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lesbianherald · 11 days ago

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Hi! Just curious. What exactly is that you didn't like about Viktor's arc? I've seen a few people saying the same thing and idk if I'm missing something or I'm just too over the moon about him that my brain has gone smooth haha.

oh no oh no i'm probably going to write like a whole dissertation about this I am so sorry I'm literally cracking my knuckles I have so many thoughts and not all of them I'll even get to articulate here.

Saying this upfront: you aren't smooth-brained for disagreeing with me or liking it. I want to say that outright as I'm a very opinionated person and I am going to state my very strong opinions very plainly.

That being said : I genuinely feel like season 2 needed like... character writing 101 for a lot of these characters, especially the two characters whose names start with a 'V'. I'm so serious if one of my students brought in a story like this, I would (gently) take it apart.

If you don't want to read the whole thing I'm about to unleash, the crux of it is this for me:

Throughout the course of the season, it's very hard to discern how many of Viktor's decisions are his own. He lacks the baseline autonomy that's necessary for satisfying development. The magic of the hexcore becomes a shiny distraction that makes meaningful development impossible. Additionally, season 2 forgets so many of the themes and threads they explored with Viktor in season one explicitly in terms of class and his position on war and weapons manufacturing.

And, like almost everything in season 2, these issues are compounded because his story is done at a pace that's completely lightning-fast and prioritizes the wrong things.

Here's my thesis:

How Does a Man Like Viktor Become the Machine Herald? Arcane's Answer: Magic orb or vague sadness or something idk.

Harry Lloyd said in a season 1 commentary somewhere that one of the main appeals for Viktor is knowing who he is in the game and wondering how you take a man like him, who is so kind and has people's best interests at heart, and see him slowly become the machine herald.

I agree 100% that this is part of the story's appeal for players. And it would be a delight and surprise for non-players.

We... get that very juicy premise ripped from us. We don't see him making decisions grounded in the character they set up in season 1 at all, really. And its very unsatisfying seeing him be rendered a mere victim of circumstance with vague attachments to his past self.

This is not necessarily a complaint about arcane herald vs machine herald (I did not play league and am not attached to the lore) but a complaint that a lot of what happens with Viktor in season 2 seems very unattached to his psychology.

Christian Linke himself said (and I forget where, so I am sorry if I'm paraphrasing terribly) that part of the question he wanted the audience to ask with Viktor is how much of this is really him? Bluntly. That is incredibly silly. It's such an important question that it makes all other interesting questions one might have about him really hard to parse.

That's not compelling. That's a mistake. That's not rooted in character anymore but a vague magical orb.

Here are some questions that would have been more interesting for us to ask, Christian.

How does his desire to tamper out human emotion prompt him to do the unspeakable? What leads him there?

How far is he willing to go to take away human pain and suffering?

Is his version of pacifism really, in actuality, a form of violence?

Will his connection with others be enough to bring him back to his humanity? (this is a question we were not prompted to ask, and if we were, it would have made the final scene (which I love regardless) a lot more satisfying.

What is the root of his hunger for power? How much of his quest is a hunger for power and control over others (rooted in a fractured and tragic sense of self)? and how much is it rooted in his desire to help? Where is that line?

Any of these questions or any other questions we could enjoy exploring with Viktor become tampered with and weakened by the fact that a vague magical entity is controlling him in a vague and unrelatable way.

In short, 'How much of Viktor is still Viktor?' is a far less interesting question than. 'how is Viktor going to act, change, and learn? ' We are forced to ask the first at the cost of the second. He clearly is not fully himself this season.

The Dropping of Themes and Traits

Season 1's exploration of Viktor was multi-layered and fascinating. I feel like we got to see the establishment of a kind-hearted, sometimes awkward yet quite funny, passionate scientist.

I don't feel we see much of any of this in season 2. The stupid fucking orb overrides a lot of the traits we've come to know and love. This would have been cool if done with an ounce of care, understanding, or autonomy.

In season 1, we see Viktor in a position of powerlessness over and over. We see Viktor ignored and looked down upon by those in power both for his disability and, crucially, for his status as a Zaunite.

We're introduced to him as someone who is desperate to prove himself and carve a place for himself. He knows he's brilliant. And he knows he can help people with that big brain of his. That's all he wants. And he wants to make his mark (something I theorize is rooted in his loneliness as well as his ambition)

(Side note: I find a lot of the debate on whether or not Viktor is insecure a little silly because you can be both confident and insecure. He's incredibly secure in his abilities as a scientist, but I fully do believe he places all his worth on his work because he's not as confident in other places - represented visually by him trying to point out his boat when Sky is looking at him in the flashback. A 'don't look at me look at what I've made' type thing.)

Anyways. Viktor is willing to risk his position as an assistant and, honestly, his position at the academy and in Piltover as a whole to help Jayce. This is not just because he's 'lol so chaotic' or whatever. This is actually quite calculated. He knows he will get nowhere in Piltovian society without bending rules, because Piltover was not built for people like him.

"Do you think it was my life's ambition to be an assistant?"

But even in taking that huge step for himself, his new role is complicated.

We see him sit through meetings where his people are talked about like burdens. We see his closest (and honestly only) ally and partner speak over him in meetings and overrule his desires and wants when it comes to the future of hextech in massive ways. We see Jayce call all Zaunites 'dangerous' (I love jayce... don't shoot me please. But we do often forget that this does canonically happen and what makes Jayce so incredible is that he grows from this point)

The moment on the bridge directly causes him not to tell Jayce about what he's doing to himself. Jayce apologizing right after doesn't matter so much as it reinforces one of Viktor's fears: he is alone.

