucking bastard. How much effort must she have spent, how much work must she have done, to accept and love a son born the day after her own mother was burnt alive.

How much love had Daemon and Rhaenyra Targaryen given her, that Lucerys Velaryon could look at him and see a beautiful boy. If he had a mother harsher than Lucerys, he would’ve been hated like the blackest of sins pressed upon her soul, and it would’ve been her right.

Aemon wrapped his arms around Mūna, and pressed his face into her stomach, seeking her warmth, giving her warmth. If he pressed hard enough, he wondered, could he return back to being mere specks in his mother’s body, and could she return to be a girl of fifteen again, when she still had a chance to be saved?

They stayed like that for a long time.

“It benefited him too,” her mother murmured into the room, finishing her story, “It gave him a good name. King Aemond the Just, who recognised the futility of the war and magnanimously lowered himself to break bread with his enemies.”

Mūna scoffed lightly, “As if he wasn’t setting half the continent on fire a fortnight prior.”

Reluctantly, she let go of her son. Lucerys took a brush from Aemon’s sparse dresser, and began to brush his hair back, out of his face. For the first time in his relatively young life, Aemon’s neck is bare.

Aemon understands. Aegon was kept in his halls to make it easier to keep an eye on him. Lesser chance of him plotting a rebellion underneath the king’s nose than inside some castle a long ways away. Rhaena was kept away because she has a dragon. Baela will make a ruckus and undermine the king to his face, but she has no dragon so she can stay or go as she wished. The other lords were sent back to their seats, but they can only act out through letters, because they know if they dare to do anything the only daughter of Queen Rhaenyra will suffer for it.

The only daughter born of Queen Rhaenyra brings a small mirror to him, letting him see her handiwork. His hair is shorter than any Valyrian style he’d ever seen, trimmed close to his scalp, with not enough leftover to make even the shortest of braids.

He still looked like his father, the set of his chin and the sharpness of his cheekbones will not let him see otherwise, but there’s someone else in him as well. Jacaerys had a cut this short too, from what he heard.

Lucerys flits a hand over his brow, smoothing his silvery eyebrows. The only thing he did not get from his father.

“There, now you look more like my father,” she said, almost cheerful.

That he could live with, Aemon thought.

Mūna kisses his brow, and goes off to find ointments for the cuts on his hands.

Yes. He will do what Jacaerys and Daemon and Rhaenyra failed to do. He will protect Lucerys Velaryon. He will avenge her.

-

“while of course the salacious details of their love affair is the subject of many bard song and mummer’s farce. For serious history, however, we will leave all speculation about the King and Queen behind. However, it is safe to say that theirs will be a song for the ages.”

Aemon stood guard next to the doors of the Small Council chambers. Lord Blackwood has chosen him for a squire and allowed him to shadow the Kingsguard. He was now experienced enough to accompany them on their daily duties.

The king sat at the head of the table and swirled the wine in his goblet, deep in thought. He arrived to the meeting early. Beside him sat Lyonel Hightower, also early. There’s a pile of papers pooled in front of them that they are not looking at, something about pirates and Myrish silks.

Apropos of nothing, King Aemond opened his mouth.

“I wish to start over with her,” he murmured into his cup.

Lord Hightower startled, “Pardon, Your Grace?”

“With Lucerys,” said Aemond, louder this time, still not looking up. “I did so much wrong to her it would be very difficult to forgive.”

Lord Hightower said nothing.

“I wish to start over with her,” the king said again, setting his goblet gently back on the table, “I think… I believe… If I try hard enough, we can move on. She will love me again.”

Lord Hightower was momentarily speechless. He swallowed, moved his mouth rapidly to try and form coherent sentences. “I believe that would be a very difficult endeavor for Her Grace.”

“Why?” Asked King Aemond, finally looking at his Master of laws, somehow genuinely perplexed, “I forgave her for the loss of my eye easily enough?”

Lord Hightower appeared too stunned to speak.

King Aemond tilted his head, bemused, and went back to his papers.

Lord Blackwood arrived just in time to restrain Aemon from charging into the council room and beheading the king.

Chapter Text

Aemon, age 12

“Why do you always put her in blue?” Asked Aunt Baela.

King Aemond raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow, his slender fingers stopped their caress of a beautiful sapphire blue gown.

“Because she likes the color blue?” Answered the king, looking down at his cousin with a sardonic, arrogant twist to his mouth.

Aemon paused in his examination of a ruby necklace and looked towards them both. He was tasked by Lord Tully to do a simple catalog of the treasury before Mūna’s nameday celebrations could be planned. Just to see what they have and what they can spend. He did not expect to run into the two most fiery members of his immediate family.

Aunt Baela crossed her arms, haughty and somewhat indignant, proud in her position as the governess of the Queen’s household.

“Really,” she deadpanned, unamused.

“Yes,” King Aemond said, almost snidely, “Lucerys prefers blue. Sapphire blue. A sort of pelagic cerulean,” He waved a hand, trying to conjure words into thin air, “The color of the sea at midnight.”

Baela scowled hard, “And you know this, how?”

Aemond gave a respectable shrug, “She told me so on her fourth nameday.”

Baela scowled even harder, clearly annoyed that Aemond was right, he was absolutely right. She lifted her chin, “What else do you know?”

Aemond, with clear condescension, obliged her, “Lucerys hates long trains in her gowns. She cannot eat scallops or she will develop a red rash across her shoulders. She hates any variation of green or brown. She thinks metal should be worn on bodies, not sewn on clothes, but can be persuaded to make an exception for pearls. Any continuous length of fabric exceeding a foot worn on a highborn with no embroidery upon them, in her opinion, is a waste of space and money. Shall I go on?”

Aunt Baela looked at the king as if she wanted to claw his other eye out. Aemon looked in surprise at his father, who stood tall and unmovable as the cliffs outside Storm’s End. He didn’t know he knew.

“Norvos recently gifted us several necklaces of pearls. It’ll compliment the gown,” Aunt Baela spat out.

King Aemond looked down at the dress in front of them, a deep indigo with white lace trim and flowing sleeves, and said, nonchalantly, “Yes. I think they would do quite well indeed.”

-

The king and queen came early to the small council meeting today. Aemon tucked himself into a corner so as not to draw attention. He had a pile of figures he needed to proofread for Lord Tully to give him an appearance of being kept busy, but as always, his ears are open.

“You work too much,” said the king, going over the pile of papers handed to him.

“And you work too little,” said the Queen, a little hop in her voice.

King Aemond smiled, pleased to hear the little quip.

“There is no need to make the records of your spending this detailed,” he continued.

Lucerys raised an eyebrow, “I should think I am making our Master of coins’ life a little bit easier.”

Aemond let out a delighted chuckle, “Tully’s life is plenty easy.”

He turned over a missive, and his smile became bigger, “See, he has time to draft a betrothal contract for Rhaelle and his son.”

Lucerys leaned over and yanked the parchment out of the king’s hand, “Let me see that.” The king watched her become a lot more incensed than what was perhaps warranted, with an errant fondness on his face.

Lucerys slammed the letter down, “Absolutely not. We will not be considering it. Rhaelle is only ten. She is far too young for such things.”

Aemond rested his chin on one hand, and smiled at his wife, beautiful in her liveliness, as not seen in moons, “It’s the average age highborn nobles start considering matches.”

Lucerys waved an indignant quill in the air, “Far too young I say, far too young.”

Personally, Aemon agreed with her, and he knew Rhaelle would agree with Mūna as well. His little sister currently found more joy in biting people than considering boys.

“We got engaged at her age,” offered Aemond, indulgence in his tone.

Lucerys flapped her quill harder, “You were ten. I was five. And the king sprang it on all of us in surprise.”

The affection on the king’s face spread even wider, “I seem to recall one party being significantly happier at the news than the other.”

Muna paused her shaking of metaphorical fists to ward off a blush.

Aemond cleared his throat, “But still, she should start considering. Baela and Alyn have a son. Daemion, was it?”

Lucerys took a sip of wine, tried not to look her husband in the eye, “Rhaelle bit him last week.”

“Royce Baratheon?”

“She’s not on good terms with the Baratheons in general. One of the girls called her a dirty horse two days ago and she chased her around the keep with an ax for three hours.”

That’s my girl, thought Aemon.

“Good,” said Aemond, “Joffery Arryn?”

Lucerys looked at him like he was concussed, “Too old. She says she prefers someone younger.”

The doting smile did not leave Aemond’s face, “One of Aegon’s sons?”

Lucerys threw her quill at him, “Not that young. Daeron is not yet a year old.”

Aemond wiggled his fingers in the Queen’s face, Lucerys slapped them down, he wiggled them again, “Baelon then?”

“Bit him last week too.”

Aemond choked, slightly flummoxed now, “One of Lyonel’s sons?”

Lucerys scoffed, “As if I’d allow my daughter to marry a Hightower.”

Aemond tilted his head boyishly, “You married a Hightower.”

Lucerys turned her head and shot him a deadpan glare.

Aemond’s face fell, “Right. I’m sorry.”

His Queen waved a hand, dismissive, “I know you are.”

King Aemond moved to say more, but the entrant of the small council interrupted him. Lucerys turned away and looked back down to her missives. The king’s face returned to its normal tense countenance.

Aemon got up from his seat and began to fill their cups. Wine for Lord Hightower, mead for Lord Tully, black beer for Lord Velaryon, clear water for Uncle Aegon, and pomegranate juice for Muna.

The king didn’t allow Aemon anywhere near his cups. Which was just as well, since Baelon did give him a vial of wolfsbane last eve, just in case.

Lord Lyonel, taking his seat, was the first to begin, “The kingsroad has finished its final reconstruction. And as you predicted, Your Grace, inns and small towns have cropped up alongside its busiest intersections.”

The king didn’t predict shit, thought Aemon, That was Uncle Aegon’s argument.

Aemond hummed, absentminded.

Lord Hightower continued, cautious and pragmatic as always, “The problem now being, how shall the taxes of these towns be collected.”

Aemond looked towards Lucerys. She scratched out a line in her ledger and did not look up, said, “Any town located within five miles of the kingsroad gives their taxes directly to the Crown. They do not need to go through any Noble stewardship.”

Uncle Aegon passed around a copy of the proposed tax codes.

Lord Lyonel looked at the new laws in contemplation, a slight furrow in his brow, “Some lords will grumble that this will impede on their sovereignty.”

Uncle Aegon, prudent and fair, shot him a fierce look, “They can grumble to their liege lord paramounts. And they in turn can grumble to us.”

King Aemond scoffed, almost interrupting his cousin, “What sovereignty do they even have? They are tenants on conquered land, same as all the peasants.”

The rising moon sun gave the austere room a steely edge.

“They have their castles and their land because the first Targaryen on the Iron Throne allowed them the privilege,” He swirled the wine in his cup, “Mayhaps we should remind them of that.”

Lord Lyonel looked to Lord Alyn, who raised an eyebrow at Uncle Aegon, who in turn flicked a look at the king.

“Perhaps we should wait after the Queen has finished her irrigation project for King’s Landing, Your Grace?” Offered Lord Tully, empathetic and flexible, “The new sewage system is only half completed. The treasury cannot support so many different ventures.”

Aemond’s lips twisted up into a dark, eager smile, “We are running low on money again?”

The lords all rushed to reassure him that nothing of the sort had happened. The royal coffers were plenty full. It’s just that they did not have enough trained personnel, it’s harvest time, the River Gate hasn’t finished its refurbishments, wouldn’t it be best if we gave the lords a half year notice before we sprung this on them unprepared?

Aemon understands their hurried reassurances. Last time the small council told the king his treasury was running dry was just after the Winter Fever devastated the country. King Aemond, in response, went on a tour of the realm with Vhagar and a contingent of Targaryen sworn knights, and ordered every noble lord pay him the exorbitant property tax he demanded.

The lords that had money or food leftover were happy to give a good portion up, Aemond didn’t stay more than a fortnight at Highgarden or Casterly Rock. The lords that could not pay his taxes and could prove they could not— Winterfell’s vaults were so clean they could probably eat off its floor, the Eyrie’s granaries had one block of moldy cheese left in them —Aemond left them alone. It was the lords that could pay the king’s taxes but chose not to, instead forged false reports about their yearly yields, or worse, banded together to rebel, that got the brunt of the king’s ire.

Aemond branded them all as participating in high treason, burnt through their entire House with dragon fire, and took their treasures for his own.

The royal coffers filled rapidly quickly, and no highborn house dared shirk their duties after that. Even the Greyjoys offered a ship full of gold and half-rotted eels.

Crude, Lord Tully called it. Ruthless,Lord Hightower grumbled. Efficient, Uncle Aegon decided.

Aemon could not help but agree with them.

The king’s brutality were trained only on the highborns from minor houses, so the smallfolks did not care and the larger Houses were too busy petitioning the king to allot them the seized land to complain. The king had money to train a proper army, Targaryen sworn, and not have to rely on the fickle royalties of the lords paramount. Now, House Targaryen had two thousand trained knights stationed at Dragonstone and around various castles Aemond took but did not give to any House, with twice the infantry supporting them. They patrolled the Kingsroad, the ports, the towns; disciplined and disciplining. The Reach and the Vale hasn’t seen highwaymen attacks in years, and there were only small pockets of marauders left in the Riverlands.

No need for desperate smallfolks to start raiding if they wish to earn money, they could merely join the Targaryen army and their families will be provided for. An army that is still growing in number. The king even replaced the position in the small council for a newly created Master of arms, letting go the usual position reserved for Commander of the Kingsguard, just so he could maneuver his host more efficiently. Even though Vhagar was dead for years, the king still has enough force to smash through any one who dares to oppose him.

Perhaps this was also why the king had yet to name Aemon the Prince of Dragonstone. Not when it means giving his least favorite child and greatest threat command over almost ten thousand men.

“Not until the children are grown, Your Grace,” said the Queen, cutting through the tense silence with a crystal blade of a voice. Everyone, including the king, bowed their heads at the reminder, and went back to their seats.

More accurately, until their dragons are grown.

With House Targaryen’s current strength, they could bring down most hosts sent to rebel against them, provided they have more than two lord paramounts on their side. But still, it will undoubtedly be a monstrous and bloody affair. However, if they have dragons, well, one roar for a fully grown Gaelithox will be enough to bring forth a rapid surrender.

This was a fascinating complexity of his mother that Aemon discovered when he was finally allowed to listen to Small Council meetings. Mūna was not opposed to the king’s, or more accurately, the Iron Throne’s ambitions. She’s just as much of a Targaryen as Aemond. A surprise that should not come as a surprise if he really thought about it.

Aemon, personally, blamed this outlook entirely on Aegon the Conqueror. It was he who looked out his balcony at Dragonstone and decided that this entire continent would be property of the sovereign, and all its lords and kings mere servants to the crown. He made that philosophy into a reality with his conquest, enshrined that glorious, arrogant, absolute surety into the very foundation of the Iron Throne, and every Targaryen that came after him believed in it.

Aemon, second of his name, does not think himself so holy as to be the exception.

The council continued on to the next item on the agenda.

“The garrison stationed at the Stepstones have brought their new report,” said Lord Alyn Velaryon, dauntless and sturdy, withdrew a veritable mountain of papers from a sack on the floor, “Dornish scouts have been sighted, but they have not made any recent incursions.”

The young lord passed the actual bundles of reports around the table. He continued, “I am, however, more worried about the grumblings from Myr, a former member of the Triarchy. They are building ships again.”

Aemond flicked through the pages, organizing them into neat piles before him, “Right after a bloody civil war too. Any suggestions?”

“We need more information,” said Uncle Aegon, reading down a scroll before handing it to Mūna, “We have no idea if these new ships are for trade or war.”

Lord Hightower grumbled as he studied a half-crumpled leaflet, “Oh they are definitely for war, my Prince. No one builds trade ships with metal hulls. And not a dozen scores besides.”

Lord Kermit Tully looked over Lord Lyonel’s shoulder, his gaze anxious, “We impose tariffs? But they could easily deny that they are seeking aggression.”

Lord Benjicot Blackwood, the new Master of arms, fearless and competent, “I propose we start building ships of our own. Strengthen our fleets.”

“I agree with Lord Blackwood,” said Lord Alyn, “Increase patrols of our ports as well. From Lannisport to Driftmark. And we need to get the Greyjoys to our side.”

The room broke out in loud groans of dismay. Lord Alyn yelled through it, “The Ironborn are still one of the most seasoned naval powers of the realm! We need them if there is to be war!”

“I’d rather deal with the Redwynes,” grumbled Lord Hightower. Lord Kermit patted his shoulder in silent sympathy. Lord Alyn shot him an exasperated glare.

Grand Maester Munkun, scarce and courteous, opened his mouth, “But we do not yet know if there will be war.”

Lord Lyonel and Lord Alyn started shouting at once, waving their papers in the maester’s face.

Aemond looked through the reports, slow and methodical, long fingers folding corners according to his interests. The curious disposition of the king, Aemon noticed, was that he was a merciless tyrant who surrounded himself with virtuous and respectable advisors, all of whom he actually listened to.

Uncle Aegon pushed a wayward strand of hair out from his face, and turned to Aemond, visibly stressed, “This is untenable, you must appoint a Master of whispers. All we have now are hearsay with no detail”—

“Hey,” Lord Alyn objected, without any real malice, “My men did their best!”

“Exactly,” Aegon said, stern but also somewhat placating, “You spread yourself too thin trying to do two men’s jobs.”

He turned to the king once more, “We all spread ourselves too thin. We need a better structure than this.”

King Aemond rubbed at his temple, “I know. I know.”

Aegon looked to argue further, but Muna placed a hand on his arm, and he settled back in his seat.

“I agree with Lord Velaryon and Lord Blackwood. Strengthen our defences,” Mūna’s voice striked through the chaos once more, stable and calm, “Though I do not know if our treasury can support this sudden venture.”

Lord Tully almost bent himself backwards to reassure her, “While this will be a tight fit, I’m sure we can calculate the royal budget to fit the constructions of at least three dozen-–”

Aemond put down the papers in his hands, and soundly interrupted him, “We remove the restrictions on how many warships each House could own. From one hundred each to two hundred.”

He looked towards his wife, attentive and reassuring, “If the Triarchy makes further moves, we remove the restrictions altogether.”

Lord Hightower bowed, and started drafting the edicts.

”Hasten the irrigation project. I want it done before the end of the year,” Aemond tapped the rim of his goblet, once, twice, “And call the Greyjoys to the capital for the Queen’s nameday celebration. Let’s show off to them.”

Uncle Aegon handed Mūna a new sheet of clean parchment, and she started drafting her own set of letters.

“And ask them to show off in return?” She asked the king, a small conspiratorial tilt to her head.

Aemond nodded, equally conspiratorial, “Let them please their Queen.”

Another thing about his father, Aemon noticed, was just how clever he is.

The king refused to set the Queen free, but he could give her power, give her a voice in how the country is run. Surround her with policy makers sympathetic to her and would listen to her suggestions, even at the expense of surrounding himself with likely enemies. It did not erase the scars, but it made her days so busy and so purposeful she did not have time to dwell too much upon them.

It also had the added benefit of giving the Queen a rather spotless reputation. She was a hurt dove, she was pure and selfless, she was the lone sympathetic ear to hear the hurts the king has caused to his poor, dutiful liege lords. The king demands, but the queen persuades and loves and comforts, and the nobles offer up their gold and rubies, grateful to the rid of them.

Aemon did not mind this course of kingly manipulation. Mūna deserved all the beauty in the world, though she did not particularly think so.

However, he does worry.

Aemon privately thought Mūna embodied less of House Targaryen’s motto, and more House Arryn’s. Or perhaps even House Tully’s. Family, duty, honor. All of that before her, leaving herself behind. Never frivolous or silly or idle or useless, all traces of a flighty or grieving young girl gone so she could hold the realm together, and embody the honor unwillingly bestowed upon her.

Sometimes Aemon is afraid Mūna will burn herself to ash before her thirtieth nameday.

-

The king came into the room as Mūna was getting dressed for the feast thrown in her honor. With a flick of his hand, he dismissed the Queen’s ladies. Aemon held the tray containing Mūna’s jewelleries and did not move, not even when the king shot him a dark look from the corner of his eye.

King Aemond still had not broken his habit of needing to dress the Queen himself, instead of allowing her ladies to do their paid duties.

Mūna was already laced into her petticoat. Aemond picked up her shoes from a clearly distressed maid and walked up to the Queen. Lucerys sat down in her chair like usual, following the next steps of her routine, and did not acknowledge the king, did not look at him even.

Aemond knelt on one knee, and gently pushed her feet into a pair of square-toed, black leathered, flat slippers. They were decorated with slashes, and looked warm.

A forepart was next. The same timid maid handed it to the king. Lucerys stood up and turned around, her movements impersonal, as if Aemond was just another one of her court ladies sent to serve her and not the literal sovereign of the realm. If the king felt slighted by her nonreaction, he didn’t show. His face only held contentment and peace, as he tied the richly embroidered silver and blue false petticoat around Muna’s waist, his long fingers dexterously handling the silk laces. He knelt again, and attached the part into her kirdle with a line of pins.

The king had been doing this for years now. He probably knows more about women’s fashion than any man in the city.

Aemon brought forth the gown on a silver tray. The king shot him another dark look, but took it from him without any comment.

It was the round gown with a square neckline Aemon saw the king peruse in the treasury that one day. It’s made from silk velvet, dyed a deep sapphire, embroidery depicting seawaves lined its long, wide sleeves. Mūna opened her arms, and allowed her husband to tug the heavy thing up and around her torso.

She turned to face the king, and Aemond began to lace up her front, looping blue silk points through handwoven eyelets. His gaze followed his fingers, while Mūna’s eyes focused on a point over his shoulder. The room only contained the king and queen, the lone maid, their son, and two Kingsguard standing by the door.

The sun began to set, casting the room in deep yellow, staining them both warm. Aemond smoothed the stiffened placket attached to the gown over the closure to conceal it, and pinned it into place with silver-headed straight pins down one side. He brushed a thumb over the pins, checking to see that he had not accidentally pricked them into his wife.

Lucerys jumped slightly at the sensation and snapped her eyes, finally, to his face. Aemond did not blink, merely stared hard and long at the last pin connecting bodice to waistline, and took his hands off Mūna’s waist, a little too slowly.

“What did you plan to do with your hair?” Aemond finally spoke.

Mūna sat back down in front of her dresser. “Off my neck,” she replied, succinct as always, in matters such as these.

The king nodded, motioned the maid to bring forth the pins, and began to braid Mūna’s thick, coarse, beautiful brown hair out of her face and off her neck.

The king has few hobbies. He enjoys reading, sword-fighting, terrorizing highborn lords, and dressing up the Queen.

It would bother Mūna a lot more, Aemon thought, if she actually enjoyed dressing herself.

As she grew more into her position as Queen and more ethereal and untethered, she just did not have the energy to care about such mundane affairs, such as what she liked to eat for dinner, what she liked to wear, how she liked to be called; herself, in general. Her likes and dislikes were a thing of the past, relics of a better age. So, Aunt Baela cared for her, ordering black velvet and silk satin to be made into dresses for her. Aemon cared for her, learning how to tie braids and pin hair so he could do hers in the morning without Muna pushing herself out of bed. The king cared for her, as loathed as Aemon was to admit it, commissioning necklaces and rings, so she could have some personal wealth of her own.

King Aemond slotted the last hairpin into place, stepped back, and allowed the room to admire his handiwork. Mūna’s hair was now a coiled circlet, braided around her head and studded with jewels. The king smiled in satisfaction. It was good work. Masterful, almost.

Mūna looked beautiful today, as she always did. A vision that could make the Merling King rise up from his depths to claim.

Aemond bent himself over Mūna’s shoulder and moved to kiss her cheek. She turned away, and looked down at the necklaces in front of her.

The king flicked his eye down, but did not move further.

“Could I come to your rooms tonight?” He asked, his voice a soft crooning.

