The ocean's waves crashed against the rocky shore again and again, lulling the Princess into a weary sort of tranquility. She wasn't supposed to escape away like this, she knew, yet Rhaenyra couldn't help but seek the ocean's breeze to calm her headache.
Leaning against the railing, her violet gaze trailed the birds soaring above.
“Mother, is everything alright?” A soft voice sounded out hesitantly from behind. She felt a slight smile grace her lips as she turned to face the sudden intrusion to her quiet interlude.
“Luke,” her heart swelled at the sweet boy’s eyebrows, furrowed in concern, “Come, let us watch the sea for a while.”
He blinked at her lack of an answer before trotting up to lean on the railing beside his mother. Rhaenyra observed the way his warm eyes trailed the waves below, as if looking for something in particular, before she returned to her idle gazing.
Overhead was where peace truly lived, she thought, suddenly longing for a flight on Syrax. No clouds, no wind, the sky a perfect picture of tranquility, utterly flawless in its calm blue appearance.
“Is there something in particular that’s weighing on your mind?” Luke spoke up again, voice gentle and even as always.
“Is there something weighing on yours?”
She turned to her son once more, finding him with his head slumped slightly, swallowing in apprehension before looking at her and allowing himself a nod. A single sigh left her lips as she reached out to run her hand through his seemingly untamable curls.
“It seems that both of us have things to worry ourselves over,” she smiled as she, predictably, failed to do anything meaningful with his hair. She fully turned to him, leaning further on the railing, “What is it, sweet boy?”
Lucerys shook his head, giving her his own lopsided smile, “I came to see if you are alright, mother, not to needlessly complain.”
A laugh, “Sharing your troubles with your own mother is quite normal, Luke.”
“I’d rather share your burden than have you share mine,” he retorted.
Rhaenyra’s fond smile stretched her face, eyes crinkling at her boy’s typical hard-headedness, she ruffled his hair and watched him struggle with taming it again. She’d love to ease the burden upon her mind, share it with her second son, but she knew she couldn’t. The reason for the distance behind her gaze was an old and complicated trouble not solvable by a lent ear.
Though, perhaps she could allow herself a few moments to lament aloud.
A deeper sigh left her lips and she turned to face the sea once more. The birds above flew in their lazy circles, unbothered – how she wished to be like them, despite herself.
“I have spent many stray moments thinking about my childhood as of late,” she began, fondly following those carefree birds with her eyes, the blue sky taking her back to days and promises of dragonflights, lemon cakes, and a lifetime with a beautiful girl, “And I’ve been… remembering a friend very dear to me.”
“You grew up together?”
She nodded, “You could say we did. We spent almost all our days together, completely inseparable…” she looked down to her hands where she idly twisted her rings this way and that. She willed herself to still before continuing, “But, as fate often has it, we drifted apart.”
Lucerys nodded to show he was still paying attention, eyes staring at something by the waves in deep contemplation.
“I feel that, perhaps, there is a way we can once again be friends, as unlikely as it may be,” or at least be on more comfortable speaking terms, that was a dream as well. Rhaenyra closed her eyes for a moment, felt the sudden ocean breeze brush past her face, before she pushed off the railing and beckoned her son to follow her on a walk down to shore.
She was the only one who spoke, her veiled words of a childhood friend having wrapped her sweet boy into a fit of concentration. He was no doubt envisioning his own companions from boyhood, long drifted apart because of the hateful tides that made up their family, Rhaenyra herself included.
How ironic is it that, in the end, I’ve been cursing the very ways that I ended up using?
When they reached the rocky shore, her son spoke up.
“I see…” he began lamely, kicking at the pebbles between his boots, “It must be quite unfortunate to be so enthralled in melancholy.”
That made a surprised laugh rise out of her, she turned to look at his face to find an equally amused expression, “‘Tis indeed, as I’m sure you know best, my sweet boy.”