We see his illness, !!!!caused by Piltover's oppression!!!!, take over. We see him and Jayce grow apart. We see the way his loneliness impacts his desperation and the way his desperation impacts his loneliness and we see the way he's so damn afraid and just wants to live. We see how much he wants to help people, and how even though he's tried so hard he never got to achieve that because the limits of this society just don't allow for it.

Season 1 Act one is Viktor taking action for himself. season 1 Acts 2 and 3 are a brutal reminder that no matter how hard he works. No matter how hard he claws. He will always be who he is. And that makes him Powerless in this society. I honestly find it a really compelling storyline in terms of the 'bootstrap theory' and debunking that - but a different topic for a different time!

At the end of the season, he's able to gain a huge amount of power - speaking at the council about freeing his city - through Jayce's platforming and allyship. But at the end of the day it doesn't matter, because what the council is doing is too little too late - people in Zaun are too tired and too hurt - and he gets caught in the crossfire.

Despite all this, Season 2 does not engage with Viktor's being a Zaunite outside of the fact that he returns to Zaun first. But the themes explored related to class and power are gone - as they are with everyone else really.

It makes sense to me that one of the first things Viktor would do when granted a new body and new power would be to go and try to help people in Zaun, but the ambiguous mechanisms of the magic inside him, the immediate divorce with Jayce, and the bizarre way he goes about it don't make this land.

And even the return is rendered sort of meaningless. Where is the personal connection to this place? Why are we given no details related to his past here? Why doesn't he return to somewhere more personal for him?

He speaks in this cold, unaffected monotone. This healing ability seems to be the 'recursive impulse' - so him finally getting to help people just like he wanted feels rooted so much in the arcane influence it becomes murky and strange.

This is more nitpicky, and I'd be okay with it being ignored in the right context - but another aspect of his character that gets dropped is his work as a scientist. His desire to help people not through magic, but through invention. This would have been fascinating. (They try to keep this alive through vague allusions to 'look at what I've created' blah blah but again, so much of it is all ORB)

What inventions would a fully autonomous Viktor who decided to leave Jayce and return to Zaun of his own fruition create? Would they toe the line between inventions of progress and inventions of destruction?

Guess we'll never know!

Speaking of weapons. Let's talk about weapons. Let's talk about Viktor's vehement opposition to weapons not being explored within the context of his relationship with Jayce or outside of the rule that there are none allowed in the commune - which becomes quite meaningless when he agrees to work with Ambessa. Yes - he saw those blueprints on the table. But that's all we get.

Also, the fact that Jayce just unquestionably builds hextech weapons in the finale, and they're used as a good thing and a way to fight off Noxus, makes me want to claw my own hair out. Like - my themes ! Not my precious themes !

Let's also talk about him working with Ambessa. There's no build-up to that decision, not near enough character work to make that believable and considering the way the plot is written elsewhere, I fully believe this is a huge part of the problem of the writer's room dropping the issue of class. The idea that Viktor, the character that they set up, would ever willingly work with Ambessa is laughable. There are so many other ways he could have gotten to the hexcore in his fully evolved form, easily bested Jayce, and evolved. And they did absolutely nothing in the writing of season 2 to make that an interesting or satisfying choice.

An arc is only an arc if there is substance between point a and b. There's no substance here. There's vague orb. There are little glimpses of the pain he's in because of his separation from Jayce. Teeny tiny allusions to him trying to shut down his emotions. That's simply not enough.

You cannot bring a character who values choice and autonomy, whose been made to feel so powerless and is empathetic, to "choice is meaningless" without a deep study of his psychology and pain. Viktor taking away the autonomy of others, inhabiting their bodies. Being super chill with it. Okay. Coo.

Where does his desire for evolution even come from? For real? Because they seem to mistake Viktor's ambition with his desire for perfection, which is something that was never really... brought up? It could be believable that he felt this way. But where were the signs of this? Not just in season 1 but in season 2. He always wanted to help, not make humanity perfect. Because this is grounded in so little emotional logic I assume we're supposed to be satisfied with the idea that magic orb + machine herald form = ??? this ??? like ??? why???

If he wants to create a world where nobody can feel pain or complex emotions of any sort anymore, which is not psychologically where he was at the end of season 1 at all despite all he went through, you have to give us an event (ideally multiple) in season 2 that could break his mind this badly. Jayce killing him could have been this, but it happened so fast and was executed so impersonally that it doesn't work. He doesn't really acknowledge it happened the next time they see each other. Which... would probably be important to do... again emotional logic where?

His entire speech about humanity at the end of episode 6 feels like it's trying to be a catalyst. But it also feels... incredibly generic and impersonal. It felt written to play over a flashy montage of all the other characters fighting. Not for Viktor. If this was Viktor's moment where he finally snaps, we should probably focus on Viktor. And, of course, it doesn't help that he has this odd monotone this whole time, as if he's not fully in control of himself (this is not a rip on Harry Lloyd at all. He did what he was told and did it very, very well.)

Because remember. They wanted us to ask this. They wanted us to ask how much of this was orb. I think because they knew on some level they could not create a compelling enough story to get viktor where they wanted him to be for some reason without orb. That none of this would make sense without the vague spice of the arcane. And guess what it still doesn't.

Becuase people will not relate to a vague arcane influence. Connect to it. We would want to see what actually in his life made him become this. What in his psychology outside of magic orb made him do this? They provide vague tastes of this in the same way La Croix flavors its drinks.

