#TO FUCKING WAR?!?!?!! AGAINST MELEYS?!?;?;!;!!;;!!!???

[maya-tl]

THEY BUTCHERED MY BOY

[entitled-fangirl]

Chance. (P2)

Aemond Targaryen x Baratheon!reader; Aegon x wife!reader

Summary: Aemond finds that his ploy is having the opposite effect- driving her away from him slowly.

Part 1, Part 3

Masterlist

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In the days that followed, Aemond had managed to lure the poor doe from Aegon's room. 

She now took walks with him daily, something he found himself enjoying more than he thought he initially would.

Like now.

"Against Caraxes?" She asked with a slight grin. "I thought both Caraxes and Meleys have seen war."

"They have. But I believe Meleys would win."

"I believe Vhagar would best them both." 

He felt a warm feeling go through his heart at that. "That was not the hypothetical scenario that I stated though, was it?"

"No, but it is the truth. Vhagar is a formidable creature."

His head tilted, "Vhagar is quite… kind, actually."

She stopped walking to look at him. "Is she?"

He hummed, "Very gentle in spirit. She must make up for my lack thereof."

Her lips pulled into a teasing grin, "You're quite gentle when you wish to be."

"I suppose so." He reasoned, "I just do not wish to be very often."

…

"THAT BASTARD!" Aemond roared as he entered his mother's chambers. 

Alicent turned and stood, "Aemond, what are-"

"Did you know about this?" He seethed.

She stared. "About what?"

"The marriage. A fucking marriage."

"What marriage?" She asked. "What are you talking about?"

"That slimy bastard will have his hands all over her," he spoke through gritted teeth. "And I must let him."

"Speak plainly, Aemond. You're confusing me."

He forced himself to take a deep breath and lower his voice, "My brother denied my betrothal. And now he takes my place in it."

Alicent tilted her head, "He wishes to marry her?"

"He does not love her." Aemond's fist clenched. "He will not love her as I can."

"That's what this is about then," she said. "A brotherly feud?"

"He only wishes to make my life harder, mother. And you let him."

He stormed out the door, kicking a chair on his way, not caring for the loud clattering sound of it against the floor.

…

"How does he fair today, my queen?" Aemond asked.

She looked up from Aegon to the prince, "Better. He's… better, I suppose."

"He does not look it."

She let out a frustrated huff, "Anything is better than the state you brought him to me in."

He smirks, "Do watch your tongue, doe."

She tilted her head curiously, "Why? Don't misconstrue my words, my prince. I only mean to say that you returned without a mere scratch and our king is…" She paused as she look to him, "…beyond repair."

"That was the will of the gods, not mine own. Remember that."

"And yet they named you regent. Didn't they?"

Aemond's jaw clenched and he took steady steps to the foot of the bed she sat on, "I am a worthy candidate for the crown, am I not?"

"Your mother ruled in your father's stead. Should I not rule now?"

"No, pretty doe. You're to care for the king. He needs a… woman's touch."

Her eyes flitted down to the dagger Aemond possessed. 

He continued, "Do watch who enters here. You never know who you can trust."

She looked back up to him a new look in her eyes, "Right."

…

Something began to stir in the girl as she thought about Aemond as the regent now. 

Some things just didn't add up.

And it seemed Alicent thought the same. 

Y/n spotted Alicent walking down the halls and decided to catch up to her. "My lady?"

Alicent turned, seeing the girl, "Is Aegon alright?"

"Yes," she found herself now nervous under the older woman's gaze. "I found myself needing advice, is all."

"Oh. Um." Alicent hums, stumped. "Let us take a walk then, I suppose."

"I'd like that."

…

Y/n called in the knock that sounded at her door.

Aemond entered and she stood at his entrance, "My prince."

He shook his head, "Please don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Act so formerly. As if we were not betrothed only hours ago."

She sighed and sat back down. "I do not know what you wish for me to say."

"That you're upset, perhaps?" He scoffed.

She huffed back, "I have had no say this entire time. Why would I just now be upset?"

"Because you know what Aegon is."

"I do."

His jaw clenched, "And still nothing?"

"My prince, my life was bargained for before I was out of my mother's womb. I am used to the feeling of disappointment."

He sighed and moved towards her, sitting on another chair. "He'll mistreat you."

She stared at the flames of the fireplace, "So be it."

Aemond studied her with his one eye, "You'll wed yourself to a whoremonger that would rather spend his nights drunk in a cold, dark alley than sober with his wife in a warm bed?"

Her eyes watered. "Do not remind me."

Silence filled the room as he considered what to say next. 

But she spoke first, "You may not be my husband, but you will be a caring brother-by-law. I know."

He smiled, "I won't abandon you."

…

"As a woman, it must be hard to truly now who your allies are."

Alicent nodded, "It is. Men only want thing in life, and that is anything that gets them hard."

She hummed, a trait she no doubt picked up from her recent time with Aemond, "But how can you be certain?"

The queen regent frowned, "Is there someone you fear as of now?"

"Not I. I fear more for Aegon."

Alicent sighed. "I do as well."

Y/n began to step, leading the two more into the garden. "I cannot protect him all of the time."

"Nor do we all expect you to."

Her jaw clenched, "And yet I find myself protecting a man who cares not for my own wellbeing."

"That's not entirely tru-"

"IT IS!" She cried. "Aegon married me for nothing! I am nothing to him but a whore he can impregnate-"

Her head jerked to the side with a loud slap and a sudden hot pain spread across her cheek.

Alicent had slapped her.

"Do not," the queen regent sneered. "Say those words again."

A shaky hand came up to her cheek, the cold of her palm soothing the pain. "I thought you an ally. But you're not."

Alicent scoffed mockingly, "Silly girl. There are no real allies in this game. Only mutual interests for a common end."

"It seems we wish for different endings then."

"Does it matter anymore?"

When she didn't answer, Alicent began to walk away.

"Alicent-"

She whipped around, "Do not call me that."

Y/n's head shot up with a new look of determination, "I am the queen. Not you. I will call you what I wish."

…

The next day, she met Aemond as always to walk the gardens.

He moved to hold his arm out, but immediately stopped himself. "What befell you?"

Her brows furrowed, "I'm sorry?"

His hand gently brushed her cheek and she flinched at the contact. "My queen. Has someone laid a hand on you?"

She shook her head. "I was being reckless."

His eye studied her closely. "I don't believe you."

She pushed his hand away lightly, "Then don't."

He bent his head down closer to her, "Is someone a threat to you? Must I fix something for you?"

"There is nothing to fix. I wish to go on our walk so I may return to my husband."

My husband.

The words still burned him worse than dragon fire.

He hummed and held his arm out once again, staring their walk. 

"I am curious, if you allow me to be so," she began.

He nodded.

"You've dismissed Cole as hand-"

"-And you wish to know his replacement?"

Her head tilted to the side, "I do."

He let out a low breath as he looked down at their path, "I'm assigning it to my grandsire, Otto Hightower. He's done it twice before."

"In a time of peace, that is."

"I suppose that's true. Then again, not many others are good enough even in times of peace, my queen."

"Sitting on the Iron Throne is no easy task, Aemond."

He chewed on his bottom lip as they walked, unsure of what she really wanted to say.

She pulled away from him at the sight of a certain flower. She knelt down at it, touching it with a gentle calmness to her.

She could be such a good queen if Aegon had just given her the chance.

Aemond promised he would.

…

"Dismissed. Except for my mother."

The council members one by one left the table and out the door, save for Alicent who sat with a curious look.

Aemond stood, rounding the table to stand behind her chair, "You dare strike her?"

Alicent took a deep breath, "Aemond, this does not concern you."

"Concern me? Indeed it does." He moved next to her chair, leaning against the table now, "You believed that you could strike her and I would not notice?"

"I did not think she would tell you."

"And alas, she did not."

Alicent's eyes widened at that. "Then how-"

"You've just confirmed it."

Aemond crouched down to her level, practically spitting venom, "I'm removing you from the small council. You're of no use to us and the kingdom anymore if you cannot even keep your hands to yourself, mother."

…

Y/n walked down the halls of the castle, going to Aegon's room as she always did. 

Upon entering it, she was surprised to find Lord Larys Strong there. 

He pushed himself to stand, "My queen."

She frowned, "My lord."

He turned to Aegon, "I am grateful for your recovery, your grace."

Lord Strong limped by, stopping next to her and speaking in her ear, "If you're in need of an ally, I can be of assistance, my queen."

Her eyes studied Aegon, noting the watery look in his eye. Her jaw clenched, "I believe I am tired of alliances, my lord. They do nothing for me."

He hummed, "Very well, your grace. My offer stands if you change your mind."

She turned her head to him with disdain, "I won't."

His jaw set but he nodded and left without another word. 

Upon the door closing, she moved to Aegon's side, exactly where Lord Strong had been moments before. "There you are."

His hand moved towards the bedside table, clearly reaching for something. 

She looked, noting the cup of the milk of the poppy that sat there untouched.

She quickly took the cup in her hands, "Relax yourself, my king." 

He moved back, a small tear in his eye.

She leaned down, wiping it from his cheek with a gentle smile. "You foolish man. What's wrong?"

He coughed a bit, "Ae…aemond…"

Her brows furrowed, "Aemond? What of Aemond?"

His hand grabbed her wrist, yanking her to him with what little strength he had. He cried as he did so, "Do not…"

She studied him with a worried gaze, "Do not...?"

The door opened, and she quickly looked over her shoulder. 

Aemond himself stood in the doorway. 

"How is his grace?"

She looked back to Aegon who looked ready to cry again. "He's doing alright. He'll be resting again soon enough."

Aemond hummed, stepping to the other side of the bed to watch the two.

Her hand moved to the back of Aegon's head, leaning him up to sip from the cup in her other hand.

He carefully took in the liquid, sighing as he finished. 

The woman leaned forward and kissed his forehead, "Sleep well."

She stood up and abandoned the cup with her focus now on Aemond, "Let us leave him in peace for a while."

"Yes," he said absent-mindedly. "We should."

But his mind was far from absent. In fact, it only thought one thing.

What had Aegon told her?

..................................................

part 3

taglist: p45510n4f4shi0n, darktrashsoulbear

[vanilleandclove]

the meadow in which you lay | 7

ser erryk cargyll x arryn!reader | chapter seven: body and soul

Tensions rise in Dragonstone as Rhaenyra took off in search for Lucerys's corpse, the only vice being the husband she left behind whom has a shorter temper than that of a child.

word count: 1.5k | warnings: strangulation (daemon you cunt), non-sexual nudity, oral sex (f recieving), ERRYK IS A MUNCH! grief. | a/n: two more parts perhaps, until we are all wishing the worst on criston cole himself.

previous - next

taglist: @wolvestitches @holb32 @callsignwidow @fwaeriys @hummusxx @erysione @snixx2088 @opheliax98 @celestialstar111

"Ser Lorent, have you seen Daemon?" you asked Ser Lorent as you strutted down the steps in Dragonstone leading into the war room, Erryk opened his arm for you to balance onto as courtesy, you earned a bow from Erryk; Rhaenyra named you "Hand of the Queen" just before she set forth to look endlessly for Luke's body, nearly several days ago.

"Last I have seen the Prince, he was dressing into his armor, very set on the words 'a son for a son'" Lorent answered you, giving Erryk a slight nod, "I believe he is in the Dragon's quarters my Lady Hand".

"Please, just call me Lady" you smiled dimly, Erryk was pleased to see you smile, you had not in days upon hearing of Luke's death. Every single night filled your chambers with violent sobs and screams, Erryk having to restrain you in order for you to gain your composure once more, making sure you were hydrated upon the hour, and combing through your hair to soothe you, cooing in your ear like a mother does a babe.

You looked at Erryk and nodded as well, signaling to him that you were sound, able to walk to Dragonstone's Dragon pit on your own to confront Daemon; upon arrival it seemed Rhaenys had already finished the job. Though, it never hurt to weigh in, especially to a hot-tempered man like Daemon.

"Where were you off to?" you questioned the Prince, "Thank you Rhaenys, may you and Meleys rest, your efforts are great" you then celebrated the Princess, earning a whisper from her.

"Give him hell".

"You forget it is the Queen whom makes the decisions in war Daemon" you continued, Daemon looking like a near child whom was patronized by their parents.

"You forget your ranking Lady Arryn, as well as Valyrian blood. Had this been my war-".

"Had it be your war, you'd turn the realm against itself, the kingdoms receding from your Valyrian blood. I may not be Targaryen nor a fucking Prince, but I am the one the Queen entrusted with her hand" you told him sternly, hearing the steps of Erryk and Lorent enter the corridor.

"Who knows perhaps we may hear of House Arryn usurping the throne next. You forget yourself Y/n, there is always a reason Alicent ostracized you from conversation to get into Rhaenyra's head, you were the only one with sense; granted I believe now that you know how it is to have a cock inside you, you've lost it" Daemon insulted, looking to both you and Erryk.

You lost your temper at the insult, smacking the prince blankly in the face, "Your wife's son is dead! You do not wish to kill Aemond to avenge Lucerys's death you wish and desire for power, it kills you from the inside that your kin was slain not in the manner of grief but in the manner of ego!" you shouted, only earning a distressful look from the prince before he began to size you up, quickly wrapping his hand around your neck. Hearing a sword drawn from behind you as well seeing Daemon punched in the face, the sword of Lorent was drawn, the fist belonged to Erryk.

Upon the hour, you stood in your chambers to rest, Erryk had joined you. He examined your neck and the light bruising that painted your skin, now tender and ached.

"I would have killed him had I not sworn an oath to the Queen" Erryk spoke with venom laced in his tone, "Forgive me".

"For what?" you questioned, you had sat down on your bed as Erryk was standing between your legs, looking up at him.

"I fear loving me comes at an expensive price as the days pass seeing that it is not just oaths that prevent us from loving each other- body and soul".

You scoffed lightly before bringing the knight to his knees in order to be at eye-level with you, "I would take thousands of strangulations and petty insults to love you Erryk- body and soul", you kissed his lips once you saw the twinkle in his eye, only to be interrupted by the roars of Syrax, distinctive they were, signaling your cousin's return.

As Erryk and yourself hurried down into the war room, seeing everyone gather around the map of Westeros, Erryk taking his post and you taking your place on council. "Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, the first of her name, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lady of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm" Erryk begun to announce as Rhaenyra made her way into the room. Daemon being the first to greet her, asking if she had found solace and purpose now that she had found Luke, just as Syrax found Arrax, grieving mothers they were.

"I want Aemond Targaryen" were the only words your cousin spoke, pure hatred and anger laced in her voice to the near sound of her brother's name, as you all bowed, you had quickly followed your cousin to her chambers.

"Let's wash you up" you spoke softly, looking to Erryk who was walking strides behind you, you nodded, once again signaling that you both were sound.

Opening the door to Rhaenyra's chambers, you were met with the handmaids who had already drawn a warm bath. You quickly shut the door and began to help your cousin undress, her lightly shuddered, her jaw clenching and unclenching repeatedly, slight sobs left her mouth and goosebumps cascaded along her body. You looked to Elinda, simply entrusting her to handle your cousin from there. Speaking up to say, "I will be in my chambers, okay? Alert anyone if you wish to see me, I will be here immediately".

You walked out of your cousin's chambers, being met with Erryk who was taking the time to sharpen his sword. "May you help me?" you startled the knight by breaking the thick silence.

"Always, what is it my love?" he immediately responded without second thought.

You quickly guided him to your chambers, undressing as the water now grew ice cold from the bath the ladies drew for you hours ago. "I need you here, with me" you pointed to the water, "Please".

The knight looked uncertain before seeing your eyes coated in tears, he nodded before beginning to strip of his armor and his undergarments, your eyes seeing the scars that riddled his body clearer. Allowing him to enter the bath first before he guided and aided you to enter the water, his warm body helped ease you into the bath. His arms wrapped around your body as you went slack against him, the water painted your body like varnish, how beautiful you gleamed under the moonlight that peaked through your chambers. Your scent intoxicated him but, he did cloud his judgement, allowing himself to begin cleaning you, not missing any spot or curve of your body. You took the liberty to pepper kisses along his neck and chest, before choosing to kiss his lips yearningly.

With enough time having passed that of your love holding you, Erryk removed the soap with ease from your body before standing up and holding you securely to his chest, carrying you out of the water, your nipples perked and body shuddering from the coldness. He gently set you down on your bed before looking up at you, "Let me please you tonight my love", earning a nod of consent from you. His lips laid kisses along your body, his beard tickling parts of you that you were not aware could be tickled.