To sleep, fully clothed next to each other? Or to make the Queen do her “wifely duties”?

Another curious thing about King Aemond. He hasn’t raped his queen since that terrible day when Aemon was nine, but he had also not gone off to the streets of silk or hired a mistress to satiate his baser desires.

Another useless contradiction.

“If I say no,” Mūna rubbed a ruby necklace between her thumb and forefinger, “Will you insist anyway?”

The setting sun casted great intricate shadows on the king’s face.

He pried the necklace gently from her fingers, and instead picked up the great pearl-studded choker Aunt Baela picked out. With surprising gentleness, he clasped it over Mūna’s throat. He stared at the point of her neck. Aemon moved to reach for his dagger. The Kingsguard shifted at their station next to the door. Mūna swallowed.

“Not if you do not want me to,” he said.

Lucerys turned around, and looked him in the eye, the warm golden light of the sunset turned her hair a bright amber, “I do not want you to.”

Aemond brought out a small box from inside his coat, and pressed into Muna’s hands.

“Then you’ll never have to,” his expression did not change.

She opened the box, delicately, as if there was a butterfly nestled in there and she'd disturb it to fly if she were not careful. And inside, nestled within a string of amber beads, was a single iron key.

The key to the Queen’s iron door.

Lucerys looked up at Aemond in shock. Hope flared in her eyes, which the king saw, and his face in a fragile, forlorn grin.

King Aemond knelt once more, on both knees this time, and looked up at his wife.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

Lucerys looked down at him, surprise and fear and hurt and hope raged in her eyes.

“I know,” she said, “I know.”

-

The feast for Mūna’s nameday was in full swing. Targaryen and Velaryon livery hung the walls, and there was laughter on everyone’s faces. There were acrobats, mummers, and hoards of dancers twirling about the great hall. Lords came one after another to wish the Queen the best of namedays, and she received them all graciously and gratefully.

Aemon spent most of the feast trying to prevent Baelon from opening a book at the high table and Rhaelle from throwing her beans onto the floor. He was more successful in the former endeavor than the latter. Daella, as always, was perfectly behaved. Bless her.

Another lord to the high table, Lord Unwin Peake this time. He was brusque in his congratulations, and did not offer just his congratulations. To Aemon’s horror, Lord Peake was proposing a betrothal between Aemon and his daughter, Myrielle.

Aemon wished to marry and copulate the same amount as he wished his father would live a long and prosperous life. None at all.

Mūna listened to Peake’s spiel with a lovely smile on her face, and said, “We thank you, Lord Peake, for this generous proposal.”

She looked to the king, Aemond lifted an eyebrow, a placid half-smile on his face. She turned back to Lord Peake, courteous and graceful, “But it is the king and I’s opinion that Prince Aemon should have some accomplishments to his name, before we start considering betrothals for him.”

Peake stuck out his chin, prouder than he deserved, “Prince Aemon is plenty accomplished, Your Grace. We’ve heard his progress with the sword all the way in the Reach!”

“A child playing at battle,” the king said, “With no real achievements to his name.” His shoulders were relaxed but his jaw was tense.

Another curious contradiction of the king. The child is most like Aemond in looks and personality, the king hates. A strange sort of atonement perhaps, that if he loathed the personification of his crimes he will not have to hate himself? Or was Aemon giving too much empathy towards his father?

Mūna placed a hand on the king’s arm, and said to Lord Peake, “We plan to hold a Maidenday Ball for him when he comes of age. Plenty of time for dear Myrielle to prepare herself.”

There were a few more rounds of pleasantries, then Lord Peake bowed, and returned to the hall.

King Aemond fiddled with his goblet. “Quite bold of him,” he offered, taking a sip of wine.

Queen Lucerys watched Lord Peake go, her posture perfect, almost haughty.

“Presumptuous,” she said.

A beat passed. Aemond gave a brilliant guffaw.

Lucerys smiled.

-

Mūna rushed down the hall, Aemon following close behind. She was slightly out of breath when she reached the king’s chambers, having almost ran all the way from the other side of Maegor’s Holdfast. If the King wanted something from the Queen, he would go to her personally. He did not usually summon her.

“You called for me, Your Grace?” She asked, chest heaving in front of his chamber door.

King Aemond looked at her in concern, worried about her exertion. He wrapped two fingers around her wrist and checked her pulse.

Mūna took two deep breaths, calmed.

“Your Grace?” She asked again.

Aemond snapped himself out of his worry, took his hands around Mūna’s elbows, and offered her an indulgent smile.

“Your brother had a late nameday present for you,” he said, gentle as anything, “Want to come look?”

He slowly guided her through the door. Aemon followed, hand on his sword.

Mūna was puzzled, “Prince Aegon has already given me his gift last night I don’t…”

She trailed off. Aemond slowly let go of her and took a step back.

Inside the room, there was a man. A man sitting with a woman and three children, each more golden than the last. The man was handsome, with bushy eyebrows and a crooked mouth, a face carved with skill and with love. He wore a simple doublet of crimson velvet. Somehow, Aegon felt he should know him.

Mūna took a step forward, her head tilted slightly in confusion, ready to receive a stranger with all the grace of a queen.

The man stood up, his violet eyes gleaming in a sort of apologetic euphoria.

“Sister,” he said, “It’s Viserys.”

And it was. It was! The shape of his chin, the corner of his eyes, his hairline. All them were the same as Uncle Aegon. Viserys, second of his name, second son of Daemon and Rhaenyra, thought to be dead at the Battle of Gullet, returned hale and whole to his family almost thirteen years later.

Mūna stopped, swayed. Her hands began to tremble, her lips quivered in shock, tears were beginning to pool in her eyes.

Viserys took a step forward, she took a step back. Aemond stood forward to support her. She looked to the king, a silent question on her surprised face, her mouth still open in disbelief.

“Yes, Lucy,” Aemond murmured, pushing her forward, “It’s Viserys.”

Lucerys walked forward, step, step, step. Viserys. Her youngest sibling. The one she thought lost when he was just seven years old. Now. Now he has grown strong, beautiful, as striking as a star.

She puts her hands to his face, it’s warm, he’s real. Viserys puts his hands over hers, callous on his fingers, large and coarse.

“It’s me Lucy, it’s Vivi.” He said, gentle and devastating all at once.

Lucerys swipes a strand of hair away from Prince Viserys’ handsome face, her face broken in joy and relief. Tears leave two clean lines down her face.

“Yes,” she whispered, “Viserys.”

She yanked her brother into her arms, they both fell to their knees. The dam broke open, and she started sobbing.

Slowly, Viserys lifted his arms, and embraced her back.

King Aemond watched it all with a strange sort of wistfulness to his face, and Aemon was suddenly struck with the horrible realization that his father has lost all of his siblings, and none could ever return miraculously from the dead.

Aemond looked to his son, saw the awe and sudden pity in his eyes, and could not help but lift his mouth into a sneer.

“Come,” he said to Aemon, “Let’s leave them be.”

Aemon nodded, and followed the king out of the room.

-

“Have you ever been in love, Lucerys?” Asked the king.

It was morning, Prince Viserys and his lady wife Larra and their three children were safely ensconced in their newly given chambers, awaiting the king to present them to court today. The finery Aemon thought they would shed by the end of Muna’s nameday celebrations will stay for another round of feasts and revelry.

Apparently it was Alyn Velaryon who caught wind of a silver prince living in Tyrosh, and sailed all the way there with a king’s ransom to retrieve him. Tyrosh graciously received the money. If Myr was seen as a cause for concern in Westeros, it was seen as an imminent threat by its neighbors.

Mūna halted in her brushing of King Aemond’s hair, the silver comb in her hand stalling in the middle of the king’s scalp. A terrible kind of quietness entered the room. She flicked her eyes from the comb to the king’s face in the mirror back to the comb. She resumed her brushing.

“Have you ever been in love, Your Grace?” she asked instead, her features arranged in an unreadable configuration.

Aemond looked into the mirror, trying to catch her eyes, and spoke with such tenderness and desire, “I love you.”

Lucerys kept her gaze at her hand, watching silken silver strands slip through the comb. There was an angry sort of confusion in her eyes, an ugly, awful twist to her mouth.

She swallowed, “And have you only loved me, Your Grace? Has there been no other?”

“There has been no other,” His mouth was still soft – soft, as it had only ever been for her, “You are the only one I’ve ever desired.”

Words tangled in Lucerys’ throat, and when she spoke it was full of edges she didn’t know she still possessed, “Well, to answer Your Grace’s question. No, I’ve never been in love.”

Aemond became impossibly still.

“There were a good many people that I am fond of. More than fond, if you’d like. But they were few and quite far between.” Lucerys continued, braiding the king’s hair out of his face, “There was this dragonkeeper at Dragonstone. He tended to Arrax and I would see him every so often when I came down to the pit. He was kind. A little timid. He had sweet eyes and a terrible haircut.”

Mūna’s eyes were rueful. The king clenched his hands around the armrests of his chair, his expression settled into a cold, fragile melancholy.

Aemon wrapped a hand around his sword, afraid that the violent jealousy the king so liked to exhibit would rear its ugly head again.

“There was Rhaena,” Mūna was relentless, “Kind and bold. I loved watching her swim. She was faster than any eel or trout. She probably still is.”

Lucerys tied off the end of Aemond’s braid. He stood to face her, his face stained with jealousy and incomprehension.

Mūna took a few slow steps back, and clasped her hands in front of her stomach. Shoulders back, head high, she looked directly into her husband’s eye.

“And there was my little uncle Aemond,” she said.

The king stopped, his face turned joyous then colorless in an instant.

Aemon looked down and tried to hide the shock from surfacing on his face.

“He was ten when I saw him last,” Lucerys continued, her eyes were far away, as if she was looking through Aemond to find someone she’d lost, “He was a shy, awkward, rude little boy. But he had the softest, pudgiest hands I’ve ever seen, and I remember that my little self loved to squeeze them and play with them whenever I could spend time with him. He indulged me.”

Aemond’s hands were trembling, and he folded his arms behind his back, long coat swishing at his feet, “And then?”

And Mūna, with such great sadness yet such deep purpose in her eyes, said, “And then I slashed out his eye, and killed him.”

She curtsied, her morning duties finished, and turned to leave.

Aemond called to her retreating back, in his soft crooning voice, “Do you hate me, Lucerys?”

Mūna turned, a gentle bewilderment on her features. She does not understand why the king would ask such an unproductive question.

“Do you wish me to tell you the truth, or what you want to hear?” She asked instead, dignified, stately.

Aemond looked at her with such need, such grief.

“What I want to hear,” he said.

Lucerys pursed her lips, her thumb swiped across a forefinger, once, twice.

“Of course I do not hate you,” she said, as glorious as a Kingsguard swearing his fealty, “You are my husband. I have loved you since we were children and I will love you when I am an old crone.”

Aemond lifted his lips into a yearnful smile, “And the truth?”

Lucerys, peaceful and calm and beautiful as the sea, declared, “The truth is… The truth is that I wake up everyday surprised that I have not yet crumbled under the weight of my hatred towards you.”

Dawn light broke through the windows, pink and light blue, silver and soft gold. It warmed the king’s chambers from an unspeakably dark thing into something quite homely.

Aemond looked down at his fingers, callouses from dragon reins, callouses from sword grips, shook his head, looked back up. Devotion and longing and bitterness warred on his face.

“That’s alright,” he said, as soft as a doe’s hide, “At least you have feelings for me.”

Dawn light reached his face.

Lucerys curtsied again, and turned out of the room.

Chapter Text

Aemon, age 13

“What do you want to be when you’re grown?” Rhaelle asked, patting the warm hide of Sunstreak.

Little Naerys, Uncle Viserys’ youngest daughter, timid and fragile, widened her big purple eyes, not quite understanding the question.

Rhaelle furrowed her brows, she turned to Daella, who stood next to them with a serene expression on her small face.

“Like this,” Rhaelle said, “Ella, what do you want to be when you’re grown?”

Daella, devotedly six, said, “I’d like to be an adventurer, fly on a dragon of my own and see all the wonders of the world.”

“See?” Rhaelle turned back to her cousin and wiggled her eyebrows, “Now you.”

Naerys crinkled a handkerchief between her hands, her purple eyes were large enough to host a whole sky of stars, said, “If it pleases my father, I’d like to marry well, and not bring any dishonor to him or our house.”

Rhaelle looked at her with her bright eyes, intent and intense, “But what do you like to do?”

“Um,” Naerys squeaked, “I like to embroider? And read? And, um, sew dresses?”

Confusion began to pool in Rhaelle’s eyes, but thankfully, Daella intervened. Bless her.

“I like to sew dresses as well,” she said, friendly and kind, “Not elaborate ones. Not like what Mama wears. But I could stitch a simple nightgown.”

Naerys smiled, perfect and small, relieved. Next to Aemon, Mūna smiled also.

Aegon, Uncle Viserys’ first son, butt in from when he was ogling Baelon’s Riptide. “The marker of a most accomplished lady,” He said, ostentatious and handsome, hard footfalls kicking dust up the Dragonpit. Baelon shuffled away from him.

Rhaelle shot him a dark look, “I am plenty accomplished as well.”

Aegon leered at her, “Knocking over straw dummies in the training yard does not make accomplishment. And it’s certainly not ladylike.”

Rhaelle’s face started to turn purple, she looked to Aemon to back her up.

“You can be anything you like, Rhaelle,” He reassured her, “Anything you do is ladylike, since you are a lady.”

Rhaelle looked back at Aegon, her chin tilted high, haughty in that adorable way only an eleven year old could be.

“Then I’d like to be a knight, guard the realm with my dragon from pirates and marauders and wildlings alike!” She declared, proud as the crown upon their father’s brow.

Aegon laughed, “A girl can’t be a knight.”

Rhaelle whipped around to look at Aemon again.

“I’ll knight you when you’re grown,” he said, a bit hurriedly, “I’ll be king then. Kings can knight you.”

She turned back to Aegon and sneered into his face.

Their cousin, all of nine years old, stuck his tongue out at her, “And yet you still can’t sew a handkerchief.”

Rhaelle’s face had finally turned purple. Aemon wanted to smack his head into Gaelithox's hard wings. Why Mūna insisted they spend time with Uncle Viserys’ children he’d never know. He would rather stare at Uncle Aegon’s Daeron sleeping than corralling six talking walking robust children.

“I’m plenty accomplished,” said Rhaelle, lovely even when she’s whining, “I made Mother a dress! I’ll show you!”

She kicked into Aegon’s feet, grabbed Daella by her left hand and Naerys by her right, and stomped out of the Dragonpit. Her maids hurried after them.

Mūna watched them go with a fond expression. Aemon watched her.

Aemon had begged Mūna, over and over, to let him take her on dragonback, just a loop around the city, no harm in that , but Mūna always refused him, worried about reactions from the king. Still, she loved watching them fly. She would sit at the highest spot she could find in the Dragonpit, and watch her children take lap after lap around the city.

Aemon begged her once more with his eyes. Mūna shooed him off with a weary, beautific smile. Aemon turned to Uncle Viserys’s secondborn, Aemon the Younger, Emon, to differentiate. He gestured Gaelithox closer to them both.

“Want to go for a ride?” He asked.

Little Emon, piously eight, quiet as Baelon and just as strong, nodded eagerly.

Just a short ride. Mūna looked so tired today. He should get her back to her chambers as soon as possible.

-

“Is that Rhaelle?” He asked, puzzled.

Mūna looked up at the top of the stairs. It was Rhaelle, with her sister Daella and cousin Naerys tucked behind her, a pool of white fabric bundled in her hands as she argued fiercely with Cassandra Baratheon. It was a very heated argument, it seemed, her fringe had escaped their pins and her face was blotchy and red.

Cassandra looked to be no better, her eyes were bloodshot, her usually beautiful face twisted in absolute hatred. She took a menacing step forward, and batted the dress in Rhaelle’s arms into the ground. The force caused Rhaelle’s elbow to bump into Naerys, whose pale skin immediately started to bruise.

This was turning into a fight, and Rhaelle was only eleven, with an enemy almost two decades her senior. There were three Baratheon bannermen behind them, why weren’t they doing anything? Where are her maids?

Aemon dashed towards them, Mūna a step behind, her lips open in a cry for halt. Rhaelle squawked in indignation, Daella squeaked with her. They pushed Cassandra back together, trying to get her to step away. Cassandra, dripping with black loathing, slapped Daella out of her way, and when Rhaelle was distracted for a second, trying to see if her little sister was alright, arched her foot high, and kicked Rhaelle square in the chest.

The kick was so strong it knocked Rhaelle off her feet, and toppled her out into the open air.

Aemon ran, leather and metal clanging, as the world slowed down. All he could see was his little sister, her violet eyes open in surprise, her dress ballooning in midair. She was falling. Falling falling falling. He must reach her. He must catch her.

A shrill scream gathered in his throat.

His little sister. Beautiful beautiful sister.

She fell, all the way from the top of towering stairs.

She fell.

And she landed. Just a fingertip away from his reach.

Blood sprayed into his eyes, into his mouth, into his heart. His little sister. His little sister. Sprayed open like a broken doll in front of him. Just a fingertip away.

He crashed over her, her blood staining his doublet. He gathered his little sister in his arms. His little sister. Broken and bloody, her head cracked open. She was struggling to breathe. Something must have pierced her lungs. She was gargling blood. Aemon took her hand in his. He does not know what to do. He does not know how to fix this. His little sister!

He could hear screaming. He did not know if they were his own or Mūna’s, or the ladies, or the guards. He looked up, up up up the towering castle with their great big chandeliers, dripping wax and blood, through the haze of red clouding his eyes.

A black figure, hands over her mouth, disbelief in her eyes. Slowly stepping back, as if preparing to run.

“Seize her!” He screamed.

Guards, useless guards, and knights, useless knights, rushed out and chased after the Baratheon girl.

“Get the fucking maesters!” he shouted. Uncle Viserys, coming in behind him, complied with a horrified face.

Mūna reached them then, and collapsed beside Rhaelle. Tears were slipping down her cheeks. Aemon does not know what to do. He does not know how to help. Where are the fucking maesters? Where is the king? There is so much blood he doesn’t know how to stop it Rhaelle not Rhaelle how could he save her?

He pressed his hands over the hole in her head, trying to stem the flow, trying to push her matter back into her body, trying to make her whole again.

Rhaelle’s eyes were cloudy with blood, they're swimming in it. Why is there so much blood! Where is it coming from! How can he stop it! Mūna is here. Oh gods Mūna is here.

“Mama?” Rhaelle whispered, a choked, tiny sound. So unlike her usual loud, boisterous voice.

“I’m here,” Lucerys grasped her daughter’s other hand, “I’m here darling. Mama’s here.”

She put her hand on her daughter’s cheek, willing, beseeching.

“You have to hold on alright?” Lucerys sobbed, “Hold on for me? Please?”

She grasped Rhaelle tighter.

“Hold on for Mama. Please. Rhaelle. Just hold on for me.”

Rhaelle’s eyes were clouded, she appeared delirious. Aemon does not know if she heard. She gurgled and gasped and Aemon does not know how to help her.

“Please,” Lucerys cried, “Just please!”

Rhaelle could only see her mother. Everything hurts. It hurts so much. She does not remember how she came to be hurting. She does not remember much of anything at all. She cannot breathe. She can only see her mother. Mama is here. Lucerys is here. Rhaelle loves her, that she knows. Mama is crying, Rhaelle does not want her to cry. Mama should not cry. Rhaelle made her cry. Did Rhaelle hurt her?

“Mama?” Rhaelle asked.

“I’m here, darling,” she answered, “I’m here. Mama’s not going anywhere. Don’t go anywhere.”

Rhaelle feels slow. Everything hurts. Mama is crying. She should not cry.

“I made…” Rhaelle gasped, choked, “Mama…” Her face feels wet. Blood? Tears?

She gurgled and wheezed, each breath coming in more laboured, but she gathered all of her strength, and lifted her lips.

Rhaelle smiled at her mother, a small crooked, broken, bleeding thing, “I made you a dress, Mama.”

Lucerys smiled back, an automatic response, the only thing she could do when her beautiful daughter smiled at her, even though she was choking on bile, choking on tears.

Through the white haze clouding her eyes, Rhaelle saw that smile, and she felt almost relieved. That’s good then. Mama is smiling. That means she didn’t hurt her too bad. Mama should always smile. She loves Mama so much.

The little hand in Aemon’s hold went slack. His little sister’s hand went slack. Rhaelle’s eyes clouded over. She stopped blinking. Her little chest moved once, twice, and then no more.

“No no no no no,” Lucerys reached over and clutched at her daughter’s face. Not her Rhaelle. Not Rhaelle. Not like this. No. No. No. No. Her daughter was still warm. She can still be saved. Not her daughter. Not her daughter.

But no matter how hard Lucerys shook her, pleaded with her, clutched her, Rhaelle did not wake.

Aemon looked down at his bloodstained hands, at his little sister’s bloodstained face. His little sister. His sunstreaked Rhaelle.

Finally, he began to scream.

-

King Aemond’s face was not of stone, nor a storm. It was dragonglass, black, sharp, full of bloodthirst and fury, as he gripped the Iron Throne with his long fingers, white knuckled and almost bleeding.

Every lord and lady in the Red Keep gathered in the great hall, silent for once in their miserable lives. The wrath of a great green beast forcing their heads down. His family gathered next to him, broken, incomplete.

Aemon felt only pain. There were still flecks of Rhaelle’s blood on his hands he could not wash away. He could not stop crying. He wants to die.

Mūna stood next to him, silent as a crypt. She just came back from watching the Silent Sister clean and wrap up her daughter’s body. Soon Aemon will have to command Gaelithox to set her pyre to ash. He wants to die.

Cassandra Baratheon knelt in the middle of the hall. She did not make very far before the guards caught her. It was an accident, she pleaded to the king. It was an accident, she shouted to anyone with an ear. None headed her.

“Cassandra Baratheon, you stand here accused of murdering a princess of the realm,” King Aemond’s boomed, full of malice, “How do you plead?”

“It was an accident, Your Grace!” Cassandra moaned, weak and terrified, “I didn’t mean it!”

Aemon wants to set her on fire.

“On the contrary,” said Uncle Aegon, a coil of fury and grief, “We found that this is quite deliberate.”

He turned to the king, motioning his squire to bring forth a pile of papers. He took them and handed them to Aemond.

“You’ll find, my king, that this girl has been tasked to assassinate your family one by one, starting with your daughters,” Aegon declared into the room.

The mood in the hall turned even more frightful at that. Cassandra gave an even louder moan.

“Tar was smeared on the stairs. The spot was carefully chosen. The fight was staged,” Aegon continued, “The Kingsguard searched her rooms, and unearthed these letters from a hidden compartment in a dresswer.”

The king went through the parchments with slow, deadly deliberation. Flip. Flip. Flip. When he finished, he handed them to his small council, so they may read it and be horrified as well.

Hightower passed to Velaryon. Velaryon passed to the Queen. The Queen passed to Blackwood, who passed them to Aemon.

He flipped through them with numb hands. Flowery prose assaulted his eyes. All My loves and I will be king and I will make you my queen and Myr has given me their full support and you are my Conqueror reborn…

“A collusion,” said the king, his voice soft and indecipherable, “Between House Baratheon and Prince Jaehaerys.”

Aemon startled. The hall burst into loud murmurs. Mūna looked on.

“Prince Jaehaerys is dead,” Lord Hightower said in disbelief.

“Apparently not,” said the king, “Apparently he survived, and was hidden in Tyrosh this entire time.”

The murmurs grew louder.

“A treasonous collusion,” repeated Aemond, “Cassandra Baratheon will murder the two princesses and pledge the Stormlands in support to Prince Jaehaerys, the rightful heir and king. And in turn, Jaehaerys, when he takes the Iron Throne with a fleet of Myrish ships, would make her his queen.”