Brought Back Wrong Can Work: Here's Why This One Didn't

I also really hate the trope of killing off characters only to bring them back. And back again. And... again. Because guess what. It takes one of the core elements of the human experience - death- and cheapens it. This for sure happens with Viktor the second time he dies.

But what i do like about bringing someone back from the dead is when you consider how doing so can bring someone back wrong. Or changed.

But because the orb is so impersonal. So bland. Such a vague sinister force that has very little to do with character, it doesn't... work. It doesn't hit. Viktor doesn't really grapple with being brought back from the dead against his will in a meaningful way.

Timing

You can see concepts of a plan, if you will, within this story. I can see how Viktor would naturally go to the undercity after waking up changed with new healing powers. But it happens way to fast. So bizarrely. I can see how he would build a society like this (of course, the power of that is dulled because orb and by the fact that we don't see it happen). I can see how the pain of being rejected and left behind by the only person who made him feel like he wasn't alone (Jayce) could have lead to a category 5 'make me evil' sort of meltdown.

Becoming the Herald, asking Singed to begin the transformation, is the only true time in this show in act 2 (before his final moments) where it feels like he's making a choice for himself. But again, we get so little time with him. To see his emotions. To elegantly point from that moment with Jayce to Viktor's need to transform and in doing so rid himself of emotion (something that they did not expand on enough ) Like oh my god, how much more satisfying would it have been to see Viktor torn apart by his own emotions - in his own viktor way - and to have singed offer him a way out of his pain - and then have viktor take it. There are certain things that should be obvious.

But It's both the timing of and the structure of the story - how quickly we cut between plotlines - that makes this really hard to follow. That makes moments that could be something feel rushed and sloppy.

Let's Talk about Sky

Viktor's guilt over sky was absolutely reasonable to explore, but it was not.... all that haunted him. To make Sky the sole guide/companion to him in the astral/arcane headspace I found to be a bizarre and honestly kind of offensive choice.

Amanda overton said she was used as a "Jayce substitute" essentially. And... why? Literally why. Why would you write a character whose sole deal is having an unrequited crush on a man only to bring her back to be 'the embodiment of his guilt and loneliness' as well as a 'substitute' - it feels... icky to me? Just in a writing women and especially women of color point of view? And it didn't feel true to Viktor's character either.

I think if we actually got to know sky better in season 1, this would have worked because it would have been obvious how different she was, how she was a product of his mind or the hexcore or whatever (the lore being vague here doesn't help...)

Plot Twist because I keep hating on Orb: They Could Have Made The Orb Really Cool

Here's the thing. Magic influence on its own can be used to write extremely compelling plots. Walk with me.

Imagine Viktor wakes up. Immediately knows something's wrong with him. That something inside him is toying with him. Making him see things (visions of not only sky, but maybe his parents, Jayce, Heimer). He wakes up earlier in act 1. Despite his anger, he stays with jayce in order to better understand himself and his powers. All the while, he is haunted by whispers and visions of the hexcore. What if it whispers to him of his own insecurities and failures?

What if Things with Jayce are tense. Jayce has to admit to making weapons again, in an argument leading to more haunting visions from the hexcore offering him an out: emotional numbness. You would never have to feel again Viktor. If you let me in fully, you would never have to be alone again. You'd be more powerful, Viktor.

Imagine Viktor is there during that attack ambessa orchestrated. That he has the horror of witnessing Jayce wield his hammer in a genuine attempt to defend himself and the people he loves. He sees first hand how hextech is being used for destruction in a way that horrifies him.

Imagine him being accused of being a part of it because he's a Zaunite - humiliated in some way. Publicly. Imagine the emotional trauma of this resulting in a falling out so devastating he embraces his visions of the hexcore - gives into the numbness. And only then leaves. With the hexcore... he feels better than he has in years. He hopes he can give the gift of this to others. Now he is under orb influence, but now the way he's gotten there is more satisfying to me at least.

Now imagine him fighting the orb influence in key moments. Imagine the color in his eyes coming back. Imagine Viktor's relationship with the arcane being more of a dance than a vague entanglement. Imagine its influence haunting him in the same way Jinx's visions haunt her. Imagine it being personal rooted in his character.

Old Man Viktor

Listen. I am the old man Viktor connoisseur. I love him. I love the idea of him. I wrote a whole fic about him, during which I had to spend a lot of time with the story. It's sort of... very much impossible to make much sense of?

I'm not mad at the fact that it's an obvious retcon. Honestly, because I think from a storytelling perspective, it worked a lot better than most of the decisions they made this season.

But I'm not a fan of (shocking) how little time we spend with him. How little chance we get to understand his motivatons. And also. What the fuck he said to Jayce to make Jayce's first line of action killing him? In my fic, I made it that Jayce needed to shoot Viktor to get the hexcore out, so he could communicate to viktor without influence. But that felt like heavy lifting I shouldn't necessarily have to do for something so important. It also doesn't feel like a compelling or satisfying question to make your audience have to wrestle with.

The Final Scene

Want to say upfront I am not one of the people who did not like Jayce's speech.

I was quite moved by it. And aside from the perhaps out of place mention of the illness brought on by Piltover which I can understand the criticism for, I felt it was beautiful. (I am disabled btw)

That being said. I think i'd be a sobbing mess on the floor if the themes Jayce is presenting in his speech were more present throughout season 2. Because we really don't see this enough - the desire for perfection.

I'm also not one of those people who thinks Viktor's insecurities weren't present in season 1. To me, they were and were obvious, but not enough in his motivations and actions in season 2 to make Jayce's speech land like it could.

