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[ he does not understand this side of his mother. truthfully he finds it — unpleasant, to see her with emotions so plain on her face. her disdain for weakness is familiar, even when it is aimed his way; her indifference is familiar too, as is her continuing lack of warmth. she's withheld it in the years that have passed, first from aegon then from himself. only helaena still knows what her warmth feels like, and even then it is restrained.

she is queen. she cannot be seen as anything but weak. with her auburn hair and dark eyes she has twice as much prove against their enemies, even if she's done far more than near all of them combined.

aemond wants to take his sapphire out, let the socket rest free of it, but he doesn't. it would remind her of his father, especially in his last years. ]

Our duty is the price of our power. [ rote, repeated, grandsire's words in aemond's voice. aemond reaches for his mother's hand without looking up to meet her eyes. ] Has Father—

[ no. he can never ask that. he can never unspeak such a question. ]

Did you care for him? Beyond duty, did you care for him?

[ she would know otto hightower’s words anywhere, when they have echoed in her skull since she set foot in king’s landing. they unsettle her, even now, in the dark of her son’s room in another world entirely. alicent braces for his customary anger at her presumption of his vulnerability, a lecture on her role, or rejection of her touch, which would prove most agonising of all.

none come to pass. she slides to the ground, legs tucked beneath her. at the question he does not dare ask, she winces, small but there. a mother should not disclose these things to her son. a son should not doubt his father. ]

[ quieter, ] I learned to. [ — to find comfort in his rattling breath, so like the rise of fall of aegon’s burned chest. to ignore when he would silence her and savour when he would heed her counsel. to go away inside, when she was summoned to his rooms, and watch the rats traverse the beams above his bed. ] In a way.

[ she loved him for not being as cruel as was his right and hated him for it, too. it would have been easier, if he were more relentless than he was neglectful. more hurtful than he was selfish.

her shaky hands shift, slipping around aemond’s shoulders to pull him close and hug him tight. something she has not done in an age, with so little of her girlhood warmth left to her, sapped by family and duty. ]

Edited 2024-09-25 23:45 (UTC)

[ when had she last held him like this? he can only remember driftmark, and after that — when? when was it? she held his cheek when he had removed her from the small council, spoiling the touch with with a plea to his softer nature, to forgive.

how can he forgive? no one has ever apologised for their actions against him, even when he was blameless. no one has ever cared for his feelings on anything, and then they blame him for having hardened into stone and steel. but he melts, all the same. melts into her touch, into her arms, makes himself small against her. his cheek rests against her shoulder and aemond painstakingly pulls her close to him, breathing in the way she smells, the fragrance of her hair, the salt of her skin.

his mother. ever beautiful. ever becoming. ever beloved. ]

Do you love me, Mother? Even now?

Edited 2024-09-26 00:40 (UTC)

[ aemond roiled beneath her softness in the council chambers — and upon his arrival here, removing her touch like it might act as a contagion. even in this vulnerable state, it surprises her that he allows her close. her affection is seen as a weakness, she now realises, the same as he views desire of any kind.

but even a dragon must rest its wings and shutter its maw.]

Foolish boy. [ she answers him differently than she would have on arrival — you imbecile — if he had not asserted she feared him. she doesn’t. i fear for you, the price of fierceness has been loneliness. she sees that now.

she winds him nearer, safer in her arms, and ducks her chin, nosing into his hair. he still smells like home, smoke and leathers. her hair is too clean now, all orange blossom and jasmine. ] I will love you until I am cold in my grave.

[ foolish girl, to think she will die first. ]

[ he knows he's going to die. he doesn't need helaena to say what he's already been afraid of, truly afraid of since the moment vhagar swallowed luke whole mid-flight. this is not a war he will survive, and the only thing he's fighting for are the days delayed, hours claimed before that very moment when he's felled on dragonback.

he wants to be remembered. for something, anything. he won't be loved, he won't be respected, but he could be feared just as vhagar is feared, and that will have to be enough. to wear the name kin-slayer proudly because doing anything else would mean he's done wrong, and that kind of admission will mean the enemy gains ground.

it would mean death for everything and everyone he's fighting for, even if they no longer hold faith with him.

aemond has no illusions about himself. he's cruel. he desires power like no other. he wants the throne and he knows he's more than capable of bearing the weight of its crown. he is fire and blood, burning unchecked and bleeding unstaunched; everything he touches stains with ash and red.

he gasps against her collarbone, and tightens his arms around her. ]

Aegon will need of you.