The noise in the hall reached into a crescendo. Accusations and denials were shouted across the hall. Lady Elenda let out a loud wail. Lord Peake started pacing and gesturing advice to the king. No one seems to know how to handle these new revelations.

“Are we sure it is Prince Jaehaerys, though?” A clear voice cut through the noisy din, like Valyrian steel through soft cowhide.

Aemon whipped his head to his left and stared wide eyed at his mother.

The hall went silent once more.

“Is it really Prince Jaehaerys?” The Queen stepped forward, repeated her question, this time asking Cassandra.

“It is, Your Grace!” Shouted Cassandra, desperate. She reached into the folds of her dress with shaking fingers and pulled out a signet ring, and waved it madly in front of her.

“He gave this to me to prove it!” She shrieked, half mad.

Lord Kermit Tully took it and handed it to the Queen. Lucerys rubbed the little golden ring, laid with opal and stamped with the Targaryen crest with her thumb. She passed the jewel to the king, and he in turn examined it between his fingers.

Lucerys turned towards the kneeling crying girl, her face hard, her eyes glinting.

“If this were to be the definitive proof of his identity, why would he give it to you?” Her voice was sweet as the flowers at Highgarden and colder than the winter beyond the Wall.

“Wouldn’t it be better proof, if he was the prince, to send you a lock of his hair? Or a letter written in the hand of his mother, the Queen Helaena, or his grandmother, Alicent?”

The Queen sounded genuinely puzzled, and the court murmured their assent.

Cassandra gaped like a dead fish.

Lucerys continued, “You are purportedly the first daughter of a great house, surely to win your support he would send you a trusted deputy, to speak on his behalf?”

She tilted her head and waited for an answer.

Cassandra kept gaping. “He didn’t send anyone,” she whispered into the dead hall, “Just the letters.”

Mūna shook her head lightly, her face a mask of disbelief, “He sent no one?”

“Just a laundry maid,” stated Cassandra, staring blankly at the foot of the Iron Throne, “Marigold. She delivers the letters.”

“Viserys,” King Aemond called, finally speaking up.

Beside his brother, Uncle Viserys came forward.

“Go to the laundry room. Apprehend the maid,” commanded the King, “Take a squad of knight inquisitors, root out any connections she has in the keep.”

Viserys nodded and swept out the room.

The hall descended into another deathly silence.

Everyone was looking at the Queen. Her hair was in disarray, her dress stained with her daughter’s blood, yet still she grasped at all her strength, and managed to stand tall and strong in front of Rhaelle’s killer.

Lucerys let out an incredulous laugh, “Not Ser Rickard Thorne? Who was tasked by Larys Strong to see the Princes Maelor and Jaehaerys to Oldtown? After Queen Rhaenyra took King’s Landing? Did the false knight not send you corroborating evidence?”

“There were just the letters,” said Cassandra.

Lucerys slowly turned towards Lord Lyonel Hightower, her face a pool of suffocating darkness, “Master of laws, when your father sacked Bitterbridge, did he encounter Ser Rickard Thorne?”

Lord Lyonel, deliberate and clever, inclined his head, “He did, Your Grace. Lady Caswell sent the torn pieces of Ser Thorne along with Prince Maelor’s dragon egg to Hightable, where my father and I received both.”

Aemon would bet his sword Hightower didn’t receive shit.

Lucerys nodded, her eyes gleaming in sympathy.

Lord Kermit Tully spoke up, slowly, as if he'd just remembered a key detail, “Lady Caswell sent the bodies of the princes to Queen Rhaenyra at King’s Landing, did she not?”

Everyone collectively turned their heads towards Aegon.

Uncle Aegon inclined his head in confirmation, stately and stern: “She sent their heads, my lord. My mother and I received them in the throne room. Two battered silver heads, but distinctly my cousins Maelor and Jaehaerys.”

Aegon lifted his head, and declared with utter conviction and such profound sadness, “I was not young enough to forget the sight.”

Aemon would bet his father’s sword his uncle also didn’t see shit.

King Aemond’s forefinger tapped the armrests of the Iron Throne, tap tap tap, softly, gently, as if he’s not at all angry. On his left hand he gripped the little signet ring. His eye were far away, as if he were not at court but an audience to a mummer’s farce, a play that opened on the grandest stage in the world.

He looked to the Queen. You are asking me to choose between my daughter and my nephew, his eye said.

Mūna’s eyes blazed, I’m asking you to choose between your throne and a usurper.

Helaena will never forgive me.

I caused the death of her daughter, and I’m going to cause the death of her son. Should I see her after my death, she can do whatever she wants with me.

Sudden pain and shame flashed on the King’s face. He closed his eye. He opened it.

“Prince Jaehaerys has been dead for thirteen years,” he declared, setting a truth, a decree into stone.

“Myr, a former member of the Triarchy, with their overwrought ambitions, have dressed up a false prince to lend their ungodly incursions into our sacred realm false legitimacy,” He thundered, Dark Sister clanging against the throne as he stood up. “I will not have it.”

Prince Aegon stepped forward, presenting a united House of Targaryen to all the gathered lords, black and green alike, “His Grace is correct. This is a mere treasonous imposter, trying to poison the realm to get to the throne.”

King Aemond nodded, hard and grave, “And we must root out this imposter, so that no one dares to falsify dragon blood ever again.”

The entire court shouted their assent.

He looked to Aegon, “Call the war council. We have a war to plan.”

He strides down the steps of the Iron Throne, looking at Cassandra: “As for you…”

A court held their breath.

“You have implicated your entire house, your entire family, the entirety of the Stormlands,” declared Aemond, terrible as the Long Night and just as dark. Cassandra gave a great wail, and tried to crawl forward to plead her case. Aemond unsheathed his sword, and batted her back.

Lucerys came forward, slow, regal. She said to the King, almost gentlely, “She is the first daughter of House Baratheon. She represents her house. Who knows what treachery Storm’s End holds.”

Cassandra cried even harder.

Lady Elenda, Cassandra’s mother, suddently tore through the crowd to stand before the King and Queen.

Her eyes were wild, the lines on her face as deep as the visages of the Old Gods on trees of weirwood. She held her head high. Tear tracks marked her face.

“I have a confession to make, Your Grace,” she said through gritted teeth, after one labored breath, “Cassandra Baratheon is not my daughter at all.”

The entire hall gasped and hissed.

Cassandra gave a loud cry and grasped her mother’s skirts, “What are you saying, Mother? What are you saying?!”

Lady Elenda tore her dress away from her distraught daughter, and refocused on the Queen.

“Her nursemaid recently confessed to me, as she lay dying, that my first daughter died in the cradle,” A tear slipped down her face, grief and hatred warred in her eyes.

She continued, “The maid, possessed by evil, swapped out my true babe, dead at just one moon, and replaced it with her own.”

“Cassandra has never been my daughter,” Elenda declared to the shocked throne room, “She was never even a Baratheon.”

Mūna nodded, as if this made perfect sense, as if the Stormland blue of Cassandra’s eyes and the pure Baratheon reflections of Cassandra’s black hair were not out on full display in front of the entire hall.

“I am sorry for your loss, my lady.” She offered graciously, terribly kind.

Lady Elenda wiped her eyes, and walked even further away from her daughter. No, not daughter. Bastard. No one.

“I suspect the nursemaid told her the truth for quite a while now,” Lady Elenda sniffled, “And this is why she was so presumptuous and treasonous in court.”

From behind her, Aemon could see Lady Lannister nod in agreement, and the rest of the Westerland and Stormland lords slowly nodding with her. He could only stare.

Muna looked beautiful.

Queen Lucerys let out a small sigh, and took Lady Elenda gently into her arms, “Of course. It all makes sense now. No true born daughter of noble blood would dare to even consider high treason.”

She gave the Regent of Storm's End a reassuring smile, and smoothed out her hair, “We must check to make sure, but I am most positive that she is alone in her actions.”

Lucerys looked to Cassandra, that reassuring beatific smile still on her face, and said, “For your honesty and helpfulness, little bastard Storm, you have earned a painless death. You may choose the poison.”

She turned to her husband, ignoring the cries of Cassandra, who cannot be called Cassandra anymore, “Toss her into an unmarked grave after.”

Aemond nodded, a tinge of satisfaction appeared on the corner of his lips. The cloud of rage and grief in his eye did not abate.

“I will tell the maesters to update the records,” he said, sweeping his dark gaze upon the trembling lords and ladies. All of them hurriedly bowed their assent.

Aemond turned to Lucerys. “Leave the war to me,” he whispered, “Take care of Rhaelle first.”

Mūna nodded, her eyes misting over at the very mention of her daughter. Aemond squeezed her elbow, once, twice, and let go.

Lucerys gave a perfect curtsey, turned and walked out of the hall. Her ladies rushed after her to offer their empty condolences and reassure her of their loyalties.

The King turned to Baelon, “Go to the Queen’s rooms, do not leave her until the war is done.”

Baelon nodded, and hurried out after Mūna.

Aemond flitted his eye to him, his firstborn, his mirror image. As ruthless and as worthless as he is. The king gave a sneer, and turned away.

“Come,” he called. The small council at his heels.

Aemon followed.

-

The pyre in front of him was small. Too small.

Rhaelle had never been that small. Her presence was so loud, so full of vigor and life she could fill up an entire hall with just her voice. Brilliant, glorious, his little sister.

It seemed inconceivable she could ever be so small, wrapped in white. She hated the color white, thought it washed out her complexion. She preferred gold and crimson velvet, necklaces so thick she could bruise someone with it, the lance in the training yard and falcons on her clothes.

No jewels or silk or velvet were placed next to her on that pyre. Aemon felt as if a dragon law had pierced itself into his chest, wormed its way behind his heart, and opened five gashes upon it.

Beside him, Mūna squeezed his hand.

Her eyes were two blank pools, almost black instead of brown. Nothing in them beside tears and infinite grief. Her face did not change, as if frozen in perpetuity, but tears just kept falling anyway.

Aemon’s eyes flashed with his own tears, terrible and bright. Hatred for himself, for Jaehaerys, for the kingdom, warred with pain and grief. His little sister. His Rhaelle. Dead because he was too slow, too weak.

Gaelithox stood on the crest of Visenya’s Hill, blocking out the summer sun. It was a warm day, with a cool breeze that carried sea salt and the fragrance of flowers. It was a day Rhaelle would’ve loved. She would’ve barged into his rooms and tugged at his arm hard enough his quill would smeared ink all over his work, until he finally relented and agreed to spend a lazy day eating cake and riding their dragons with her.

He could not help but gasp in pain.

Behind them, Aunt Rhaena held Daella. King Aemond held Baelon. Uncle Viserys held his three children. Little Naerys was sobbing uncontrollably, Daella was not that much better. Uncle Aegon held his wife, and Lady Daenaera in turn held him, keeping each other from falling.

Mūna’s thin fingers grasped his hands in an unforgiving grip. He gripped her harder. Aemon wants to die.

Dracarys, he said, with a surprisingly clear voice.

Gaelithox gave a soft croon, opened his mouth, and let forth an almost gentle stream of fire.

The pyre lit easily, turning Rhaelle, small, too small, slowly into ash.

Aemon prayed there would be an afterlife, where his sister could be received gladly by their ancestors, by Valyria, by the gods, any gods, and be with good company until her family came down to meet her. He prayed harder than he had ever prayed before, for such a place to exist. For Daemon and Rhaenyra and Jacaerys and Joffrey and Rhaenys and Corlys to look after Rhaelle, their niece, their granddaughter, their kin. So that she might not feel too sad, or too alone.

Aemon wants to die.

But he wants vengeance more.

-

The council room was chaos.

The king sat at the head of the table, his face a black cloud of wrath and dread. Dark Sister was placed in front of him, he kept rubbing his fingers over its pommel.

Uncle Viserys came in, slightly ruffled but equally murderous.

The king looked up, “You have the laundry maid?”

Viserys nodded, “And all her family. Imprisoned separately in the dark cells.”

“Good,” Aemond snapped a finger at his son. Aemon opened a piece of parchment, the king gave his orders, “Dictate a letter in Cassandra’s name. Get the maid to deliver it.”

“Tell Myr that both the king’s daughters are dead, and that the entire city is in an uproar. No order. Just chaos. The Queen has collapsed, the king is half-mad. Cassandra is being sent back to Storm’s End, by which she will rally House Baratheon and the Stormlands to march for the true heir to the throne. Myr need only to sail forth to Dragonstone, and make another king’s landing.”

Aemond waved a hand, “Make sure to polish it in her words. Make it purple and flowery.”

Aemon finished the letter with a soft flourish, blew it dry, and handed it to Uncle Viserys.

The prince took it, and looked to the king, “And if the maid should refuse?”

The king’s eyes flashed, “Then disembowel her father in front of her, and make her count the strings of his guts.”

Viserys bowed in acknowledgement, and turned out of the room with his squad of inquisitor knights.

Seated in front of him, Lord Lyonel Hightower unrolled a map, “You mean to draw him out to Dragonstone? To be sandwiched between it and Driftmark?”

Aemond tapped a finger against Dark Sister, tap tap tap, “Perhaps.”

Lord Hightower traced a hand over the map, distressed, “There is no way Myr is going to fall for that.”

The king rubbed his fingers together, “He thinks himself the Conqueror reborn. From the looks of it, he has swindled at least four hundred ships from Myr and Lys, and by his count he has the support of the Stormlands. He will think it is easy.”

Lord Lyonel looked even more distressed, “There is no way he’s that stupid.”

Aemond raised an eyebrow.

Lord Hightower stood strong against the possibility that not everyone could be as strategic and realistic as he is, “Myr is closer to fucking Dorne that Dragonstone! He’ll have an easier time sailing to sack fucking Oldtown than he’ll be getting through Shipbreaker’s Bay! It’s Shipbreaker’s Bay!”

“It is common sense, Your Grace,” Lord Velaryon spoke up from his place beside Uncle Aegon, helping him draft edict after edict that stained both their hands black, “Myr will try to make an alliance with Dorne rather than trying to conquer the realm by his lonesome.”

Lord Blackwood took a pause in yelling of orders to one garrison commander that flitted through the door after another, and shouted his agreement.

Lord Velaryon continued, “He’ll go through Dorne, take Oldtown and inch his way through the Reach piece by piece. If he’s good at war, we’ll have to fortify Casterly Rock. Even if he’s bad at it, he can grind this down into a prolonged stalemate where we bankrupt ourselves trying to sustain it.”

“Myr won’t lose if he comes through Dorne,” Aemon said, from his place next to the king.

King Aemond did not look at him, he did not look at any of them. He just stared at Dark Sister, as if it held all the answers to the universe.

The king rubbed at the grip of the great Valyrian sword, “Perhaps. Perhaps not. It is a definite possibility and we must make provisions. Call the Greyjoys, and the Redwynes. Tell them to sail down to Oldtown to defend it.”

Finally, the king lifted his eye, “But still, I do not think Myr will go this way. The arrogance in his letters does not lend this route credit.”

“There is no way he’s that stupid,” Lord Hightower muttered, “There is no way.”

-

Apparently Prince Jaehaerys really was that stupid.

Five hundred ships have been spotted sailing past Wyl, making for Dragonstone.

When Aemon got to the small council, he could see Lord Hightower rocking himself in his chair, with Uncle Viserys patting him on the shoulder in careful commiseration.

“Well,” said Aemond, standing dark and dry in front of his chair, “We got our answer."

The king turned to Uncle Aegon, “What are the reports from Dorne?”

The Hand of the King looked up from a thick pile of reports, “Princess Aliandra did think to propose an alliance, but Myr was adamant in his decision to sail for Dragonstone, at which point she gave them a hundred men from House Yronwood and waved them away with her good luck.”

Jaehaerys probably slighted her along the way, Aemon thought, a son of the usurper would probably mislike acknowledging the reign of a female ruler.

A dark, satisfied smile spread across Aemond’s face. A similar twist appeared on Uncle Aegon’s.

“There will be no trouble for the emerging host then?” Aemond asked.

“None,” Aegon answered, “Too much of a cesspool for her. She will make incursions to the Stepstones while we are busy fighting, but it’s nothing the Greyjoys on their way back won’t fix.”

Aemond nodded in acknowledgement.

“I’ll leave the city in your capable hands then,” he said, “See to the Queen.”

Uncle Aegon nodded, gathered the papers in front of him, and turned out of the room.

"Tell the fleet docked at Oldtown to make their way to Dragonstone," The King looked to Lord Alyn, "Ready your ships."

He looked to Lord Blackwood, “And ready mine.”

They both bowed, and hurried out to fulfill the king’s orders.

Finally, he turned to Aemon.

His lone eye shined with something indecipherable when he looked at his son.

“You wished to have vengeance for your sister?” He asked, soft as he had never been to his firstborn.

Aemon nodded.

His father looked him hard in the eye and found something equally vicious in return. Aemond scoffed, reached underneath the table, and tossed him a sword.

Aemon grunted as he catched it in his arms.

Blackfyre’s pommel gleamed in the cold light.

“Put on your armor,” The King said, “And don’t tell your mother.”

Aemon bowed, “Yes, Your Grace.”

-

Jaehaerys, age 21

As Jaehaerys stood on the brow of a Myrish warship, heading to take Dragonstone, he is suddenly struck with the thought that he could no longer remember his sister’s face.

Sweet, simple Jaehaera. Who has never hurt anyone or anything in her short short life, not even Mother’s beetles and spiders and worms. She was simply joyous, in perpetual awe that she's alive to live in such a beautiful world. She was his twin. They shared a womb, a cradle, a life. And he watched her die when she was just seven years old, and there was nothing he could do.

Blood and Cheese carried her head away. His little sister.

He always felt responsible for her, felt that it was because of him that she was so small. Her big brother took all of their mother’s strength into himself and left none for her. He worried about it, once, to his Uncle Aemond. And his uncle, tall and wise beyond his years, told him that if it was so, then Jaehaerys must take on the duty to take care of his sister outside of their shared womb, to be the strength that would protect her joy. Jaehaerys had promised he would.

Uncle Aemond promised he would as well, swore to them to protect them with his sword and his dragon. He was there, when his actual father was not. He gave Jaehaerys his first sword, and all the kisses he ever wanted on his brow. Uncle Aemond remembered their nameday, and never forgot to bring forth a present. Jaehaera loved the Myrish silks he would bring her, and would wrap it round and round her head and she twirled and laughed, her giddiness infectious. And his uncle would gather her up into his strong arms and toss her in the air, and give her a fine crooked smile full of love.

They all loved Uncle Aemond best, even more than Grandmother Ali, if such a thing must be compared.

And Queen Helaena would watch them all, with a dreamy, content smile, and love in her eyes.

Jaehaerys could not recall his mother’s face either. He could recall other things. The soft golden material of her sleeve in his fist as they walked down a hallway. The fullness of her body as he crawled with Jaehaera into her bed after a nightmare. The texture of her hair, so thick and coarse that he often struggled to brush through it without getting the comb stuck in her hair. The pretty perfect shape of her violet-blue eyes.

The way his soul died when he heard she had jumped from Maegor’s Holdfast onto the spikes below.

Perhaps this is what fueled his hatred for all of these years, as Ser Rickard fled with him away from that screaming mob at Bitterbridge, leaving his little brother Maelor behind to be torn to pieces. They trekked for weeks in the Reach, afraid for their lives, desperate for food and water, not knowing the difference between friend or foe.

They were kidnapped twice along the way, once by highwaymen, then by Dornish sellswords, intended to sell them to slavers. Prince Qoren Martell saved them from that fate, but instead sold them to Myr, in exchange for a brief incursion at the Stepstones. The Triarchy was already breaking apart at that time, slowly inching towards a bloody civil war with backhanded schemes and brutal politicking, each city wanting some advantage over the other. So he lived under Myrish protection, as their prisoner and guest, for the last fourteen years.

Soon, the Daughter’s War simmered down into a war of attrition that stayed in their little part of Essos, his uncle’s Vhagar a superb deterrence against any foreign incursions. But Vhagar died in 138AC, and the war greatly expanded, no longer were they content with skirmishing in Essos. With his cousin Viserys Targaryen having surfaced on the back of Tyrosh, Myr could not fall behind in their influence of Westeros.

No matter, he would give Myr the Stepstones. They could even have Driftmark. And with their help, they could finally conquer Dorne, and they could have that hot useless wasteland.

He just needs to take Dragonstone first, then it’s easy reach to King’s Landing. And if he can take King’s Landing, if he can hold that city, he could very nicely make his way through the Stormlands, all the way to the Westerlands, then up the Vale and to the North. He will be Aegon the Conqueror come again, Jaehaerys the Conciliator reborn, and all will bow to his glory.

Harsh sea winds blew salt into his face, golden dawn light peaked through the dark night gloom. Jaehaerys gripped the rail of his ship so hard he almost bled, arrogance and satisfaction swirling in his guts in equal measure.

Uncle Aemond betrayed him. Left him to die on board a slaver’s ship, refused to avenge the death of his mother and his sister, and married that brown whore and sired four sinful children that should've been drowned the moment they’re born. Aemond will die, but not before Jaehaerys rapes that pug faced bitch on the Iron Throne, and skewers her naked upon it. He’ll force his uncle to watch as how he failed to protect his family, just as he forgot to protect Jaehaerys.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Sharkos, his second in command.

Cassandra, the dumb little bitch, has given word. Both Rhaelle and Daella are dead, killed in their sleep with a traceless poison.

“I’m sure,” answered Jaehaerys, with a sated, cruel smirk, “King’s Landing is reportedly in an uproar, with the whore queen comatose and unresponsive, and the king shirking his duties to his small council, who were all running around like headless chickens.”

“Dragonstone is defenseless. We can take it with ease.”

Sharkos nodded, and sounded his horn.

And five hundred Myrish warships answered its call.

Jaehaerys stood on its tallest one, immaculate and commanding, and basked in the cacophony of war drums and screaming men. This is his triumph. He is going home.

The morning fog parted, and Jaehaerys could see the obsidian towers of Dragonstone, brilliant and glorious. His seat, ready to embrace its rightful heir with open arms.

A lone horn sounded. Not a Myrish horn, which are usually long and sounded deep. This one is a light, piercing sound. Westerosi. No. This one is sharper. Velaryon.

A single ship, sea green sail emblazoned with a silver seahorse, sailed forward past the dragonlords’ greatness.

Jaehaerys laughed, “There is no use, little traitor! No help will be coming from your lords!”

The men behind him crowed with him.

The little ship blew its pathetic horn again, and Jaehaerys laughed once more.

Soon, however, he quickly stopped laughing. After the second sound, more ships emerged, and the fog lifted.

A whole fleet of Velaryon warships stood before him and Dragonstone. All brilliant sea green and terrible silver. Metal gleaned off its hull. Sleek and masterful. And is that! Yes, Alyn Velaryon himself, shouting orders at the helm of its biggest.

Jaehaerys gritted his teeth, “Charge forward. They are moving too slow. Punch through them.”

Sharkos nodded, and signaled with his flag.

His ships moved as one. The Velaryons are moving too slow. Why are they so slow?

A second, different horn sounded. A deep, almost musical howl.

From between the sleek and flexible Velaryon ships, emerged another fleet. These ships were enormous and hulking, made for transporting goods and ramming head on, tagged with bright red sails, emblazoned with lions each more golden than the last.

Lannisters. Fucking Lannisters.

The two fleets rode as one, forward, banking left. They’re trying to encircle him.

Well, he’s not going to let that happen. Not on his watch. His ships are made for siege landing. He can punch through them. They have only two hundred between them. This will be easy.

He turned around to make the order, but stopped, and caught a glimmer of something behind him.

A glimmer of gold on black. Which is preposterous, only black dragonglass glimmered. Jaehaerys wants to slap his eyes to make them see clearer. The dawn light shivered.

Slowly, horribly slowly, another fleet emerged.

Jaehaerys was right. It was gold on black. Golden krakens on deep black sails, stained shields on long war dromonds, easy to board, easy to board others. One hundred strong.