I really loved Jayce's arc in season 2. Him immediately embracing Viktor after he woke from the goo was surprising but felt right. But I wish they had more genuine conflict rooted in their conflict in season 1 that would allow their final moment to land even harder.

I really liked the final scene, and it made me an emotional mess. But weirdly, I'd almost like it as a short film removed from the context of the season two, which says just how little Viktor's arc this season contributed to the moment.

Final Thoughts

I'm so sorry I went so in-depth. I just love him as a character and feel he was very much not done justice.

We can attribute some of this to the lack of time. But when you know you have a lack of time, you need to write with that in mind instead of trying to do it all. And ultimately, I found a lot of scenes this season a waste of precious time. They had so many characters alone contemplating something intangible or alone and trapped for episodes. They didn't plan this with the care and precision needed to pull it off.

I also want to note that I know I say here a lot that there's a lot they needed to make "more obvious". This is not because I'm stupid. But when you're a writer, you need to know what to highlight and what you can leave vague so you leave your audience exploring the right nuances and asking the satisfying questions.

Anyways umm. The end. Holy shit, I'm so sorry I wrote so much.

#i literally typed this in a caffine induced frenzy #oh my god its so long kldfjashdlkfjsd #im sure there are things i missed or did not explain well #ask bee #how many times can i hate on orb #SDKLFJD #its not even an orb #i know this #if someone reads this whole thing they deserve a cookie or something #see this is why tumblr might be a problem for me actually #no character limit DKJFHSDLKF #if you keep reading this could very much be like a do you like the color of the sky situation #where you have to just keep scrolling and scrolling #god i need work to start back up again KLDFJSHDFLK #side note one of my twitter moots got a strawpage anon that was like #you hate his arc you must hate viktor #which is so funny because #i literally love him so much #that's why i hate his arc KLDFJHSD #one thing i do like about viktors storyline and i still dont think it fully works #is how many of his principles he clung to even under magical influence #at least at the start #bee talks arcane

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 25 days ago

Text

Cannibals [Chapter 8: Magma and Sky]

A/N: Only 2 chapters left!!! 🥳❤️💙🦇

Series summary: You are his sister, his lover, his betrothed despite everyone else’s protests; you have always belonged to Aemond and believe you always will. But on the night he returns from Storm’s End with horrifying news, the trajectories of your lives are irrevocably changed. Will the war of succession make your bond permanent, or destroy the twisted and fanatical love you share?

Chapter warnings: Language, mentions of sexual content (18+ readers only), grief and torment, a fun field trip to a volcanic rock, Red and Aemond have a very honest conversation, enjoy our special guest stars!!! 😉🔮🐍

Word count: 5.1k

❤️ All my writing can be found HERE! 💙

Tagging: @themoonofthesun @chattylurker @moonfllowerr @ecstaticactus @mrs-starkgaryen, more in comments 🥰

🦇 Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🦇

“I was with somebody else.”

You startle and look up to see Aemond standing under the arch of the arbor grown over with a quilt of red roses, twisted and thorny and thick enough to drape you in shadows. You are sitting cross-legged on the stone bench and reading a book about all the known varieties of bats; Helaena found it for you in some dusty, ill-lit corner of the library when she was searching for texts concerning insects. It is still the waning days of summer in King’s Landing, and Viserys is the king, and thin threads of sunlight like golden strands of a spider’s web fall down through gaps in the arbor. Last night was the first time Aemond touched you like more than a brother, claimed you, transfixed you, and you are already alight with the lust-red craving to do it again.

Here, now, in the garden of the Red Keep, Aemond won’t meet your eyes. Instead, he stares fixedly into the contorted nest of roses, wild green punctuated with blooms of crimson like blood or rubies or glowing embers. You have no idea what he means. You reply after a moment, closing your book: “With somebody…?”

“Before,” Aemond says, like it takes great effort. He is still not looking at you. “Years ago. It wasn’t my intention for that to happen, I didn’t plan it, I didn’t ask for it…but I didn’t stop it either.” His reticent blue gaze drops to the cobblestones. His voice is very soft, barely audible. “In a brothel…there was…”

Now you understand. “I know, Aemond.”

His attention jolts back to you, a fracture set, a lightning strike. “You do?”

“Aegon told me. He felt badly about it afterwards, he thought he shouldn’t have done it, but he…” You gesture as if you holding a goblet of wine, and Aemond nods. He was drunk, he was reckless, he mistook it for a favor. But he was wrong.

“You will benefit from what I’ve learned,” Aemond says, as if still trying to convince you not to be appalled or angry. In truth, you are neither. “I hope that is some comfort to you.”

“I don’t find comfort in anything that causes you pain,” you reply honestly, tenderly. A warm breeze blows in off the sea, tasting like salt and rustling the roses and the leaves. This morning you tucked a single flower into your braid, a blue forget-me-not. Now you touch it self-consciously. “Do you mind that I’m so unpracticed?”

Aemond seems to find the notion ludicrous. “No. No, of course not.”

“But you’ll have to teach me everything.”

“That’s how I want it to be. I’m of the belief that if two people wish to be together, there should be no other parties involved. I had meant to be pure for you. I’m sorry I’m not. It is a regret of mine that I carry always. It is a failing.”

You shake your head, sensing his distress as if it is your own: a gnawing anxiety, a sickening drop in your belly. “It wasn’t your fault, Aemond.”

“So I am forgiven?”

“I never considered it to be a transgression.”

“Oh. Good.” His mood lifts; there is a phantom of a smile on his lips and a lightness in his stride as he takes a taunting step towards the stone bench where you sit. “And how do you feel? After what happened last night before dinner?”