He laughed too, a small coating of red covering his face at the mention of his emotional nature, “I’ve also been deeply unfortunate in the last days, I’m afraid.”
They stopped at some point, watching the waves come crashing down in front of them, before Rhaenyra turned around to face her boy, a sympathetic look on her face, “This is about your uncle, isn’t it?”
Lucerys, her sweet empathetic son, sighed deeply, eyes devoid of their previous mirth, “It’s just… I want to apologize to him, I really do,” his eyebrows furrowed and he looked away from her face and towards the ocean, “But I’ve only accompanied you to King’s Landing once, where I hadn’t even the slightest chance to find him, much less start a conversation, and I’ve been unable to return ever since.”
She reached out to cup his face as he continued, “It is my wish to simply set things straight between us,” he looked back at and oh, she wished to envelop him in her arms and take all his pain away, “I know asking for more would be unreasonable.”
“He’s a man deeply scorned,” she nodded, “Anything more would be unlikely at best.”
His eyebrow lifted, that slight tint to his face returning momentarily, “What are you implying?”
“Nothing,” she chuckled, running her thumb across his cheek, “Nothing. All I’m saying is that you have realistic expectations, my boy, and when you do get the chance to speak with him it will make doing so that much easier.”
They stayed like that for a few more moments before she kissed his forehead and pulled away to continue their walk. Silently, their footsteps left marks on the beach, which were immediately erased by the ocean’s waves.
“This is the third time in a row where I’m expected at Driftmark during your visit to the capital,” Lucerys lamented to the air, bringing up his hands to rub at his face, “Can’t you and Daemon organize your next trip with my schedule in mind as well? I mean, you are going to strengthen family bonds, it’d be nice if more of our family got to join you two.”
She smiled, “Perhaps, though you need to get accustomed to things not fitting your schedule now that your Grandsire had demanded for your education as future Lord of the Tides to begin.”
“Somehow, I feel this education should’ve begun earlier.”
Rhaenyra couldn’t help but scoff fondly, “You are but a boy of two and ten, Luke. If anything, he has chosen the perfect time.”
He huffed, rolling his eyes with a smile stretching his lips, which she just couldn’t help teasing, “For your information, we do take some of your siblings every time we travel.”
They talked of more mundane topics afterwards, letting the more idle chatter wash away the pressure from speaking of their family affairs. It was a nice way to relax, she could admit, perhaps she should be walking along the shore with her children more often.
Once they began heading back they fell into a comfortable silence, listening to the waves, their own footsteps, and the birds above. Upon climbing back up to where they had met up, Rhaenyra opened her mouth with a sudden idea on her tongue.
“If you’re still concerned about not getting to speak to your uncle,” she turned to her son, who was gawking at her sudden suggestion, “Why don’t you write him a letter?”
Luke sputtered, caught off guard, “I, uh, have a feeling that apologizing through a letter would be seen as rather insincere.”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” she smiled as her son’s face scrunched up in confusion, “But expressing your desire to converse with him, whenever you are able to do so, may help break the ice.”
“That…” he paused, contemplating the idea despite how distrustful he was towards it, “Well, perhaps… I will give it some thought.”
Rhaenyra ruffled his hair one last time before she sent him on his way, “I’m sure you will, sweet boy.”
And, once again, she was left by herself, surrounded by her own thoughts of a time long bygone. Speaking with her sweet boy lifted up her melancholy spirit, as Lucerys had a tendency to do, and she found herself harboring some hope in her heart that, perhaps one day, she could speak of dragonflight and lemon cakes to the most beautiful girl.
Aemond collapsed to his knees. His room rendered into an unrecognizable mess, expensive pottery and glass and everything within reach which could be shattered was strewn about the floor in pieces. Whatever could be thrown, whatever he could lift for even a second, lay in various states of disarray. Some furniture upturned, some items made completely unrecognizable.
Whatever his hands touched was destroyed.
Nothing was spared.