Greyjoys. Fucking Ironborn, already screaming for blood.

Behind them, calm and sedate, was another two hundred ships, with blue sails emblazoned with burgundy grapes. Fucking grapes. Redwynes. And in between those unyielding ships, tucked the backstabbing sneakable Hightower galleys; and even further behind those, Arryn blue sails with a falcon.

How did they get past Dorne, and why did Dorne not warn him.

Another horn sounded. A long thunder of a sound. Jaehaerys whipped his head to his left, the one last opening he could see. The dawn light finally pierced the last of the fogs, and there emerged the royal fleet, whipping their way around the other side of Dragonstone. Fiery three headed dragon on black sails. Two hundred strong.

His hands began to shake.

He is outnumbered. He is so thoroughly outnumbered they are surrounding him at an almost leisurely pace. They are all quite silent. The only noise he could hear are the frightened shrieks from his men.

They are waiting for something.

Waiting for someone.

But who?

A low roar rumbled through the strangely silent sea, disturbing the sails of his ships. Not a horn. No man-made thing could produce that sound. Another roar, long and deep, grating, large claws raked through hard gravel.

Not a horn, but what?

The wind started whistling, whipping his hair around his head. The sun had rose high, and beat down upon him.

Finally, Jaehaerys looked up.

From the clouds, emerged a dragon.

A dragon.

His men screamed behind him but he did not turn to look. A real dragon. Not something he dreamt up. Dragons are real.

And this one is as terrible as he remembered.

A dragon emerged from the dawn clouds, bronzed scales on its belly, blue scales on its back, its head framed with such thick horns one can scarcely see the rider upon its back. Scales upon its wings, thick legs, with a great whip of a tail. Almost as big as Syrax when that terrible golden beast landed in the courtyard of the Red Keep, the last time Jaehaerys ever saw a dragon.

It was fast. Too fast. How can it be so fast?!

It shrieked down towards his fleet, jaws wide open in terrible grace. And finally, he could see the rider upon it.

Small, in black armor plated up to the helm. Lean.

Uncle Aemond? Has he claimed another dragon?

No. Not his uncle.

His cousin. His nephew. Aemon.

Jaehaerys ran onto the helm of his ship and screamed into the sky.

The little bastard on top of a dragon, as calm as anything, simply commanded his dragon. His dragon.

”Dracarys”.

And that terrible blue bronzed beast opened its maw, and unleashed a torrent of great white flames.

His cousin on top of his dragon flew low, and blazed a bloody trail full of broken ships through his fleet. Some he turned immediately to ash, he burnt a hole in others and left it broken on the surface, struggling to stay afloat, with men drowning in droves around them.

Westerosi fleet began their advance.

The beast turned. Another command. Another fiery trail.

Jaehaerys is suddenly confronted with the possibily that he might die today.

No. No he refuse to. He is the son of a king. Nothing can kill him. Especially not bastard traitors from bastard wombs.

“Arrows!” he screamed.

His men obeyed, and shot a barrage at the circling beast. None of them connected, it was flying too far above them.

“Again!” he screamed once more.

Another volley.

From its outer perimeter, he could see his ships engage with the Westerosi fleet. Lannisters rammed, Velaryons slashed, Greyjoys burned, and Redwynes capsized anyone who tried to escape the encirclement.

Doesn’t matter, he’ll deal with those once he brings down that hideous beast from the sky.

“As many volleys as you can,” he screamed once more.

Another barrage. None connected

Nothing is working. Nothing is working!

He ran down his ship, pushed a gunner out of his way, tripped over a loose rope. Doesn’t matter. He came prepared. Dorne generously lent him a scorpion bolt to show their support, and he mounted it on his ship, just in case. Now, it’s time.

“Aim for the belly,” he commanded. His men pivoted the heavy ballista, yanking chains, twisting levers, and fired.

The first bolt whistled through the sky, the dragon a mere black speck upon white clouds, and missed it completely.

“Fire!”

The second bolt fell a few feet short of the beast’s wing.

“It’s circling back again!” shouted Sharkos.

Yes, the beast is diving down again. Its mouth turned away from the center of the Myrish fleet, its rider distracted by the screaming left flank.

Jaehaerys tilts the bow himself. It is alright. It will be alright. He is the son of a king. He will be victorious.

“And,” He aimed, straight and true, “Fire!”

The scorpion bolt shot out in a clang and a screech. It whistled through the air, curved, and connected. Right into the dragon’s belly.

And it bounced off.

And it bounced off!

Not possible. That’s not possible. That’s not fucking possible!

Jaehaerys screamed, almost hysterical, “Fire again!”

The dragon was flying lower. Another bolt, straight and narrow, connected right into the dragon’s neck. The force of it pushed the beast off course, but it too bounced off into the sea.

Jaehaerys could see the little figure on top of the dragon whip his head around, could feel his gaze narrowing. Two scorpion bolts. Expensive scorpion bolts. Given only to the commander.

Shit shit shit.

Jaehaerys shuffled back, trying to run.

The dragon dived, wings tucked into its large body, straight towards his ship. His ship! Him!

His hands grasped the railings on the other side of his ship, ready to fling himself off, but the beast landed.

The beast landed.

A great, terrible thing, with a great and terrible boy seated upon it. Jaehaerys could not see the boy’s face. He could not see anything except fear and piss and sweat.

The dragon opened its maw. And the last thing Jaehaerys Targaryen, second of his name, ever saw in the world, were white flames, and black teeth.

-

Aemon, age 13.

Aemon flew back to Dragonstone, sootstained and victorious. He landed harshly, on the southern cliffs. The force of it rocked some of the gathered soldiers off their feet.

The King stood before him, an army of a thousand infantry with a hundred siege weapons behind him. The battle was still raging, the sea before them a wreckage of broken ships and dying men. Lord Velaryon, Lord Greyjoy and Lord Redwyne will have it finished before sunset.

Aemon slid off his dragon, Blackfyre clanging at his side, and walked towards the impatient monarch.

King Aemond raised a brow at him.

Gaelithox snaked his neck over his shoulder, and Aemon stroked him on the chin. His faithful companion gladly opened his mouth, and regorged a forearm, half a leg, and some bits of teeth onto the green grass.

The King looked down at the carnage. He looked at his son. His son looked back at him.

HIs father reached out with one leather gloved hand, and patted Aemon on the shoulder, solidly, warmly.

"Well done," he said.

Chapter Text

Aemon, age 14

When he and the king entered the throne room, triumphantly returning from clawing a metaphorical arm and a leg off Myr for reparations, they saw an apologetically gleeful Uncle Aegon, and a very very angry Queen Lucerys.

Lucerys Velaryon stood before the Iron Throne, arms crossed, hands twisting, and she looked fucking furious, and distraught, and ultimately, disappointed. So disappointed that Aemon had the urge to duck his head and bare his neck to be scolded. He had never been scolded before in his life.

Her eyes were smoldering charcoal, her hair were curls of flames. She looked more alive than Aemon had ever seen her. She looked absolutely beautiful.

He casted a side-eye at the king.

The king looked at his wife in abject wonder.

Mūna looked like she could eat them alive.

“You. Cunt.” she hissed at Aemond.

Aemond took a slight step back. Aemon followed with a bigger step. Perhaps they had miscalculated.

“You absolute shitstained cunt,” Mūna continued, absolutely incensed.

She strode forward, her sleeves bellowing, “You bring my son to a fucking battlefield?! My son?!”

Aemond leaned his head back, “He comported himself remarkably.”

Lucerys looked about to slap the king in the face. Uncle Aegon tugged her back with a flailing arm. Uncle Viserys, behind them, started calmly ushering courtiers and chamberlains out the big door.

“He is four and ten, you fuckwit,” Mūna spat out. Her voice cracked at the end, there were tears in her eyes.

Aemond hadn’t rowed with Lucerys in decades. He had forgotten how to do it. Before, during the war, when she screamed at him, he would either shout back until they were both hoarse and tired and could collapse safely to the floor. Or, if he was feeling particularly despicable, toss her onto her bed and fuck her until she’s not concious enough to form coherent sentences. He didn’t want to do any of that now. He didn’t know how to do anything else.

Aemond swallowed this time, “We needed aerial support. Aemon was the only one with a dragon–”

Uncle Aegon actually did have to lunge forward to restrain Mūna this time. Lucerys shook him off.

“My son!” Lucerys shouted, “On a half-grown dragon facing an entire armada!”

“What would have happened if he lost?! If the scorpion bolts did manage to pierce him?! What if he fell?! What if he drowned?! My son! I would’ve lost my son three months after I lost a daughter!”

She screamed into the hall. Aemon’s stomach dropped. He hadn’t considered that. How terrifying Mūna must’ve felt after she woke up and her son was nowhere to be found in the Red Keep. It was a wonder she could still be standing.

“My son! Who would’ve died the same way my brothers did!”

Mūna’s face twisted, her eyebrows pinched together. She wrapped an arm around her waist, as if to brace against a shooting pain in her chest. She swayed on her feet. Aemond strode forward to steady her. She ripped her arms out of his reach.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she said, with deep venom.

King Aemond flinched as if slapped. He looked at his wife, wide-eyed and shocked.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks. An unstoppable torrent. She gave Aemond one last hateful glare, and quickly strode out of the hall.

Aemon chased after her.

-

Aemon found his mother in Rhaelle’s rooms.

Nothing had changed. Rhaelle's rooms were still the cozy, charming thing she demanded, a haphazard spill of seashell blue and pink, lace and silk, all clear of dust. It was as if Rhaelle would return giggling from the kitchen any moment now, to pick up her toys and gowns, if only they could wait a little longer.

Mūna bent herself over a dresser, her back to him, and was wretchedly sobbing.

Aemon felt wretched too.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” he whispered.

Mūna whipped around, her eyes bloodshot, lined with thick bags. Her hands were trembling.

Aemon felt as someone reached into his chest and scooped out a piece of his heart.

She strode forward in two great steps, and crushed him into her.

Aemon tilted her face into her neck, as she broke out in loud, terrifying wails.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

Lucerys wailed harder. Her son. Her beautiful son.

They crashed to the floor, Aemon held her up as she shook and wailed and cried. Her fingers have an iron grip on his frayed doublet. She never wants to let him go.

Her beautiful boy, her rosebud boy, who never deserved this. If only she could’ve given him a better life, without all the blood and strife and schemes and hatred. If he were born to a blacksmith, or a baker. A simple life. Where he only needs to be honest and pious and nothing else. No need to learn how to make war, how to lead armies, how to untangle conspiracies. If only she were someone else, if only her husband were someone else, maybe she could’ve given all of her children that. Her beautiful children, who all deserved someone better.

They stayed like that for a long time, until the sun began to set.

Mūna pulled away first. She wiped her eyes and examined her son, checking him for injuries he did not sustain.

She looked at him with such wistfulness. Her boy was grown. He had become a man. How did he grow so fast, almost taller than her now. And when did she miss it? How silly was she to think she can hide him behind her, protect him for the rest of his life. He was to be King, a good and wise king that will lead the realm to a golden age. He was meant to soar in the sky. He cannot stay on the ground forever.

“Swear to me,” she said, with soft vehemence, “That you will think of all the consequences before you do something this ridiculous again.”

“I swear,” Aemon said, looking at his mother’s beautiful face. There were lines around his mother’s eyes. He never meant to hurt her. He never wanted to make her sad.

Mūna sighed, and kissed his forehead.

Neither of them was ready to let go yet.

She maneuvered her skirts and sat on the floor. Aemon put his head on her lap, and tried to breathe.

“I couldn’t not go,” he said, not looking at her.

“For vengeance,” she said, softly, her voice chipped and cracked and watery at the edge.

“Don’t you ever want to take revenge?” he asked, muffled into her skirts.

Mūna twisted her lips, “I killed Jaehaerys. I denied him his name.” She stroked his hair, cropped even shorter than before he left, “Where else shall I seek to rectify my wrongs?”

Aemon twisted his fingers into the velvet of Mūna’s dress. He did not want to be the one to bring it up, but he couldn’t stop himself.

“The killer of your father still walks free.”

The hand in his hair stilled. There was a nightingale singing outside the window. Rhaelle loved them. She lined her nightstand with a row of wooden birds, nightingales and sparrows and goldcrests, each more intricarely carved than the last. The hand in his hair resumed its caress.

Mūna said, with a sad chuckle, “And what would happen if I did kill him? I would be a kingslayer. And all of the lords, no matter how sympathetic they may be, would call for my head.”

Aemon did not want Mūna herself to do it. She bled so much, no need for more blood to stain her fingers. He tilted his head, looking to argue.

Mūna shushed him lightly, and said, “If you can behead the king without consequence, you can behead anyone.”

Aemon closed his mouth. Lucerys smiled even sadder.

“And even if I do manage to kill him, where would that lead me? Do I usurp his throne along the way? And if I do, how would I keep it?”

Mūna looked to the ceiling, and let out a deep sigh, full of hopeless resignation.

“Half the lords of the realm have already proven that they could not stand a woman on the throne. Would I have to fight another rebellion? Another civil war? How many people will die this time?”

Aemon tucked his face into Mūna’s torso, and breathed with her.

“How many people will die?” Mūna’s voice choked, “How many more will lose their loved ones and look to me or to my supporters for their revenge?”

Mūna let out a cracked sob, and bent herself over her son. Aemon snaked an arm around her, and tried to press her close.

“I took Aemond’s eye, so he raped me and put a child in me and forced me to marry him. I refused. The Greens took it as a slight. Aegon had me whipped. I lost my child. And my father, demanding recourse, ordered the death of my cousin Jaehaera. Aemond killed Daemon for the death of his niece. Jaehaerys killed my daughter for his sister, and my son in turn killed him.”

“And on and on the wheel spins. Never ending.”

Aemon moved so that he could wrap both his arms around Mūna, so he could hug her tighter.

She looked to the floor, and threaded her fingers through his hair, “And I’m tired, Aemon, I’m just so very tired.”

Aemon tucked his face into Mūna’s neck.

Lucerys stroked his hair.

“And if I don’t take the throne? I get on a ship and sail to the end of the world and leave the burden of ruling a country to my children? The eldest of whom just turned fourteen? Leave the realm in chaos for my fourteen year old son to fix? To be shamed for having a kingslayer of a mother for the rest of his life?”

She almost sneered, “What kind of irresponsible mother does that?”

With great effort, she untucked Aemon from her. Her first child, growing stronger by the day. Soon he will not need her anymore.

She brushed a wayward curl of hair off his face. He looked so sad, so devout, so burdened. If only she were someone else.

“And you don’t deserve that,” she said.

Aemon blinked. Once. Twice. And tucked his face back into Mūna’s neck. So that she did not have to see the storm raging in his eyes.

Mūna imagined too much of herself in her children. She was kind and good and selfless, sensitive and empathetic. And her children, with half of their blood from a line of Green usurpers, will never be as good as her.

No matter how small the slight, Baelon would propose they poison them all. Daella was always cheerful and calm, she forgives easily but she never forgets, and takes great delight in reminding everyone of the various times she was insulted.

And Aemon. He was the worst of the lot. When he could not find sleep at night, he would often imagine himself as Daemon Targaryen, replaying one step of the war after another, rolling it like clay around and around in his head. What would he have done?

Well, if he had guards and spies that could easily sneak into the Red Keep, he would’ve sent a whole contingent of them. Plant a spy next to every royal Green he could find. One as Helaena’s handmaid, one as Alicent’s pageboy, one as Aegon’s cupbearer, one as Daeron’s squire, nursemaids for the children, whores for Otto and Larys’ and fucking Criston Cole. He would ask his daughter to accept the marriage proposal in exchange for a period of seclusion, to separating her from Aemond. He’ll give Aemond a spy too, a jeweler, under the pretense of communicating his betrothed’s desires for her wedding attire, until he knows how the Greens spend their day better than they themselves. Then, one night, when they are all in their separate rooms doing their separate evening routines, his spies would slit their throat.

When the morning comes, the servants would wake to find the ghastly corpses of each and every royal Green in the Red Keep, and his Black Queen would be able to walk into her rightful seat unhindered. He can blame it all on House Hightower, assassins sent by a slighted Hobert; gives him a reason the Hightower to the ground too. Or he can blame it on the Triarchy, who double-crossed their allies. Or even Dorne, they’ve been undisturbed long enough.

If they all were dead before the war could ever begin, perhaps Lucerys would not have a patchwork of lumpy, raised scars across her back, perhaps she would not have the burns on her palms, or the knife mark at her ankle. His mother might still be whole.

Rhaelle was spirited and bold, and would always answer with fiery retorts whenever she’d been given insults, but she was also quick to forget. She won’t give you her forgiveness, but give it a few weeks and she won’t even remember you slighted her in the first place.

Rhaelle was the best of all four of them.

Lucerys was the best of all of them. She worried about morals and consequences and hypocrisy. Aemon was not. He will never be.

Either one never embarked on a quest of revenge, or built a system in which an impartial judge, wielding power of law and order, brought forth Justice so the victim would not need to seek vengeance on her own. Or one does such a thorough and exhaustive job of it, so that no one would be left to take up arms to seek revenge on their behalf. Pull it out root and stem, and set it on fire.

—

“She’s a bastard girl without a dragon!” A snide voice said from the other side of the wall, loud and sniveling, “Why should I marry her?”

Aemon adjusted Blackfyre on his belt, and strolled out into the hallway.

Lord Hollard and his son, Ruben, were embroiled in a heated argument that they should not be having in the first place. Both were short and stout, glutted on fish and wine, their lips oily. Ruben was barely eleven, yet he picked up the gossip around court remarkably quickly.

“Which of these bastard girls are you referring to, my lords?” said Aemon, smiling warm and beatific at them.

They froze, slowly twisted their heads to him, and saw that utterly friendly smile and cold cold purple eyes. Little Ruben sputtered.

“Are you perhaps referring to my little sister, Daella?” said Aemon, again, tilting his head.

Lord Hollard almost threw himself forward on his face in his haste to deny.

Aemon merely shook his head, “Come, my lords, let’s take this matter to the king. He would be glad to hear about it.” Quick as a dragonbite, he grabbed little Ruben by the neck, and dragged him harshly behind him to the throne room.

Daella’s egg hatched a white, slightless worm three months ago, with twisted teeth that bit a chunk off her arm. Aemon hacked it to pieces with Blackfyre and threw the thing into the pigsy. Laena, Aunt Baela’s daughter, tried to console her cousin with her own dragon, a red bellied creature she named Drago. Perhaps this was when the rumors started.

The King was hearing petitions when he tossed the sniveling little child at his feet.

Aemond lazily flicked an eye up, “What is the meaning of this, Prince Aemon?”

Lord Hollard hurried forward, “Nothing, Your Grace! Nothing!”

Aemon soundly interrupted him, calm and helpful, “They called Daella a bastard, Your Grace.”

At the foot of the Iron Throne, Uncle Aegon started to quietly wave the surrounding courtiers away from the center of the hall. The King’s face darkened.

“Another instance of treason then,” he said with a knife’s edge to his voice, “We’ve been getting a lot of that lately.”

He looked to Aemon, “How do you wish to proceed?”

Aemon turned around to the stupid lord, politely, kindly, said, “Lord Hollard, your tax levies of last year were five thousand gold dragons short. Please pay double of its amount before the end of the moon.”

Lord Hollard crashed onto his knees, trembling like a leaf. House Hollard had the money. They just preferred to give it to their sworn lords, House Darklyn of Duskendale, to show their loyalty, rather than to the Crown, the true owner of their allegiance.

King Aemond lifted an eyebrow, “Or?”

Aemon looked back at his father. The King might see that this was too lenient a punishment, for questioning the legitimacy of Daella was to question the legitimacy of the King, and therefore his right to be King.

“The court has been without a gelded fool for too long,” Aemon said, civil and civilized, “And I’ve just found the best candidate for the job.”

Little Ruben had pissed himself. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Uncle Aegon wrinkle his nose.

Lord Hollard begged, “It will cripple my house, my prince.”

Aemon looked back to him, and gave him a pleasant grin, “Then you should have raised your son better.”

His face was so kind. His eyes looked so cold.

-

Aemon dreamt of his little sister.

Night after night, Rhaelle would enter his dreams. Sometimes as a memory, where he relived all the beautiful moments of their time together. When he watched her take her first flight on top of Sunstreak, when she complained that she was very tired my legs are cramping see and demanded him carry her back her rooms, when he taught Valyrian to her and she mouthed them happily back in her crystal clear voice. When she was happy, bold, and alive.

Sometimes Aemon dreamt of her death, where he relived that final, decisive moment over and over and over again. Of her falling, of him never reaching her. He would replay that horrible, terrible moment until he woke himself up and retched into his chamber pot.

He learned that his grief was pain. As if someone shanked a knife right beneath his heart, and everytime he breathed, he would knock against that knife, and it would twist, jabbing through his throat, making him double over in sharp agony.

Was this how Mūna felt, he often wondered uselessly, when she learned of Jacaerys and Joffrey’s deaths? Was this how Rhaenyra felt when she learned of Daemon’s? How Corlys felt when he learned of Rhaenys's? Was this how his father felt, when he learnt of Helaena’s? Will it ever get better? Will he ever want it to get better?

Mūna had grown thin. Aemon could see the violent protrusion of her collarbones. She eats little, mostly greens, sometimes meat. The only sweet things she could stomach were fruit mashed into a fine paste. No more cakes enter her rooms.

She had become ethereal. She never recovered. The pain of losing all of her parents, two of her brothers, her innocence, her daughter. All of it weighed her down until she was but a shell of herself. The dark circles beneath her eyes do not wane. She had stopped sewing, needling, and writing. She fainted twice in the Small Council room. Aunt Rhaena had been called back to King’s Landing to assist the Queen in executing her duties, though the running of the Red Keep had largely fallen on Aemon’s shoulders. Mūna only reads, though even that’s not for long.

Aemon wanted to weep whenever he saw her. He knew. He knew that the mother he got to meet was already a shadow of herself. Her edges already sawed off and her fire half gone. But there was still a spark in her then, a starlight sunbright in her eyes as she taught him High Valyrian, showed him how to feed Gaelithox when his dragon was no older than a pup, gave him his first ride on horseback and clapped and cheered and jumped in joy as he took his first flight.

Now, in the rooms he couldn’t go. In the rooms away from the prying public, she cries. Tears would suddenly spring out of her eyes, and she would double over in violent sobbing fit. So dreadful and forceful sometimes she would retch up her dinner, as meager as it was. And all anyone could do, all Aemon and Aegon and Baela and Rhaena and Viserys could do, was to hold her through it, and cry with her.

The King has never attempted to hold her. She pushed him away everytime.

Sometimes Aemon caught the King standing in Rhaelle's rooms with a thousand yard stare, looking at her dolls, her carvings, her sheets of music, her bed. He never touched them. He would stand for close to an hour, before abruptly leaving to continue his day.

As for his siblings, they all dealt with their grief in different ways. Baelon retreated into his studies, training all day with the sword until his hands bled, staying up all night to study history and geography and languages. Distracting himself in books and blood so he could forget the shape of his life. Daella became angry, disrespectful. She has taken to smashing stones with a hammer as a hobby. The only thing stopping her from burning the keep down was her mother's disappointment. Aunt Baela would probably help her.

And Aemon, what did he become? Who did he become?

As he looked over at Duskendale, with its pale shimmering walls, their squat square stone castles, and the Houses who refused to pay their taxes for over three years now. As Gaelithox crooned over his shoulder. As two thousand infantry clanged their shields and prepared their ballistas behind him. As he moved to sack that beautiful golden town with fire and blood. Aemon found that he had become unforgiving.

His little brother wanted to build a University like that of Old Valyria, and he had just found the perfect town for such an endeavor.