And you grin with glinting eyes as you answer, setting your book aside: “Still hungry.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Seven days on a ship, and you don’t speak to Aemond once.

The weather is bad, grey and windy, sometimes snow, sometimes sleet, sometimes hail that pelts the wooden deck, and the vessel rocks in bleak violent waves. Aemond had arranged for the ship to meet him near Heart’s Home, where the glacial mountain river flows into the Narrow Sea, where you used to collect seashells to shatter and rearrange into the faces of the people you left in your old life. He had known you would not be able to travel by dragon. And so now Vhagar flies somewhere out there in the cold iron-colored sky and Aemond stalks below deck, haunting your doorway, painting the walls with his shadow.

A maester prods your ribs and says some are fractured but they will heal with rest and time. He gives you tastes of milk of the poppy—just enough to sand the edges off the pain so you can sleep—and compliments the cleanness of your scar. Two maids bring you meals and help you dress, wash the soot and blood from your skin, comb your hair. But Aemond does not touch you. He tries once as the maester is examining you, and you look at him with hatred that is primal and infernal and black like volcanic glass, and he snatches his hands away and makes no further attempts. But he watches you, and he waits, and he tries to piece the truth together. You can feel the bewildered turmoil in him. The ricochets of it echo in the mausoleum of your skull.

When you are awake, you stare at the ceiling or at the floor. When you are asleep, you dream of Jace and Luca. They turn to torrents of blood in your arms, or crumble into ash, or are buried in the earth and you are digging for them with your bare hands. You dream that you are locked in a closet or a trunk and no one ever comes to let you out. You dream that you are at the bottom of the ocean in cages of leviathan skeletons, dragons that lived and died before Vermax or Dreamfyre, before Meraxes, before Balerion the Black Dread, before any of the beasts that perished in the Doom of Valyria. You dream that Helaena is falling from the sky and you cannot catch her, cannot save her. You dream that Mother is telling you that you’ve failed.

Then you wake one dreary morning and hear the sailors shouting that land is in sight, and you climb up out of the depths of the ship and stagger to the bow, hooking your fingers into the rigging to steady yourself as the ship pitches and reels in rough surf. Aemond is standing there with his hands clasped behind his back, his black coat drenched with rain and sea spray, his scarred face far away, miles away, years away. Out of the mist rise the dark jagged walls of the castle that sits atop the island of Dragonstone, where Aegon the Conqueror once plotted his invasion of Westeros.

You ask: “What did you do with him?”

Aemond whirls, stunned that you have spoken at last. His silver hair, half-tied back, hangs in long dripping waves. Your own blows wildly around you. “What did you say?”

“The baby. His body. You took him away from me. What did you do with him?”

“He was burned as a Targaryen.” Aemond’s voice goes quiet, gentle. “Not because Jace was one, but because you are. His ashes were cast into the sea.”

Aemond waits for you to respond. You don’t, you can’t. You close your eyes and see Luca swaddled in one of his blankets; you feel Jace’s dark curls threading through your fingers.

Aemond reaches tentatively for your arm. “Red, I…I didn’t…I never would have…”

You turn away from him and walk from the bow to the stern—your cracked ribs aching, the maids fluttering around you and chastising your sodden ink-colored dress, saying you will catch a chill and die, and if you did you wouldn’t care—and you wait there for the ship to dock.

When you step onto Dragonstone, it’s the first time you’ve returned to the island since you were a child and you tried to claim Vermithor. You don’t understand why Aemond has brought you here, and you don’t ask. You follow the pathway up towards the castle as Aemond trails silently after you like a shadow. Behind him, the maester and your new maids trudge begrudgingly up the countless stone steps and shudder when they hear the distant snarls of the beasts that have lairs here. Cold frothing waves thrash against the shoreline. Gulls circle high overhead, squawking mournfully. Magma flows beneath the black-glass rock; you can feel the radiating heat of it, scorching blood in the arteries of the earth.

Just inside the castle, someone is waiting for you. And it is the first time you’ve truly been roused since Aemond and Vhagar descended upon Heart’s Home.

“Aegon!” you shout, and he rushes to you as swiftly as he can, his walking stick tapping against the floor, his muscles straining beneath knots of scar tissue, his chipped teeth flashing white when he beams. He embraces you like a drowning man grappling for a piece of driftwood in the currents, almost knocking you off-balance. He is laughing, he is smacking graceless kisses onto your cheeks, he is marveling at your face to make sure you’re real.

“You’re alive!” he says, cackling triumphantly. “All this time we had no idea where they’d hidden you, we thought we’d never see you again, but here you are and you’re alive—”

“She’s hurt,” Aemond tells him severely. “Stop yanking her around.”

Aegon furrows his scarred forehead as he checks you for injuries. “Are you really?”

“A few broken ribs. They’ll heal.” Your fingertips go to his mangled cheeks and scalp, to what you can see of his chest. You’ve never witnessed wounds this bad on someone who lived. “Your burns…”

“They felt even worse than they look, if you can believe it. But I’m still here.”

Not all of us are. “Helaena…”

“We heard,” he says, tears glistening in his large ocean-blue eyes. He holds you one more time, more gingerly now. “And those butchers will die for it. All of them. The Bitch Queen and her aged uncle-husband and her idiot children too.” He steps back from you and looks to Aemond. “Our spies have brought word from the mainland. The people of King’s Landing are in open rebellion, they blame Rhaenyra for Helaena’s death. If they can get into the Red Keep, they’ll murder her and free Mother. The Hightower army will soon cross the Blackwater Rush.”