[ it's easier to say than everything else. ]

[ what are you thinking? his thoughts hidden in moonspun hair, tucked inside his averted eye. what is it you need? alicent did not have a mother of her own long enough to learn from her. in truth, aemma was her nearest equivalent until she died.

they say the king cut her open in search of a son —

despite her youth and health, alicent had no assurance that she would return from the birthing bed. only half of women do. and they say the wives of targaryens find it most difficult, when dragons tear at their flesh. she returned to this battleground thrice before her husband allowed her to rest because he himself required it. she knows she is lucky, to have served and lived — to have four children, whole and hale. at least at the start.

aegon will have need of her…as what? a caretaker, as she was for viserys. the thought churns her stomach, so she sets it aside. ]

Aegon isn’t here, Aemond. [ not now, not yet, possibly not ever. what would a pleasure house do with a burned man? she sweeps a hand along his spine, touching the ends of his silken strands. ] It’s just you and I. That is enough.

[ between his strength and her acumen, they have secured their position. a truce. allies to call upon. some standing with house balfour that she will trade upon further come november. she is no dragon, but she coils around him as if she were, protective as he has always been of her. ]

Aegon will be king again.

[ helaena's words ring truer than what aemond has to say. i didn't mean it. he was in the line of fire, i didn't mean it. but he still bid vhagar to spire fire that day, and the dragons danced. ]

He will be king again and he must listen to you, you must press it upon him to listen, do you—

[ no. what is he even doing?

grasping hands like that of a child, pulling and pulling at anything and everything he could reach. she had held him like this was at driftmark. the remnants of his eye still felt in the hollow socket. needle pulling thread, only instead of cloth it is his skin; the fine tulle mesh of his mother's sleeve catching on the stitches, the red of his blood staining the green of her collar.

do not mourn me, mother.

he wishes she would, this time. but he can't tell her.

it wouldn't change anything.

why had his sister thrown him into such a vast well of loneliness like this? was this her revenge, for jaehaerys? what doe she see that gives her leave to say such awful things?

aemond cries out once, a pitiable and begging sound not unlike the cry he'd let out when he was brought to her all those years ago, ser westerling dragging him in by the collar with fine dirt and dragon ash soiling all of his features. they gave me a pig, as if the words could give sum to all of the indignities he's suffered — as if it were the most offensive thing to ever happen to him.

it was, then. he should've known it would not be the last.

lifting his mother from the floor takes absolutely nothing from him. she is slight, having kept her figure all these years, and her youth has not faded from either her face or her shape. she is light, lighter than he thinks a mother of four should ever be; lighter than madam sylvi in places, but firmer too, and he thinks he prefers her.

one quick swoop. he rises from his knees, one arm around her waist and his other braced underneath her thighs, so that he can lift her and place her on the bed, elevated. he kneels at his mother's feet, faces her skirts, and there is no shame now even if he knows he should feel it.

one hand on her calf, and his face's unmarked side pressed against her lap, his shoulder caught between her knees. ]

Don't leave tonight.

[ alicent stills. aegon will be king again reverbs in her mind before aemond echoes it aloud, a death-rattle of a pronouncement. how? her firstborn has been broken and burned, skin sloughing off or scaling over. even if he lives, he will not be as he was. he certainly cannot provide the realm with more sons.

aegon will be king again, he reiterates, a desperate and strange refrain in her son’s mouth. she wants to shake him — to beg him to stop uttering nonsense like his sweet sister. under the barrage, her thoughts splinter and fracture. did you intend to harm him, your brother who cuffed you until you outgrew him? it occurs to her now that aemond has been strong on her behalf for too long, and she has taken the steadfastness of a child for granted. before she can force him to face her, his arms surround her, corded with muscle where there once was only skin and bone. a swordsman’s strength. a dragon-rider’s. when had that happened? ]

Aemond— [ in their new positions, her hands hover, unsure and out of place until he speaks his desires. aemond has rarely asked for anything of her; she will not deny him now. ]

I — Of course. [ a final beat of hesitation before she touches him again, one hand gentling through his fine hair. helaena never allowed her this intimacy, and she did not think to offer it to her sons, even when they curled into her in their youth. ] Of course I’ll stay with you.