As his mouth made its way further down, the growing heat within your body soared as the knight then was met with your cunt. Kissing the inner portion of your thighs gracefully, earning a whine from your vocals, he saw it as an invitation to kiss the bud that sent blissful pleasure to your body all over. He quickly felt your cunt become wetter and wetter by the second, easing himself to licking your cunt with vigor, nibbling at your clit slightly to send yourself to disrepair. Moans left your mouth, you reached for Erryk's hand that laid on your stomach, as both of his arms secured themselves around your hips to prevent you from squirming. His beard sending you over the edge, as his nose teased the upper portion of your cunt and his tongue worked masterfully on your cunt. You reached your peak upon minutes, seeing white and a combination of stars. The man had known to pleasure you, body and soul.

[rise-my-angel]

"# have many thoughts on why they adapted Rhaenys the way they did and all of them strip what makes her so cool and i hate it"

I'd actually love to read your thoughts, I have some of my own but they boil down to turning her into a bizarre mouth piece for the writers (which is what most of the female characters in HOTD feel like) and not allowing her to potentially outshine Rhaenyra which is why all the women on TB lack personalities, it's easier to write for one or 2 women than it is to write for a whole cast.

Rhaenys in the book and Rhaenys in the show are basically two completely different characters.

Princess Rhaenys in the show is not my friend. Princess Rhaenys in the book is cool as all hell and a true Baratheon under it all.

Under a read more, I wrote you a fucking essay I am so sorry.

There isn't as much about Princess Rhaenys in the book due to the narrative style of Fire and Blood, but what we do know paints a drastically different picture. Rhaenys has the purple eyes, and she flies Meleys, but thats all about her that is distinctly Targaryean.

She was born to King Jaeherys firstborn son and heir Aemon, and her mother was Jocelyn Baratheon. So she has the long, straight black hair of a Baratheon with a streaks of white throughout from her age, she was a great beauty but never described in ways that other Targaryean women are, more in a way that she is a great beauty in terms of a Baratheon.

She was a woman who was very clever, very quick witted, but she was also known to be fearless, she had a red hot fiery temper and much like her mothers house words, she was a fierce woman with a fury within her.

As Aemons only child, she was seen by many to be his heir when he became King. Queen Alysanne even calling her their "Queen to be". Alysanne and Jaehaerys often did trips around Westeros called progresses, which was personally going to a Lords castle or keep, spending time with them, holding court, solving local issues and using that time to bond with his highest subjects, which was part of why he held such a long reign of peace, he used his dragons pruposley to make travel easy and personally visited the homes of his people.

Rhaenys would join him on this after she claimed Meleys, going on some progresses around Westeros and she became a very popular royal figure amongst the nobility, notably in the Dustins, Manderlys, Blackwoods, Celtigars, and the Starks.

Now, yes Rhaenys was up for a claim at the great council, but she was actually rejected early on because she was a woman. She then persuaded these lords on her side to push for her sons claim, Laenor, and it is Laenor who lost in the final vote to Viserys, not Rhaenys. Rhaenys and Laena were both rejected and so she pushed for her son without a second thought, she was fine not being Queen, she was the eldest sons firstborn child and she put her firstborn son up to be King.

After word came that Lucerys was dead, it was she and Corlys who were actually in command of the Black Council at the start of the war because Rhaenyra was too in greif to rule.

Then her greatest moment, Rhaenyra was the one who ordered Rhaenys to Rooks Rest and without any reinforcement. Rhaenys of course, listened to her Queen, but the fight is different.

In the books, Criston Cole has set a trap. Lure a dragonrider out, and when they arrived, they would be ambushed by Aemond on Vhagar and Aegon on Sunfyre knwoing the two against one dragon would be enough to defeat them.

"Princess Rhaenys made no attempt to flee. With a glad cry and a crack of her whip, she turned Meleys towards the foe."

Rhaenys realizes she has rode into a trap.

She knows if it were Sunfyre or Vhagar alone she might stand a chance, but against both of them she knew she was doomed. She had time though, she could try and turn to leave. But, Rhaenys is in her blood, a Baratheon. Baratheons don't run from such dangerous odds, even when facing certain doom, she never let herself be controlled by that fear. She did what Baratheons do, and she turned around and fought with fury. With my favourite line about her describing her perfectly:

So, what are the main differences here from the show that are so wrong? Lets talk the two big ones:

Rhaenys being given the Targaryean look instead of the Baratheon look is an attempt to give the feeling that she is a true Targaryean and thats why she is such a fearsome dragonrider. But, in the books, she looks Baratheon, and her personality is textbook Baratheon. By stripping her of the Baratheon look, she show is propping her up more as a Targaryean which feeds into this show's strange relationship with Targaryeans being divine and special. By taking away the fact that Rhaenys was the first and only Baratheon born dragonrider, it downplays the fact that Rhaenys did not fit into the typical Targaryean dragonrider persona which most were at the time. It makes her look like a Targaryean alone, and it severs that relationship in Fire and Blood of the less of a Targaryean someone appears does not equate to being less capable of the feats they claim only they are special enough to do. Rhaenys isn't the books biggest example of that, but she is the big start of it.

By making the final vote at the Great Council come down to Rhaenys vs Viserys, it paints the man vs woman image. Rhaenys and Laena were rejected very fast, and it was Laenor, her son, who Viserys won against. Not Rhaenys. The entire show though, follows this idea. That Rhaenys lost because she was a woman and that dictates so much going forward. It dicates everything she pushes for, women in power, not being in service to men, but Rhaenys was never like that. Rhaenys did not fight against the world she grew up in, she navigated it despite of it. She did not promote this woman in power idea just because she was rejected. She was Jaeherys grandaughter, and he was a man who did not treat the women in his life as equals. She would be used to being passed over for men, her grandfather did it with almost every woman in his family to the point it drove his wife away. Rhaenys in the books didn't stand for anything. She didn't do what she did because she wanted to stand with a woman over a man. It wasn't about that. In the books, her and Corlys essentially pick the lesser of two evils. In their minds, standing with the Greens means her family and grandaughters will be at the mercy of Rhaenyra and Daemon, but standing with the blacks, she is at the mercy of Alient and Aegon. One of those two is a more dangerous foe to her family, and she sides with the family that gives her granddaughters a safer chance. It had nothing to do with anything and the show doesnt even establiush why she chooses Rhaenyra, she just does and then starts promoting the idea that Rhaenyra is the woman who wants peace not the men startingg war and it turns her into a mess who is onyl here to lecture the audience that the men are bad.

Really, my biggest gripe is, Rhaenys as a Baratheon dragonrider has a lot of potential. Due to the structure of Fire and Blood we don't spend a lot of time with her, but we do know that the relationship between the Baratheons and the Targaryeans is extremely tenuous and sore. The Baratheons have long since resented the Targaryeans, and Princess Rhaenys literally was supposed to be the bridge between the families.

Queen Alysanne married Aemon to Jocelyn Baratheon so that the Baratheons can have an heir one day on the Iron Throne and hopefully stop the fighting and resentment the Stormlords had towards them. But by rejecting her and her family at the Great Council, it reopens that old wound. And the Baratheons become disillusioned more and more when Viserys makes no effort to mend that bridge.

Rhaenys is a Targaryean raised dragonrider, who was distinctly Baratheon looking with the feirce personality of a Baratheon, and that contends a lot with what the Targaryeans all stood for especially at the time and it could make for a lot of great scenes revolving around what is wrong with the Targaryean legacy. The more like a Baratheon Rhaenys was, the more the Targaryeans stood out as people who were doomed to destory each other.

Rhaenys was born to be the child that mended the bridge between the Targaryeans treating the Baratheons like lesser then, when they had once been their strongest ally. By making Rhaenys just another Targaryean, it erases that conversation of why the Targaryens were bound to lose. That even when they married the Baratheons into the family, they still screwed it up because they couldn't get over their biases of looking down on the Stags.

Rhaenys had potentiol to showcase a time in history that foreshadows whats to come. For decades before the dance the Baratheons resented the Targaryeans, and after the dance, that resentment will continue to grow until it explodes during Roberts Rebellion.

By erasing her as a Baratheon, it erases the potential of showing why the Targaryeans were doomed to lose. They always treated their Baratheon allies as war fodder, just like throwing Rhaenys into battle without any backup, and her personality and looks standing out against the Targaryeans could have shown why the conflict of Roberts Rebellion was inevitable.

The Baratheons were always going to fight back against the Targaryeans one day, and hotd lost its chance to use Rhaenys to lay the first stones and show why.

But, that paints the Targaryeans in a more negative light, because the Baratheons are in the right to hate the Targaryeans. So, they erased everything about Rhaenys that stood out.

Even her death. A very Baratheon move, refusing to flee from certain death, because she was a woman with fury who was willing to face her enemy head on no matter what it was about to cost her.

Instead, she has a confusing death where her going back is framed as brave, but its not. Rhaenys in the books knew she might have stood a chance against Vhagar alone. So in the show, shes just turning back for a battle that she might win. In the books, shes against Vhagar and Sunfyre. Shes turning back towards a battle she knows she will lose, but she does not run, because she is a Baratheon, and they do not run from their enemies. They face them even towards certain death.

Also, book Rhaenys never exploded hundreds of smallfolk with her fucking dragon. She never did that.

[lemonhemlock]

The episode where Rhaenys busts through the floor and murders countless smallfolk and it having absolutely no narrative consequences on the story or condemnation of Rhaenys' character, and the episode where Aegon murders the ratcatchers causing Otto to crash out have this whole monlogue about Aegon being The Worst being written by the same writer really tells you all you need to know about HOTD. And before you ask, yes, they were both written by Sara Hess lmao.

Yeah, I know there was discourse a while ago, because this dissatisfaction regressed into racist and misogynistic attacks directed at Sara Hess. Obviously, that's vile and people should, first of all, rid themselves of this despicable framework of viewing the world (because, as always, this is absolutely just another opportunity to dunk on a woman - these people don't care about good storytelling) and, secondly, learn how to actually formulate an argument that doesn't sound like the ramblings of a basement-dweller.

That being said, she is categorically not a good writer, there's no other way to put it. She can come up with some good ideas (or, at least, a glimmer of good ideas - for example, the daemyra argument in S02E02 was good - one of the season's highlights, actually) and her line-level writing is... adequate. But, on the whole, her record on House of the Dragon is littered with inaccuracies and logical fallacies. I haven't seen her other shows, but I decidedly have no desire to and will be actively avoiding if I see her name. And I am including Ryan Condal in this mess, too, because he has the ultimate say-so on how the scripts look. These two together truly are the blind leading the deaf.

I think the ratcatcher pity party was, in a way, a reaction to all the backlash she received for the Meleys dragonpit scene. But, instead of fixing her mistake and making it work in the context of what she had already written, she made some absolutely abysmal storytelling choices that defy common sense and contradict her own text. A very easy fix to this would have been to show the population of King's Landing become very anti- Meleys, Rhaenys and, by extension, Rhaenyra. But, of course, the wider narrative set by her genius colleagues was that KL couldn't possible have any negative feelings towards Rhaenyra, so it's completely swept under the rug and the commoners are made to consider Meleys' death a bad omen.

But, naturally, they had to do something about all the criticisms that they are not focusing on the negative effects this war has on the population. However, instead of showing that in a balanced way, they decided to pile all these evils on the greens again. Rhaenyra faces no backlash from the low-born for any of her actions. She does sacrifice them to Vermithor, essentially, by preventing their exit and it's framed as the beginning of her moral compromises and falling into self-aggrandizing behaviour. Yes. But where are the consequences to this? There are no consequences. These dragonseeds don't seem to have any family who are asking questions about them or blaming Rhaenyra for setting them on fire, basically. Not even one noble person hears of this and goes "hmmm that's kind of fucked up actually". Larys, the literal Master of Spies, who might have reasonably be shown to have found out this inside information via his network of spies, might have had some lines informing the green council about this awful thing Rhaenyra has done. Might have even informed the population, in order to turn them against her. But no, of course not, we can't have anyone actually be anti-Rhaenyra.

Meanwhile, we have close-ups of the fucking dog longing for the ratcatcher who literally kicked it in a previous scene. How do you even qualify the framing decision to invite the audience to feel sorry for a child-murderer? To feel more sorry for him than for the actual mother of said murdered child? We have Otto, of all people, lecturing Aegon about how over-the-top he is acting, because he executed a couple of ratcatchers. Otto, who, by the way, is shown in S01E09 to be executing people because they would not bend the knee to Aegon. Otto does not value commoner lives more than noble-borns (last season, he refuses to outlaw child pit fighting and, even in the previous episode, he gets annoyed by Aegon ruling too much in the smallfolk's favour), but he grows a temporary conscience for the purpose of this one scene, because we have to engineer another situation in which Aegon looks cruel or stupid (or both, preferably). Alicent's entire household was purged by Larys for supposedly being Mysaria's spies, the brothel was even set on fire and she gave zero fucks about that, but Aegon's ratcatcher execution is somehow one step too far.

I have said this before, but just thinking "civilians don't matter" in the ASOIAF universe betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the themes and message. Can you ultimately be anything other than a "bad" writer if you miss the point to such a degree? And you can tell that's her true opinion about all this, because she can't write a storyline in which civilians do matter to save her life. The suffering of the lower classes only matters in her stories just as far as she can instrumentalize it to demonize the greens. She's not interested in any kind of systemic exploration, because that would also involve the blacks and it would interfere with Rhaenyra's hero framing. Like Ryan Condal, she doesn't have the chops to write beyond the hero-villain binary, hence all the flip-flopping and the retconning and the logical fallacies. And, at the end of the day, I can just watch a Marvel movie for that, you know?

[nrilliree]

https://www.tumblr.com/bluebardblogs/748466535784497152/people-picking-sides-in-the-dance-is?source=share

These types of arguments are stupid. Yes, the dance cost dragons. But because of whom there was the dance?! The Greens. So I'm tired of seeing people claim that since the war killed the dragons, well both sides were bad. No. That's not how it works. The Blacks first responded with words. They didn't want to involve the dragons in the first place. They wage war with words first. It's once again the Greens who ruined everything. I would really like to understand the logic of people saying that the Blacks are at the same level as the Greens under the pretext that they reacted to the usurpation?! Like, if you defend yourself, aren't you better than your attacker? This is literally victim blaming reasoning and it pisses me off. The dragons would have still been alive if the Greens had stayed in their place for fuck's sake. I don't know how it works in these people's heads. What, they say to themselves that the Blacks should have just let the Greens steal what was theirs to be better? This is completely stupid.

Yes, I agree with that. If the Greens hadn't stolen the throne, they wouldn't have started the war, there would have been no Dance and the dragons would have lived. TG claim that "the rebellion would break out anyway because Westeros would not accept Rhaenyra on the throne" (which, as we know, is nonsense, because 2/3 of the kingdom supported her, and there would be more), but even if that were the case, what to be an obstacle to a united House of the Dragon? They would have all the dragons on one side if the Greens had not decided to be usurpers and traitors to the crown. Rhaenyra and Daemon would have had no reason to kill the Targaryens and dragonriders if they had pledged allegiance to the crown instead of conspiring against it for decades. Also - sorry, but which side started using dragons to kill first? Which side killed the dragons first? Which side used dragons to terrorize the kingdom and burn innocents, fostering fear and hatred of dragons? How can you say that the destruction of the dragons is Rhaenyra's fault when the TGs caused it with their decisions? Arrax, Meleys, Moondancer, Stormcolud, Vermax, Seasmoke, Vermithor, Tessarion, Gray Ghost, Sunfyre, Caraxes and Vhagar. These dragons died in a war caused by the TG's greed, because they had to have the throne.

[peachysunrize]

Now the green fandom loathes Alicent and especially Aemond. But they always defended Aegon's character and called every bad or stupid thing he'd done as a bad writing and writers' bias. I'm not saying this wasn't sometimes true, but still. Why not apply the same criteria to Aemond? I guess I can't even consider myself to be a green anymore since I like the characters - Aemond and Alicent (even though I hate some of the writing decisions regarding their arcs) they now hate with fervor and there is no safe space for me lol. Not to mention that those are the same characters that brought me to the green side. What's your opinion on this?

Finally someone with common sense finally!!

Before I write my answer, please for the love of god don’t read this if you hate Aemond or are a mad aegon wife. I’m not looking for any drama, this is my opinion and many will not agree so simply don’t read if you don’t like Aemond. I’m an aemond apologist so. Answer under the cut

Aemond is the only villain in this story that is a villain. A real villain who is ambitious and cunning and smart. He has a righteous god complex and knows what he wants.