-

Baelon knocked on Mūna’s iron door, his knuckles still bloodied from training earlier in the day. On his other hand he clutched tiny Naerys in a bruising grip. She sniffled into her nightshirt. Daella sniffled into Aemon’s. Laena hiked her little brother Daemion higher on her thin arms, sweat beading across her forehead. She just turned eleven, and Daemion, who’s just five, was a fat baby. Little Aegon did not join them. Little Emon put a hand to Laena’s back to steady her.

After a few clicks, the door opened, and there was Mūna, with dark circles under her eyes and wheezing breaths. She was struck down with a fever last week and only just recovered.

She bent down, “What’s wrong, sweetling?”

“We couldn’t sleep,” Baelon bit out, with some difficulty. He always preferred to be silent, “May we sleep with you, Mama?”

Mūna patted him on the head and picked up little Naerys, “Of course. Come on.”

The children followed her like a gaggle of lost ducklings. Aemon let go of Daella so he could lock the door behind him.

They climbed onto Queen Lucerys’s bed, larger than the King’s, wiggled around the covers, and snuggled around her. Mūna tucked them in, made sure they all had a pillow and a blanket and did not smother each other.

It was Baelon’s idea. Mūna did not sleep well these days, she could only find little flashing snatches, if her ladies could be believed. If they all visited her and slept next to her, Baelon thought, maybe it would be enough to ward off the nightmares.

Laena fell asleep first, tucked around her little brother. Daella was next, still holding Naerys’ hand. Emon took Naerys’ other hand and slept with a wrinkle in his brow. Baelon clutched a fistful of Mūna’s nightgown, and after a long while, went off to a fitful dose.

Mūna patted Baelon’s back in a slow rhythm, her other arm served as a pillow for the girls. Aemon laid as a barrier between the bed and the door. There was a knife strapped to his leg.

“Does it ever get easier?” Aemon whispered, apropos of nothing.

Mūna turned her head to him, and gave a sad little smile.

“No,” she said, with suffering permanently etched into her body, into her eyes, “It never will.”

She turned towards the ceiling, a lone tear slid down her temple and into her hair, “The constancy will fade with time. Until you’ve almost forgotten about it.”

She hitched a stuttered breath, “But whenever you see a mural or a dress or anything that reminds you of your lost ones, the pain will come back and stab you again, and it will hurt just as strong as when you lost them.”

That’s what he thought.

Aemon’s face wilted. He tucked his knees into his chest and smothered his face into Mūna’s pillow. He could feel her reach over an arm, and patted him on his back with a slow comforting rhythm. He wailed, silently, somberly, like he'd always done.

—

Aemon could count on the number of times he entered his father’s room on three fingers.

The fire was low, only one lone candle illuminating the King’s desk, casting great shadows onto Aemond’s face, making the sapphire in his eye gleam.

Aemon dared not to tread heavily.

“The documents you requested, Your Grace,” he said.

Aemond flicked a finger and pointed to the spare spot on the desk where his son could set it down. He kept writing. Aemon did not dismiss himself.

Impertinently, he opened his mouth, “Mother said losing a sibling felt like cutting off a limb.”

He saw King Aemond tense.

“Is that what you felt as well?”

Aemond set his quill down, gently.

The fire cackled.

“It depends on the sibling,” he finally said.

He looked at the wrinkled reports in front of him, and not at his son.

“When Daeron perished in that tent of fire," he began, "I felt nothing. I was seven when he was sent away to Oldtown. We were reunited for barely three moons before he left to campaign in the Reach.”

His left hand crinkled a corner of a page. His voice was flat.

“He was a stranger,” King Aemond said, impersonally, coldly, with no inflection, “I was more worried about the loss of our military position than anything else.”

Who’s “our”?, thought Aemon.

The candlelight flickered.

King Aemond continued, “When Aegon died, all I felt was relief. Finally, he will stop being in pain. He will stop dragging everyone down in his utter misery along him. He will be at peace.”

He did not forget that it was Aegon the Usurper that whipped Mūna half to death. Did Aemond watch silently or gleefully from the sidelines? Did he try to break through the Kingsguard to help his betrothed? Aemon did not care to know the answer. He merely prayed that there could be an afterlife, just so when that whore finally went down he might be met with Daemon Targaryen and a Valyrian steel chair.

Rhaelle would tell him it’s too mean of a thought, but Rhaelle wasn’t here.

The king looked away, to the grand murals carved into his walls.

“But when Helaena died, I was struck numb,” A sort of plain sadness entered his face, “I didn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I just stayed on my dragon for as long as I could, and when I wanted to feel something, I commanded Vhagar to burn everything in sight.”

Sweet Queen Helaena tried her best to comfort the kidnapped Princess Lucerys in her months of captivity with her bugs and her warm hugs. She brought blankets, tried to change the locks, snuck jugs of water and sweetmeats through the door. She was not strong enough to bodily stop her brothers, but at least she tried. Aemon hoped she made it to the afterlife too, so she might hit her uncle with a Valyrian steel chair.

King Aemond looked back to his son, “Did it make you feel better, when you had your dragon bite the imposter in half?”

Was this how Aemond dealt with his grief? Chasing bloody vengeance to dull the pain?

“It did, actually,” Aemon replied, with a face of stone, “It was a sort of vicious satisfaction that nestled itself beneath the hole Rhaelle left behind.”

He felt nothing when he killed Jaehaerys. His satisfaction came from the fact that all that’s left of the Usurper’s line was a pile of bones and soot, just like their father. The Green King with his golden dragon, a pile of ash and extinguished embers, dead at only twenty-four years of age. Mūna outlived him.

He could not recall that satisfaction, though, when he wrenched himself up from a nightmare, when he watched his mother sob in Aunt Rhaena's arms, when he held his siblings as they screamed in grief. It was not a balm to the pain. They were, ultimately, two very seperate things.

Aemon continued, his voice a cold rasp, “It didn’t last long.”

The king raised both his eyebrows. He looked proud, almost gratified.

“I felt the same when I watched the light in Daemon Targaryen’s eyes go out,” he said.

Aemon clenched his fists, anger spiked in his heart.

Aemond’s smile was a mocking thing, “He was responsible for Blood and Cheese, they killed Jaehaera and that in turn killed my Helaena.”

Blood and Cheese could’ve played hopfrog with Jaehaera’s severed head in front of him, and Aemon would not have cared.

The king tilted his chin at him, “Was I wrong then, to seek recourse?”

No, he wasn’t wrong. By the rooms of this world, he was not wrong. But Aemon was different from his father, however miniscule. King Aemond pursued vengeance for that satisfaction to smother the toiling grief in his heart. Aemon seeked it because he had a duty to his sister to avenge her, because had a duty to uphold the peace of the realm. When he soared down on his dragon and saw the encircled armada, his bloodlust cleared and he only felt a cool clarity. His destination was there, he had what he needed, and he did what needed to be done.

Aemon glared, “He wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t taken his daughter.”

His father tipped a finger at him in acknowledgement.

“But I wouldn’t have killed him if he hadn’t sent them,” The king replied.

This was the longest conversation Aemon ever had with his father.

Aemon was unmoved. He said, with his mother’s words, “Vengeance won’t bring them back.”

“No,” Aemond sighed heavily, and leaned back in his seat, “And the satisfaction can only last so long before it turns bitter and sour.”

He looked at the flickering candle, shadows danced on his fingers, “But if we do not seek recourse for the death of our loved ones, who will?”

“The law?” Aemon asked, “The King?”

Aemond’s face turned mocking, “And if it’s the King who wronged you?”

Aemon was silent.

“I found some satisfaction in killing the man responsible for my family’s misery,” The perpetual curve of the King’s lips deepened, touching his eye.

Your family would not have received so much misery, Aemon thought, If you hadn’t done what you did.

But he did not say that. Aemon did not argue useless debates. The King had no family left for the wronged to seek retribution. The people he killed could not be brought back. He was past redemption.

Aemond lifted his cup in a mocking toast to his son, “And you will as well.”

Akin to the feeling of relief of finally completing a difficult Valyrian translation set by his tutors, perhaps.

Aemon bowed, and turned out of the room.

Chapter Text

Aemon, age 15

“It is treason,” said Uncle Viserys, with arms folded in front of him.

He was not wrong. Aemon did just propose they usurp the ruling monarch.

He looked at the gathered lords and ladies. Uncle Viserys leaned against a wall and picked at his nails. Aunt Baela stabbed at a handkerchief with murderous force to avoid looking at them. Lord Alyn spent all his attention patting her on the back, trying to sooth her. Aunt Rhaena looked at him intently, her eyes anxious but determined. Lord Blackwood knocked a dagger against a nearby chair leg. Baelon was outside standing guard. Daella was with Mūna. Uncle Aegon and Lord Tully were the only ones absent at the moment. They spent most of yesterday arguing with the King about port tariffs, and will probably spend most of today doing the same.

“The King is not popular, but he did secure peace to the Seven Kingdoms for more than a decade,” said Uncle Viserys flippantly, but his eyes were severe and sobering.

Aemon looked down at the gleaming ruby embedded on Blackfyre’s hilt and tried to tamp down his rage.

“And why should my mother be sacrificed to ensure good government from a terrible man?” He whispered to the sword, to the room, to the world.

“It is a Queen’s duty to support her king,” replied Uncle Viserys, playing Maegor’s champion.

“But it is not her duty to endure torture,” Aemon finally looked up, his face clouded, “My mother did not ask to be married, to become Queen. It is not duty or sacrifice if it was coerced or forced. It is a crime.”

“Kings are never perfect,” murmured Aunt Rhaena.

Aemon whipped his head over to her. “No,” he said, “But kings should be.”

He looked down at Blackfyre, “We live in a luxury few smallfolks could ever imagine. Funded by the taxes we extract from them. The least a king can do is to strive to that perfection.”

Aemon could hear Mūna in his words. The wisdom she passed down to him since he could walk. The wisdom he’d taken to heart. He wanted to please her, to make her feel proud of the few things she’d managed to make in a life that’s no longer her own, to convince her that she was not some droll, pointless tragedy. So he tried. He will try. By gods he will try until it kills him or he wins.

Uncle Viserys waved his hand foppishly, imitating the incessant badgering lords of court, “His Grace is a good king.” He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, “He paved the Kingsroad and built a functioning sewage in the city–”

“Mūna built the sewage,” Aemon flashed his eye at his uncle, hotly, like a sword that had already touched blood, “And he did not want to repave the Kingsroad until the Hand badgered him into it.”

“All he wanted to do was to implement stricter punishments for criminals,” acknowledged Lord Blackwood, “And build his army.”

“A servant can now be hanged for stealing a spoon,” said Aunt Baela, who tossed aside the handkerchief in her hand to bring out another, grayer one, to stab into again.

“Better than three of our previous sovereigns,” murmured Uncle Viserys.

King Viserys passed no laws and constructed no monuments and raised no children and just waddled his years away. King Aegon started a civil war that nearly killed his House and crippled the realm. Queen Rhaenyra didn’t get a chance to rule, too busy fighting and grieving her dead children to make many rational decisions.

“Queen Lucerys would’ve been an equally effective monarch,” Aemon shot Viserys a glare. His uncle opened his palms in surrender, “Without having to torture her spouse for it.”

Mūna could’ve been a great sovereign. She could've done what Aemond did and more. She could have brought the realm to a new golden age, a new height of culture and prosperity. She was Queen Rhaenyra’s oldest living child, by all rights the throne should’ve gone to her. But no, because she’s a woman, because of Aemond Targaryen, she spent years of her life being whipped and beaten and raped, imprisoned in a castle and a marriage she never wanted.

Why does no one think of her when they swear oaths to protect the realm? She’s a person too! She’s a part of this kingdom too!

Lord Alyn poured himself a glass of wine. Uncle Viserys stared at the cracked wall in front of him. Lord Blackwood hit the desk with his dagger again.

Aemon clenched Blackfyre’s scabbard in a bruising grip, and gritted out, “I am not suggesting that we declare open war on my father right here, right now. One cannot eat a whole elephant in one bite. We’ll take this one step at a time.”

Rational decisions. He must make rational decisions. Get the King to name him Prince of Dragonstone. Get Mūna out of this fucking Keep as soon as possible. Persuade the lords, gather his banners, block off King’s Landing. Find a way to chop off his father’s head in a morally correct, conventionally acceptable way—

The door to his room slammed open. Daella burst in, quick-footed and frenzied, her hair disheveled. Aemon stood up in alarm.

She heaved two big breaths, “Brother! You must come quick! Mother! Mother’s collapsed!”

Aemon ran.

-

He crashed around the corridor, startling some members of the Kingsguard. His aunts followed close behind him. There was a little crowd walking down the other way. A gaggle of courtiers and ladies and servants, Mūna and the King and Uncle Aegon and Lord Tully amongst them.

“I’m fine. It’s alright. Stop fussing,” said Lucerys. Blood was smeared on her hands, around her mouth, down her front. Staining the embroidered white dragonscales a dull burgundy.

Where are the fucking maesters?

Mūna was obviously not fine.

Still, she batted King Aemond’s hands away when he tried to support her. She took a few steps towards her chambers, stumbled, and his hands came back. She batted them away all the same.

“It’s nothing,” she said with blood on her teeth. Uncle Aegon tried to dab at it with a cloth. “It happens all the time. It’s nothing.”

Aemon ran towards her.

“Mother!” He yelled.

Mūna raised her hand in greeting, tried to meet him halfway, stumbled, coughed, coughed again. Her knees fell from under her. The King caught her before Aemon can, before Aegon can. His arms went around her to hold her up. She grasped Aemond’s vambraces in an unconscious grip, coughed again, and retched up another mouthful of blood.

Some of it landed on the floor. Some on the wall. Most of it landed on Aemond’s chest, making his black doublet shine, staining his cheek.

Mūna retched twice, violently, uncontrollably. Her eyelids were fluttering. She cannot move any further. The King scooped her up in his arms and carried her the final two steps into her rooms. Baela and Rhaena shuffled after him.

Uncle Aegon slowly ushered all the courtiers away and waited outside the door with his nieces and nephews. King Aemond paced in front of Mūna’s bed, his eye frenzied and anxious. Aemon stared at a corner of the room, his head still ringing, feeling absolutely terrified.

Inside her rooms was a well organized scene.

Maids brought out basins of clean water and white cloths. Baela and Rhaena helped Lucerys wipe all the blood off before the maesters came. Aemon turned himself around. They slowly shimmied her out of her bloodstained dress, her heavy petticoats and her kirdle. Changed her into a clean nightgown, washed off the blood with clean cloths and warm water, before safely setting her into bed. It looked too practiced. This had happened before.

The maesters came waddling in, checked her appearance, then her pulse, wondered and questioned.

“When did this vomiting start, Your Grace?” asked Grand Maester Munkun.

“Almost a year now,” Mūna whispered, her breaths shallow, too shallow.

King Aemond whipped his head around, “And you said nothing?”

Mūna did not look at him, “I did not think it was important, Your Grace.”

“Not important–” The King’s lips trembled, “Fifty pages of state documents are now stained with your blood and you didn’t think it important to tell me?”

“I’m sorry for disrupting you,” said Mūna, sincerely.

King Aemond closed his eye and turned away, disbelief and fright aligning his face. He turned to Munkun, “What is your diagnosis?”

“Too early to say, Your Grace,” wheezed the Grand Maester, shaking his big head, “Stomach ulcers perhaps. An infection of some kind is also a possibility.”

He waddled a few steps away from the bed, “We shall prepare a herb bath for Her Grace. Twice weekly. And a soothing tincture for her stomach.”

He wheezed once more, “The most important thing is rest. More rest for Her Grace, and perhaps all will be well.”

The King clenched his jaw, curled his lips, but nodded in acquiesce. The Grand Maester bowed, Uncle Aegon showed him out of the room. Mūna looked at the ceiling, at the canopy of her bed, and did not acknowledge her husband as he approached.

It was a warm day. His mother lay dying. There was not a cloud in the sky.

King Aemond knelt beside the bed and took her hand in between his.

“Tell me how I can make this better,” he whispered into her palm, “Tell me how I can make you better.”

Mūna exhaled. Swallowed once. Pursed her lips.

“It’s something you are not willing to give,” she murmured.

A sort of frantic desperation came over the King’s face. “But I will!” He said, “Anything! Anything at all!”

Finally, Lucerys looked at him, looked at her husband, looked at the monster she created. Her little uncle. Her little uncle was dead. He had been dead for over twenty-six years. All she had now was this monster that destroyed her.

“I want to go home,” The Queen said, like she said a dozen, a hundred times before. The same thing she had always asked him, “I want to go back to Dragonstone. To the halls of my mother. And I wish to never see you again.”

Aemond’s face shuttered, turned dark. Aemon could not see what expression he made. He only saw a bowed head and coiled shoulders.

Mūna’s smile was a knowing, bitter thing. “See,” she said to Aemond, who had to gall to be confused and hurt, “It’s not something you’re willing to give.”

She looked at the King, her husband, as handsome as any statue of the Gods, if they were carved by frightened, childish knives.

She turned back to the ceiling.

“I’m tired,” she whispered, “Let me sleep.”

Aemond nodded, still not looking at her, still clutching her hand.

Lucerys inhaled, exhaled, and finally, her eyes slipped shut.

King Aemond bent over her, slowly, gently, placed her hand back onto her stomach, and abruptly left the room.

Aemon chased after him.

-

The King’s rooms were dark, damp, and thoroughly trashed.

The King stood before the large windows, disturbingly still. The blue night managed to stain his silver hair black and his doublet purple, which made him look even more terrible. He had not washed off Mūna’s blood from his chin.

Aemon picked his way carefully around the rubble. The bed was ripped, the curtains slashed, chairs lay in broken pieces. Great gashes scarred the floor, all the dressers were upturned, and Dark Sister was embedded deep in the desk, which lay in two very separate pieces.

The King rubbed at the windowsill with his thumb, his nails were broken and bloodied. Aemon could see the white gashes his father made in the bricks.

“When I was a child I had nothing,” He suddenly said. To the window. To the world. To himself.

Aemon stopped his approach.

“I had no land, no army, no dragon. I stood to inherit nothing, just an empty title for other lords to make fun of,” King Aemond took a deep breath, his shoulders rose and fell.

“My mother was not mine. She was her suspicions and her anxieties’. My grandfather was not mine. He was his ambition’s. My father was not mine. He was Rhaenyra’s. My siblings were not mine. Aegon was ruled by his lusts of women and wine, Daeron was given to the might of Oldtown, and Helaena was lost to her dreams and her portents.”

He gave a bitter scoff, “Rhaenyra was an unapproachable goddess. Not my sister.”

He gouged another four lines into the windowsill. The noise made Aemon’s hair stand on end, and he shivered.

The king slowly turned around, his face a terrible twist of wrath, hurt, love, and grief.

“But suddenly,” he continued, a sort of dazzling smile alighting his face, “One day, my father gave me a betrothal.”

From his fingers dripped blood and broken pieces of nail.

“The only decision King Viserys ever made right in his entire life!” Aemond threw his arms out, his smile grew wider, ferocious, “And he gave her to me.”

Aemond’s eyes turned far away, became almost wistful, full of longing, “He gave me Lucerys Velaryon.”

He looked at Aemon, his stoney-faced son, and willed him to understand how pivotal this was.

“Lucerys fucking Velaryon!” His eye turned almost frenzied, “The heir to Driftmark! The Pearl of High Tide! The most beloved girl of all Seven Kingdoms! The Sea Snake could have change his own sigil to her face if he could get away with it! And he nearly fucking did!”

Aemon did not move. He just looked at the King, no longer the larger than life monster of shadows he always thought him to be. Just a man. Too much of a man.

His father’s smile turned victorious, his voice turned back to its even croon, “And she was to be mine.”

Aemond gripped Blackfyre tighter.

King Aemond’s lone violet eye pierced through the dark, “And she was happy about it.”

Aemon swallowed. The king laughed, a taunt, when he saw the expression on his son’s face.

“She was actually happy about the prospect,” Aemond’s face bloomed into a gentle, rosie smile. Full of wonder and marvel, as if he was a boyish youth who could not believe his good luck, “For the first time in my life. Someone was happy at the thought of spending the rest of their lives with me.”

The room was austere and cold and lit only by the blue night, but the remembrance cast his whole face in a soft, tender glow, and dulled the harsh lines chiseled across his face.

He looked into his son’s eyes, unflinching, almost jubilant, “When faced with all that, how could I ever let her go?”

The night breeze shuffled the broken curtains.

Aemon’s face was stoic and strong. He let go of his perfect posture.

“When I was a child I had nothing,” Aemon began.

The King’s eye widened.

Aemon chuckled, dry, “That’s a lie. I had plenty.”

He looked at his father, direct, head on, dauntless.

“I had a House to give me a name. I had scores of Maesters and Master-of-arms and septons to educate me in every subject I was interested in. I never had to worry about when my next meal was going to come, or if my family could afford to make me a new shirt for the new year. I never had to put sawdust in the flour to stretch it out. I have a sturdy roof over my head and dined on whatever meat I desired and a dozen servants attended to my every whim.”

He looked not at his father’s hateful eye, but at a corner of sapphire studded buttons, clasping a row down his chest.

“Compared to almost everyone on this continent,” Aemon let out a breath of a laugh, “I had it fantastic.”

He looked at his father then, suddenly vicious, “So what if I have to be perfect in all things all the time so to not bring dishonour upon my House. So what if I am constantly vigilant and always anxious because I’m afraid another one of my sibling might be killed in front of me. So what if my uncles were always absent because they were too busy governing the realm, and my aunts hate me, and the court full of lords who wished me dead, and my father a kinslaying wife-raping murderous cunt.”

The King leaned back slightly.

Aemon was breathing too rapidly.

“I had my siblings. I had my dragon. And best of all, I had my mother,” He raised his head, fighting to be stoic and calm, “I had Lucerys Velaryon. And that made it all alright.”

The king remained wide-eyed, hidden in shadows, dark and indecipherable.

Aemon’s eyes flashed with savage grief.

“And now,” Aemon choked, “And now. She’s dying.”

Suddenly, he’s yelling.

“She dying!” He screamed at his father, “She’s been dying this entire time! She gave her life to her children, to the realm, to you! You! You who took and took and took until she has nothing left and now she is dying in this godsforsaken keep surrounded by godsforsaken people—”

The King took three strides forward, quick as lightning, ripped out Dark Sister from where it was embedded and shelved the blade neatly at the spot where Aemon’s neck met his shoulders.

He stopped talking, and tilted his head to the side to better accommodate Visenya’s sword. His expression closed off.

The King’s face was a wrath of emotions.

“She’s the light of my life, and you’re asking me to let her go?” Aemond asked, vicious and disbelieving and entirely afraid of the idea. He could not seem to comprehend it. As if all his life he had been taught that if you see something valuable, you must grasp it tightly by both hands lest it be taken away from you.

“She’s the light of mine too,” whispered Aemon, an unspeakable truth given to an indifferent universe.

The King’s face twisted further, disbelief turning his face into a monstrous caricature of itself.

“I would give her my dragon,” said Aemon, with soft vehemence. “I would give her an entire fleet. I will burn this keep to the ground. I will skewer you on the fucking Iron Throne if it meant she can be free.”

The King’s brows pinch together. His hand started to tremble.

A line of blood appeared on Aemon’s neck.

“She’s going to die here,” Aemon whispered.

It was pure agony just to think about it, but he did not falter.

“She’s going to die here,” Aemon repeated. He knew it to be truth. The King knew it as well.

“Please,” Aemon looked right into that terrible sapphire eye, “Father. Please. Don’t let her die here.”

The King looked at his son, now almost to his own height, and found that his firstborn did not look much like him at all. The shape of his eyes looked like Lucerys, the set of his chin looked like Helaena, and the slope of his nose was ultimately Rhaenyra. How did he make this? This boy with the best parts of his loves and the worst parts of himself.

Just as suddenly the blade came, it was gone. His father threw it behind him, uncaring about the priceless heirloom, letting it clatter against the fireplace.