“Daeron knows to wait?” Aemond replies.

“A raven has been sent. I can’t say if he’ll listen.”

“He’d better. Tessarion may have proven herself quick and ferocious, but she is small. She must not fly against Silverwing and Syrax alone.”

“I told him!” Aegon says, exasperated. He means: What else can I do about it? He is still clutching his stick and leaning heavily upon it. He can’t fight as a soldier; he can barely even walk. “So what happened at Heart’s Home? Were the bastard and Vermax there? Did you kill him? Did he beg for you to spare his life, did he weep for the memory of poor pathetic little Luke Strong?”

Aemond doesn’t respond. He winces instead, then shakes his head like he’s telling Aegon to stop talking. You look down at the stone floor, and in the relentless grey gloom of the castle, the island, you feel the white-hot searing of grief and fury in your throat, and if you were a dragon it would not be invisible but a fire that consumes flesh all the way down to its bones.

“What’s wrong?” Aegon asks Aemond, alarmed. “What did you do?”

There are echoing footsteps on the stone staircase, and you are startled to see a woman descending. You’ve never met her before, and you would know if you had; her skin is like moonlight and her pale eyes wide and staring. Black hair hangs to her waist, and it makes you think of swaying branches of a willow tree, or strands of seaweed washing up on the beach outside the Red Keep, or feathers of ravens. She wears a velvet gown the color of moss. Her belly is rounded, just beginning to show. She rests a little white paw of a hand on it and studies you curiously, tilting her head. She is four or five months pregnant.

You gape at her, then turn to Aemond and Aegon, both of whom have averted their eyes. “Whose child is that?”

No one answers you. Instead, Aemond says to the woman briskly: “Your insights were accurate. You will be rewarded accordingly. At the conclusion of the war, you will take up residence at Harrenhal. Until then, you will make yourself scarce here.”

She curtseys; it is a strange, awkward motion, angles in all the wrong places. “Yes, my prince.” But she hesitates before leaving, still watching you. As she strokes the arc of her belly, things kindle in her coin-silver eyes like embers exposed to air: fascination, envy, a vague vicarious fondness. You stare back, thunderstruck. Her long fingernails are filthy with soil or ash.

Whose child? Aemond’s?

You cannot ignore a sharp, nauseous lurch in your own belly, a place where no life grows. Beside you, Aemond is palpably uneasy. You can feel it sweating out of his pores, you can hear it in the sick thudding pulse of his bloodstream. You are reminded of a confession he once brought to you in the garden of the Red Keep as you sat under the shadow of an arbor of scarlet roses.

“Back to the kitchen, witch,” Aegon flings at the woman. “Or the garden, or the cliffsides, or wherever you were haunting before your intrusion.”

She points a talon-like fingernail at you as she begins to ascend the steps. “She is here, but is she yours again?”

“Out!” Aegon barks, and when she has vanished he sighs wearily, as if this is a recurring inconvenience.

You look at Aemond, repulsed, bewildered, betrayed. He says: “Come with me and I’ll explain.”

For a moment, you do not acquiesce. You only glare savagely at him, and if this was before he left King’s Landing a year ago—before Rook’s Rest, before Rhaenyra seized the city and imprisoned you, before Heart’s Home, before your marriage to Jace, before Luca—Aemond would grab you and drag you to wherever he wanted you to be, and he would know that when you fought him you didn’t mean it. But he doesn’t touch you now.

Instead he implores you in a hushed voice: “Please.” And you follow him out of the grey and into the flickering amber light of the Chamber of the Painted Table, where a sweltering hearth crackles and candles burn down into pools of white wax. Westeros is illuminated by fire, like all the places Aemond has burned over the past year. There are chairs positioned around the table. You sit by the Vale; Aemond takes his place across from you near the Reach, where the Hightowers hail from, where your youngest brother Daeron has spent the war waging his battles and torching his enemies. A maid brings two goblets of red wine. You can’t drink it, just like Helaena couldn’t eat blackberry jam after Jaehaerys was beheaded in front of her. Aemond watches you push the cup away and then tells the maid to bring cider instead. You wait without speaking, the only sounds the splitting of wood in the fire and the rumble of the ocean outside and the distant growls of dragons. When the maid reappears with cider, it is a cloudy goldish color and hot and tastes of fermented apples. You sip it listlessly. The maid departs and closes the door behind her.

“It was an exchange,” Aemond says.

“An exchange?”

“Her name is Alys Rivers, she is a bastard of House Strong. I found her working in the kitchen when I took Harrenhal. She is an enchantress, she has some magic to her, just like we do. She said she might be able to help me find you. But she needed something in return. A son, a child built of our ancient Valyrian blood. An heir, a castle, a future. And since Aegon has been rendered impotent by his injuries, and Daeron is far away in the Reach and still a boy himself…”

“You lied with her?”

“Well, I’ve done it before,” Aemond says. And then, when you don’t immediately grasp what he means: “Been with a woman who wasn’t of my choosing.” He draws invisible paths on the Painted Table with his fingerprints. Firelight ripples across his face: a downcast eye, a scar to match the one that cuts down from your left collarbone. “She scoured the woods surrounding the Gods Eye for herbs, and feathers and bones, and all manner of strange talismans. She tried for months to conjure a vision. Then one day she saw it in the flames of the hearth: three black ravens, three red hearts. The sigil of House Corbray of Heart’s Home.”

“And for her services you promised her Harrenhal.”

Aemond nods. “She and her descendants will rule it as House Whent.”