I agree that him betraying his brother was a bad writing decision, but with the scene we got, it truly made me wonder did he mean it? Yes, yes he did, but not in a sense I’m going to KFC my brother, no, he just didn’t care Aegon was tangled with Meleys.

He didn’t give a fuck just as Aegon didn’t give a fuck about him all his life. He’s a twat, the pink dread, his 13 birthday, the brothel etc.

My problem is that people whitewashed Aegon’s misdeeds. They bluntly ignored the very obvious rape allegations against him. He is a rapist, as much as the show tries to show him as this beautiful and amazing human being he’s still a rapist. I love Aegon and what Aemond did made me cry for him but that doesn’t mean he’s not a bad person.

He is tragic. They both are. Complex characters ruined by Condal & co.

But now, suddenly Aemond is the worst person in the fandom because he is at war and betrayed his brother. Suddenly Aegon wives are sending hate towards Aemond’s appearances, calling him ugly, bodyshaming him again, going on and on about him.

We could have gotten this amazing sibling rivalry but they just made it into something that made this fandom less enjoyable than it already was

ABOUT ALICENT OH MY GOSH

Again I agree that she had no right to verbally abuse Aegon, the son she had to endure marital rape to bring to this world. It was such a dumb writing decision, now not only she is a bad mother but she’s an abuser too.

There is a very obvious misogynistic way of writing Alicent in the show by men who have only heard about misogyny through other tv shows and Andrew Tate instagram edits.

Alicent put Aegon on the throne to save her children’s lives!!!!!! And now she is this dumb stupid woman who can’t even bring herself to like her children.

I hate hate this season’s writing. So many plot holes, so misogynistic, so dumb. That’s why I can never hate these characters, even how bad they’re butchering them.

[pterodactylterrace]

*less than two months ago*

Beloved? You sure about that Condal? Just… forgot about the mass murder at the coronation? Never happened? Not one of those small folk remembered when she killed hundreds of them for absolutely no reason other than to stare at Aegon and then fly off?

If you were going for a more realistic reaction, they would have been cheering that the dragon and dragon rider that slaughtered so many of them answered for their crimes.

So, according to Condal, hanging a dozen rat catchers (I believe?) to ensure no other assassination attempts befell the royal family would turn all the small folk against Aegon, but the dragon that killed HUNDREDS of them was “beloved”? Did Aegon not meet the quota for small folk slaughter to be beloved or something? Is that it? You have to kill at least 200 before they go from hating you to loving you?

Someone get Condal’s dumbass out of the writing room. Let like 3 hardcore fans take his place. One TB, one TG, one Team Smallfolk. They will make a MUCH better and balanced show. And maybe something interesting will happen. I mean, do we really need five episodes of Rhaenyra’s council not listening? And huge chunks of those episodes just being a bunch of old men squabbling about “women can’t!” While Rhaenyra continues doing fuck all but getting upset about it?

Jesus, show us Aemond decimating the blockade with Vhagar now that Meleys’ patrolling isn’t an issue. Show us Sunfyre’s wounds and the men left to guard him! FFS, stop just standing around talking about what they should do and actually DO something already! Fuck, after Jaehaerys assassination why didn’t they all jump on their dragons and just burn down Dragonstone in the middle of the night? Riders without their dragons are just people. Dragon fire can cook them through the stone walls (see Harrenhal) but nooooooo. Just have a bunch of scenes of people blaming each other and doing nothing about it. Super compelling TV.

Season 1 I rewatched several times because there was usually something going on. Season 2, I was able to catch husband up on the entire season in under two minutes. “Aegon wants to be a good king, his son gets killed by assassins, Rhaenyra grieves the loss of her son, Daemon left for Harrenhal after Rhaenyra found out he sent the assassins. Cole leads an army through the crown lands, sets a trap at Rook’s Rest, Aegon drunkenly interferes and ends up getting roasted by Vhagar. Aemond is now regent.” Tada, five episodes summed up. Hit all the major plot points. Most of which weren’t even impactful.

The only two major events have been B&C and RR. We are over halfway through the season, and we have had less action and interesting things happening than the last three episodes of season 1.

We were promised all out war. Is the all out war in the room with us?

[low-budget-korra]

Comments on House of the Dragon S02E04

- I'm so fucking pissed... WHY THE WRITERS CAN'T GIVE SOMETHING TO THE BLACKS????? It's so unprofessional that is infuriating.

Rhaenys and Meleys fought bravely against two dragons, one of them being Vhagar and she almost won. She almost kill Aegon II. Her death is the definition of going out in a blaze of glory.

Not only did they make her look like a traitor sometimes, giving terrible ideas to Rhaenyra (that could get the queen killed), but also sometimes it felt she was with tb just because it was convenient not because she actually believed in their claim. Now they even took away her amazing and heroic death? What was the reason for her suicidal attack on Vhagar??

The writers could spend those 4 episodes showing us how she felt guilty for not killing and ending Aegon II bloodline in the coronation scene, something that would stop the war that was coming. But no, they instead gave us two unnecessary Alicole sex scenes.

They want Aemond to burn Aegon? Fine. Lets do a scene, showing Rhaenys experience as a rider and warrior. Let's make her swing and redirect Vhagar's attack on Sunfyre.

It's not that hard! Omg seriously.

For the writers, everything is for team green. Only they can be "cool" and "developed" and here is one more proof. Again taking something from team black and giving it to the greens.

-The writing of HOTD it's giving season 7 and 8 of GOT and if it continues like that we all know how it's gonna end. They are choosing unnecessary sex scenes, cgi and spectacular action sequences over decent writing. And guess what, even spectacular action sequences can look dumb without decent writing (just look at the Long Night episode from GOT)

And the "funny" part is that the majority of the audience don't give a shit about writing anymore. Which makes me think that if Game of Thrones had come out today, it would be cancelled after 2 or 3 seasons.

- Aemond high valyrian improved a little, while Aegon's sucks.

-I love that Lord Darklyn insulted Cole. That's what that whinny bastard deserves.

-Jace pulling Daemon's mannerism is so cool to see. He has every right to be angry at his mom but also he is too anxious to fight, fight for their claim and his family. This and his inexperience in battle is what will lead him to his death

-Aegon II is a pathetic drunk, dude is bored with the war he helped start. He was always so anxious for the war, talking like it was a simple game, something that contrasts with Rhaenyra doing everything she can to prevent a war that already had started.

-Is Alicent already starting to lose her mind?

[atopvisenyashill]

What if Laena Velaryon survived?

I'm addicted to bullet pointing my answers so let's goooo-

There's a few spots that Laena living really impacts the plot and the Dance overall:

Laenor potentially lives - if Qarl was in fact paid to kill Laenor by one of the blacks, the reasoning for this no longer makes sense because daemon and rhaenyra can't marry if laena is still alive. if qarl was genuinely just pissed laenor may have been cheating on him, or it was someone else that paid qarl, well, he's fucked i guess. but odds seem better!

Vhagar is still on tb's side - not only does she have the biggest and oldest dragon not chomping on her kids, but by the time Viserys dies, Rhaenyra has all but one (1) of the mature dragons on her side. that's HUGE. even otto, imo, is not stupid enough to decide to up against caraxes, meleys, syrax, vhagar, AND potentially even seasmoke, not to mention arrax and vermax. against what? ONLY sunfyre and dreamfyre? are they sending helaena out into the riverlands??

Aemond is defanged - outside of otto himself, aemond is the most war mongering, bloodthirsty on that side. it's not just killing luke, it's the mini genocide in the riverlands, it's taking out caraxes & meleys, it's his fascination with some superman v batman bullshit he wants to have with daemon, on and on. If Vhagar can't be claimed by him, he is only as capable as the army he is leading, and there's no dragons to worry about roaming Westeros except Tessarion, and Daeron can't really cover the Riverlands when he's so occupied in the Reach. Even if the war gets set off at the exact same time, getting rid of Vhagar/Aemond eliminates an entire front of the war.

Butterfly Effecting Away Aegon and Vis the Youngers - Daemon can't set Laena aside (they have clearly consummated), and they risk a complete rebellion by the faith if they do some bigamy stuff, and even if Daemon is stupid enough to pull that, Corlys and Rhaenys will kick his fucking ASS if he is married to Rhaenyra and Laena at the same time. Never mind someone paying Qarl to kill Laenor, Rhaenys won't even bother lighting Daemon on fire, she's just going to throttle him with her bare hands. This means that either Rhaenyra remarries who she wants as a political match (not a bad decision to make) or she simply remains unmarried (also, imo, not a bad decision to make since she's doubling down on the Velaryon boys being legitimate). In which case - if she has Daemon's kids, they will be publicly acclaimed as bastards OR they will be Laenor's legally, the same as Jace, Luke, and Joff.

There are some things I think might still happen - I think there's a chance Aemond makes a play for Vermithor if he can't have Vhagar, maybe Silverwing, but that's so much riskier because he'd have to travel alone as a child/teenager to Dragonstone, which is the seat of a political enemy, find where Vermithor has made his nest, get there safely, and then claim him without losing a limb. There's a lot of ifs there, vs Vhagar who was already hanging out nearby because of the funeral and very recently losing Laena. Laenor living is best case scenario for Rhaenyra because she keeps that cover for her sons - it's really hard to Vaemond, Alicent, or Otto to press on the Velaryon boys being illegitimate if Laenor is standing right there swearing they are his and fighting for their rights! But even if Laenor dies, Laena is not just going away - she's Rhaenys' last living child, she's Rhaenyra's girlfriend dear friend, she's the rider of Vhagar. Daemon cannot - and would not, in my opinion - just cast her aside the way he tries with Rhea Royce (and notable that his attempt to cast Rhea aside failed). Rhaenyra being single or politically married off would help her a lot just from a propaganda standpoint but she likely has more allies/has alienated less allies by the time Viserys dies.

Now, I think it's likely there's still a small war - Otto is in the capital and Rhaenyra is on dragonstone, so Otto will still attempt to take the capital but once she retakes it? With a war that is much less bloody, with her oldest sons likely still alive, without the loss of baby Visenya, she's not only mentally in a much better place, but politically as well. Hell, if she stays unmarried until she takes the throne, then dangles being Prince Consort in front of some lord's face, promising him that their children will marry Jace and Baela's child to sit the Iron Throne? Does Rhaenys even lose at Rook's Rest if she's only going up against Sunfyre, or going up against Sunfyre and Vermithor? I think in that case, Rhaenys & Meleys' experience and maturity trumps Aegon and Aemond's anger.

Anyways, I think Rhaenyra is just objectively better off with Laena around. Laena has a bit of reputation in fandom of being kind of useless narratively but the truth is, she has to die in order for Rhaenyra to lose so soundly. Laena is integral to Rhaenyra keeping her shit together because they are so close and because of Vhagar. If Rhaenyra keeps Laena as an ally, the war looks much different. Probably there's still a war, but I think it stays "a war of words and wings" for longer, and remains more or less bloodless. More similar to the third blackfyre rebellion, where the fighting isn't particularly bad and mostly localized, than the mess it winds up being.

[centrally-unplanned]

House of the Dragon "peace arc" was generally cringe though with a bright spot at the core. Rhaenys came off the worst for it; sitting in a council meeting getting news that the enemy has marched an army, taken two of their castles, and sacked a city and calling those wanting to respond to that warmongering idiots is an amateur hour moment. It isn't like Rhaenyra was heading to King's Landing to surrender or anything, she wanted a negotiated peace. To get that, you need a position of strength - otherwise your enemy is less likely to make peace with you, as the cost of killing you is so low. "War begets war" is an aphorism, not an iron law; this cowardice in the name of conflict avoidance serves neither peace nor their war. Smack their advancing army with a squad of dragons and show them "hey, this is what More War is gonna bring - let's give peace a chance hm?" You only make peace with your enemies, after all, reminding them of that fact is not the barrier to peace naive instinct thinks it is. And then you also aren't telling your own vassals you are going to ditch them in the face of fire, bonus!

The way she seems haughtily superior to the "squabblings of men" while making a fool or herself is a real directorial fail, it is almost accidentally sexist - poor wimmins can't understand Clausewitz. Though I gotta give the actress Eve Best some unintentional credit:

I guess she fucking nailed it.

While I am bashing Rhaenys, the framing of the Vhagar/Meraxes fight is very strange - Rhaenys has clearly won the battle, because Sunfyre is pretty much dead, and you would likely bet Aegon with him, and the way it is shot strongly suggests Rhaenys successfully retreated while Aemond is not at all in pursuit. The whole battle was clearly a trap that she had just dodged. Then she doubles back anyway against a much stronger foe and loses while dealing no apparent damage. Why do that dumb thing? It's both way too risky and also strategically foolish - Meleys as the Black's strongest dragon is highly needed as a deterrent force. It would be more reasonable if Rhaenys was a proud warrior type, proud warriors do that kind of thing ("I can't abandon Rook's Rest!"), but she was defined by her caution up until she chose suicide-by-dracarys.

In the books she is ambushed by a cooperative Aegon/Aemond and dies fighting, easy peasy. The logic is sound, it is a weird change to make.

Speaking of bad tactics, why only send one dragon? If the other dragons were busy that would be one thing, but they mainly aren't, they are doing nothing of note at the time, you have like 4 of them. In the book Rhaenyra is being a bad leader, too grief-stricken or cowardly to go herself, and too possessive of her sons to let them fight; it is shown as a mistake. In this show it is shown as a moment of Rhaenys's courage; she is like "I will go your grace" and everyone is like "oooh" and the question of why this is a solo mission just gets swept aside. Again, you know Vhagar is stronger than you, teamwork is the only real chance you have, while having more dragons is your primary advantage. The Blacks can and should make mistakes, but it has to be framed as mistakes by the show.

This is of course downstream of the "make Rhaenyra the Good Guy" decision; but beyond the Rhaenys idiocy I think this worked great for her here. She didn't hesitate to help her allies; the moment she returned from her failed peace mission, she got right to work. Trying to make peace was idealistic but people are sometimes. And meanwhile I continue to support the Aegon's Dream choice - it really does give her this solid motivation beyond power for her commitment to her inheritance. It is framed really well - like she herself only half believes the prophecy. She is choosing to believe it because she is stuck now and needs moral certainty for the choices she is going to make. That is a very human thing to do, and insightful to essentially admit her own biases out the gate. It makes her likeable without giving her a moral pass for anything.

I do think the show has tipped a bit too far into the "greens = bad guys" camp in comparison though. I would have fixed that by making Rhaenyra more directly complicit in past crimes like killing those who called her children bastards, show she is too committed to this whole "law & prophecy above all" bit, and that the Greens have some legitimate grievances against her. But we may see her get corrupted by the war yet; hopefully they have the courage when it matters most.

[thephantomcasebook]

Heard anything about tgc and ewan on set?

What I've heard is that Aegon will be at a brothel during the funeral getting fucked up on a bender. Aemond will be torturing "Blood" to get information - apparently we'll see an incredibly dark side to Aemond in those scenes ... which he is more than justified in letting loose on the piece of shit.

Alicent will give the Eulogy but falter half way and that Criston takes over and gives a vengeful speech as he holds her which turns both Jaehaerys and Helaena into martyrs that the entire city will rally around and when Criston and Aemond return with Meleys's head they'll be cheered as heroes of the realm.

Daeron is - rumored - to be in the Riverlands leading a guerilla war against Daemon and the Blackwoods that Alys is helping - apparently Alys will learn of Aemond from talking with Daeron around the Outlaw/Rebel campfires. Also, Daeron for some unknown reason is exiled from court by order of Otto and is forbidden from returning to King's Landing - Even though it's not revealed why ... apparently it'll be obvious when we see the casting and appearance of Daeron. (A+C=D?)

Also, we'll learn that you don't have to be a Targaryen to ride a dragon, which leads to a conflict and falling out between Daemon and Rhaenyra, because, Daemon thinks that if that knowledge gets out then the Targaryen power will be in jeopardy but Rhaenyra is scarred emotionally by losing decisively at Rook's Rest and the fact that Criston and Aemond have seized Harrenhal (With Daeron and Alys help) and have nearly won the war. So she tells him that they need all the dragon riders they can get to survive.

That's the stuff I heard, but who knows if its true. There's about six different rumors flying around reddit, and about a dozen around various discords and all about the same shit, so who knows. Maybe they're all wrong.

[divinesolas]

Hey sweetie I miss u. I was seeing the small trailer for tomorrow's episode and something came to my mind.