Aemon let out a small breath.

The King lifted his hand and placed a warm rough palm over the red line he left on his son, smearing the blood from his broken nails all over his neck. He tilted Aemon’s head up, up, his eye puzzled, searching, wondering. What did he see? What did he hope to see?

He said nothing, merely squeezed his son’s neck, once, and let go.

A step to the side, and the King left the room in a billow of cloaks.

Aemon swayed on his feet. He looked at his hands. He looked at the ceiling. A lone tear slipped out.

-

“Will Auntie be alright?” Asked little Naerys, wrinkling a doll with her fingers.

“Yes she will,” answered Daella with the conviction of a scared daughter who could not fathom any other thought, “Mother is strong. She can survive anything.”

She was, thought Aemon. She was the strongest of them all and she did survive so much, but even the strongest shoulders bend and break after sixteen long years.

The fire crackled. The two girls stay huddled in the corner of Daella’s bed, refusing to let go of each other. They were eight years old. Big enough to prepare themselves to greet death, small enough still to be frightened by it.

Uncle Viserys silently placed a basin, a flask of water and two cups on the nightstand, kissed both of them on the forehead, and bid them goodnight. Aemon turned out with him.

Three knights were stationed at the princesses’ doors. Aemon was taking no chances.

“How long does she have?” Asked Uncle Viserys, a soft whisper, watery at the edges.

Aemon did not look at him.

“About six moons if she stays here,” he replied, his face stoic, his shoulders tensed to brace against the pain, “One year, maybe more, if she doesn’t.”

Uncle Viserys let out a stuttered breath, “That bad?”

“She grows thin but her belly swells. Everything hurts for her and she can’t stop vomiting,” Aemon clenched his jaw, “You tell me.”

Uncle Viserys stopped, looking straight ahead in the musty corridor. A beat. He turned to the wall, drew his dagger and stabbed it right to the hilt.

He was breathing heavily. He unsheathed the dagger, found a different spot on the wall, and stabbed it again.

Valyrian steel daggers worked wonders. Aemon looked on.

“How did Aegon take the news?” Viserys asked into the bricks.

“Worse than you did, but better than Aunt Baela.”

Baela had to be restrained by three members of the Kingsguard and forcefully dragged back to her room, lest she does a kingslaying before Aemon got the chance.

Viserys leaned his forehead against the cold bricks and wheezed out a bitter laugh.

Aemon blinked hard and swallowed the rising screams in his throat.

Finally, his uncle took himself away from the wall, sheathed his dagger, and placed the genial and cavalier mask of the Master of whispers back onto his face.

“We’re getting her out of here,” he stated.

“Yes,” Aemon replied, “Yes, we are.”

-

After months of cajoling, threatening, pleading and demanding, his father anointed him Prince of Dragonstone.

It was a grand ceremony, all of the lords of the realm came to King’s Landing to honor the official naming of the heir to the Iron Throne, as well as to swear their fealty once more to the Crown.

A fetid and cold ceremony, in Aemon’s opinion, stained by blood.

The king obviously did not wish to give Aemon the ancestral seat of their House, even if he did give him Blackfyre and presumably the supreme command over the entire Targaryen army. To give him Dragonstone was to let him out of his sight, cast him free to build his own influence on his own terms. But the court demanded it, It is time to announce the heir certainty is what is needed especially now that the Queen has fallen ill grant him this chance, the Small Council demanded it, all the Lords Paramount demanded it.

It only took them two moons to achieve it. Two moons time they did not have. Uncle Viserys and Uncle Aegon did a thorough job, all things considered. Oppositions, or rather, the King’s loyalists in Court dropped like flies until the King finally caved.

It would have taken them longer, but Aemond was more terrified about Lucerys being dead than Lucerys being away from him.

“Aemon?” Mūna called, as she walked down the steps out of the castle.

Aemon dragged his thoughts away from the dark and needlessly cruel politicking to smile at her. Mūna was bundled in a great cloak, even with the summer weather, lined with white fox fur and golden thread. Her face was pale and waxy, yellow at the edges, but she’s able to walk today, and even had mashed eggs and water for breakfast.

A gaggle of courtiers and chamberlains were bustling behind them, loading carriages and horses. There will be an even bigger bustle down at the docks, with dozens of workers loading several Targaryen warships to sail down to Dragonstone.

Aemon hurried to her. “All packed, Mūna?” He asked, a bit too eagerly.

Mūna smiled a wane but still beatific smile, and nodded.

She did not have much to pack. Just two chests of clothes, another chest of Rhaelle’s things, and a small velvet box of jewelry Aemon insisted she take.

King Aemond relented. He finally relented, after sixteen long years, to allow Lucerys to go home.

As he should’ve done the first time Queen Rhaenyra demanded the return of her daughter.

The Queen was ill, was the official verdict, a rest beside the sea away from all the stress and toil of King’s Landing would aid much in her recovery. Prince Aemon will go with her to keep her company.

Aemon had already flown Gaelithox to Dragonmont two weeks ago. His good companion was practically preening in happiness.

The chains were loosened instead of untied. Baela and Rhaena were forced to stay in King’s Landing despite being in charge of the Queen’s Household. Viserys and Aegon also stayed, as they are needed to keep the functions of the kingdom, but everyone knew it was to dissuade the Queen from having any rebellious notions. As if Mūna has the space to think about attempting usurpations while being feverish all the time.

Still. Still, Mūna was going home, and she did not ever have to come back.

He squeezed his mother’s hands, “Ready?”

Mūna smiled at him, “Ready.”

She took a deep breath, and walked into the spacious carriage that would take her out of the Red Keep, down to the docks, to a boat, to Dragonstone. This will be the last time she will be in the capital. She did not look back once.

Aemon flicked his eyes up at the great crimson castle, and found his father standing on a balcony looking down at all the bustle. His expression was unreadable, unfathomable, devastated, one violet eye dark, one sapphire eye gleaming.

Aemon looked him right in that terrible eye, and bowed to his father, for the first time in his life. A proper one, arms spread to the side, upper body folded over the knee, sincere and sardonic all at once.

Mūna will not be coming back, but Aemon will.

Chapter Text

Aemon, aged 16

The castle of Dragonstone was an old and strong fortress, wrought with dragonflame in deep black stone, basilisks and manticores and all manner of great beasts served as crenellations along the three curtain walls. The air smelled of smoke and brimstone. It smelled like home.

Aemon’s transports docked at the little sandy beach at the edge of the island while the sun was still fairly high up in the air, three warships and two galleys, a princely contingent that still had to take the wheezing long trek up the winding battlements like everyone else. Targaryens and their need to remind themselves of the perilousness of their lives through the building of uncomfortable seats of power.

Aemon had offered to carry Mūna up the long winding steps for fear of her health. She gave him a kindly glare and insisted she walk.

Well, if the Queen wanted to walk, everyone will walk with her.

They did make a rather funny scene, a long train of courtiers and bannermen snaking down the stairway. Baelon and Daella remained in the Red Keep and might join them later, if they could convince the King to spare them. Lord Hightower and Lord Tully came along though, puffing and huffing behind him.

One arduous step after another, her cloak billowing behind her, Lucerys climbed to her home. The shivering sunlight casted her in a golden glow. She looked everywhere, at the sea, at the sun, at the carved stone of the pathway, at the steps. Drinking it all in as if one more blink it will all fade away like a dream, and she wake up once more in the Red Keep that kept her prisoner for all those years.

Aemon could only support her as she climbed. Dust stained the hems of her gown.

Mūna slid her hand down Aemon’s arm to grasp his hand within hers, and walked with him to the gates. She placed a hand over the roughly hewn stone of the thick stone doors, opened and welcoming, embedded deep within the enormous stone walls, and caressed it with a gentle touch. The sea was a toiling crystal pool of great beauty behind them, made even more enchanting by the rolling waves of the pearlescent clouds. Just a few more steps and she would've crossed the threshold and been finally safe.

She pointed at a little balcony half-hidden behind the great dragon-framed gates with a finger.

“That was where I saw my mother last,” Lucerys said. She rubbed Aemon’s calloused fingers with her thumb, her voice rattling in her throat, “She wished me good luck on my flight to Storm’s End. I said I’d make her proud.”

Her breath stuttered in her chest. Hopeful and terrible.

“I broke protocol,” she said, “And called her “Mother” instead of Your Grace.”

She squeezed Aemon’s hand, there was a hesitant, rich, complicated expression that trembled across her face, like shadows chasing sunlight on a windy day. Aemon’s heart ached.

Lucerys was given the easiest, closest House and a Lord Paramount that’s also her kin. It should have taken her just under a day to deliver her message and fly back home. Instead, it had taken her seventeen years.

“I’m glad I did,” She said, her breath shallow, her eyes glistening, “I’m glad that was the last thing she ever heard from me.”

Did Lucerys look back when she flew away on Arrax? Aemon wondered. Did she feel nervous when she took that missive from Queen Rhaenyra? Did Aunt Rhaena dress her in a warm cloak of red and pressed a kiss to her lips and told her to come back as soon as possible? Did Daemon say any reassuring words to her? Did Jacaerys?

How did they feel when she did not return after a day? When she did not return after a week? When Borros Baratheon had to give the Black Queen the news that her first daughter had been kidnapped? Did Rhaenyra shatter, like her world was ending? Like her heart had been taken and ruined along with her child and she’d been torn in a thousand pieces and tossed to the winds? Like how Aemon constantly, consistently felt when he looked at his mother, spinning his mind into a frenzy trying to find a way to save her?

Mūna noticed none of his turmoil. He let none of it shine through his eyes. She just took a deep breath, and walked through the gates.

The castle of Dragonstone itself was an austere, harsh beauty. It was not richly decorated, that would be Aemon’s job in the coming months. It was not neglected by any means, as the half dozen castellans coming to greet them can attest to, but everything felt impersonal, unloved, bare.

It seemed Aegon the Usurper did a thorough job stripping the place, thought Aemon, looking around. The vile cunt.

The lack of previous adornments did not deter Mūna. She looked tentative but pleased. The castle was doing what all of her king-given necklaces and crowns could never manage: lifting the heavy cloak of despair and melancholy from her shoulders. She was touching the courtyard walls like they were treasures brought from Old Valyria. In a way, they were. In a way, she was too.

Mūna gave him a slow, warm smile, plain and kindly as only she could manage. She paddled towards him and took his arm.

“Come,” She gave him a warm smile, “I’ll show you my home.”

And all Aemon could do, all he wanted to do for the rest of his life, was to follow her.

She took him inside Dragonstone, ran along its roughly hewn banisters with her fingers. She pointed to a long gash at one end of the great hall, “I made that when I was six. Tried playing with Dark Sister and nearly took my own head off. Daemon laughed about it for years.”

She pointed to a bracket mounted tall on one wall, a black dragon twisted around it, and said, “Joffrey liked to hang off those things, he said it would strengthen his arms, but he mostly used to drop on unsuspecting people.”

She pointed at the balcony of a musty bedroom, and said, “Baela used to sneak out at night, the walls below that window are the most uneven so it’s the easiest way to climb down. Asked me to cover for her as a muppet under the covers. She always got caught though. Mother was waiting for her with the eyebrow the minute she looked down.”

There she mimicked the eyebrow lift. A sort of “Did you really think that was going to work” sort of thing. Yes, Aemon could see it.

She pointed at a grand, airy bedroom, and said, “Jace would drag Maester Gerardys to his rooms after supper to keep learning philosophy and mathematics and High Valyrian. He held him hostage until the hour of the wolf, Jace did. Drove the good Maester mad. Gerardys had to complain to Mother to get him to stop.”

Aemon could see that too. He would bet all his good coats that Daemon had definitely bemoaned about his stepson to Rhaenyra. I worry about Jace, he reads past legal codes for fun, he doesn’t sneak out to the village to drink, he spends a night at a brothel inquiring about their profit to cost margins. What are we going to do? The studious, meticulous firstborn, who should have lived to be King Jacaerys Targaryen, instead of dying as Prince Jacaerys Velaryon.

Mūna dragged her all over Dragonstone, with great eagerness. This was how Daemon and Rhaenyra liked their wine, strong and bitter but also fruity. This was where Joffrey fell and broke his foot. That was the spot where her dragon Arrax liked to sulk until they gave him a basket of charred chicken to nibble over. This was the spot where Lucerys spilled an entire bucket of lingonberry jam on Queen Rhaenyra’s favorite dress, and toiled for three weeks to make her a new one. The dress turned out to be a crooked, uneven thing, but still Queen Rhaenyra wore it for over a year.

She took him to Aegon’s garden, a dramatic, explosive thing of bright flowers crawling over obsidian dragon statues.

“This was where I had my first kiss,” she said, pointing to a tall, lopsided willow tree. “Rhaena dared me to do it. And I told her that if I did, she would have to be my paramour until we were both at least fifty. We sealed that pact with our lips.”

The sun was going down, it stained her black gown almost navy. She looked happy in her remembrance, almost giddy. Aemon wished a rift would open in the world, in Dragonstone, right beneath that willow tree where she could step through and be transported into her family’s arms, where she was still a girl of four and ten and all of her parents are alive and her one-eyed uncle a half-forgotten specter in her life.

“It seemed that particular tree is a great purveyor of romance,” said Mūna, gossiply, in a rather sudden turnabout. Aemon looked at her in surprise. She placed her hands on her hips.

“That was also where Baela met Alyn,” she said.

Aemon blinked rapidly. What?

Mūna saw his puzzled expression and gave a small chuckle. Aunt Baela must have told her, maybe when she snuck out of the Red Keep for her elopment.

“Baela didn’t like Alyn at first, did she tell you?” Mūna asked.

No, Aunt Baela didn’t tell Aemon anything if she could help it.

It was hard to imagine how those two could ever dislike each other, though. It seemed they came into this world like that, with Lord Alyn dutifully holding Aunt Baela’s cloak for her, standing back as she strode forward to cleanse a lord or lady of their arrogance with her words and sometimes her fists.

Mūna laughed even wider at the face Aemon was now making.

“Baela thought Alyn an over-ambitious over-confident boy who’s too stupid to know how stupid he is and was trying very hard to seduce her man,” Mūna declared, sunbright and feather-light.

Prince Jacaerys?

Aemon’s eyebrows became even more wrinkled.

“He was not stupid at all,” Mūna wiggled her hands, “And he was not trying to steal Jace. Alyn was trying to seduce her. Lord Cregan was trying to seduce Jace.”

Lord Cregan?!

Everyday Aemon became gladder and gladder of his decision to never marry.

“I thought Lord Stark was interested in you, Mūna?” croaked out Aemon.

Mūna let out a moon bright laugh. A sort of almost haughty self-confidence came over her, the kind of endearing brattiness only the most beloved princess of a royal family could muster.

“Everyone was interested in me,” she said.

This was the least surprising thing Aemon learned today. Lucerys was born to be loved, not to be hurt. Everyone should love Lucerys Velaryon. It’s an affront to the Gods that she was ever hurt. Give him two more years and he will send Aemond down to meet the Gods, and Arrax can come at that greenish ghastly king with a Valyrian steel chair. Both the god and the dragon.

Mūna brushed some errant grit off her big dress, her usual elegant calmness coming over her again.

“Shall we go down to the village?” She asked.

-

The village of Dragonstone was a small, closely clustered thing, full of stone houses with steep roofs and dragons carved everywhere. There was a black dragon wrapped around the spire of the modest sept, there were dragons etched onto the brick walkways, there were dragons and sphinxes and basilisks curved over the fountain in the town square. Everything smelled of fish, mixed with a kind of deep, penetrating smell of earthy smoke and leather.

It’s grand and austere, magnificent in some places, ordinary in all the rest.

It was easy to imagine Lucerys growing up here, in this small pocket of tranquility, she who loved everyone and everyone in turn loved her. Who, just in a few short years, would have all of this ripped away from her.

Mūna was intent to to drag him all over the island. Aemon did not mind. There were lights in her eyes and a smile on her face. That’s all he wished for, ever since he would think to wish for anything.

“This is where I got drunk the first time,” she pointed at a run-down tavern, shining with rusted green paint, The Emerald Dragon. “Daemon thought it would be a good idea to have a bonding moment with his step-children. I got drunk on just one jug of black beer. He had to carry me home. Mother wacked him with her shawl for it.”

The tavern itself was a high-ceilinged but rickety place, slowly filling with dock workers and fishermen coming down from a hard day’s toiling to find a few hours of peace. A good place for the Prince of the City to roam and to teach his children.

“My word,” A heavy, gasping voice said behind him. Aemon whipped around and shoved Mūna behind him. It appeared to be a baker, wearing an old, dirty apron dusted with flour, who abandoned his evening closing up to come over to them.

“It can’t be,” The baker breathed out in astonishment, his thick beard quivering, “Princess?”

Lucerys tilted her body out from behind Aemon, her eyes bright. Aemon looked down. Since when had he been able to look down at her. There was a sort of puzzled wonderment on her face, the same kind of puzzlement as when she saw the grown Uncle Viserys, a slow disbelief that her dreams was not a dream and could actually come true.

“Ollie?” She asked.

The baker nodded, fat tears started coming out of his eyes.

There was a slow crack to Mūna’s countenance.

“You’ve grown old,” she whispered.

The crack became a rapture, then a chasm.

Lucerys tore out from behind her son, uncaring of the guards tasked to her safety, and ran forward to elope Ollie in as hard a hug as her weak arms could manage.

Ollie, from the only bakery in the village, who put sunflower seeds on his loaves, who always saved the softest piece for her, who allowed Lucerys to sit beside his great big oven as he shoved one soft dough after another as she complained about all the trivial and petty wrongs her siblings had done to her.

She smoothed a scarred palm over the great man’s wrinkled face. Ollie, with the hearty smile and the big belly, who always refused her coins whenever she tried to slip extra into his pockets. She was as tall as him now, seventeen years later, when he seemed so big for a tiny girl.

He could not stop crying, big bulbous tears lined his aged, hardened face. He’s crying for her. She did not think anyone here would remember her anymore.

“You’ve grown old,” She could only say.

Ollie gave a broken, relieved laugh.

“M’grown old,” The man could only repeat.

Lucerys gave a smile, splintered by sadness, “How’s your daughter? Is she married yet?”

Ollie the baker wiped his tears with great, sootstained hands and nodded eagerly. He turned back to his bakery and yelled, “Joanie! Joanie! The Princess is back!”

His shouts tore through the peaceful evening, and the entire village seemed to wake up from its stupor. Slowly, surely, then almost like a tidal wave, people began to stream out from their homes, from their shops, for beneath bridges and awnings.

Aemon pressed himself to Mūna, back to back, as the people crowded around him. Not crowding him, they were polite in their eagerness, but there was a sort of upbeat, fissured joy alighting them, as they’ve woken up from a long winter. No one had ever looked at him with such gratitude, such reverence. Women were pressing fruits and flowers into his hands, dried fish into the hands of his guards, bread rolls and smoked meat onto his garrison soldiers.

They were crowding around Mūna as well, hands and fists reaching towards her. She could scarcely touch them all. They were calling her name, they were waving their handkerchiefs, they had not forgotten her.

Lucerys felt as if she could burst. They had not forgotten her! They were all alive and they had not forgotten her!

And they were so beautiful too!

There was Joanie, waxen haired and tall, with a constellation of freckles across her nose. She had a daughter! She had two daughters! Anne and Isabel! With the same freckles as their mother's across their sweet brows. There was Jeb the lonely vagrant, who loved sweet wine and telling good stories, now hunchbacked and stooping but still strong with his hands to grasp hers and shake them with vigor. There was Glenn the armorer, still coiled with muscle and dark with hair, gruff with his voice but gentle with his words, who refused to tell her how he lost his right hand. Lucerys unclasped and broke her necklace and quickly shoved a piece into his sootstained shirt.

She thought they were all dead, that the Usurper had razed Dragonstone to the ground and all she could do was to trace their faces in the dead of night, afraid to forget them, afraid to forget herself. They were what got her through the coldest of days inside that stupid crimson Keep, behind that stupid iron door. They were the stars that made up the constellations of her life, along with her mother and fathers and brothers.

She had a life at Dragonstone. She had a life!

Lucerys held hands she never thought she would hold again. She greeted people she thought long gone.

Fadren the stonemason rebuilt his shop. Isolde the weaver can now make purple dye. Thea and Pip have learnt to make shoes, and were no longer the tiny niblings she snuck off with to throw mud into the creaks. Everyone was so, gloriously, miraculously, alive.

“We miss you!” They said. “We love you!” They said.

She misses them too. She loves them too.

There were happy tears in her eyes, great happy tears.

Their farms were yielding well. Their crops were healthy. Their brothers recovered from the pox. A new apothecary opened in the village. They have children now.

That was Tilda the woodcarver, who pushed her son forward, her thick black hair tied neatly beneath a cap and her wide-eyed boy’s shaved close to his scalp. Ric, she named him. She had gotten married! She has three children now!

“You have a son!” Lucerys shouted over the hubbub, shaking Tilda’s rough, labored hands. Sunlight was receding down the horizon. Sunlight was pouring out of her face. She felt overjoyed and euphoric. Tilda broke out into a teary laugh and nodded aggressively, matching her princess's delight.

“You have a son!” Lucerys shouted once more, “I have a son!”

She turned half away and took Aemon by the arm, and dragged her beautiful son, confused and not knowing how to be delighted, to be presented to her home.

“See!” She shouted, youthful and glorious and just, unbelievably happy, “I have a son! Aemon Targaryen, your new Prince of Dragonstone!”

And the village, the castle, the island, roared their satisfaction into the sky.

-

The celebration of Queen Lucerys’ return to Dragonstone was an enormous, triumphant affair. The revelry extended from the village square, right below the obsidian etched sept and the gargoyle etched fountain, all the way down the main road of the village and into the heart of the Dragonstone castle itself.

No one gave any airs or sowed any discord. Petty thieves put aside their trade, mercenaries put aside their deceits, drunkards put aside their rage. Garrisons stationed at the nearby island outcroppings came, rowing in on small boats to keep order and to partake. Soldiers stationed at Dragonmont came, climbing down from where they had their camps etched into the mountains. Everyone on the island came. Everyone came to celebrate the return of Queen Lucerys.

How he wished Baelon and Daella were here, so they could see how much they were loved, how much they were not alone in their love for their mother.

Aemon ordered the larders of the castle to be opened and be shared with the island. The villagers brought out their own stock from their butteries as well, black bread mixed with glazed goose on the tables, much like how Highborns were mingled with lowborns, farmers with soldiers, lords with blacksmiths. Lord Tully was seen arguing vehemently with the dockhands on the best way to fish. Lord Hightower was explaining with wild gestures something to do with perfume to a group of lovely seamstresses. Aemon himself was fending off flirtatious solicitations of more and more young maidens and a few boys here and there as well.

And Mūna… Mūna was dancing.

She was dancing, with Thea and Pip, the shoemakers, dancing and jumping like the floor was not the floor but flowing waves of the sea, as dexterous as any merling from its bottomless depths.

This was to be the first time she danced after she’d been kidnapped and married. Not even at her own wedding had she danced with her husband, weak as she was then. But now, now, as the royal courtiers played the lyre alongside the cheap village bards on their lutes, she danced. Now she could dance, now she could be as joyous and wild and silly as she wanted.

Aemon hoped that for tonight, for just one night, Mūna could forget about the world, and pretend she was back in her mother’s halls, surrounded by familiar obsidian, her brothers around her, her father before her. Her grandfather parading her steps and her grandmother cautioning her wine. To allow herself the freedom to live in just one moment of unburdened bliss, to believe the last seventeen years were just a bad dream.

As he looked at her, as she laughed as wide as the moon, as she hiked her skirts and tossed her hair, free and uncoiled with all of her jeweled pins already given away to curious children running underfoot, he could almost see that silvered dancing girl all those years before. That glorious girl living with her protective father and loving mother in this little pocket of familial warmth, unburdened by the weight of war, unhaunted by ghosts.