Even the letter. As the spark that ignited his ire it most of all deserved the violence inflicted on it. It beckoned his gaze from where a few tattered pieces had escaped the fire and he could barely restrain himself from gathering all that remained in his hand and pressing it to the burning wood while the flames scorched his skin.
Shame was what prevented him from acting on his urge, though. The shame of tarnishing his cold and collected front rose up like bile in his throat, threatening to suffocate him; this behavior wasn't his own, too uncordial and feral for the dignified second son.
He wasn't a mindless man prone to outbursts, it didn't take a single letter for him to regress into such infantile violence. And yet–
In the end shame made him crumple under his mother's gaze.
Alicent's hazel eyes burned holes into her son's withered form, his bloodied, trembling fingers grasped at nothing against the floor, his shoulders hunched, hair a tangled mess over his face. He gazed at the fire as if a man possessed.
All his muscles tense, Aemond looked the picture of a frightened wild beast, prepared to pounce and bare its teeth at the slightest disturbance. She knew she'd last barely a moment if he, in his apparent madness, decided to lunge at her next and make her join the gore of furniture littering his room's floor.
Had she been a wise woman, she'd have fled, fetched a maester and the guards, and hoped against hope that her stoic son would return in due time and whatever had come over him so suddenly would pass. Luck would have it that Alicent wasn't such a woman.
She was a mother and she knew exactly the cause for this, so she stepped over the mangled furniture and sank to her knees by the fireplace to embrace her son. He stiffened even more, a trembling statue in her arms, but within a few moments he found it within himself to relax ever so slightly.
"Aemond…" she whispered into his hair, her own trembling hands idling over his form, smoothing out the wrinkles in his clothes in lieu of comfort, "The letter–"
Whatever she had meant to say next abruptly caught in her throat as she felt him stiffen again, his fingernails digging themselves into the cold floor. He grit his teeth, stayed silent.
The Queen held him tighter, timidly continued to smooth over his hair, tried not to hold her breath, before continuing once she found within herself a voice not trembling, "It… It held within merely a guess so we could begin preparing for the accommodations, nothing has been confirmed just yet."
Her son shuddered, the fire in his blood igniting anew as she spoke, "...they may still come."
"They are filthy cravens," he spat out, voice uneven, mad, so unlike his usual composed self, "Cowards… who dare not even show their faces."
Alicent dug her fingers into her son's arms, an imitation of his own ministrations on the floor, and she pulled back in order to look at his face.
They said it was an unplanned, last moment decision was on the tip of her tongue, a retort, but her mouth daren’t move as she took in her second son’s face.
A single eye darting all over her visage, red-rimmed and sunken, mouth cast into a snarl not of pure fury but of agony, brows furrowed, nose scrunched, Aemond looked a near perfect mirror of his mother in her younger days. Many things had happened to warrant such expressions from her but tonight her face would be calm.
One of her hands abandoned its perch on his arm in favor of brushing the blonde strands of hair away from his face. She didn't miss the way he flinched when she cupped his cheek.
"They are," she agreed instead, rubbing circles into his arm with her thumb, "We mustn't be like they are, Aemond. We must show nobility where they show cowardice, we must–"
"How?" Her diligent son croaked out, holding her gaze with exhausted defiance yet not outwardly rebelling against her words, "How, mother? When they come here in proclamation of reuniting with us? When every word of theirs is a pitiful fabrication meant to deceive us? When he comes here, says not a word, and disappears without a second thought?"
The fire in his words scorched the Queen, melted away her skin and everything underneath to expose her own hidden ire, invited her to succumb to her anger, join him in searing everything that scorned her.
No, she thought, not tonight, I won't.
In the silence, Aemond realized how his tongue had loosened and defiantly tore his gaze away from his mother and to the fireplace. Crackling flames enveloped their bodies with warmth as they stood crumpled amidst the destruction, though Alicent only felt her body grow colder as she comprehended the meaning of her son's words at last.