The greens are fucking stupid.

The war started cause Alicent is dumb enough to believe a senil death bed man who never knowledged (???not sure about this word but I'm going through with it) her children as his suddenly changed his mind AFTER calling her Aemma.

Then, Aegon in the dumbest way possible believed that his mother who never gave a fuck about him would love him if he were a king, going against what he truly wished for himself (that's actually sad)

And then NOW the next episode they are showing around Meleys head to people who the only reason they don't go against the mighty Targeryens is because they believe the dragons are immortal beings or something like that. Thus, showing dragons and therefore themselves aren’t indestructible.

Not a single person in that side have the brains to think.

Said that I miss talking to u

UR SO REAL alicent finally getting the karma of her decision in the new ep feels soooo good

[nashiriel]

Hi! So I’ve been following this since chapter 2 and I cannot tell you how blown away I am at how you managed to capture everyone's personalities so perfectly. Your writing is so in depth with the characters and how they’re feeling, it actually sounds like them. The story has such a grounding feel to it that it’s refreshing. Your writing is beautiful and I hope you know that.

I truly admire the bond that is being cultivated between Luke and the Cannibal. It has a sweetly twisted tone to it and I can’t wait to see what else you add to it. I feel like “I’m Still Standing” would be a good song for them, or at least for Luke.

Slightly concerned with the faceless men tactic the Greens might go for, but given that these assassins are also a cult that worships death, and Luke was brought back by a version of death… 

To be honest I have really strong feelings about how after everything, the chase, Arrax’s death, Luke’s near death and resurrection, and the feast, Aemond still thinks that he is owed a debt. Even if it’s just his way of scraping for any connection to Luke, it’s completely asinine. I cannot wait to read the reaction Aemond has to seeing Luke atop the severely underestimated Cannibal, coming to collect their own debt. Aemond trying to get Luke to understand that he didn’t mean to take Arrax away while Luke is gunning for him is going to be a mess for sure and I’m really looking forward to reading it.

If there's the chance, I would love to see Aemond try to do his “fight me” stance against Cannibal, like what he did with Meleys in ep 9. Emphasis on try. 

Got a few questions if you don’t mind. Last chapter, what was going through Cannibal’s mind when he sensed Luke was in danger?

Currently, how would you say the relationship between Cannibal and Moondancer is? To me it seems like they are in the early stages of developing a camaraderie. 

How would you describe Luke’s new armor? Is it like Daemon’s or is it a completely different style?

I’m curious about what will happen when Luke is confronted by Vhagar once more and if he might get some ptsd flashbacks, triggering Cannibal’s protective side. 

These are just my thoughts and I hope you like them. Eagerly awaiting the next chapter!!!

I’m pretty sure I woke up my neighbours with my excited squeal when I saw this lovely ask! I’m so happy that you’ve stuck with the story for so long (despite the wait between chapters) and that you like the writing. I absolutely love getting to hear people’s thoughts and questions on it, so without further ado:

I truly admire the bond that is being cultivated between Luke and the Cannibal. It has a sweetly twisted tone to it and I can’t wait to see what else you add to it. I feel like “I’m Still Standing” would be a good song for them, or at least for Luke.

The bond between Luke and the Cannibal isn’t healthy, but it’s certainly filled with affection on both parts! As I said to another commentator, the Cannibal is essentially acting in many ways as Luke’s emotional support animal for his eldritch-induced PTSD - it’s just that his support tends to involve mayhem and murder. 

And you're right - those lyrics do apply pretty well to Luke!

Slightly concerned with the faceless men tactic the Greens might go for, but given that these assassins are also a cult that worships death, and Luke was brought back by a version of death… 

Now that they’ve been rattled by the prospective PR nightmare that is Arryk’s failure + Rhaenyra’s son claiming a second dragon, the Greens are going to try being a bit more proactive on certain points than in canon (such as not letting Borros take his armies and fuck off for a good portion of the war). So making use of Hightower gold to splash on supernatural assassins when the other side boasts more firebreathing monsters is certainly on the table.  Alas for Luke, he never seems to get any benefits or respect from his deluxe Drowned God experience, so the Blacks might want to stay on guard…

If there's the chance, I would love to see Aemond try to do his “fight me” stance against Cannibal, like what he did with Meleys in ep 9. Emphasis on try. 

Aemond’s rather convoluted logic probably follows the line that Luke still has the net total of 1 dragon, whereas he’s -1 eye, but you’re right - it doesn’t really square up when you see how much grief and trauma Luke still carries. Whether Aemond would still carry that attitude after actually interacting with Luke remains to be seen, but he’s certainly got a lot to work through for Luke to regard him with anything other than murderous rage right now. 

Aemond squaring up to the Cannibal alone certainly would be an amusing image, not least because the Cannibal is basically a clingy, jealous housecat who can’t bear anyone getting close to his human and would beef with anyone daring to assume they had any kind of claim on Luke.

Got a few questions if you don’t mind. Last chapter, what was going through Cannibal’s mind when he sensed Luke was in danger?

The Cannibal freaked the fuck out when he sensed Luke fighting for his life; he was ready to blast a squire into kindling simply for landing a blow in a friendly bout, so Luke being in genuine terror is enough to trigger a fairly cataclysmic response. Because their bond is so close, and because the Cannibal is so unused to having any kind of connection with another creature, he tends to often perceive Luke’s stronger emotions as his own. As the Cannibal is largely unused to feeling pain or terror, his response is generally murderous rage and termination with extreme prejudice of anyone involved.

Bit weird, really, that he didn’t immediately come rampaging over to the weirwood when Luke was driven to a near panic attack by Alys’ comments…

Currently, how would you say the relationship between Cannibal and Moondancer is? To me it seems like they are in the early stages of developing a camaraderie. 

Moondancer isn’t entirely blind to the danger that the Cannibal poses and would freak out like Arrax if the Cannibal actively exhibited warning signs like growling and snapping at her (Cannibal however has the nasty habit of giving absolutely zero warning before he strikes). So long as he’s calm however, she’s young enough to be quite playful and inquisitive around him, and doesn’t have the raging hostility that Syrax exhibits towards him.

The Cannibal, as Luke notes, would have absolutely no compunction about eating Moondancer still if he thought Luke would let him get away with it. However, he did actually enjoy the flight, if only for the time spent with Luke; there is a positive memory associated with Baela and Moondancer now, which is certainly interesting for him. The Cannibal is also developing a dim awareness that there is a ‘Them’ group (all the other wild dragons + the Green dragons when he meets them) and an ‘Us’ group of dragons - and when he’s with the ‘Us’ Group, he’s often either playing around with Luke or about to tear into some enemies, so there’s definitely a lot of positive reinforcement being built into his socialisation there!

How would you describe Luke’s new armor? Is it like Daemon’s or is it a completely different style?

Luke’s armour is actually closest to Rhaenys’ - but plain black with no embellishments, which certainly doesn’t really add much to his image in the unimpressed eyes of lords who haven’t seen him in action. Rest assured however that Corlys has already commissioned the glitziest, gaudiest armour Westeros has ever seen for his precious, precious heir. Jewelled seahorses and elaborate onyx black dragons in abundance, if Luke can ever be pinned down long enough to get forced into it! 

I’m curious about what will happen when Luke is confronted by Vhagar once more and if he might get some ptsd flashbacks, triggering Cannibal’s protective side. 

Luke’s PTSD and its effects is currently a major vulnerability for him, and he is likely severely underestimating how big an impact seeing Vhagar again would have. The Cannibal’s protective side (fairly indistinguishable from his murderous side) would certainly have him seeking to remedy that problem quickly, but there’s certainly a slight issue if Luke’s frozen by his trauma and the one making battlefield decisions is the omnicidal carnivore who currently only gives a fuck about himself and his rider. 

And now that I've just dumped that essay in your lap, a huge thanks again for the ask! Really made my day.

[prince-aegon-targaryen]

Ranking all the dragons in asoiaf (spoilers) just my opinion and this is mostly jokes

Sunfyre - My feral beautiful child. Had a beast mode. Took punches standing up.

Balerion - The legend. The only.

Caraxes - The felon of the group somehow. I just feel it. Also, destroyed Vhagar in a battle.

Vhagar - Grandma would have been higher if not for her loss against the croaking fire snake

Silverwing - Fought in the war and then went and fucked off. I respect that

Vermithor - He died in battle but made a bloody mess beforehand

Seasmoke - Went down swinging and swinging WELL

Tessarion - Didn't slack off. Went to fight riderless

Moondancer - Gave it their all in the fight with Sunfyre. May not have won, but the damage done to Sunfyre was severe.

Sheepstealer - had to be bribed with sheep. I like it.

Meraxes - Should have been higher, maybe, but it died from a bolt. The ones that actually fought in dragon battles deserve to be higher than this chump.

Dreamfyre - I'm still debating on moving her above Meraxes. One of the prettiest as well as mommy to Daenerys' dragons

Drogon - Already kicking ass and is the established leader of the pack basically (behind Daenerys of course)

Rhaegal - part of the pack

Viserion - also hangs around

Cannibal - EATS DRAGONS. Firmly in the middle because I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing

Meleys - Honestly, a pretty good dragon. Not their fault they got jumped

Stormcloud - A baby that saved their rider

Quicksilver - Now, what was he supposed to do against Balerion? He didn't have a chance

Arrax - Same goes for this little lad. What was he supposed to do against Vhagar?

Morning - I like the name and it sounds pretty :)

Tyraxes - I'm sure it would have done a better fucking job than Syrax

Morghul - A baby. :( Didn't deserve what happened. Cool name. Means death

Shyrkos - Also a baby

Grey Ghost - Got eaten by Sunfyre lmao

Vermax - Dropped its rider. At least it was trying when compared to SOMEONE

Syrax - This is someone. Did nothing in the war except murder its rider's child. 0/10

[baelonthebrave]

'til queendom come, ch. 8

[masterlist] [Ao3] [playlist]

aemond targaryen x targaryen oc

wordcount: 15,870 😮‍💨

ch. 8, fire and blood: “Prince Aemond and I are to march on Harrenhal, take it back from your father.”

She shook her head. She felt so numb. She could not remember the last time she had felt anything that wasn’t agony. “What authority does Prince Aemond have to make such a decision? Where is Aegon?”

warnings: canon-typical violence, canon-typical incest, abusive parent/child relationship, nsfw/18+, rough sex, choking, mentions of canon sexual violence & abuse (including against minors), spoilers for HoTD/F&B

a/n: tags have changed for probably the last time in the story, so double check and stay safe <3 asks, reblogs, likes, replies are like crack to me. I am the mouse hitting the pleasure button until I die. *drops this and runs the fuck away*

The days seemed to blur together as Sena was held in the Tower of the Hand. Once for guests, her room had been converted to a cell with the door barred from the outside and everything that could be fashioned as a weapon ripped out. She knew she should be grateful that they had not just thrown her in a Black Cell and left her to rot. Still, it was somehow equally aggravating to be a dragonrider who bested the King himself but somehow be too gentile to be kept in the cells with the rest of the prisoners of war. She paced the floor and tugged at the ill-fitting cotton gown they’d given her. She had no idea where Rhaenys was, only knew she’d been pulled from the carnage around Meleys’s body, blessedly still living and in good health, and taken back to King’s Landing in chains. Aegon had not been so lucky. Sena had winced when she’d seen her older cousin dragged from the battlefield, burnt and twisted. She’d done that, she had realised, with a sickening twist in her stomach. Groaning and moaning, King Aegon II had been spirited away into a wheelhouse for the ride back to King’s Landing, tended to day and night by maesters.

Sena’s only indication that he still lived was that she hadn’t had her own head struck off.

Months. That was how long she paced that floor, took her meals alone and yelled out through the door to anyone who would listen. The only people who ever came into the room were the servants and Ser Criston. Not Alicent. Not Helaena. Not Aemond.

Sena had laughed when she’d heard Aegon had sacked his grandfather as Hand and replaced him with Cole. Cole was clever and filled with enough spite to carry this war, that she knew, but Ser Otto had engineered all of this from day one, lurking in council meetings and pouring poison into his daughter’s ear. If Aegon wanted to truly win that throne he sat on, Sena would have counselled him to hold faith with his grandfather. But she wasn’t about to tell him that.

“You’re going to drive me to insanity,” she snapped at Ser Criston one day. He stood before her with the simple missive he had drafted to keep her up to date on the war, although she suspected it was a heavily edited version as it only ever seemed to bear bad news for her side of things, as though trying to convince her resistance was futile. For example, this newest one stressed that whilst Jace was currently combing Dragonstone for wayward seed of their house who would be capable of mounting dragons, he had been incapable of finding a rider for Silverwing. Sena did not point out that being incapable of finding a rider for one dragon did mean he had successfully found riders for two. Two more to their already vastly more impressive score of riders than that of the Greens. “The maid who brings my meals and draws my baths does not even look at me. How am I supposed to keep a grip on my wits if my own family won’t even speak to me? All I have is you, and you despise me.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. He looked handsome, out of his heavy plate armour and dressed in more simple garb, the pin of his office gleaming on his chest. But his was the sort of treacherous beauty that Sena instinctually mistrusted on sight. It was like one of those carnivorous plants from Sothoryos that Helaena liked to read about, the sort that drew in insects with their pretty colours and then snapped shut around them. Her father had that sort of beauty. She’d seen it in Aemond too, that day on the battlefield, his hair pulled back from his sharp features, his armour gleaming. 

“I don’t despise you, my lady,” Cole told her, and the sympathy in his voice made her shudder. “Keeping faith with your father was just about the only honourable thing you could do in your situation.”

Sena could not help the smirk that tugged at the corner of her mouth as she thought of how Daemon’s blood had looked on the front of her dress. I did not even do that, she thought grimly.

“I’m sure you understand that the Queen Mother, the Queen and Prince Aemond are all kept busy by their duties,” he said. 

“Then why are you here?” She snapped. “That is a clear lie, my Lord Hand. If anyone has no time in the day, it ought to be you. At least tell me how they are.”

“The Prince-“

“I didn’t mean Aemond,” she cut him off. There was no part of her, no piece of her being that was ready to confront the mess the two of them had made for themselves. “Tell me how Helaena is, how Queen Alicent is.”

Cole sighed and looked at her.

“Please, Ser Criston. From one soul who loves them to another. Please tell me.”

“There’s not much to say, my Lady,” he said with a shrug. “The Queen Mother is throwing herself into every small council meeting, every letter coming and going to keep her mind busy. And Queen Helaena- she is not well.”

Sena’s heart was pounding in her ears. “Then let me see her,” she breathed, drawing closer to Cole and taking one of his hands in hers. She would beg if she had to. “Let me do what I can to ease her suffering, Ser Criston. Let me at least hold her.”

To his credit, Ser Criston looked to be genuinely struggling. His throat bobbed, and his brow was furrowed deep. “You know I cannot do that,” he said.

“Why not?”

“The King, the Prince-“

“Fuck them,” she rasped, her throat burning at the thought of Helaena all alone, lost in her grief. “This is about Helaena, Ser Criston. Not Queen Helaena, or Princess Helaena but our Helaena. The girl we have both known and loved since she was a child.”

He sighed, blinking back tears, went to say something then thought better of it. He stiffly pulled his hand from her grasp. “I’m sorry, my Lady. I’ll bring you a book next time I visit, to assuage the boredom.”

Sena threw up her hands in frustration, tears of anger spilling from her eyes as he turned to leave. Well, thank the Gods, a book was bound to solve all her problems, she thought bitterly. But she would not lose her temper at him, would not lose the only human contact she had in the entire keep.

She would have been as well throwing her dinner plate at him, though, as the next visit was so dreadful she wished it had never come. Ser Criston laid a copy of the Seven Pointed Star on her dressing table, then turned to face her. The missive in his hand was crumpled, as though he’d been stressing on how much he ought to tell her, and instead of reading it to her he simply handed this one over.

With one son dead and one daughter in chains, it seemed Daemon and Rhaenyra had finally decided to send the rest of their children to safety. As Prince of Dragonstone, Jace was to stay with the black council and Sena could all but hear Baela refusing to go anywhere without him, but Joffrey and Rhaena had been sent to the Vale of Arryn, ostensibly to lend protection with Joffrey’s Tyraxes. As for her youngest brothers, Aegon and Viserys had been sent East on a ship. 