“A new noble house?” you mock bitterly. “And what will its banners be? A burning castle? The charred skeletons of its murdered inhabitants?”

“No,” Aemond says quietly. “Bats.”

You look at him. His blue eye flicks up to your face again, to your black mourning gown—you will wear no other colors—and your unbraided silver hair that drips with rain and seawater.

Aemond asks after a while: “Do you like wearing your hair that way now?”

Distractedly, you touch the damp silver tresses that are unbound, soft and feminine and weak. “Jace told me I wasn’t a warrior. He wanted me to look like a lady.”

“You were wed to him,” Aemond says as if he still cannot comprehend it.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Soon after Rhaenyra took King’s Landing. It was Mother’s proposal. She convinced Rhaenyra to agree to it.”

Aemond is lost. “Why? He was a bastard, a traitor.”

You flinch. “Mother thought it would encourage the Blacks to spare us if they won the war. Rhaenyra thought it would give her heir legitimacy. Neither Jace nor I wanted the match.”

“But now you…you miss him? You mourn for him?”

“We grew accustomed to each other. There was true affection, there was warmth.”

“Did he…were you…?” Aemond cannot decide how to say it, or perhaps he just can’t bring himself to. You can tell—from the way his gaze drops from your face to your body, a mystery cloaked in soaked black velvet—that he is thinking of your wedding night, something you were supposed to share, something you spoke of often with desperate, willful, blazing yearning. “Did he hurt you?”

“Not purposefully.”

There is a flare of wrath. “It needn’t have hurt at all.”

“Why did you come after me?” you ask, and your voice breaks and tears spill down your cheeks, and your ribs throb and your throat is full of fire like a dragon’s. “Why did you kill all those people in the Riverlands, why did you burn Heart’s Home, why couldn’t you just…just…just leave me there?” Luca and Jace would still be alive. Lady Caro would still be alive. Tens of thousands of people wouldn’t have burned or starved.

Aemond is incredulous. His voice grows louder; firelight engulfs him like he is drowning in a lake of it. “I swore I would find you if you were ever taken away.”

“I waited for you. I wondered where you were. I stood in the rookery and stared out into the Mountains of the Moon and agonized over why you couldn’t hear me or see me, why you didn’t arrive on Vhagar to save me, but you never came, and so I tried to forget the promises we made to each other because I believed you’d forgotten me—”

“I never forgot you.”

“But I was different!” you sob, bolting to your feet, pressing a palm to the glow of the Painted Table. “With Jace, I was different! I learned to be his wife, I learned to be a mother, and I was fine there, I was safe and I was happy and you destroyed my life!”

“I could feel that you were in pain,” Aemond is saying as he stands and rounds the table to meet you. “It was months ago, it must have been when you…when you were in labor…physically, I could feel it, I thought they were torturing you, I thought you were dying, and how would I know anything else if all I’d been told was that you were stolen by the enemy? You think Daemon is above depravity? You think it’s so unreasonable that I believed you to be in peril?!”

“You were reckless and cruel,” you seethe, shoving him away. “You always are. You’re always killing people.”

“When I flew over Heart’s Home, I knew you were in the forest. I saw the trees through your eyes. I thought I was freeing you, I never anticipated that you would return to the castle. I didn’t know you cared for the lives of anyone inside.”

“You should have left me there,” you choke out through tears.

Aemond tries to take your hands, and again you strike him hard, meaning it, hating him. “I would never have abandoned you,” he says.

“Why not?!” you scream at him. “Because you believe you possess me like a sword or a jewel, because it is sacrilege to let another man touch me?!”

Aemond is shaking his head. “It’s more than that. You know it is.”

You scoff at him, vengeful cynical disbelief. “In eighteen years, you never once told me you loved me—”

He seizes your wrist, drags you to him, cradles your face with his left hand and skates his thumbprint over the crest of your cheekbone. “I have loved you forever,” he says. “And if I didn’t express that in a way you understood then it was my mistake, and I’m sorry, and I’d do anything to change it. I thought you knew. I thought we both knew that…that…” Aemond’s lone eye gleams desperately; he is pleading for you to hear him. “Do you have any idea what this past year has been like for me? It was hell. Aegon almost died at Rook’s Rest and I brought him back but I was alone, I had Criston and maesters and soldiers but I was still alone because Aegon was unconscious and you weren’t there, and neither were Helaena or Daeron. Then King’s Landing fell to Rhaenyra and there was nothing I could do about it until I was sure Aegon would live, and when I learned you’d been taken away…I set the realm ablaze, I waded through an ocean of blood, and I did it because I swore that I would find you and bring you home. And now I have but you…you…you don’t even recognize me. It’s like you don’t remember what we were. Only I carry it now, I’m cursed by it, I’m consumed by it.”

You break away from him and Aemond lets you go, but he follows you around the Painted Table, shadowing you, chasing you. You pitch at him: “You were always so rough with me.”

“Because you wanted it that way and I did too, we craved it, we needed it, we’re the same.”

“You liked that I didn’t have a dragon of my own, you aspired for me to be helpless—”

“No I didn’t,” Aemond insists. “I tried to help you claim Vermithor, right here on this fucking island I risked my life when we were children to pursue him with you. And he did not yield but I wasn’t to blame for it. I cannot give you a dragon. You have to bond with one yourself.”

You glower at him, swiping tears from your streaming eyes. “You hardly ever spoke of dragons to me.”

“Because I knew it pained you! Because I have felt the agony of being a Targaryen without a dragon and I didn’t want to remind you of it!”