[ her fingertips stray to the topmost edge of his scar, feeling the roughness of the long-marred skin. it is the truth of her son made flesh, hardened by his circumstances and not his innate self. she hopes that the manor’s comforts will be good for him. no, she’ll ensure that they are. ]

[ too soft. she touches him too softly and aemond reaches for her hand, pulls it close to lay her palm flat on the scar. her palm is warm, her skin soft, her touch unfamiliar.

aemond curls towards her hand. the corner of his mouth touches the ends of her fingers, and aemond sighs against them. he could never do this with madam. he doesn't want to do this with his someday-wife, the baratheon girl too strange and unappealing despite her purported beauty. no, he prefers this. the heat of his mother's thigh, the plush cloth of her skirt, the faintest hint of calluses on his mother's palm.

if he's allowed to have this here, then he take as much of it that he can. if he doesn't have to fight tooth to nail for it, if he can simply ask and be granted his wish—– is this how his sister feels? heady with some kind of power blooming from within?

ask, and you shall receive. could have words straight out of their father's mouth, but only ever offered to one child. but he has two parents, doesn't he? he has a mother. he has a mother who says she loves him, and would draw a blade for him, would cut his own blood for him.

she is all he needs. ]

Don't be afraid of the scar, Mother, [ he whispers to her skirt, ] It doesn't hurt anymore.

[ he needs this assurance, this attention from her, far more than she realised. certainly more than she has been able to offer it in her husband’s final years. despite their curiosities and cruelties, the balfours have gifted her a chance to reach him. she won’t forget it.

against her every instinct, she will be pliable — kind, even, as she hasn’t been in her grief and turmoil. when he reaches for her hand, she yields, leaning over him, curling closer. her auburn waves slip over her silken shoulder as she peers down at him. whatever has frightened him this night, hollowing him out, she vows to guard him against.

alicent matches the low tenor of his voice, sleep-soft. ]

Can it feel anything at all?

[ can you? had the entire area numbed in the weeks and months it took to heal? viserys lost sensation in much of his body over the years, a state preferable to his otherwise ceaseless pain. she does not wish the same for her son, still whole but for what was taken from him.

emboldened, she strokes along the raised mark and smoothes her thumb under the soft skin of his eye socket — then she returns to cupping the sapphire, as he first guided her to do. his contented sigh seems proof enough that her very touch isn’t a wretched, poisonous thing, resisted by him and and helaena both, but rather a comfort. she bends nearer to card her fingers through to the ends of his hair, as long as hers now, and back up again. she thinks her mother did that for her, once. or maybe it was aemma. no, rhaenyra. everything blurs in time. ]

I can feel pressure, but not anything else. Like the press of metal on the collar through chainmail.

[ sensation truly dulled; he's tried it a few times, to dig his nails under the welts. he could only feel the sharpness of his nails at the edges of the scar, but not on it. even when he thinks to prick the scar with a needle — no, he feels the presence of the needle, but not the pain of the pointy end.

like his heart, perhaps. so scarred over that it can only guess at what love and affection might feel like. but alicent's touch is light against the edge of his eye socket, and she warms the sapphire in a new way. she's touching his scalp, coming her small fingers through his hair — should he have given her a comb? would he allow her to give him one, to bid her comb through the tresses scalp to end. like she had once when he was a young boy?

he's a man grown now. he's not supposed to want for simple, childish things.

(and if he sighs his contentment and relief, that is no one's business but his own.) ]

Mm.

[ acknowledgement in the sound, when words might give away the ache she feels at aemond’s defining loss, even now. most nights, she regrets her ugliness at driftmark. others, like this one, she wishes she had been faster, stronger, fiercer and taken retribution for herself. she thinks on furiosa’s brutal lessons, which would have her twist from a hold rather than succumb to it, or wrench an arm before stomaching another’s touch. she has no talent for it, but she can’t be aemond’s burden to guard, all by himself.

she should be shielding him. she will. her hands work until his breathing evens in her lap, faint pressure on his scars and tender focus in untangling his hair. whatever unsettled him seems to have passed for the moment. whether or not he’s nodded off, she whispers, ]

I’m glad to have you with me, Aemond.

[ a more dignified version of what she cannot say: don’t send me away again. they must be together in this place and in the war to come. nothing else will save them. she curls delicate fingers around the shell of his ear, protective. ]

Trēsy jorrāeliarza.

[ her ‘esteemed’ son, despite the blood of the dragon that courses through him. ]

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cw: childbirth, death in childbirth, ableism

cw: attempted fratricide, loss of eye, questionable mother feelings

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nervous laughter

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