However, the ship had not made it clear of the Gullet before it had been attacked by the Triarchy of Free Cities that Ser Otto had enlisted to the Green cause. Jacaerys had immediately rushed to his brothers’s aid, along with his new dragonriders, Addam of Hull - now Addam Velaryon by royal decree, supposed bastard son of Laenor - and the peasant girl, Nettles. But a third of the Velaryon fleet had been dashed on the Gullet, young Viserys had been taken prisoner and Jace-

Jace.

Sena stopped reading.

She looked up at Ser Criston sharply, her throat going tight. “Ser-“

“I take no pleasure in telling you this,” he said grimly.

“Like fuck you take no pleasure in this,” she spat and knocked the copy of the holy book he had left on her dressing table to the floor. He flinched but did not move to pick it up. What did he- what did any of them know of holiness, piety, virtue?

Jace was dead. Sweet, handsome Jace who should have been a King. His gentle smile, his strength with a sword that always caught her off guard, his piss poor High Valyrian, all gone in the blink of an eye. “Oh Jace,” she breathed, tugging at the neck of her dress in an attempt to get some air. The room seemed stiflingly hot all of a sudden. “Jace.”

With him went Viserys, for all they knew. With him went Vermax and Stormcloud, her brother Aegon’s dragon. With him went a little more of her light and love.

“There’s more,” Ser Criston said.

She clutched at her stomach, feeling nauseous. “More?” She hissed. Her cheeks were damp. “I don’t have many brothers left, Ser,” she moaned.

He shook his head. “Not your brothers,” he said. “Prince Aemond and I are to march on Harrenhal, take it back from your father.”

She shook her head. It was all too much, far too much. She felt so numb. She could not remember the last time she had felt anything that wasn’t agony. “What authority does Prince Aemond have to make such a decision? Where is Aegon?”

“Incapacitated,” he told her grimly. And now she knew why he had not told her that earlier, because the small thrill it sent through her was shameful but emboldening. She had done that. Then the guilt twisted inside of her. He was still her cousin, how could she be so cruel? This war was turning her into a shadow of her former self. With every child lost, every great destiny wiped out, she felt herself becoming a crueler, harder person. But why was Ser Criston telling her now? “Aemond wears the crown, serves as Prince Regent and Protector of the Realm.”

Sena’s heart lurched. Aemond, crowned in Valyrian steel and rubies. Would he truly wear it better than his brother, as he thought he would? Or would his head bow under the weight of it also? “What does it matter to me?” She hissed. “My father is a seasoned battle commander, rides the Blood Wyrm, defends one of the strongest keeps in the realm. What could you hope to accomplish?”

“You will be accompanying the Prince and I to Harrenhal as ransom,” he told her, “so your father might give it up without a fight.”

Oh Gods. Oh no. Hysterical laughter climbed her throat. She was torn between telling him Prince Daemon would not trade a hot meal for her, let alone Harrenhal, and the creeping fear that he would, just so he could have her back at his mercy. And that scared her more than anything else. “I’m not sure I am the ace you think I am, Ser Criston,” she sniffed. Her nose was running and she swiped at her cheeks with her sleeve angrily. “My father and I are not exactly the image of familial harmony.”

He shook his head. “Perhaps not, but it would be shameful,” he said, “not to pay the ransom, not to take that deal. His eldest daughter, hale and healthy, still a maiden, in exchange for a burnt out shell of a castle.”

She could not help the little smirk that teased at the corner of her mouth at the thought. “Come now, Ser Criston,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him. “When has my father ever known shame?”

That was how she got out of that tower cell, though. Shackled at hand and foot and immediately bundled into a wheelhouse in the courtyard before she could catch a glimpse of the Prince Regent, yes, but at least she was past the four walls of that room.

The wheelhouse hit every bump in the Kingsroad and her tailbone suffered for it. Still, no one spoke to her. Not for days, not for the weeks it took to venture North with an entire army trailing behind them. She was left to her thoughts. Her ruminations, her tears, her dark spirals of dread. Jace, Luke, Jaehaerys. The only people she saw all day were the guard who took her to relieve herself in the woods and the cook who served her meals. When she was led away from the column of the army during a rest break to piss, King Aegon’s men leered at her. “Oi! Dragonrider! I’ll give you something to ride,” one man hollered at her, and Sena yanked at the chains around her wrists, desperate to go choke the life from him with the cold steel. But her guard had a firm hold of her and led her on at a shuffle. The men’s laughter echoed in her ears. 

Her head whipped around, this way and that, searching for Vhagar in the sky.

The guard - Jarrad, she’d heard his commanding officer call him - dutifully stood with his back to her as she relieved herself. She looked down at her chains, wondered how far she would get if she choked him out now and ran. Not so far in a thin cotton gown, shackled at hand and foot, with few places to run and hide in the scorched Riverlands. Aemond would hunt her down by sunset. “Where is the Hand of the King? Where is the Prince Regent?” She grumbled at the guard. “Shouldn’t one of them be making sure their high-value hostage is being held securely?” She was a Targaryen, she had been a dragonrider and she was the entire conceit of their plan to get Prince Daemon to give up Harrenhal without a fight. It was almost insulting that they were ignoring her like this.

The guard shrugged a little uncomfortably, not looking back at her. “We got told, ma’am, before we marched. The man who lets you escape will watch his wife and children hung, drawn and quartered. The man who molests you will be fed his own cock. The Prince Regent was quite clear, m’lady.”

She shuddered. “That’s one way to inspire loyalty,” she muttered with a grimace as she righted her skirts and bent to wash her hands in a nearby stream. Jarrad turned around and offered her a hand up. She took it gratefully. “You can relax, Ser Jarrad. I won’t run away.” Moons ago, back on Dragonstone, she had thought of it. She should have then. But she had too much unfinished business to run from all of this now.

“‘M not a knight, it’s just Jarrad,” he mumbled. “But thank you.”

She nodded. “Please excuse Prince Aemond. He is a good man underneath it all, I promise,” she said with a grimace.

Jarrad raised an eyebrow in confusion. “We heard you were trying to slice him in half at Rook’s Rest, m’lady,” he said, eyeing her shackles.

Sena pulled a face. “Yes, well… he upset me,” she said. “How far to Harrenhal?” She looked around, trying to spot anything to be used as a landmark. Between Aemond’s army and her father’s, they had made short work of this scarred land. Every field her wheelhouse rolled past was scorched, every town pillaged. It made her sick.

“Head of the column says not far now,” he told her. “Three days, mayhaps.”

Three days. Three days to come up with a plan before there was a bloody battle for Harrenhal. But what plan could she come up with, held prisoner as she was? She looked to the guard. “Do you have a wife, Jarrad? Children?” She asked as he followed her back to the column. She was dragging her feet, she knew, but finally someone was speaking to her and she was desperate not to be left alone again so soon.

“A wife, m’lady. Her name’s Marigold. We live in Fleabottom for now, but we’re saving to get somewhere nicer before we try for a babe,” he told her.

She gave him a soft smile. “Well, see, now I know Marigold’s name, so I definitely won’t run from you,” she said. He returned her smile uncertainly. “I’m going to do my best to get us home safe and end all of this, Jarrad. Then you and Marigold can move out of Fleabottom.”

He nodded, but she could tell he didn’t quite believe her. “Are you married to some Lord, m’lady?” He asked out of politeness.

Something in her gut twisted and she glanced overhead for Vhagar once more. “No,” she said with a sigh. “That wasn’t on the cards for me, Jarrad.”

His nod was stiff but he did show some sympathy at the sadness in her voice. “Don’t despair, m’lady. The Gods have a plan for us all.”

Sena agreed with him now more than she ever would have before. She just wasn’t sure if she wished to know what the Gods had in store for her.

She only grew more uncertain when the monstrous Harrenhal loomed into view and its drawbridge simply fell open at the sight of the approaching army. The men at the head of the column faltered at that and if Sena squinted out of the window, she could see Ser Criston directing his horse this way and that in the confusion, white cloak snapping in the wind behind him.

Then, the sound of Vhagar’s wings in the skies above echoed like a thunderclap, and Prince Aemond at last descended to the scorched fields before Harrenhal. He was so far away she could only tell him apart from the others by his hair.

If Vhagar had happily set herself down on the fields before Harrenhal, open on all sides to attack, slow and sluggish as she was, it could only mean that Caraxes wasn’t here. And neither was her father.

What in the Seven Hells was going on?

After much confusion and distant arguments, the column jolted back into motion and the head of King Aegon’s army trooped into Harrenhal’s walls. The larger part of the army began to set up camp around the keep, but Sena’s wheelhouse was drawn right into the courtyard.

When Jarrad finally freed her from the carriage, she shuffled out in her shackles into the yard. Harrenhal was even larger than she imagined, even more dizzying than when it was viewed from a distance. Her head spun as she looked up to try and see the heights of the twisted towers. The stones had melted when Aegon the Conqueror had descended from the sky on Balerion and burned Harren the Black and his sons in their beds. The ruined towers still smoked, a century and then some later. 

When she looked back down to the assembled men before her, she was greeted with the sight of a harried Ser Criston sharply questioning a man in the heraldry of House Strong. “-we had no choice, my Lord Hand. When Caraxes came down from above- it was either surrender or die.” 

“Is he truly not here?” Sena asked. They all turned to look at her - except for Aemond, who was resolutely looking anywhere but at her. When the Strong castellan could only shake his head weakly, Sena could not help the mad burst of laughter that bubbled out of her throat. “So you’re all saddled with me for no good reason?”

Prince Aemond’s jaw twitched. “You,” he said sharply to her guard. “See that the prisoner is found a suitable cell and guard the door with your life.”

“His name is Jarrad, Aemond,” she said even as Jarrad started to lead her away by her shackles. “And mine is Sena, if you don’t remember.”

He still did not so much as look at her, only gritted his teeth.

Jarrad only got her halfway across the courtyard before they stopped at the sight of a harried Maester. The middle aged man in a heavy robe and thick chain came rushing down the steps from the keep with a crumpled scroll in hand. “My lord!” He called in a distressed tone. The Maester went to give it to the castellan, but Aemond swept forward and snatched it from his hand before he could.

The Prince’s eye scanned the text, and they all watched with bated breath. What could have possibly happened in the time since they had left King’s Landing? No sooner was Aemond done reading the scroll than he was drawing his sword from his belt and placing the point against the Strong castellan’s thick neck. Gasps and shouts rose around them. “Fucking traitor,” he growled. “You had a choice when Caraxes descended, you just chose wrongly.”

“My Prince!” Ser Criston warned, and strode forward to grab the scroll from Aemond’s hand. He read as quick as he could whilst he attempted to keep Aemond at bay. “Gods be good… King’s Landing has fallen.”

“What?” Sena breathed as outcries broke out around her and Jarrad stiffened.

“The Black Queen’s dragonriders have taken King’s Landing, and Ser Otto Hightower has been executed…” Ser Criston said in disbelief. “Did you know about this, Ser Simon?”

Something hysterical was mounting inside of her. It was a trick, letting Aemond and Ser Criston lead their army back north to Harrenhal and taking King’s Landing out from behind them. Sena pulled at her shackles, still held by Jarrad. Over the din of the questions and exclamations from the assembled lords and knights, Sena spoke loudly. “Is there any mention of Helaena? The children?” She asked with panic in her voice.

“No,” Prince Aemond said, and at last turned his gaze to meet hers. He looked so tired and frustrated, the underside of his eye bruised a deep purple.

Ser Simon Strong used the Prince’s momentary distraction to draw his own sword and knock the Prince’s blade aside. Silence once again fell on the courtyard as the Prince turned his icy gaze back on the old knight.

“Can we calm down, please? And try to ascertain the truth of what has happened, like the honourable men we are?” Ser Criston insisted coolly, but Prince Aemond and Ser Simon were still eyeing each other, swords at the ready. 

“We know what has happened. Ser Simon has turned his cloak to my lovely sister and thought we would not notice,” Aemond said, dangerously quiet, and Ser Simon glared at him, holding his blade steady. It would not be a true match of skill - Ser Simon had grown stout and weary with age, whereas even exhausted, Aemond held himself like a viper ready to strike.

“Aemond,” Sena insisted, willing him to calm himself, pulling at her shackles in Jarrad’s grip. 

“Jarrad, I believe I gave you an order,” Aemond snapped, never looking away from Ser Simon. “See to it that it is done and she is out of my sight, now.”

“Right away, my Prince,” Jarrad said hurriedly and gave Sena an apologetic look before pulling her along with him.

“No,” Sena hissed, throwing glances back over her shoulder and tugging against her chains even as she was led away by the much larger and stronger man. Gods, Aemond, stop! Before you are truly lost, she longed to beg him, but he was not hearing her, lost in his own grief and anger.

No sooner was she out of the courtyard than she heard raised voices - Ser Simon, Aemond, Ser Criston - and the clash of steel.

At least it was over quickly.

Once Jarrad found her a tower cell, she did not see him again. Aemond seemed dead set on taking every friendly face away from her, and all she had were the maids who came in and out with food, water and fresh clothing. From what she could glean from the whispers of the maids and the guards on her door, Aemond put the rest of House Strong to the sword over the following days in his rage at losing King’s Landing and as punishment for the stain of bastardy their kin had left on the royal House Targaryen. Vhagar ate well.

The fear within Sena that there was no way to stop what was already in motion was starting to rise like a tide. 

She stopped eating, finding the food they sent her tasted like ash on her tongue and rolled around like putrid sludge in her uneasy stomach. She had one small window in the room, and confined herself to sitting in the sill throughout the day, her forehead resting against the cool glass, ignoring everyone who came and went. All she could see out the window was a small corner of the courtyard, the comings and goings of servants and soldiers. The occasional crow. Her breath misted on the window pane when she sighed.

“Again?” A woman’s voice - the one who had come to take her empty plate - sounded. Sena had not touched the supper she had been brought - it smelled like rot to her. The woman sighed. “That’s the second night in a row. You’ll get me in trouble, y’know.”

Sena huffed out a small laugh. “Can’t find it in me to care, if I’m honest,” she mumbled, never looked away from the rapidly darkening yard.

“Of course not,” the woman said coolly. “People like you never care when you tread on people like me.”

That got Sena’s attention.

She whipped her head around and caught the gaze of a tall, willowy woman. Beautiful, with long black hair and earthy brown eyes. She wore an uncommonly fine dress for a servant and a shimmering pendant about her throat. Who on earth did Aemond have serving her, that would speak to her in such an unguarded manor, even if it was deserved? “I do not know who you are to tread on,” she said shortly.

“No reason you would, I suppose,” the woman said. She dipped into a curtsey, fanning out the skirts of her dress with impressive grace. “Alys Rivers, m’lady.”

Sena swung her legs off of the windowsill and regarded the woman - Alys - curiously. “Rivers?” She asked. Some highborn bastard, then? Even the mere thought made her throat close up, her mind drifting to Jace and Luke. Dead and gone.

“Yes,” the woman said and gestured around. “This is my family’s keep. Or it was, before your Prince put them to the sword.”

Sena’s stomach twisted uneasily. Every enemy he was making was another person she could not protect him from while she was locked in a cell. “Not my Prince,” she protested weakly. She was locked up, after all.

Alys Rivers raised an eyebrow. “Could have fooled me. He speaks of you, day and night.”

Something lurched in Sena and her temper flared. “And why are you spending your nights with the Prince?” She gritted out, icy and monstrously jealous.

Alys laughed with satisfaction. “Not your Prince, eh? Don’t bother lying to me, girl, I’ve been walking this miserable realm a lot longer than you have,” she said, and Sena flushed with embarrassment at having been tricked so easily. “Don’t worry, I haven’t laid a hand on your Prince, as pretty as he is. I just report back to him about you and see his wine doesn’t run dry. It’s quite the task, right now, with you being insolent and him being rather depressed.”

Sena swallowed hard. “Why would you care if the Prince is depressed? You said it yourself, he put your family to the sword.”

She shrugged and gave Sena a little smirk. “Never said I liked my family, did I? You of all people should understand that, Visenya Targaryen.”

“I love my family,” Sena gritted out, “and I go by Sena.”

Alys Rivers gave her a smile that was all teeth. “You can love someone and not like them, Sena. Though you know that already, don’t you?” Sena chewed her tongue, did not like being read like she was an open book. Alys picked up her cold dinner plate with a sigh. “Be sure and eat everything tomorrow, for the both of us. Wouldn’t want that pretty figure of yours wasting away, would we?” Alys looked her up and down, and the feeling she sent through Sena was strange. Just like she was. Like there was something not quite normal about her, but Sena could not put her finger on it.