“You should have left me with Jace at Heart’s Home,” you moan, collapsing into a chair and weeping into your open palms. “I would still have my son. I would still have my family.”

Across the table, Aemond slams his fists against the wood. “Jace could never fathom who you really are. It’s impossible. He wasn’t like us, he’s wasn’t one of us. We are Aegon and Visenya, we are Baelon and Alyssa. Jace wasn’t a Valyrian. He was a Strong, and part of you would have needed to die to live with him.”

You stare desolately down at the Painted Table, glowing golden lines in the shape of the Vale. “Jace hated that I loved you. You hate that I loved him. I’m always at fault, and yet my crimes are so harmless.”

Aemond is staggered; he is heartbroken. “You loved him?”

I told him I did. “I felt something for him. I grew to miss him in his absence. I desired him when he returned.”

Aemond goes to the hearth, rests one hand on the stone mantle, and gazes into the flames. You can feel it like an echo, like a reverberating tremor in the earth: he is broken. You cannot summon compassion for him. Each time you begin to, you feel the still lifeless weight of Luca in your arms. After a long time, Aemond speaks. “I have to return to the Riverlands. I can’t leave Criston unprotected. Daemon and the Northmen will meet our armies in battle soon. Vhagar and I have to be there. If I can kill Caraxes, I think this will be over.”

You turn to him, dimly startled. “You’re going now?”

“I have to make the world safe for us and our family. Even if I’m not here anymore.” Aemond studies you, afraid to ask the question that burns in his throat. “Do you…” He breathes deeply, salt and misery and smoke from the fire. “Do you still want our side to win?”

“I hate what we’ve done to each other. All of us.” The dead innocents, the destruction of our house, the extinction of our dragons. “And you murdering Luke started it.”

“Yes,” Aemond agrees softly. He crosses the room and stalls in the doorway, looking back at you. He waits for you to say that you will miss him, or that if he returns there might yet be a future for the two of you, or that you will be distraught if he is killed in combat, or that you love him.

As the fire pops and crackles, you shrink into your wet black mourning clothes and say nothing.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sprawled across the volcanic-rock throne in the nightscape gloom of the Great Hall of Dragonstone, Aegon gulps cider until his pain vanishes and his mind is a dull sloshing sea. You are slumped on the steps beside the throne and drinking with him. Neither of you speak it aloud, but it stands in the room like a ghost: you have both held a dead son in your arms, you have both lost a husband or a wife to this war. Torches burn along the walls. Outside, rain pours and the dragons creep and snarl. Sunfyre is here too, Aegon has told you. He can’t fly yet—perhaps he never will again—but he is alive and hostilely defends the cave where he dwells from the other creatures of the island: Grey Ghost, Vermithor, the Cannibal.

The Blacks believe Dragonstone to be abandoned, and in any event they are too preoccupied with their myriad of troubles in the Riverlands and King’s Landing to take it upon themselves to investigate, and so you are safe for the time being. You get drunk in the home of your ancestors, the Valyrians who carved out a stark, grim existence here, who dreamed of greatness, who despite all their magic failed to foretell their ruin.

“Do you know what he asked Sylvi?” Aegon slurs. “The woman from the brothel. Not the very first time, the first time…” Aegon smiles nostalgically. “Well, it’s like your first time riding a dragon. It takes you away and you’re just…” His hand flows in the shape of a wave. “Holding on. Mesmerized by it.”

“Sure,” you say, remembering not your wedding night with Jace but the evening when Aemond dragged you halfway out of the chair by your vanity and licked you, swallowed you, devoured you until you could not help but cry out, and you sank to the floor with your heartbeat thudding in your ears and Aemond lying beside you, smoothing back your hair from your burning face.

“Aemond only went to Sylvi a few more times after that. But she told me what his requests were when I inquired.” Aegon looks at you meaningfully. “He wanted to know how to make it good for a maiden. And who do you imagine he was thinking of?”

You don’t reply. You guzzle your cider instead. You want all of your bones to stop aching: your ribs, your skull, every place that Aemond ever touched you. You feel a strange smoldering inside, like all your bone marrow has been quarried and replaced with embers, pulsing, glowing. You feel something dangerous and primordial drawing closer.

“He never would have hurt you intentionally,” Aegon says gently, clumsily petting your loose silver hair as if you are one of the hundred cats Grandsire brought to the Red Keep after Jaehaerys was slain. “He worships you. He always has.”

“I can’t forget what he did.”

“Can you forgive yourself for letting him leave that way? If he dies thinking that you hate him?”

You swallow a mouthful of cider, hot and intoxicating. The room spins. Lightning flashes outside. “Maybe I do.”

“No, you don’t hate him,” Aegon says rather wistfully, with the solemn surety of drunks.

Alys Rivers wanders into the Great Hall, the train of her dark green gown whispering over the stone floor. Aegon scowls at her. She stops at one of the misted glass windows and gazes out into the storm.

“He flies to his death,” Alys murmurs sorrowfully, as if she wishes she could change it.

Aegon groans. “Shut up, witch.”

“Above the Gods Eye, the red and the blue, tangled threads cut by fate—”

“Be gone!” Aegon shouts and hurls his goblet of cider at her. It misses, strikes the wall, clatters to the floor and spills its contents in a puddle. Alys does not seem to notice. You sit upright on the steps by Aegon’s throne, watching her.

“He flies to his death,” she repeats, melodically like a chant or a spell. “Unless, unless…”

Alys looks at you, then turns to peer through the window again. Outside in the darkness, a monstrous beast growls, not Sunfyre or Grey Ghost or Vermithor.

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