There danced a bright-eyed beautiful woman, with pearl-shine gleaming off her skin and sunlight in her eyes, here to chase the gloom away.

Aemon suddenly understood his father, with an almost feverish feral clarity. If his betrothed were to look like that, like the gentle blooming warmth of a dawning, wreathed in stars and wrapped in sunlight, who could make any of the Gods sigh in happiness just to hear her laugh, he would’ve done anything to claim her too.

Then came another foolish thought, a sort of vicious satisfaction curling in his chest. Mūna looked resplendent. Beautiful. The great shadows behind her eyes faded completely. She was happy. For this moment, Lucerys was truly, wholly, exuberantly happy.

King Aemond may own Mūna in every way possible, but her joy, only Aemon had brought out her joy.

But that was definitely a foolish thought. Aemon gave a wry, self-deprecating smile to his goblet. A useless, unspeakable thought.

Just then, Ollie the baker jumped onto a long table and raised his tankard. Aemon looked up. The dancing ceased, but the crowd was still formed in the middle, eager to jump back into the rhythm.

“A toast,” shouted the old, stocky baker to the roaring night air, “To the Prince of Dragonstone! Aemon Targaryen! Who returned our princess - well, our Queen now - back to her home!”

He raised his tankard, Dornish red Aemon ordered to be brought out from the cellars sloshing around the chipped cup. “Hail to the prince!” He shouted.

The hall shouted back, “Hail!”

Mūna clapped her hands and shouted along with them.

Aemon did not know what to do with this new found love. Beloved by the people was a character trait rarely reserved for him. Aemon was never easily well liked. People expected him to be tyrannical like his father, he was forgotten when he was not, and it was only in moments where he was being cruel and practical and ruthless that the lords and ladies of court turned to see him as a person that existed. He did not know what to do with all this unabashed, unreturnable love. What did he do to deserve it? What does he need to do to be worthy of it?

He slowly climbed onto a separate long table, goblet in hand. Ollie climbed down. He did not know what to say.

“A toast,” was all he could say. He raised his cup high, “To my mother.”

The music stopped. Everyone fell quiet to listen to him.

Aemon looked out over the walls of the castle, over the blue-gray horizon out towards the sea.

“A toast.” He repeated.

He looked down at Mūna, who was smiling up at him. He was her beautiful boy. How could he ever be worthy of her love?

“To Queen Lucerys Velaryon,” Her son said, with a face not drawn on parchment but sculpted in marble with a loving, fragile hand, “Who is as caring as she is beautiful. As kind as she is brave. Who endured the worst the world had to offer, and survived, herself.”

Hands were clapping in the air, fists were shaken, a full-throated roar was beginning to build.

“To my mother, to your princess,” Aemon raised his glass impossibly high, as if it were a sword raised to pierce the skies, “Hail to the Queen!”

Everyone in the room raised theirs in answer, tankards and bowls and goblets and cups, raised high to the ceiling.

And Dragonstone roared as one.

“Hail!”

Aemon looked down at Mūna, with her eyes glistening. He wanted to ask her. He wanted to beg her. See how beloved you are? See how worthy you are? You are needed. You are wanted. You are loved. So please, please, just stay a little while longer. Live a little while longer. Let us prove that we deserve you.

A wind blew through the courtyard, stronger and colder than what he was used to and got its fingers into his hair, and Aemon could taste the salt in it.

He saw that Mūna was without her necklace this eve. There was a long silver scar running a straight line down her neck to her collarbone. She was still so pale it was almost unnoticeable. It did not gleam.

The music started again. Mūna went back to dancing.

-

As Aemon stumbled down to the hall, bleary eyed and nursing a headache, he found the table already set. Soft bread rolls dotted with seaweed were arranged neatly next to a basket of smoked fish and a plate of bacon and beans. His favorites.

“Good morrow, Aemon,” said Mūna, smiling over a small, steaming bowl of porridge and potatoes. A boiled egg sat next to her, already half eaten. Her cheeks were rosy. Only one handkerchief rested by her elbow.

The servants were clearing away the debris from last night. Everyone had gone back to their homes. Castellans were coming forward with their reports. He smelled blueberry tarts.

Soon, he will be embroiled in his new duties. He will learn how to run a household, how to command infantry, how to sail with a fleet. He will learn how to wash blood off dresses, how to make stomach tinctures, how to draw milk baths. He will plan with his advisors on how to invade a city.

He dropped down to his seat. Mūna smiled at him. She minced at her potatoes. Aemon sliced some sausage into tiny, tiny pieces and sneaked them into her porridge.

But the day is still beginning. The year was still beginning. His father was far away. His mother was in front of him. Aemon would not mind if they spent the rest of their lives like this, talking about her plans for the day and the festivities of last night, frozen forever in this moment. He would abandon all of his plans of usurpation and patricide and rebellion, if only he and Mūna could stay like this forever.

Chapter Text

Aemon, age 17

“Mūna?” Aemon called.

Lucerys hummed, her back to him. She sat on a winged chair on the balcony. Her nightgown was white, her shawl was blue, the stars were warm. She looked out over the horizon with a long and pensive stare.

“Sea breezes are cold at night, Mūna,” Aemon said, “Your body hasn’t recovered. Can we go inside?”

Lucerys shook her head, her hair loose and thin, and gave him a small gentle smile, “I think I’d like to watch the sea for a little while longer.”

Aemon nodded, “I’ll bring you a blanket then.” He turned to go, but Lucerys beckoned him over.

She tilted her head to the chair next to her, “Sit. Watch the stars with me.”

After a beat of hesitation, Aemon sat, reluctantly, gingerly, next to Lucerys. His mother looked back out to the sea. He tucked a wolfskin pelt around her knees.

“I was suppose to have another sister, you know,” Lucerys said, conversationally.

Aemon startled.

“Visenya?” He asked.

“Hmm,” Lucerys said, “My mother’s third child with Daemon. When she got the news that my grandfather was dead and the Greens had usurped her throne, she’d gone into labor early.”

Another cruelty. How many was it now? He had almost lost count.

Aemon sat down next to her and lent her his hand, Lucerys clutched it between her own. Her hands were weak, wrinkled and crooked, chilblains plagued her fingers. She could feel only cold, even though it was still the middle of summer. The dragonblood in her refused to warm her limbs, and instead clogged up in her lungs and her stomach and made her faint all the time.

“The baby came too early. Stillborn. Lined with dragonscale,” She rubbed Aemon’s hand, “My mother named her Visenya. After the warrior queen.”

The seas were calm tonight, tender and tranquil, much like their princess. Lucerys told him she did not expect herself to last more than three months when she stepped out of the Red Keep. She had managed two years. A triumph if there ever was one. Aemon liked to believe she was happy here, with him, with Dragonstone.

The stars were out in full force tonight, so numerous he could not even make out distinct constellations. It was like a blanket of crystals and jewels lining an ink black sky, but still, Aemon felt they were mere impoverished imitations to his mother's countenance.

Lucerys would not think so if Aemon were to tell her. She would say that her illness had made her ugly, tepid, as frightful as a ghost.

Aemon wrapped another pelt around her shoulders, and tucked some cushions between her back and the hard mahogany chair with one hand.

“I remember so many people,” Lucerys said. She shifted in her seat, her hair fell forward to her shoulders, there were not enough strands left to hide her face. She went back to stare at the waters.

“I remember the first time I saw my grandfather,” she said, a tinge of awe came into her voice, “He was so tall and so strong, I was so intimidated. Then he lifted me with his big hands and twirled me around over his head, and nuzzled his great white beard into my belly. And I knew he loved me then.”

She chuckled, “He would take me around Driftmark on his hip, around High Tide. Point out fascinating details of the sea, of the ships, of his seat. And he would say that all of these riches would one day be mine.”

Lucerys did not get to visist Driftmark after her leaving. Her body did not allow her to make even that short trip. Aunt Baela did not have leave to visit High Tide either, so there was honestly no point.

She rubbed Aemon’s hand, “I didn’t care much. I wanted it when it only meant that Grandsire would spend more time with me.”

Her face was a waning moon, gaunt and tired, tinged with old remembrance. It took her great effort to even lean forward to reach for the goblet of pomegranate juice and bring it to her lips. Aemon placed a hand underneath the cup, feather light, so the trembling of her fingers would not spill it down her gown. His heart ached.

She slowly put her goblet back.

Lucerys continued, “The Sea Snake lived for two years after the war. He forced Aemond to give him a position at the Small Council. He sent his own guards outside my door so Aemond couldn’t get in at night. He betrayed my mother and that led to her death.”

There was a soft sheen of tears in her eyes, she swallowed, “How do we reconcile that.”

Aemon does not know.

The sea breeze lifted her hair. The tears in her eyes did not fall.

“I’ve always wondered,” Her words stuttered. It was hard labor to get them out of her chest. Aemon squeezed her hand.

She took a deep breath, “I’ve always wondered what it could’ve been like, had none of this ever happened.”

Yearning, longing, wistful.

Aemon often wondered too.

Lucerys looked out over the Narrow Sea, there was a kind of terrible quietness in her voice.

“My mother would still be alive,” she said, “She would be Queen Rhaenyra, First of Her Name. She would govern well, when given the chance and a full treasury. She would formalize the rules of inheritance. She would let masons and blacksmiths form their own guilds. She will repave the Kingsroad and maybe invade Dorne.”

There she gave a dry chuckle. Aemon could only manage a wilted curve to his lips.

“Daemon would be her Hand, strategic and deadly," she said, "Her shield against any and all assassination attempts, none of which would ever succeed.”

Lucerys looked to the stars. They twinkled in welcome merriment back at her, and said, “And they would leave the running of the Keep to Queen Alicent. Who really wanted a peaceful retirement back to the Hightower but could not bear to see the castle be left to the dogs. She would stay and wrangle Aegon the Elder and help Helaena raise her children.”

At this Mūna let out a dry chuckle, akin to a sob. Her brows twisted, her face crumpled.

“Helaena would be alive,” she whispered, “Jaehaerys and Jaehaera and Maelor too. All of them would’ve glowed golden and perfect in their solars. They would’ve been able to grow up, into dashing knights, erudite scholars, and sensible ladies.”

His mother tried to smile, but her eyes were so sad. So unbelievably sad.

She descended into a coughing fit, back trembling, chest heaving. Aemon pawed out a handkerchief and handed it to her. Lucerys quickly coughed into that silky embroidered fabric and when she subsided, a whole minute longer than last time, blood, expected now, pooled onto the cloth.

But Mūna did not relent.

“Joffrey would grow to be a strong knight,” she continued, her voice clogged, “Gallant and fearless. He would smash through the lists by the time he was seventeen, the youngest and fastest to ever do so. Daemon would knight him, and give him Dark Sister with a proud smile on his face.”

Uncle Joffrey would’ve grown bigger than Ser Harwin Strong. Perhaps he would join his mother’s Queensguard and guard her against poisoners and sellswords who wish her ill. Or perhaps he would train his own garrison at Dragonstone, dining and roughing with the foot soldiers and the common knights with no bearings of high born pretentions.

“Viserys would’ve explored the world,” Mūna said, “Went on tour after tour of the realm, and sailed with me or with grandfather to as many corners of Essos as he could reach. He would get drunk and kiss a lot of girls and even more boys and be merry.”

Uncle Viserys would not need to hide his true self under layers of cavalier and unserious masks, forcing others to underestimate him to survive. He could be as grandiose as he wanted, or as cheerful, or as silly. He would be the fifth son, no need to train himself to meet any responsibility. He could write books, publish poetry, compile a compendium of all the great mountains of the world.

Mūna’s smile cracked. Her soul was seeping out, bit by tiny bit.

“Aegon wouldn’t be so melancholy and sad all the time,” Mūna said, “He would be a bright-eyed youth, innocent in his enthusiasm for the world. He would tottle after our father, be his voice of caution, be his delight.”

Uncle Aegon would not be so stern or joyless. Lady Daenaera would not need to cheer him or bring him out of his broodings. They would be twin suns, lighting up the Keep with their laughter and sweetness, to the joy of the realm.

“Visenya would have lived,” Mūna said.

Visenya would have lived.

Aemon would have a third aunt. She would be a warrior with a great black dragon, talented in everything she wanted to learn. She would be spoiled and capricious, quick to anger, and loved her family so much she is willing to burn down a city for them. Maybe she would have been betrothed to Jaehaerys, to bridge the gap between the families. Maybe she would have fallen in love with Jaehaera, and they would elope on their dragons to the ends of the world.

The dragons would not have died either. Lucerys would still have her faithful Arrax, to protect her and play with her until they were both grown.

Aemon’s expression matched Mūna’s. An unspeakable hurt twisted his face until all that’s left was unspeakable loss and grief.

Then, the deepest, hardest grief came over her brows. Aemon took her hands in between his and puffed a gasp of hot air onto them, trying to warm her with his own life. Her pulse had quickened.

“Jacaerys would’ve lived,” said Mūna, with a stuttered, half wheeze, “He would’ve been a remarkable Crown Prince and then an even better king. He would’ve married Baela and they would’ve had a brood of children together, filled the Red Keep with even more pattering feet and the Dragonpit with even more dragons.”

She gave a teary chuckle, as bitter as nightshade.

“Perhaps they would live on Dragonstone instead. Raise their children here.”

There should be a whole family here, a big household, crinkling the walls with joy and laughter and utter chaos. Jacaerys would lug his advisors and his sworn lords around the island to inquire about grain yields and fishing tariffs, while his lady wife Baela flew dazzling loops above him and hollered cheers down at the village. Dragonstone would be a home first, a sancturary first, not just a fortress to house helmeted infantrymen and a dozen useless maesters.

The night had turned cold. The stars were still warm.

“And you, Mūna?” Aemon whispered, “What about you?”

Mūna widened her eyes slightly, as if she never considered this question. As if in her perfect world Lucerys Velaryon never existed. As if she thought the only way to achieve that world was for her to never exist in the first place.

Aemon could not even conceive of such thought, let alone imagine it. Just acknowledging a world without Lucerys Velaryon was so painful it made his vision white out. He did not know what was worse, the fact that she thought that she was the cause of her family’s tragedy, or that she might hate herself, so much so that she wished she never existed.

Queen Rhaenyra would’ve tossed herself into the deepest pits of the Seven Hells if that was the price of her perfect world. Aemon knew he would.

“What about you, Mūna?” Aemon asked again, insistent lest he starts sobbing.

Lucerys looked down, and spoke softly. “I would’ve inherited Driftmark,” she said, “Kept Grandmother Rhaenys by my side, refused to let her go, begged to keep holding onto her skirts for a couple more years before she tossed me out to explore the world. I would’ve gone on voyages with my Grandsire, flew with Arrax to see Volantis or Pentos or even the great Dothraki Sea. And then I would come back, scarred and amused, to pick a husband for myself.”

There, she croaked out an involuntary giggle.

“Perhaps I would choose Addam Velaryon, Alyn’s twin,” she said, a wilted, desolated smile to her face, “He would be alive too. We would spend all of our times flying together. Me on Arrax and him on Seasmoke.”

Addam Velaryon would’ve been a good match, thought Aemon. From Lord Alyn’s mouth, his elder brother was honest and sincere to the point of being perceived as naive. He was also relentless and determined and a superb fighter. He managed to bring down Vermithor, Silverwing and Tessarion all by his lonesome. He would be as sharp as Aemond but he would never have hurt her. He would’ve been her sword and shield, and remained brave and true to her for the rest of his life.

“Maybe I’d never marry,” said Mūna, “And just stay at High Tide until I pass my seventieth year, with Rhaena by my side.”

And be like the first Rhaena Targaryen, and be called Queen of the East once more.

“Perhaps I’d go into battle against Dalton Greyjoy,” she said, a playful tint entered her voice, giving her ashy lips a spot of color, “The Lannisters petitioned for help from the Crown against his pirating down the Westerlands. I’d come to answer with my Velaryon ships. I would burn through his fleet with dragonfire until he is forced to submit, and then I’d take him home like he did his salt wives and make him my consort.”

Darlton Greyjoy would’ve thought her a goddess when she descended on that pearlescent yellow-bellied dragon to claim him. He would’ve been like Daemon, constantly asking his far more sensible wife if he could attack Myr or Tyrosh and constantly being rebuffed in return. The day she finally allowed him to sail down and invade Dorne was the second-happiest day of his life. The first was when he saw his daughter stab a man in the leg when she was five.

Aemon chuckled. Mūna did as well.

It felt good to imagine.

“Perhaps I would not even have Driftmark,” Mūna said, “I’ll leave it to Rhaena, and fly off to the North and burrow with Lord Cregan. No need for Baela and Jacaerys’ child to make the trip, since their sister already fulfilled their promise for them.”

Honorable Lord Stark would have received her with a stern but surprised welcome. He would not know what to do with such an unexpected guest, and would constantly inquire if something was remiss or if there’s anything he could do, but he would give her his best hospitality all the same. Winter might descend suddenly and Lucerys would have no choice but to stay it out. By the time the snow cleared, the young wolf Rickon would have imprinted on her so hard that he would drag on her skirts to beg her to stay. And she would stay, and give him more siblings to play with.

It felt good to dream.

“Or perhaps,” she whispered, her eyes wide, unseeing in memory, “I will still honor the betrothal King Viserys gave to me, and be married to my Uncle Aemond.”

Aemon stilled. His brows furrowed.

Mūna gave him a wry smile. Aemon could see gray strands in her hair. She continued, “It wouldn’t be too bad. He’d mellow out after we had a screaming match or five. I’ll get so mad I’ll take my fleet and my dragon to go fight down in the Stepstones. He’ll chase after me and land right in the middle of a battle and scream about how irresponsible I am. I’ll save his life. He’ll save mine. We’ll go back to Driftmark utterly besotted and with all of our debts paid.”

She leaned back into her furs, utterly exhausted. There’s a small, wistful smile to her lips, her eyes enthused and shining with the surety that it could never be real.

“We’ll have four children together,” she said, as light as dust, “Graceful Daella, lively Rhaelle, steadfast Baelon, and wise Aemon. And they all lived to see old age.”

Aemon looked down at his hands. His eyes trembled, though his fingers did not.

“Do you love him, Mūna?” He asked.

He did not think how he would feel if she said yes.

“I could’ve,” she said. Aemon looked back up at her.

Mūna was looking out over the balcony again, avoiding his eyes, and said, “Like Argella Durrandon, who was a war prize of her own. She grew to love the man who slew her father, and lived quite contentedly with him and died of old age.”

“I don’t blame her actually,” Mūna said, her fingers rubbing at his, “I admire her. Kingdom conquered, family all dead, no one even thinking of contesting Orys Baratheon. Out of all that, she managed to live her life well. I wish I could do that.”

Orys Baratheon didn’t rape Argella when her traitorous banners dragged her to his tent, thought Aemon.

“Why not love him?” He asked, though he can’t believe he did.

“I think that would be a betrayal,” she said. There was no curve to Mūna’s lips now, her eyes were steely and hard, “To my dead mother, my dead father, my dead brothers and sister. I could not get revenge for them, the least I could do is to not desecrate their memory.”

Lucerys was made of flesh and blood, though her spine was Valyrian steel.

“The way I see it,” She continued, “Love is forgiveness. When you love someone, you do not just love the pieces you like. You must love their entirety. This. This I cannot stand.”

There was a hard-forged iron in her voice as she leaned forward to her son, and said, “If I had fallen in love with Aemond, then that would mean I have also forgiven him, wholly and entirely. To do that, I would have forgotten every crime committed to my family, my dead family, and to me.”

"So, no." She said, her voice as hard as dragonscales, "I don't love him. I refuse."

Her brown eyes glinted silver in the night hair. Aemon could do nothing but stare at her in awe.

“I’m glad, actually, that he took me when he did,” she said, leaning back, a wry twist to her lips, her voice becoming softer, “I was still only fond of him then, when I saw him again when we went to the Red Keep to defend my heirship. I thought him unworldly handsome, but that was it. If we had spent more time together, I might’ve fallen in love. And then I’d have no choice but to do my utmost to take my own life.”

Aemon clenched down on Lucerys’ fingers in reflex. A sharp heat stabbed through his chest. He quickly let go of her hand, afraid that he had hurt her. Mūna did not appear to notice.

She continued, with the brittle hardness of pearls, who would rather shatter into a thousand pieces than be threaded onto a dress she did not like, “I would have felt even more disgusting than I do. All of that conflicting emotions inside me. The love of my life having caused the ruin of my family. I wouldn’t have been able to reconcile it.”

Her brows pinched, such deprecation in her eyes, such melancholy on her lips.

“I would’ve followed Helaena out the window before my eighteenth year,” she said.

And she would. She would. Nothing can stop her. No amount of convincing or pleading or children can stop her then.

“So I’m glad I didn’t,” she said, “I’m very glad.”

Mūna plunged on, no longer talking to Aemon, but to the winds, “He has found recourse for the death of his family. The killer of Aegon the Elder was a pile of charred bones. He killed the murderer of little Jaehaera and sweet Helaena himself. Tessarion and Vermithor avenged Daeron and tore loyal Addam to shreds. The Queen Dowager died of Winter Fever, a will of the Gods. Otto Hightower was beheaded by my mother, and she was in turn burnt to death by Aegon.”

There, she clenched Aemon’s fingers in a bruising grip, “But what about mine? The Triarchy gave no apology for their murder of Jacaerys. Joffery’s body lay in splinters, too many hands have torn through him it was impossible to punish them all. My mother’s killer was dead, but the lords and ladies who refused her shelter when she was driven out of her city died of old age in their comfortable beds. And my father. My grandmother. Their killer still walks free, with none in the entirety of Westeros daring to arrest him.”

There, Lucerys paused, took a deep breath, and finally allowed herself to feel angry, to draw up all that rage that she had pushed down deep inside so she could not ruin the realm for the sake of Aemond, for the sake of Aemon.

“And what about mine?” She demanded, softly, vehemently, “The crimes visited on my person?”

At that Mūna deflated, suddenly remembering her own line of cruel logic that forbade herself from seeking vengeance.

She looked back at Aemon, weak and lost, and said, “I don’t love him and I don’t forgive him. That's all I can do.”

Aemon could do nothing but step out from his chair, kneel at her feet, and give her the tightest hug he can.

“I would rather have a life of hideous torment,” Mūna murmured into his neck, her voice weak, her soul strong, “Than have a moment of mindless bliss.”

She gave a wet, despairing laugh, and said, “My mother would not have minded, if I did fall in love with him and forgotten about her. My brothers would not. All of my fathers would not. They would have wanted me to live as long as I can, and as happy as I could manage it.”

She chuckled, “Another wasteful and useless insistence. Some would call it.”

It was not useless or wasteful at all. It is who she is. She would not be Lucerys Velaryon if she insisted on anything else. She was stubborn and honorable and kind and proud, and anyone who tried to convince her to be otherwise was the real villain.

Aemon pressed his face into the hollow of her throat, and hugged her as tight as he could.

“How do you think the chronicles of history will remember me?” asked Mūna, her voice small, her eyelashes fluttering. “Do you think they will be like Alicent Hightower, who thought me dramatic and pretentious for my resistance, fickle and weak for my compromises, and ultimately a treacherous whore who seduced her good and upright son and caused a civil war?”

That seemed in character for the dowager queen, for who else could birth Aemond One-Eye, righteous in his monstrosity?

“She tried to cut out my womanhood with a knife once,” she whispered, deeply tired and deeply sad. Aemon tightened his grip.

“I understand her, really." Lucerys said, "She lost three children in just under a year. That’s enough to make anyone mad.”

Aemon hates everyone who thinks Mūna deserved what she got in equal vehemence. If Alicent Hightower felt sad about the deaths of her children, she should’ve tossed herself onto the spikes in the dried moat like her good daughter did. It would reunit her with her dead children a lot faster than a disease ever could.

How could anyone think Mūna would ever deserve all of that? How could they even stand by and watch it happen?