It was only when Alys Rivers had left and Sena readied herself for bed that it came to her. How old had she been? She had looked maybe old enough to be Sena’s mother, if a young mother at that, with fine creases around her large eyes and full lips. But she spoke as though she were an old crone and every time Sena had tried to look at an imperfection - a frown line or grey hair - her gaze had slipped off of it like water off a duck’s feathers. An exceedingly bizarre woman who confounded Sena long after she ought to have been asleep.

The next day brought the same dull parade of officers and washer women in the courtyard, but today, Sena’s mind was occupied by the strange woman. It was a serving girl who brought her her breakfast, but Sena forced it down on the off chance that Alys would return and keeping her happy would allow Sena to ask more questions. The fact that she was growing ravenous also helped her choke down the thick porridge.

After she had eaten, her eye caught on a familiar figure standing guard outside her door, through the small barred opening. “Jarrad!” Sena said with a smile in her voice, and the tall man’s head whipped around to meet her gaze.

He nodded uncertainly. “Mornin’, m’lady,” he said. There was an awkward beat of silence. “Are you… alright?”

“Yes!” Sena said, a little too quickly. “I just- I’m glad to see you, is all. I haven’t seen you since our first day here, I was hoping you were alright.”

Jarrad gave her a small smile at that. “I’m alright, m’lady. Just… worried, is all, about this King’s Landing business,” he said, but the shadows under his eyes and the crease between his brows betrayed the fact that worried was perhaps not sufficient.

Sena nodded, a lump forming in her throat. “Have you heard anything? From Marigold?” She asked.

Jarrad shook his head. “Sounds as though it wasn’t too violent, most of the casualties were soldiers and city watchmen,” he said. “There wasn’t much of a fight since King Aegon and his heirs have disappeared on the wind.”

It was the most she’d heard about Jaehaera and Maelor in months. She let out a small sigh of relief. “My closest friend is there, too, Jarrad. If your wife is anything like her, they’ll both be wise enough to keep out of trouble,” she said, trying to sound reassuring.

Jarrad nodded with a sad look on his face. “I’m keeping Marigold in my prayers, m’lady. I just hope the Gods hear me,” he said and gave an exhausted sigh. “I can pray for your friend too, if you wish?”

Sena smiled at him and reached her hand through the bars to lay a gentle touch on his shoulder. “That would be most appreciated, Jarrad,” she said.

“Are you getting paid to talk or stand guard?” Came an icy voice, and Sena stepped back from the door as Jarrad jumped to attention, turning back to his guard post. There was a rattle of keys in the door and Alys Rivers was pushing it open.

“Leave him be,” Sena warned. “It was my fault. His wife is in King’s Landing, I only wished to know if he had heard from her.”

Alys gave her a strange look, like she did not quite know what to make of that, and kicked the door shut behind her. “You do know he does not have the keys to your cell? I’m the only one with them. It’s me you need to sweet talk, if you want to escape.”

Sena glared at her, not caring at all for the implication. “That might be what would go through your head, my lady, but we are not all the same.”

Alys laughed and gave her that same strange look. “You are an odd one, aren’t you?” She said, shaking her head in disbelief. Sena did not know what to say to that, only watched as Alys crossed the room and checked her breakfast plate. “You’ve eaten. Good girl,” she said and quirked an eyebrow at Sena. Sena did not like how Alys looked at her, like she could swallow her whole. “Have you bathed?”

Sena’s eye flitted to the door of the adjoining chamber, where the bathtub was. “No,” she admitted. “The maids filled it last night, but I was-“ What? Busy?

Alys just rolled her pretty brown eyes. “Right then, get in,” she said and pushed open the washroom door.

Sena followed her through to the next room and winced. The water was from last night. Even with the fire the maid had lit in the washroom, it would be stone cold by now. “I do not mean to be a priss but I would rather not get into a bath of cold water,” she muttered as Alys closed the door behind them.

Alys arched an eyebrow. “Blood of Old Valyria, are you? The toughest, most fearsome lot of dragonriding sister-fuckers in the known world? You’re all rather disappointing in person,” She said with a little laugh. “Worry not, Princess.”

“Lady,” Sena corrected, a blush rising in her cheeks.

“And yet you act so like a Princess,” Alys said with a deriding grin. “Take off your clothes, let me worry about the temperature of your bath.”

Sena frowned but awkwardly went to pull at her dress. She was used to getting undressed before servants, of course, but Alys was no servant and had a way of looking at her like she was a meal. Her nerves - and everything else - evaporated from her mind as she watched Alys raise a hand to her pendant necklace and mutter to herself, eyes flitting shut.

The fire before the bath guttered out in an instant, and so did the pillar candles lighting the recesses of the room. Sena’s eyes went wide and she was so shocked it took her an instant to realise there was steam rising from the bath water. “How-“ her words caught in her throat, her nostrils flared.

Alys gave her an easy grin and moved for the fragranced oils on a shelf. “Do not tell me you ride dragons but you don’t believe in a little magic?” She quipped and Sena’s eyes somehow went wider.

“Magic?” She breathed. She had seen strange things in her life, things that no logician or maester could explain. Dragons bending to the will of mere humans and great beasts that stalked the Kingswood, making the very air around them shimmer. She had heard tales of things that lurked beyond the Wall, of Old Valyria, of Asshai-by-the-Shadow. But she had never seen-

“It will go cold again if you keep standing there gawping like that,” Alys said.

“Right,” Sena said dumbly, and shrugged off her shift.

Alys was swirling lavender oil into the water by the time Sena was disrobed and stepping in. The water was so hot it would have made someone else hiss, but it was soothing to Sena’s dragon’s blood. She leaned back in the water and let her curls go damp.

“You are a pretty thing, aren’t you?” Alys remarked, and Sena wasn’t sure whether she should be embarrassed or proud. “The swordplay has made you strong and a little mannish, yes, but you still have lovely breasts, full hips. And your face… yes, I can quite understand why the Prince is so taken with you.”

Sena reached up to cover her breasts and her bottom half, feeling heat rise in her face. “Can we not talk of him, please?” She asked stiffly. “And let us not talk of my breasts either.”

She could practically hear the smirk in Alys’s voice behind her as she started to work a lather into Sena’s hair. Long fingers worked her scalp firmly and Sena could not help the little sound that escaped her. “He’s a sore subject, then? You must be truly angry with him, to be so sensitive to the very mention of him. Either that or… he’s left you a maiden. Is that why you’re so bashful and demure?”

Sena flushed a deeper red, if that was even possible and Alys let out a low laugh. “Or both? Oh, my lady. That is sad,” she said with a malicious humour in her voice.

Sena twisted around to face her, the hot water sloshing against the sides of the metal tub. “Who are you to judge me? It’s not the same for me as it is for you, you know. I carry my family’s name. If I am not a maiden, I am ruined, I bring shame upon my House.”

Alys smirked at her. “Oh yes, things must have been truly difficult for you, Princess. Being raised in a fine castle and doted on by your royal father. Dancing at balls in silk dresses and falling asleep on satin sheets. I’m positively weeping for you.”

“You do not know the first thing about me,” Sena snapped and turned back to face the other way. “I’m not a Princess and my father never doted on me. Quite the opposite, he despises my very existence.” She ground her teeth as Alys resumed washing her hair. “I have spent the last year watching my family slaughter each other in cold blood. Two brothers. My best friend’s son. Countless men-at-arms and smallfolk and we carry on and step over their bodies as if they were nothing, as if they did not have families and hopes and prayers. And there has been nothing I could do to stop any of it - believe me, I tried. I will not pretend I have faced the same trials as you, my lady, but I have faced my own. They have been agony.”

That won her some silence from Alys as the elder woman washed the suds from her hair. The quiet was oppressive and Sena’s words bounced off of the walls around her, echoing in her ears. The heat of the water now felt uncomfortable more than soothing, like the temperature was slowly creeping up and she was being cooked from the inside out. “So… it is true, then?” Alys said, breaking the silence once more to Sena’s distaste. “What Jarrad has been saying about you? You’re the talk of the castle, you know, in the kitchens and the barracks.”

“I do not know what they say,” Sena gritted out. “That’s rather the point of saying it behind my back, is it not?”

“They call you a peacemaker,” Alys said, getting up from her position at the back of the tub and coming around to sit on the side, holding Sena’s eye. Under Alys’s strange, unreadable gaze, it did not even occur to Sena to cover herself. “A conciliator. They’re saying you want an end to the death and destruction as much as any servant or soldier.”

Sena gave her an odd look. It was true, but why did Alys care? “What does that matter to you?”

“Your Prince put my family to the sword,” Alys said. “And whilst I did not care for them, it took away any protection there was for every cook and serving girl and stablehand that has loyally served House Strong. Now, we all serve at the pleasure of the infamously merciful Targaryen Dynasty, whose dragons melted the towers of the very castle we’re standing in. And I’m sure it did not escape you on your journey up here from the capital that there is very little of the Riverlands left to lay claim to. Like I said, people like you never care when you tread on people like me.”

Sena rose from the bath, not caring for the water that sloshed over the side. She stepped out of the water and stood before Alys Rivers, naked as her name day. “It is not a responsibility my kin takes lightly, being sworn to protect and serve the people of this realm. Though we have been doing a piss poor job of it recently, I’ll give you that. I have fought my whole life for peace in my family. Now, I know I do not care who sits on that abominable throne so long as nobody else has to die for it. Not a dragonrider, not a soldier, not a peasant. I want this done, as much as you, and then I want to live out what days remain to me in peace.”

Alys considered her critically, but there was a small smile on her face. “You will not end this war without another drop of blood, Visenya. ‘Tis a beautiful dream, but it is just that, a dream.”

“But if we keep going the way we are, dragon fighting dragon, sister fighting brother, uncle fighting nephew, we will leave nothing but scorched earth and corpses,” Sena bit out. She finally saw this for the opportunity it was. The opportunity to escape this cell and maybe finally put an end to it all.

Alys stood and rounded the bath, passing her a clean sheet to wrap herself in. Sena took it gratefully, a small shiver running up her spine as she covered her skin. “You truly mean it? You wish to end this bloodshed more than you care about black or green, Queen or King? More than you care about your siblings and cousins, even your Prince?”

“I want to end this because I care about them. I do not care for their titles or their power or even whether they can stand the sight of me, so long as they all live. That would be enough,” she breathed, stepping forward to pull one of Alys’s supple hands into hers. “Just… tell me how.”

Alys gripped her hand tightly at that, so tightly it almost hurt, and Sena gave her a confounded look. “Listen carefully, girl, for I will only tell you this once,” she said, and her voice cut as sharp as Valyrian steel. “If you truly want to end this, no more asking others to tell you what to do. Can you honestly say you have done anything in this war besides reel and react? If you wish to lead, if you wish to bring peace, you must act. Show some initiative, girl. Wrestle back some control now or you will be left with no one and nothing to direct you.”

Sena looked down at their joined hands, her scarred and calloused skin in Alys’s smooth, flawless grip. She looked up at the vibrant pendant at Alys’s throat, then met her eyes. 

She nodded. “Okay.”

Alys nodded with her and released her grip on Sena’s hands. “Okay,” she said. “What is your first act?”

Realisation hit Sena with the force of an anvil. She knew exactly what she had to do. “I need to speak to Aemond. Alone.”

-----

It wasn’t until Alys pointed it out to her that Sena realised they actually looked quite alike. Dark hair, large eyes, similar height. All it would take was a simple spell - a glamour, Alys called it - and Sena would be indistinguishable from the true Alys Rivers for a short time. Unless she did something to expose herself to an observer.

That was how, some hours later, Sena found herself able to slip out of her cell, past Jarrad who knew her face and walk the corridors of Harrenhal. She and Alys had swapped clothes  and Alys would stay in her room and pose as her until Sena returned. Unassailed by all who saw her, she followed Alys’s directions down to the kitchens and without even a second glance at her, a cook was pressing a silver tray into her hands and hissing at her to get it to the Prince before it cooled. 

It wasn’t until she was at the door of Aemond’s chambers that she faltered, the tray wobbling dangerously in her hands. It was not a hypothetical anymore. If she could do this, if she could actually talk some sense into him, this could be the beginning of the end. If she could meet his eye, if he had the patience to look at her anymore. She drew a ragged breath. This was like to be one of the most important moments of her life, she realised. The moment where she would be made or unmade. But first, she would need to do her best to glean what information she could from his papers - Alys could only tell her so much. That Prince Daeron was at the head of the Hightower army and Ser Criston Cole was straining to leave Harrenhal and join their forces together. The rest of it she would have to figure out for herself, and decide how she was going to break the pretence and reveal herself.

She held her head high and pushed the door in.

The rooms were cavernous, like the rest of the keep. Aemond had a fire roaring in the hearth, but it did little to assuage the pronounced chill on the air. At the far end was a sitting area with soft cushions that looked untouched, and to one side was an arch that led to a bedchamber. In the centre of the room was his own war table, with maps and markers, a pitcher of wine, pillar candles that dripped wax. Aemond was sat at the table and did not even look up to acknowledge her entrance, so buried was he in a mass of scrolls and letters. He always had been an avid reader, but this was not the sort of reading he enjoyed - his brow was furrowed and he was chewing at his lip. His left hand was rolling something along the length of the table - no, not something, the crown of the Conqueror. Aemond toyed with his brother’s ruby crown as he read, twisting it on its edge, sending crimson glimmers arching over the ceiling, over his face. 

How does it rest on your head? She longed to ask him. But she could not break character, not yet. Although, it suddenly occurred to her that she had not the slightest clue how Alys acted around Prince Aemond. Was she as flirtatious as she was with Sena, as wickedly unknowable and sharp? Was she deferent?

He looked up from his letters and gave her an odd look. “Are you going to stand there all night or am I to eat at some point?”

She shook her head free of her stupor, her blood thundering in her ears. “Of course, my Prince,” she said hurriedly and moved to the table to set the tray down.

He watched her with his sharp eye and for a second, she could have sworn he saw right through her. Then he raised a hand and waved it. “Lay the table, then,” he said coolly, his brow furrowing further. “If you have not completely misplaced your wits.”

That made her jaw tick. “You’d do well to be polite to the person who could spit in your food,” she bit back, and she flushed at the obviousness of her mistake. There was no way, no way Alys would speak to him that way-

But Aemond only smirked. “There you are, Alys,” he said and went back to his papers. Relief swept through her. “Fill my goblet as well.”

Did he say please? Had he always been such a brat? She had never noticed it before now. She did as she was told, grabbing the pitcher to fill up his goblet from the other side of the table with wine of the deepest claret. Then, she took her chance to round the table and shuffle some of his papers out of the way so she could lay his meal. She slowed her hand as she scanned the seals - the flaming Hightower of Oldtown, the three-headed dragon of her own family. A peak and sunburst that made something tick deep in her memory of boring morning lessons in Queen Alicent’s solar. It was a Westerman, she knew that much, but why was a vassal lord writing directly to the Prince Regent instead of the Lannisters?

Oh, that was why, she thought as she scanned the letter quickly, setting it aside as slow as she dared. The Westerman - a Reyne, mayhaps, or a Lefford - had taken control of the Lannister forces after the death of Lord Jason Lannister, and they had been… slain on the shores of the God’s Eye by men calling themselves the Winter Wolves. Good Gods. Aemond caught her looking. “Careful, Alys, anyone would think you were scouring for information to sell to the enemy,” he snipped, and he would have seen the way her face drained of colour if he had not immediately bowed his head to his hand and pinched at the bridge of his nose, as if staving off a headache. “Untold loss of life. The smallfolk are calling it the Fishfeed.” He laughed bitterly and reached for his goblet. “It was the God’s Eye that Lady Visenya’s dragon retreated to, after our victory at Rook’s Rest. At least he will eat well out of our losses.”

Sena did not know what to say. She shuffled aside more papers to make room. “She is well… the Lady Visenya, that is,” she said as evenly as she could manage. “Eating again.”

Aemond nodded stiffly. “Some good news, at least,” he said.

It was enough to raise a lump in her throat. She took his dinner plate and leaned across him to put it before her. She caught him giving her an odd look. “What?” She asked, her pulse thrumming.

He narrowed his eye, then shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “Carry on.”

Her heart was in her throat as she leaned in to put down his fork and knife. His head turned to her once more, confused by something.

The knife was in his hand and back off the table as soon as she’d laid it down. He brought it down so swiftly and sharply she did not even have time to react, and he skewered the sleeve of her dress to the table. A scream jumped from her throat. “My Prince!” She cried.

He was up and had his hand under her jaw, tugging her face sharply to meet his. The melting of the glamour felt like a trickle of cool water. A cruel smirk spread across his lips as brown eyes gave way to violet. Sena swallowed hard.

“Nice try,” he said, almost a little admiring. “But remember for next time, most bastards cannot afford lavender oil for their baths.”

“You could smell me?” She balked.

He raised an eyebrow and schooled his expression. “You love lavender,” he said, as if it was obvious. “Are you going to tell me why you are here before I have you taken back to your rooms? Maybe clapped in chains for good measure."

She met his good eye defiantly. “What did you expect me to do?” She asked, belligerent, pinned to the table and caught in his grasp. “You won’t speak to me, you won’t even come and make sure I’m still alive, you just send some woman-“ 

“Whom I trust to know it is in her best interests to be loyal to me and protect you,” he snapped. He shook his head at her in disbelief, thumb trailing along the underside of her jaw. She tried to jerk out of his grasp. “Although it seems I trusted her a little too much, and once again seem to have underestimated your refusal to stay down when you’re beaten.”

She blustered out a laugh, sounding more confident than she felt. “From what I can tell, Aemond, you’re the one who is losing. Not me,” she picked up the letter telling him his casualties from the God’s Eye and held it up. 

He did not look at it, holding her gaze with frightening intensity, then ripped the knife free of the table. 

She stumbled back. Watched him as he carefully composed himself, an irrepressible undercurrent of rage running just beneath the surface. He sat back down again and fixed his steady glare on the crown on the table. “I have won all my own battles yet I am losing this war,” he admitted. “We lost King’s Landing- I lost King’s Landing. My grandfather is dead and gone. Aegon has vanished. I cannot even speak to my mother. All I have is Cole and we cannot even see eye to eye.”

Something in Sena gave a pang. How she hated seeing him lonely. They were supposed to be there for each other, supposed to stop each other feeling alone in the world. They had promised. Five-and-ten years ago, now, they had made that promise, holding hands in the dark. “You have me,” she breathed and his head whipped around to face her.

“What?”

She drew a steadying breath and leaned on the table next to where he sat, surveying the map. “Tell me what the situation is. Maybe I can help.”

He looked up at her from his seat and his throat bobbed. He dropped his head into his hands and began kneading at his brow. He was so tired there was an uncharacteristic slump in his shoulders. “Why would you help?” He asked bleakly. “It is your family I am trying to destroy.”

She huffed and shook her head. “It is our family, Aemond,” she said sharply. “You - all of you, Aegon, Rhaenyra, my father - are trying to destroy our family. We are one house, the last dragonriders, fire and blood. Do not forget it.” She did not wait for his response before she turned and looked at the map that showed all the realms below the Neck. He had it spread on the table and weighed down with crowned dragons representing his own forces, a cobbled-together mix of Arryn falcons and Velaryon seahorses representing Queen Rhaenyra’s. It made her ache to see it - nobody had ever chiselled two sets of dragon markers. Nobody had anticipated their house turning on itself. “What do we know of what is happening in King’s Landing?”

Aemond let out a long breath. “There is some good news there at least. When all this started, my brother’s council was prudent enough to split the treasury into four and send off three parts for safekeeping. Rhaenyra will be spending the last of what we left to her, by now.”

Sena grimaced at the thought. That would be putting pressure on her indeed. “The smallfolk will be suffering for it. Trade is already disrupted in the Narrow Sea, the Goldroad and the Roseroad cut off, so no trade from the Westerlands or the Reach.”

Aemond nodded. “They’ll be hungry, and what they can get will be taxed viciously by my sister to pay for the war.”

She drew a breath and looked at him. Did her best to steady herself. This was her chance. “This has gone on long enough, Aemond. This family has lost too much. This realm has lost too much.” 

He leaned back in his chair, considering her. “And what do you wish me to do about it, Sena?” He sounded more tired than anything else, shrugging his shoulders. “Crawl on my knees to King’s Landing and beg for forgiveness? Pray your father doesn’t have me strung up by my entrails? It’s not going to work, we’re too far gone to turn back now.” 

She shook her head. “It is never too late,” she said, and his eye flitted to hers.

He managed to give her a wry smile but shook his head. “You have heart, of that there is no doubt, but I will not see her on the throne, Sena. Nor will I see her bastard go after her. She has taken too much - from me, from all of us. My mother has given up her life, her whole life in service of the crown, the people. She gave the King, my father four heirs. Four pregnancies, four births and that is not even considering how she shouldered the running of the realm or the countless times she endured his rutting. And never once has she been thanked or loved or honoured for it. Only disrespected, treated like a brood mare, brushed aside and forgotten.”

Sena frowned, wrapping her arms around herself. “I do not expect you to forget that, Aemond. I do not expect you to forget any of it. I only wish for you to admit this has gone too far. That no throne or crown or title is worth this.”

He suddenly looked as though he was far away from her, in some deep dark place, and he swallowed hard. “Do you know what happened to Maelor?” He asked.

Maelor? A cold fear gripped her. All she knew was what Jarrad had told her - that the King and his heirs had vanished from King’s Landing the night of the Queen’s invasion. She knew not what had befallen Helaena’s infant son. She did not wish to know, if Aemond’s expression was any indication. 

“He was spirited away by a member of the Kingsguard, the night King’s Landing fell, to be taken to Oldtown and my brother. They only got as far as Bitterbridge before the smallfolk caught on, realised they were not who they said they were. They found Maelor’s egg in Ser Rickard’s pack, realised they had a dragon prince on their hands that was worth more than all their pitiful fortunes combined. The fight that broke out, they-“ His words caught in his throat and he cleared it harshly. Sena felt sick. “Some say they tore him limb from limb, Sena. So they might each claim a part of the Black Queen’s price on his head.” 

“Gods,” she said. A wave of nausea rolled through her. He had just been a little baby. This vile, vile war, the fact that their own shortsightedness and vengefulness had done this to them, led them to do this to each other. “Helaena,” she breathed, and Aemond swallowed hard, brushing angrily at the tears on his cheek. “Does she know?”

Aemond shrugged weakly, looking defeated. “I do not know. I fear my half-sister would delight in telling her.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, felt a twinge of pain where it had healed a little crooked. Closed her eyes as she willed the roiling in her stomach, the thudding of her heart to calm. There was a clammy sweat on her skin and she just wanted to cry. “We need to get to her, Aemond. If we can do nothing else, we need to get her back. We need to take care of her.”

“How?” He asked, sounding defeated. “Helaena, my mother, they’re being held in chains. I do not know what to do.” He sounded so small, so beaten down, and it was breaking Sena’s heart.

Sena stood and rounded the table, planting her hands and surveying the map in an attempt to occupy her mind, stop the dark, yawning pit in her heart from consuming her. “We need to force Rhaenyra’s hand,” she said quietly. “We need to make her come to the table, talk peace. Right now, she has King’s Landing, but that is all she has in the South. You still control nearly everything North of the Dornish Marches and South of the Eyrie and the Neck. If we can make her position untenable…“ 

Aemond was watching her with his reddened eye and drew a deep, ragged breath. He pushed himself up from his seat and came to the edge of the table. He picked up a crowned dragon marker from the Westerlands and rolled it in his hands. “You truly believe there is a way for us? We can end this, stop the bloodshed?”

She looked up and met his gaze steadily. How could he simultaneously look so young and so weathered? So terrified and so exhausted? “I will end this war,” she told him, with every shred of certainty she could muster. “We will save this family, save this kingdom or die in the attempt. That is the only acceptable path left to us, Aemond.”

He studied her for a moment, then looked back down to the figure of the dragon wearing a crown in his hand. He nodded once, then reached up with his other hand and snapped the crown off in one clean motion. Sena was taken aback for a moment, then watched him reach for the next marker, doing the same. Then the next, then the next. She took one up from in front of her and bent it with her hands, feeling the wood splintering under her grip.

The dragon markers went back to their previous places, now without their crowns, and Aemond nodded to himself. Convinced he was doing the right thing, at long last. “No more sides,” she said to him. “No more colours, no more division. Just us. One family. One realm.”

“Show me,” he said, watching her with his piercing, clever eye. “Show me how we end this.”

Sena took a deep breath then looked down at the map before her, a sudden surge of something unnameable in her stomach. Courage? Fear? Love? 

Whatever it was, it was time to get to work.

She had been thinking about this for weeks but now was the time to finally put it into motion. “We need to lay siege to King’s Landing. Block every road in and out, cut them off at sea. Choke Rhaenyra until she has no choice but to meet us under a peace banner.”

His eye flitted between the map and her, and he reached across the table to take her hand, pointing out to her the positions of two of his armies. Lightning sparked through her where their skin met, but she did not let it show on her face. “We have the roads, for now. If I direct Ser Criston Cole and my brother Daeron to march and siege the city…” he looked to the sea and grimaced. “There must be a way to broker another deal with the Triarchy, cut off the Velaryon fleet at sea. But we are low on funds, low on anything they would want. It will not be a pleasant negotiation-” 

“No. Not the Triarchy,” Sena said, shaking her head vehemently. “Your alliance with them is at an end. It will be hard enough to get Rhaenyra to treat with us as it is. We cannot sue for peace with a foreign power backing us and being seen to have a say in the outcome. They shot down Jace and Gods only know what has become of Viserys. Your sister will not listen to a word we have to say with them at our backs. We need another fleet.” 

He considered her words and conceded with a nod. “You have a point,” he said. “But that does not solve the problem. What fleet do we block off Blackwater Bay with if not the Triarchy’s? It will take months to sail ships from Oldtown or the Arbor, and I doubt Dorne would take too kindly to seeing a fleet of war galleys in their waters.” 

The question was making Sena’s head ache. What other options did they have besides the Hightowers and Redwynes? But he was right - it would take time they simply did not have to muster a fleet from the Reach that could rival the Velaryons and even then, they would be putting blind faith in the Gods that their southern neighbours would let them pass by unmolested. She scanned the map. Her eyes fell on the eastern coast. “The Arryns.”

Aemond raised an eyebrow at her. “They are sworn to Rhaenyra, Sena. Her lady mother was an Arryn-“

“I know, I advised Jace on brokering the deal,” Sena ground out. How wrong it felt, to be undoing her lost brother’s good work. Some part of her said that Jace would understand, though, if he was still here. “But if there is one thing our ancestors have shown us about the Vale of Arryn, it is that the impregnable Eyrie is vulnerable to dragons.”

Aemond looked a little bewildered. “We cannot just land a dragon on the Eyrie and demand they switch banners, Sena.”

She sighed. “No, we cannot, but my sister is ward to Lady Jeyne Arryn. Rhaena is a good girl, a gentle girl, she has always loved me like I was her true sister. She will hear what I have to say. And if a deal had the support of House Arryn’s most powerful bannermen-“

Aemond shot her a look. “You mean-“

“Yes,” she said with a nod and the certainty she felt in her was as strong as castle-forged steel. This was how they would accomplish this. She ran her hand over the place on the map where Runestone was nestled. “It is high time I raised my claim to what is mine by rights.” When she looked up, Aemond was smirking at her, brimming with pride. Her cheeks coloured and looked back to the map, desperate to move things along. “A city the size of King’s Landing could withhold siege for untold time, Aemond. They need to fall from the inside, too.” 

Aemond nodded and considered her words, trailing his fingers over the soft blue colouring of Blackwater Bay. In real life, it was a far moodier navy-grey. “My mother,” he said finally. “She’s a pious woman, she has friends in the faith that I reckon she would still be able to reach, even in chains, if they are letting her see a Septon. And if anyone could turn the smallfolk into a mob, it would be the Faith. If we can somehow sneak in a message to her…”

“What about Vhagar’s cavern?” She suggested. “It opens onto the cliffs. If we can get a man in that is familiar with the city and the Red Keep, we could reach her that way.”

He nodded vigorously. “Good. Good thinking.”

They both looked down at the map, moving their markers into place, surrounding King’s Landing fully from all sides. A lump was forming in Sena’s throat. The city was already tense, the smallfolk already being taxed to starvation. “This plan would be like throwing a torch in a hayloft,” she said, fear flooding through her.

Aemond considered the map, considered the armies that spilled out in every direction. Every orphan and widow they would make if they did not end this quickly. “What choice do we have?” He asked.

“Their dragons still outnumber yours,” she pointed out. “If this comes to a battle, you are outnumbered, two to one.” 

“Daeron’s Tessarion has grown into a fine beast, and Vhagar is worth half their dragons put together,” he insisted. “And you forget about your own dragon. We have Vermithor now, once we travel to the God’s Eye. I have received reports that Silverwing has been brought to the capital for Princess Rhaenys to claim, but the she-dragon will not fly against Vermithor. They are mated for life.” 

Sena repressed a grimace at the thought of the unruly dragon who had no love for her. She missed Grey Ghost everyday. But she had no choice and he was right, Vermithor would go a long way to evening the score, even if it was just to lay more pressure on Rhaenyra to negotiate.

Then, she thought of a person she had vehemently not been thinking about up until now. “What about my father?” She breathed, cold dread trickling through her. “Rhaenyra can be reasoned with. She loves her sons above all else. But my father… he will be unreasonable to the end.” 

Aemond gritted his teeth at the thought. “Let me deal with your father,” he said, looking for all the world like he longed to reach out across the table and touch her. “We just have to get them to the table, first of all.”

“And then, all we have to do is get the most unreasonable and obstinate family in the known world to agree with each other?” She asked, taking up the dragon marker and running her finger over the broken crown with a humourless laugh.

He reached across the table and grabbed it out of her hand, their skin grazing for the barest of seconds. “Be careful, you’ll give yourself a splinter.”

Sena could not help the laugh that bubbled out of her throat. Aemond looked up at her sharply as if he’d been slapped. “Sorry, I just-“ she shook her head. Laughed some more. “After all that’s happened… Luke, Grey Ghost, Rook’s Rest, you’re concerned about me getting a splinter?” She held his eye steadily.

He looked away from her, his shoulders bunching up around his ears. “If I could take it back-“

Sena shook her head, morose. “That’s not how anything works,” she said and reached for the pitcher of wine on the side of the table, the one Alys said she was working overtime keeping filled for him right now. Right enough, it was half empty. He was struggling and she was making him feel worse right now. 

No, he would not get her sympathy. So much of what had happened, of what was still happening, he could partly blame on his own pride, his inability to mind his temper or bite his tongue. And maybe that was a luxury of his station in life, maybe that was just one of the privileges of being a man, being a prince. But if he wanted to be at her side and help her end this, he had to learn control, learn remorse. She poured herself a generous glass and drank heavily, rolling the full-bodied wine over her tongue and savouring the bitter taste. “Are you going to apologise to me?”

“How do I apologise for something I did not mean to happen?” He asked quietly.

Was he determined to get on her very last nerve right now? “By saying you’re fucking sorry,” she snapped, slamming her goblet down on the table. A spatter of wine coloured the map and he looked up at her, shocked. Had she ever been the one to lose her temper first between them? She could not recall. “Now, Aemond. I will have your apology. My honour demands it. Either that or your head.”

He watched her with a flicker of something dangerous in his remaining eye. “Done playing the good girl, are you?” His voice was controlled - pure, cold control - and it only made the fiery rage inside her burn hotter.

“It wasn’t an act,” she bit out. She took another heavy swig of wine and wiped at her mouth. “It wasn’t an act. I love you. I love all of you. And you’re all ruining me. You’re making me into an angry, vengeful woman.”

The Prince only smirked at her and it stoked her rage. “Let the fire burn, love,” he said, something dark in his voice, a heat in his eye. “Part of me always wanted to drag you down to my level.”

“Say you’re sorry,” she demanded. “Say you’re sorry for shackling me hand and foot. Say you’re sorry for every bruise and broken bone. Say you’re sorry for Grey Ghost, for Luke.”

“Say you’re sorry for Jaehaerys,” he countered coolly, “for Maelor.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “Aemond, I put a knife through my father’s neck when I learned about Jaehaerys,” she growled. “Do not play this game with me.”

That revelation made him come alive. His chest swelled, his eye went dark. He smirked. “Of course you did,” he breathed. “You are Visenya. My Sena.”

“Your Sena?” She said and her insides were on fire. What right did he have to claim her when all he had ever done was hurt her, cast her aside and place her dead last in his priorities? “Fucking make me yours, you coward.”

She did not know where the words came from. She did not even have time to draw breath before he was round the table and at her side, taking her hips in his hands and pushing her up onto the polished oak. Her blood roared in her ears and a guttural moan broke free of her throat as he fell upon her lips. Biting, licking, bruising. It was hot and wet and desperate, and his hands tangled into her curls, pulling her head back for him. Her hair strained at the roots. The pain was sweet. The pain was like fire.