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Mūna,” Aemon said, steel hard and ironclad, “He was wrong. They were all wrong.”

Lucerys gave a great sigh, let go of him, and looked back out to the grimy sea, to the stars, to the great beyond.

Aemon said hurriedly, desperate to chase away the blankness in her eyes, “They will say that you were an effective Queen, who did your best to care for your children and the realm. That you did you and you were right and none of this should have ever happened!”

Aemon will cut off the fingers of anyone who refuses to write it as such.

Lucerys saw that well of turmoil in his eyes, and smoothed a hand over his brows.

“I just wish I could have been a better mother for you,” she whispered.

The pain at this was thin and acute. It was as if someone had pulled a silver needle through Aemon's heart, and tugged at the thread like a bard would pluck at his fiddle.

“But you did wonderfully, Mūna,” he said, willing her to understand, “You were brilliant.”

Lucerys only shook her head.

Aemon looked at her with such wretched incomprehension. If she were four and ten, she would have lapped up the compliments like they were her due. Now, she could not even look at the honest truths that were hers to claim.

Aemon's fingers trembled, his voice wobbled, he was struggling to be calm.

“Mūna…” Aemon said.

Lucerys still looked too far away.

Aemon was still kneeling, his face was a miserable twist heartbreak, but he forced himself to continue, “They say the people of Yi Ti believed that when one passes, the Maiden-Made-of-Light send their immortal souls back to the mortal world, and they would be reborn as someone else, in a better life.”

His eyes were bloodshot trying to keep his tears at bay.

Muna looked at him in helplessness, in love. Even now, she still tried to curve her lips to reassure her child.

“If there is a next life,” Aemon said, cracked and bruised, “Can I be your son then too?”

And Lucerys, blinking the darkness away from her eyes, squeezed his hand, and gave him a smile like a silver of moonlight.

“Of course you can,” she said, “Of course you can.”

And Aemon could only bend himself over her like a sinner seeking absolution from a too-kind god, with absolute longing and devastation, knowing he did not deserve it. He did his best to lift his lips into some semblance of warmth, to turn his face into some semblance of reassurance.

“Then I’ll be alright Mūna,” he said, as resolutely as he can, “We’ll be alright.”

Lucerys could only give a lost aftersmile in response. Aemon reached over and kissed her on the cheek.

“There’s still some night left,” he said, “Let’s go to bed?”

Mūna nodded, bone-deep tiredness swimming in her eyes. She lifted her arms, and Aemon reached under her shoulders and knees to lift her up. Her nightshirt was light, she was lighter, and Aemon carried her easily.

“Sleep, Mūna,” Aemon whispered into her hair, “You’ll find Queen Rhaenyra there.”

Lucerys nodded. “Thank you, Aemon,” she whispered.

Aemon pressed a kiss to her brow, and turned to head inside.

Lucerys slipped her eyes closed but did not dream of her mother. Just a little nap, she told herself, then she’ll get up for breakfast. It will be a cloudless, windy day tomorrow, her favorite, and she’d finally asked Aemon to take her flying.

She was happy here, she’d forgotten to tell Aemon. She was. She was happy. It was a peaceful two years she lived. Restful and tranquil. No more deciphering of hidden meanings behind words, no more suffocating responsibilities, no more fear. She went wherever she liked. She sat at the fountain all day and braided the village girls' hair. She spent a whole day baking gooseberry pies with Ollie. She taught Jeb all the songs of King's Landing, and hid in his lair from Glenn when the armorer stalked the village trying to return her alms to her. She read to the infantrymen in their barracks. She slept in the Dragonmont like a common sellsword, the volcanic heat that ignited Meraxes and birthed Caraxes warmed her in turn. All of that, thanks to him.

Her fingers are thin but they do not tremble. She does not hide her scars with powders. She smiled because she wanted to smile. She goes still because she did not want to move, not because she must act happy when presented with another gaudy necklace, not because she’s holding back toiling fear from erupting out her chest and taking her right to Balerion.

Lucerys is not afraid of death. She has met every variation of a death god many times in her life.

When she lay comatose after her whipping, bleeding everywhere and ruining expensive royal linens, she dreamt of autumn winds and golden trees. She thought she heard them sigh and heard them cry and knew if she chose she could be carried away by them, to return dust and be one with the rocks, the streams, the trees, the beasts. But she was scared then, and did not want to go. And so the old gods smoothed their winds over her feverish brow like how Ser Harwin would press his big warm hands over her shoulders, and let her resurface to a cruel and hard wasteland.

During her first childbirth, when she was screaming and alone, locked in a darkened room where Ser Harwin burned to death, while her mother was set ablaze, while her husband was out setting scores of Riverland farmers on fire; the Stranger came. Nobody but the Stranger came, as she lay bleeding on cold and stained beddings. He offered her a kind, boney hand and the gentleness of oblivion. She told him to fuck off, wrapped her son in her soiled nightgown, crawled to the door and pounded until a foot soldier came and finally got her a maester.

When she tore out her throat, a daughter of the Merling King came. She had a great fishtail of emeralds and deep brown skin, like her father Laenor and just as beautiful. She wore a belt of glass daggers and clam shells around her waist and her deep red hair was threaded with pearls. She beckoned Lucerys to come with her, promised her that they could be sisters down in the grand twisted palace of her father and the entire sea was theirs to claim forever onwards. Lucerys pressed a kiss to the beautiful sea princess’s cheek and told her she cannot go. She has a son she must love.

When would Balerion come? She often wondered, abed and feverish. Her Valyrian god of death, with great horns on his brow, volcanic ash for robes and lava for hands. Would he be gentle? Or would he be more disappointed? That a scion of his great Freehold did not rage as hard as she could against the good night? Would her father be disappointed?

She remembers the first time she met Aemon. He was small and did not like to cry. She was so scared he might be stillborn, that her blood had clogged his throat and suffocated him, that he would be dead and Aemond would blame her for killing his heir.

But he lived. Her son was born amidst war and ruin but he lived.

Alicent wanted him to be named after Aemond, or Aegon the Usurper. She insisted, shrieking mad and utterly inconsolable. The usurper demanded also, before Larys Strong poisoned him. She saw the Master of Whispers line the rims of a row of wine cups with a violet juice, and turned right around and walked the other way. Good riddance.

She clawed Aemon’s name from Alicent twisted, stupid hands with blood and tears. She might not outlive her, but her son will outlive Alicent’s.

In the end, Lucerys named Aemon after her great-grandfather. Aemon Targaryen, son of Jaehaerys I, husband to Jocelyn Baratheon, father to Rhaenys.

She’s always liked the name Aemon. It feels very nice to say, round and smooth, filling her mouth and always ending with her lips curved. It was an uncumbersome but reliable name. Responsible. Not easily swayed.

When tracing the lines of her mother's face could not make her fall asleep, she would sit beside her son’s crib and count the wisps of his hair, and it would make the cold nights in the cold room pass a little easier. You are my child, She would whisper to him, And I will love you. She said that to Aemon night after night, carving it into her heart, until it was indisputable, until it’s as true as the sun in the sky.

When Baelon came, two years later, she did not need to convince herself anymore. It came as easily as breathing.

She had a score of midwives and maesters for her second child, ready to trip into the chamber at any hint of complications. She had bandages and clean water and fresh porridge to sooth her afterwards. The King did not know how to face her. He hid away. Perhaps he was starting to realize what he did was wrong then. He did not care for the naming, this time nor the rest. So she named her second child Baelon, after another one of her great-grandfathers. It was a more solid name than Aemon, with far more stoic harshness that he would grow into in time and wield with great dexterity.

He was bigger than her brother but just as quiet, insistent in his demands of affection, often tugging at her fingers and at her hair until she responded with a gentle kiss to his belly. He was much like Rhaelle in that. Lucerys wished Baelon did not force himself to ween off that dependency before he was a toddler. It was not unsightly for a man to be clingy, nor to be loving.

Rhaelle wailed as loud as a dragon when she came, and her egg hatched the quickest. Lucerys has a strand of her daughter’s hair stored in a locket. If not for that, she might’ve thought that Rhaelle was just a dream, her first daughter who gave her no trouble during pregnancy, no trouble during birth, and was here and gone as quick as a dream.

Daella wailed too, as loud as thunder and as healthy as summer rain. She did not have the strength to push, already too lost and tired, but Daella seemed to know, and gave no more the obligatory pains before kindly slipping out.

Rhaelle was the prettiest name she could find. Daella was the next best.

Unwanted deeds begets wanted children.

Perhaps this was why Lucerys started dying so soon. It hurts, it is heavy, to hold so much contradiction and dichotomy and irreconcilable things within her, to carry them on a knife’s edge without tipping over into madness. That, and all the other things.

But she will never regret loving her children.

She wished she had told them that. She wished she told Aemon that.

No matter. Tomorrow will be a new day. She can tell him then.

Aemon carried his Mūna to bed. Lucerys’s head was tucked into the crook of his neck. Her arms were wrapped around him. He could feel her small exhales tickling his throat.

Step. Step. Step.

Mūna’s arm slipped down from where she put them, and landed gently on her own lap. Aemon could no longer feel her breaths.

He did not slow. He did not stop. His head was ringing and his heart was squeezing and there were screams gathering at his throat, but he did not stop.

He came to Mūna’s bed, decorated with a veritable mountain of pillows, stitched with seahorses and dragons, and placed her gently in their midst.

Lucerys looked asleep, her cheeks were still rosy, her hair were still glossy. She asked to go flying with him tomorrow.

Aemon placed a trembling hand over her wrist, and found no pulse.

A tear slipped down his cheek and landed gently on his mother’s face, as if were a tear that she herself had cried.

Aemon put his mother’s hands over her belly, and his forehead to hers.

“May the wings of Balerion carry you to his home,” He choked out, fighting back tears, “So you may be reunited with your fathers, your mothers, your brothers, your sisters, and all of our kin back to the beginning of time.”

His eyes were so clouded with tears he could hardly breathe. He had prepared for two years. He was not prepared at all. He knows what he must do next. He does not know what to do at all.

He felt a phantom heat at his shoulders, cool as dragonglass and hot as lava. As if Balerion really did hear him, and answered him with a sharp reassurance.

Clouds came over and hid the moon. The sun would not be up for hours.

Aemon crumpled to his knees, his hands grasping at his mother's robes, young and lost and not yet eighteen, and wept.

And so passed Lucerys Velaryon, the Pearl of Driftmark and the Sapphire Queen, on the twenty-sixth day of the ninth moon of the 148th year after Aegon’s Conquest. She was thirty-three years of age.

Chapter Text

Aemon, age 18.

Aemon felt nothing as he invaded his father’s city.

It was a surprisingly easy affair, if he were perfectly honest. Uncle Aegon forged a royal decree proclaiming the King had “ordered” the Crown Prince back to King’s Landing. Lord Blackwood took control of the city watch and opened the gates for him. Aunt Rhaena brandished her Morning on top of the Dragonpit so the King’s loyalists knew to scuttle and flee into the waiting swords of his army, and Aunt Baela opened the doors of the Red Keep right on time, and she didn’t even shoot him a glare all the while.

It was so easy and so lop-sided it almost made Aemon feel bad about bringing one hundred Targaryen warships into Blackwater Bay.

Almost.

These days Aemon struggled to feel anything at all.

He should have, by all written expectations and explorations on the topic of usurpations, felt something. He should be feeling guilt and hesitance and anxiety, or triumph or fury or giddy excitement, but he felt nothing of the sort. It just felt routine, boring. Mundane.

He felt nothing when his garrison charged into the castle. He felt nothing when he painted the walls even more crimson with the blood of the remaining Kingsguards. He felt nothing as he pushed open the heavy black doors to the throne room, and saw his wretched father upon that wretched throne.

The remaining lords and ladies in the hall screamed and scuttled away from the dark prince in his dark armor. Aemon's steel-toed boots clanged against the stone floor as he strode forward, swinging the Conqueror's Blackfyre.

The sun slashed the evening sky a bright red.

King Aemond looked old.

His father looked terrible. His hair was matted down his spine in great tangles, his chin was flecked with pockmarks and spit, and the whites of his eyes showed all around the pupils. His chest moved up and down only minutely. It was like looking at a pale imitation of a human being, held together by uneven wax and broken threads.

King Aemond did not spare him a glance. He continued to tilt his head at the stained glass windows, staring at the deep blue sky beyond, absentmindedly dragging his hands up and down the armrests, flaying his hands open over and over until everyone still standing in the hall could see the whites of his bones. There was a pool of fresh blood at the foot of the throne, slowly covering previous splashes that had already turned brown.

His son, on the other hand, looked immaculate. HIs armor was stained only by smudges of sweat and grit and blood. His expression was set into cold unyielding lines, one half fury, the other despair.

Aemon walked forward, his uncles and siblings and cousins behind him, until he was but a footstep away from the wild shrubbery of swords that extended up to the throne. He took a slip of his cloak and wiped Blackfyre clean of blood, and shanked the legendary heirloom into the cold stone floor.

Screams penetrated the hall from the outside. Lords and ladies and courtiers and chamberlains kept their heads down and their mouths shut, struggling to stand on trembling knees. Aemon could hear the snarling of a dragon, some crunching and tearing sounds, great smashing blows, and cries of terror.

The hall remained silent.

King Aemond finally looked at his son.

“How’s Lucerys?” He asked.

Aemon’s heart spiked, as it is wont to do everytime his mother was mentioned. His hands twitched, his eyes widened, and Gaelithox, who just landed on the battlements of the Keep, let out a great scream of white fire.

“My mother is dead,” replied Aemon.

From behind him, Aegon bowed his head, Daella turned his face into Baelon’s chest, and Baela tightened her hands upon her daggers.

King Aemond blinked, and blinked again, the white film over his eyes turning green, then black. A smile twisted up his face, an ugly jagged thing with splinters and mold and dead skin, splitting his face in half and making the glint in his eye even more frightening.

He leaned over himself and spat, “You’re a liar.”

Aemon said nothing.

He had nothing more to say.

What do you say to a King that preferred to live in his own unreality, and refused any and all attempts to drag him out of it?

Aemon was the one who washed and wrapped Lucerys for the funeral. He was the one that wrote all the letters to the great lords and ladies of the realm to inform them of the Queen’s passing. He was the one who arranged their safe passage to Dragonstone. He was the one to greet them, to receive them, to welcome them. He was the one that fucking collected the wood that would make up her pyre.

Lucerys Lucerys Lucerys Velaryon. The Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. The Pearl of Driftmark. Rhaenyra’s daughter. Jacaerys’ sister. Aemon’s mother. Dead. Dead. Dead.

The funeral was arranged exactly as she wanted. She did not wish to be prayed over in a sept, so they placed her on the tip of Dragonmont, overlooking Dragonstone. She wished it could be a lively affair, and so all the lords and ladies of the realm tried their best to arrive. She did not wish to be buried or interred, so her first child choked down his sobs and ordered Gaelithox to set alight her pyre and scatter her ashes to the sea.

All of her family were there, or as many as who could make it. Mourning her along with him, holding him up as he screamed and wailed, dragging him out when he stared at his daggers for too long, forcing him still when all he wanted to do was to burn another field of fire from King’s Landing to Storm’s End. They were there, Baelon carrying Daella as they flew to him in the middle of the night. Aunt Baela tucking her children underneath her skirts as they sneaked away from the capital in a small galley. Uncle Aegon gripping Aunt Rhaena with all his might as they flew in on top of Morning, even though he was still deathly afraid of dragons, just so they could make it to say goodbye

Every lord paramount sent their condolences when they could not be there themselves. Lord Stark sent several ravens, his young son Rickon sent several more. Lord Tully was there in person. Lord Velaryon sailed down with his fleet. Lord Arryn demanded his squires saddle him a horse all the way to Dragonstone, and it was only Aemon’s insistence that he rest his broken leg that he did not come. Even the Baratheons and Lannisters sent envoys bearing small notes of regret.

But the King? Oh the King! What did he send? What did he send?! Just a small scroll attached to a raven’s leg. The Queen is recuperating well at Dragonstone. Anyone caught spreading contrarian lies will be gaoled under charges of treason.

Every letter Aemon sent was returned unopened. Every messenger Aemon sent was barred from the hall.

Fucking bastard.

Uncle Viserys could not attend his own sister’s funeral because he dared to barge into the King’s study and be the bearer of bad news.

Arseshit cunt deserved to get usurped.

But what could Aemon do? Reason is useless against such dogged efforts of delusion.

So Aemon said nothing.

He merely lifted an arm and ripped open his armor, and from beneath his chainmail, his jerkin, his tunic, right above his heart, he unearthed something wrapped in black velvet.

He took a step and gently placed the bundle onto the steps of the Iron Throne. It unfurled like a wilted flower, and revealed a bright blue clay pot, no bigger than a lady’s lip varnish.

Overhead, Gaelithox let out a low moan.

Aemon tried very hard to keep his heart in one piece.

He waited. The hall remained silent.

With great effort, King Aemond picked himself off his chair, his bones creaking, his feet crackling. He walked down the steps tremulously, unevenly, walking like something after it had already been put to death.

He bent down, more creaking. His fingers were still long and still bloodied as he picked up the little pot. His touch was light.

He unscrewed the lid gently and out tilted a little smear of ash onto a bloody palm.

It must’ve been painful, it was right on the bone, but Aemond gave no indication of it. He merely looked at the little spot of white in the middle of his hand, not even a thimbleful, no more than a nail. White like wood ash, from a pyre, dull around the edges from the passing of the moons, no longer crisp. Not gray and coarse. It was owdery. It was wood ash. He looked and looked with genuine confusion that slowly, slowly, turned into dawning comprehension.

That comprehension was like a wound, beginning at the end of his chin and slowly crawling up his face, until it reached his eyes and ignited. Alighting his whole body, from his eye to his hair to his broken toes, with terror and disbelief and anguish. It cracked it his face open into a yawning maw of wretchedness, until he finally understood what it meant. What he missed.

And then, Aemond began to laugh.

He began to laugh.

Laughing like it was the greatest joke in the world. Laughing at the cruel absurdity of it all.

Lucerys is dead.

Lucerys is dead!

Oh Lucerys is dead! She is dead! She! Is! Dead!

Lucerys Lucerys Lucerys. Dead dead dead! Her son set her pyre ablaze and tossed her ashes into the sea except this little slip she decided to magnanimously bestow upon him. Her husband, her jailor, her king. How cruel. How Lucerys. When she said she never wanted to see him again in her life, she kept that promise. She kept it like the Warrior keeping shut the gates of the heavens and the Father’s golden hall. She wrote him no letter, gave no word, and offered no recourse. He was a small disturbance in her mind, and deserve no further efforts of feeling besides a bare acknowledgement of his presense. So cruel. So terrible. So Lucerys. She did nothing but allow the bells clanging around his head to ascend into its utmost crescendo, as he screamed and drummed around in his own mind and his sanity descended into nothingness. All because of her. All because of himself.

And nothing was left. Nothing was there. She was gone. And how could he go on without her? Without himself? How would he know himself? How would he know her? How would he know the world? He was nothing without her. He does not know how to see the world without her. She was the counterpoint, the guide, the anchor. How would he know how to rule, how to live, how to love? How could he sleep? How could he breathe? How could he make sense of himself? How could he see their children? His children were his children because of her. Without her they were strangers. Without her the world was a stranger. The world was The Stranger coming to take him away. Take him away from her so that she may live. Took her away so that she may die. They took her away and now she's dead.

She refused to even give him a smidgeon of herself. No more. Just wood ash. From a corner of her pyre. No more of herself. No more from her. No more.

But he loved her. Was that not enough? Could that not be enough? He loved her enough to let her leave. He loved her too much and force her to stay. When she stayed he did not know he loved her. When she left he realized he could not live without her. By then it was too late. It was all too late. He was always too late. He never made it. He was too late when he realized he wanted her. He was too late when he realized he loved her. He was too late when he let her go. Too young. Too stupid. Too old. Too late. He was never enough. He was never enough.

Lucerys was gone. He had nothing left.

What is he to do now? What is he to do now? What is he to do now?!

How could he live? How could he live? How could he live?!

Must he? Must he?

Should he? Should he?

He did not know. He did not know. He did not know anything. The one person who could tell him was gone.

How could he go on? How could he go on?

What was he supposed to do now? What was he supposed to do now?

Aemond could only laugh, and laugh and laugh with a gaping, nawing horror as he finally allowed himself to acknowledge the truth. Lucerys died. She was never coming back. The light of his soul, the love of his life. Gone. Reduced to nothing but a smear of ash, a gust of wind, a roiling foam. She was gone.

She was gone she was gone she was gone!

Aemond laughed. Laughed and laughed until it turned into screams. Loud, snarling screams, as he bent over himself and screamed into his belly, into the floor, into his bloody, bloody hands.

His son looked on. His court looked on. The world looked on.

Aemond screamed, and with a final, dying roar, he plunged his hand into his left eye, and with a great shout, ripped out the stone embedded within.

Blood splattered onto the floor. His sapphire furled a crimson mess in his palm. Stone in his left hand, ash on his right. His sapphire. His sapphire was gone. His sapphire had been gone for a year. His sapphire had been gone for decades. He never had his sapphire in the first place.

He let the stone slip through his fingers. It rolled into the swords of the Iron Throne, and he knew no one could ever find it again.

White ash was smeared along one side of his face, blood streaked through them. On the other side, tears were allowed to drip unencumbered to the floor. The bells in his head finally stopped clanging. No more war drums and screams, only a foggy, ringing silence remained.

What is he to do now?

Aemond stared straight ahead.

“What am I to do now?” He asked, to his son, to the world, to Lucerys.

His son. Who looked so much like him it was now almost comforting. The tears of his good eye and the pain in his bad one was making him feel dizzy. Was it his son, or was it Lucerys’ little uncle, coming in to do the things he never managed to do?

“You could follow her,” His son said. Gently, comfortably. He was unsoiled and pristine, the kind of boy Lucerys would’ve loved, the kind of man he should have been.

Aemond swayed, confused. His mind was a white fog. The only thought he could coherently form was an image of Lucerys.

His son folded his arms behind him, and said, “Follow her. Like you’ve always done. Follow her to the end.”

To the end and beyond. To the Stranger’s arms, to the Father’s halls, where the Mother could wash away their sins and the Maiden could dress them anew and the Warrior could protect them until the end of time?

Will she be there, Aemond wondered.

“Will she be there?” Aemond asked.

There was now a disconcerting gravity around his son. He looked to be glowing. He smelled of lavender. Aemond could see nothing but blue and brown and pearly white.

“Of course she will,” Aemon lied.

Blood dripped onto the floor.

Slowly, a soft smile bloomed across the King’s face, a boyish, rosy thing. A smile of relief.

Good. He stepped back. Of course Lucerys will be there. Another step. Of course she will. Any other thought was inconceivable. Any other thought would be reprehensible.

Another step.

How could she not?

A final step.

How could she not.

Aemond let himself fall backwards onto the swords that made up the base of the Iron Throne. The sharp points pierced him easily. One through his thigh, three through his chest, one through his empty eye. Blood was seeping into his mouth, blood was seeping into his eye. Red, then white. He thought he saw Lucerys, when she was five, when she was fourteen, when she was twenty-nine. He thought she looked beautiful.

Blood dripped out his mouth. He gasped. He choked. He went silent.

The last of the red streaks faded from the horizon. The hall was made up of a clustering of shades at the mouth of a tomb.

Aemon looked at the hanging corpse that was once a man. He looked at the slow pool of blood slowly flowing out from the steps to the Iron Throne. He looked out the windows. Gaelithox flapped his wings and took off. Lords and ladies began to kneel, spiraling out in a half-circle from him like a roiling tidal wave. His uncles and aunts and siblings and cousins too. Soon, he was the only one that remained standing.

Aemon looked at the suspended form of his father, the body still warm.

He felt nothing.

The King is dead. Long live the King.