Her hands flew up to tangle in his hair but he caught her before she could even lay hands on him. He pulled her arms sharply behind her back, held them there with one hand, and used his other to tug her head back by the hair at a sharp angle. “Say it again,” he hissed. His eye was malevolent. “I’m warning you. You have tested my honour too many times. Say it again and I’ll do it.”

The very air in her lungs was molten. She gasped in a breath, her lungs struggling for room as he bore down on her, her arms screaming in protest behind her back. She could break his hold on her if she really wanted to - he was wiry for a man and she was strong for a woman - but there was a current of heat running through her at the way he bowed her to his will. They were already agreeing to betray both their families, the people who had raised them, making a pact writ blood. Everything they had done in the last months - they were without honour, without virtue. That ship had long set sail. What was one final sin to add to her list? The very sin she had burned for, for years. And instead of hatred and despair, it would be committed with heat and desire. With love. It was only right that this final betrayal should be sealed with the blood of her maidenhead. “I won’t beg,” she bit out, her voice trembling. They were nose to nose, brow to brow. He had a beautiful nose. Strong, large, sharp.

He barked a malevolent laugh. “I’ll make you beg.”

Even with her throat bared, her head pulled back, she met his eye steadily. “Would you just shut up and fuck me?”

He gritted his teeth. His iris was swallowed up by the black of his pupil and she could feel a growing hardness pressed against her belly. “As my lady wishes.”

His hand still held hers tightly behind her back, the callouses where he gripped his sword dragging on her skin exquisitely. His other hand left their grip on the roots of her hair to tangle into the laces at the back of Alys’s dress. It was not as fine a dress as her own back on Dragonstone, though, and the eyelets caught on their laces. Aemond’s expression twisted with annoyance and he wrenched the lacing loose.

Sena felt the sharp tug, heard the ripping and pushed back against him. “Aemond,” she snapped, “this isn’t mine.”

He grinned maliciously and pressed his nose into the hollow under her jaw, pressing against her pulse, kissing against the place where she had struck her father with the letter opener. “Only allowed to rip your dresses, am I?” He asked with dry, dry humour in his voice.

She drew in a ragged breath. “Yes,” she gritted out, burning with shame at how needy she sounded. “Only mine. I’ll cut you open from your throat to your balls if I ever hear of you touching another.”

He grinned against her neck and bit her skin sharply, making her hiss. “Only you, my lady,” he hissed, and yanked her dress down, baring her breasts. He licked his lips and sighed shakily, raising a rough, calloused hand to pinch at one nipple, then the other. Sena whined low in her throat, and he dipped his head to latch on. She watched him suckling at her with desperation, watched him switch to her other breast and tweak at the tender, wet nipple with his teeth and tongue. She threw her head back in a moan.

Bent at an awkward angle, Aemond raised his eye to her and watched her sigh in pleasure at his ministrations. He came off of her breast with a wet pop and brought his spare hand up against one flushed, tender nipple in a hard slap. It stung and Sena moaned. “Aemond,” she hissed. “Fuck, please.”

His smirk was so infuriating it set a fire beneath her skin. He drew closer, pressed them together, her thighs parted for him. Chest to chest. He pulled her hips to the edge of the table and ground himself into her, and Gods, she could feel every last inch of him, straining through his breeches. Her bare, sensitive nipples grazed on the silver fastenings of his doublet and it sent a flood of heat through her. “Such a good lady, so obedient and demure for twenty-one long years, just to turn into a wanton whore at the end of it all. All for me.”

“I’m everything for you,” she breathed, hot against his lips. They were eye to eye, her throat bared to him at the most vulnerable of angles. Her shoulders were aching from the way he strained her arms behind her and his other hand was thrust up the skirts of her dress, shoving aside her undergarments and grazing a callous against the height of her pubic bone. “For you, I’m a lady, a whore, preacher, warrior. Fighting for forgiveness you do not even desire. Whatever you want. Whatever you need. I was made for you, Aemond.”

That sealed the deal.

He let go of his grip on her so he could grapple with the front of his breeches and Sena brought her aching arms up to help him. Laces, laces, why so many fucking laces? There was a growing wet spot on the front of his breeches and it was making her mouth water. At long last, together they parted the fabric covering his manhood, and Sena winced, biting her lip. She took his thick length in hand, thumb grazing the weeping head. “Gods be good,” she breathed, trying to calm the small surge of fear at the sight of it.

Aemond smirked, proud, and watched her hand on his cock with avid interest. When she brushed a spot just under the flushed head, his eyelid flickered. “You do know how to flatter a man, don’t you, sweet girl?” He brushed her hair from her neck as she palmed at his cock, her cheeks burning. “It might hurt a little. Just for your first time.”

She drew a bracing breath. Wondered what it said about her that the idea of the pain was even more thrilling. She withdrew her hand from his cock, savouring the low grunt of protest in his throat. She spat into her palm and brought her hand back to him, grazing her fingers over that spot just as she reached the head. Just to watch his eyelid flutter. “Mightn’t be so sore,” she murmured. He slipped a hand between their bodies and used two fingers to stroke her entrance, spread her wetness. He gave her a pleased smile when he found her practically dripping. “I’ve spent so many nights fucking myself with my fingers, thinking of you, imagining it was you,” she sighed as his fingers caught on the rim of her hole. He groaned, his eye fluttering shut. With her spare, trembling hand, she reached up and unbound his hair, pulling his eyepatch from his beautiful face. The sapphire in his left socket glimmered at her and she brushed along the underside of his eye, the jagged line of his scar. “I want the real thing now, Aemond. Do not hold back,” she breathed.

“Fuck,” he choked. Even when his eyes slipped closed in pleasure, his damaged left eyelid let out a sliver of deep blue. He was bent so close to her that his beautiful hair fell like a curtain around them, and for a second, Sena could believe that the world only went as far as them. The table unrelenting against her arse, her own throbbing cunt, Aemond’s weeping cock. That was as far as it went. That was all there was.

Suddenly, he was in motion, pushing up her skirts, pulling down her undergarments and grabbing at her fleshy thighs. He pulled her forward so she was positioned at the edge of the table, at the head of his manhood. He took her hands in his, positioned them on his shoulders. Then he took hold of his cock and stopped for a second, eyeing her for any sign of hesitancy. “Last chance,” he warned her. “We can stop if that is what you desire.”

She pulled him down to her and kissed him. “Do not stop. Please, Aemond. Please.”

She let out a sharp cry when his cock pierced her core.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, gripping her jaw firmly in his large hands. He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, held her gaze unshakeably, held her body steady. She knew he wasn’t just apologising for the pain of piercing her. Knew he was apologising for all of it, every last bit of pain he had caused her. Knew this was the best he could do. “I’m sorry.”

Every inch of her was alive, hot and white and bursting with agony. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Aemond,” she whimpered. “It’s- it’s too much-“

“You can take it,” he whispered. He was seated in her fully now. She could feel his balls brushing against the lips of her cunt. His own pale hair at the base of his cock against her black, coarse curls. The drag of their skin together burned with sweet friction. “You can, Sena. You can do it. You can do fucking anything, my girl.”

They were trembling together as they looked down at where their bodies joined. He groaned when he saw her skirts were in the way and pulled the ruined dress up over her head, leaving her as bare as the day she entered into the world. Now he could see, could see where he had parted and entered her. Her maiden’s blood mingled with her slick and his precum on the base of his cock. He dragged her hands up to his neck and held her trembling form steady. “Beautiful,” he groaned. “Look at us. I told you we’d be beautiful, didn’t I? As one? You impaled on me- Gods, Sena-“

“I’m ready,” she whined. She grabbed his hands in hers, caught them up, twined their fingers together. With a measured breath, she leaned back a little. The new angle set her on fire. She could feel the swollen head of his cock dragging on some dark and secret place inside of her. “Make me yours.”

His hands left hers so he could swipe away the wooden markers in her way, holding her lower back and easing her down to the table. Her shoulders and arse rested against the polished wood, but her lower back and hips curved upwards and met his in an unholy arc. Unholy, good Gods, if only his mother could see them now- “You were always mine, Sena. I was always yours,” he mumbled and she could see the thinnest of threads his restraint was dangling by.

She was in disbelief that it had taken them so long to realise it, such a simple, unassailable truth. She shifted back onto him, wanting to take every part of him and even the minute movement had pleasure spasming through her lower belly. “Well, seal the deal then, beautiful boy. My Prince."

That was all the encouragement he needed. His hips snapped into hers with a lurch that made every muscle in Sena’s core seize, and there was a deep stabbing sensation in her as the head of his cock seemed to push against the very limit of her insides. He groaned and leaned down onto her, covering every inch of her with himself. One hand found her left nipple, tugging and tweaking. The other found the base of her skull, forcing her up into a savage kiss that had her lips singing and swollen. His hips pumped into hers, setting up a punishing pace. Sena brought her hands up to his scalp, knotted them into his hair and pulled. Her body jolted, her breasts bounced, the table creaked in protest. Every inch of her sung.

“Aemond,” she moaned, legs wrapped like a vice around his waist, her wetness running down her arse and the front of his breeches, urging him deeper and harder. He brought his hands down under her arse and pulled her up to meet him, changing the angle in a way that had sharp cries spilling from her lips. He was watching her moan and cry, a malicious, hungry look in his eye, hips slapping into hers, squeezing and kneading at her arse cheeks. He leaned back from her so he could bring one hand between them and a calloused thumb started rubbing relentlessly at her pleasure. The thickened, scarred skin that wielded swords and commanded dragons was building a wave of pressure in her as easily as he might finger out a note on a lyre. He was playing her like an instrument. 

The snap of his hips was growing more frenzied, more urgent, and it was driving her wild. “Yes, yes,” he moaned, “take it, Sena. Take me."

“Gods-“ she gasped, as the wave built.

“Name them,” he hissed. The relentless force of his hips was pushing her up the table, but he grabbed her by her hip creases and pulled her flush back against him, drawing a low moan from her. He was trembling. They would not last long. His hand flew up to fasten around her throat, choking, burning. It was too much, her every sense was screaming, it was way too much and it felt fucking divine. “Balerion, Vhagar, Meraxes, Syrax… Maiden, Mother, Stranger-“

“You,” she moaned. She gripped the hand that covered her throat, holding it tighter around the airway that fed her very life. “Aemond.” 

Her body threw her into fits of pleasure. 

Spasms, tides, relentless waves.

He moaned, let out a sharp grunt as her cunt tightened around him. He was shaking, his eyelids fluttering, and all of a sudden his hips stilled against hers. “Sena,” he groaned and his balls went tight against her cunt, her arse. His cock pulsed deep inside of her.

She pulled him down on top of her and took every inch, every part of him. Thick, hot liquid coated her insides in ropes of syrup, ropes of nectar. Her throat burned to taste it. Soon, soon, she would taste him, taste his seed. “Fuck-“ she moaned, “Aemond.”

His grip squeezed around her throat as his hips continued to spasm, and she choked. The sounds of her gasping for breath alarmed him and he drew back. His head dipped to her collar bone. He licked at the sweat pooling there. “My lady,” he whispered into the hollow of her throat, his hair falling around him. “Are you okay?”

She gasped in a breath and drew his gaze up to meet hers with a finger under his chin. “I’m better than okay,” she said in a whisper. “I’m in bliss.” 

He moaned against her throat and the vibrations went straight to her swollen, abused pleasure. “My beautiful, beautiful lady-“ his cock was softening inside of her, but she never wished him to leave her. She wrapped her legs around the backs of his thighs and held him against her. She could feel the coarse hair coating his thighs and his crotch against the most private parts of her body. The rub and the burn was exquisite.

With a grunt, he leaned back and pulled her up from the table. Wooden markers scattered on the floor, maps torn and creased, his cock still buried to the hilt inside of her. She squeezed her thighs around his slender waist and moaned wantonly as his swollen head dragged inside her. Balancing her on his hips, he carried her through to his bed, and laid her down on the softer surface. She winced at the loss of him, but he kneeled down at the edge of the bed and brushed aside the curls that were stuck to her forehead with sweat. She could feel his seed spilling out of her between her thighs, mourned the fact that she could not hold on to every last drop.

An hour ago, she might have felt horror at the idea of going to Alys or the maester and asking for moon tea. An hour ago, that might have made her so ashamed she could combust. But every last second of Aemond inside her, losing himself in her had been so worth it, she’d let the whole fucking castle watch if he’d just do it again.

Now she knew. Now she knew why married lords and ladies guarded that act with their honour, their lives. Why they had to make it so dirty and wrong and shameful. Because if unmarried maidens knew such pleasure… they would be unstoppable. They would know their true power, know what they could give, know what they could take. Know they could turn lords and princes and kings into desperate, wild animals.

Aemond got up from the side of the bed, his legs shaking a little, she noticed with satisfaction. He grabbed a clean cloth, dunking it in the basin of fresh water and came back to the bed. “Open your legs for me,” he said softly, knuckles of his spare hand brushing the underside of her jaw.

She parted her legs and felt the ache in her hips, the stretch of her hole, and she winced.

“Shhh,” he soothed her and gently wiped at the stickiness between her legs. “You took me so well, sweet girl. Let me take care of you, now.” The washcloth was soft against her intimate skin and he pressed a kiss to her hair. “It won’t hurt so bad the next time, I promise.”

The next time. Her entire body was exhausted but the thought managed to raise a small flush inside her. “What if I liked how it hurt?”

His eye flickered to hers, his gaze catching on where he had gripped her neck. She reached her hand up to feel the ghost of his hand on her. “I lost control,” he said quietly. “I- You spend your whole life wanting something, and when you finally get it- I should have been gentler with you.”

“No,” she hissed, sitting up and pulling him down to sit next to her. “I made you grab me harder. I liked it, Aemond.”

“I should have asked.”

“I will tell you if you do something I do not like, my sweet boy. Do not fear,” she said and pressed a kiss to his brow. He bowed his head against hers and sighed. “And I want to know what you like.”

“I like-“ he stopped, struggling for words, and there was an enchanting blush rising in his cheeks. Was he… embarrassed? “I think I would normally be gentle, tender. It’s a form of worship, isn’t it, really? Honouring something so perfect?” She flushed a deep red at the flattery as he brushed his thumb along the underside of her breast. He looked so genuinely admiring of her body it made her blood sing. “But if I’m frustrated or angry or jealous, I’m going to want to… manhandle you.”

“I’m not fragile,” she said, skimming her thumb over his lower lip. He dipped his head to press a kiss to her palm. “And that was exhilarating. I can see myself enjoying slow and tender, or sitting on top of you and taking my own pleasure. But I loved that. The pain and the pleasure, it was exquisite. You did so well, my sweet boy. You made me feel so good.”

His breath stuttered at that, and his eye was dark. She looked down at the open front of his breeches, the fabric stained with the evidence of their exploits and watched in wonder as his soft cock gave a valiant twitch. She smiled. She would have to remember that for next time, that praising him got such a reaction from him.

He looked down at his own cock and laughed, shaking his head as he leaned back to clean himself with the cloth and then fasten his breeches again. “How come you are naked as your name day and I am still in full court dress?” He grinned, pushing himself up off of the bed and pulling back the sheet from under her so she could get comfy.

“I quite liked that too,” she said with a cheeky smile. “But next time, I want to see all of you.”

He smiled and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “As you wish, my lady,” he said. “I’ll come to bed soon and we’ll get you moon tea in the morning. I’m just going to stoke the fire and write to Daeron. We’ve got a war to end, after all.”

She gave a shocked little laugh. “Don’t tell me that was what you were thinking about when you were inside me? Writing to your brother?”

His answering grin was beautiful and boyish, his sapphire eye twinkling at her mischievously. “No, sweetheart, I was thinking about how I could die quite happily right now with you on my cock.”

She knew it was only a jest, but her heart seized in her chest and her hand flew out and grabbed him, stopping him from walking away. “Don’t ever leave me,” she breathed. “Don’t ever, ever make me carry on without you.“

“Oh Sena,” he breathed and sat back down beside her. He pulled her close and dipped his head so he could kiss her tender throat. “You are mine,” he murmured, his voice rumbling against her vocal cords. “I am yours.”

“Mine,” she sighed happily, pressing her nose into silver blonde hair. They reeked of sweat and sex, and Aemond gently lowered her to the pillow. “Yours.”

He pressed one last kiss to her lips, then the bed shifted as he rose to go back to his writing desk.

Sena only lasted a few deep breaths before she dipped out of consciousness, so utterly blissed.

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