Despite his resistance, she forced him to look at her again, taking in the way he desperately tried to conceal his emotions behind a stoic mask as he so often did.
"...the bastard still torments you so?" She asked, somehow surprised even though she knew, "How had he disturbed you, my son? They had brought him so long ago, why hadn't you spoken of this before?"
Letting Rhaenyra and her bastard brood back into King's Landing was no small risk, Alicent knew that well, yet she still allowed it by convincing herself that her own children would remain safe and far away from hers. Such is the price to pay, she thought, I must do my duty, I must comply with the King's wishes.
Looking at her once stoic, dutiful son now, she couldn't help but feel as if she had personally led him by the hand into this fit of despaired destruction.
"...nothing," Aemond murmured to himself after a long fit of silence.
"What?"
"He did nothing," he repeated, voice firmer than she had ever heard it be that night, "During his brief stay at Red Keep, Lucerys did nothing to me."
Her grip faltered, fingers trembled, his gaze was intense yet it felt as if he was looking straight through his own mother, speaking more to himself than her, "What are you saying, Aemond?"
"He said nothing to me either," he continued as if she'd never spoken up, "Nor did he look at me and we crossed paths not once," his jaw was set, lips pulled down into a sort of manic scowl, his teeth no doubt grinding painfully into each other as he spat out, "Bastard."
He mustn't keep this up long, she found herself thinking as Aemond's speech deteriorated before her, his jaw is soon to start cramping.
"That coward is a creature most foul, mother," and for the first time that night, he moved to hold her, hid hand on her arms as hers had been, her son spoke as if he was sharing a secret only he was perceptive enough to know of, "He knows exactly how to torment me without lifting even a single finger – he has done something to me, mother, I'm never free no matter how far he is."
Was this the madness that came with his blood? It was blasphemous to think that of her own blood, her own son, yet it would make sense if true. But was this not another plague of the mind, one more known to the people outside the dragons' blood?
Distantly, she couldn't help but wonder if her own face was similarly manic in the years following the departure of her own dragon.
Alicent's jaw was set rather painfully.
"I cannot rest, mother," he continued as if he was not a prince but a lowly pennant begging for salvation and she not a Queen but a priest, faithfully listening, "That bastard's face appears in my dreams, it possesses other people so I may see it even when awake – he has made it so to torment me, of that I'm certain."
She thought of now distant nightly terrors which starred that dragon, her young face long aged smiling delightfully in long buried memories, features cruelly appearing on a daughter not her own but Alicent's.
"And I'm free not even in my own reflection," he held her tighter, "I bear his mark and it is all I see should I chance a gaze in a mirror."
And when she washed her hands before each meal she saw her fingers stained red with dragon's blood, thinking it to be too much yet not enough. And when the handmaidens brushed her hair she gazed to the mirror and saw an apparition of another's hands.
Aemond gulped harshly, closed his eye, tried to breathe deeply but he couldn't, "He is a persistent phantom, mother, he's made it so I can picture his image in my mind's eye with perfect clarity and when I do I lose myself." He briefly opened his eye to take in the carnage of the room before closing it tightly once more, shame quickly bubbling in his throat.
And as Alicent brought him closer into her embrace she allowed for her own eyelids to curtain her sight, finding the clear and bright image of her dragon. Blonde haired and older, carrying herself like a perfect and pristine princess should.
Her hands tightened around her son, fingers rumpling his clothes, nails digging into his back.
They stayed embraced for some endless moments, eyes screwed tight, hands holding on for dear life, listening to the fire with different images behind their eyelids. Aemond's head was hidden in the crook of his mother's neck as it had been the last time the bastard had scorned him, his chest a cage preventing any intake of breath.
Once again, we will be visiting Your Grace at the Red Keep, the letter had read, though it seems that, at present, the Princess Rhaenyra and her second son, Prince Lucerys, will be unable to accompany us.
Lucerys, Lucerys, Lucerys– Accursed, abhorrent, cowardly Lucerys. Was he not almost a man grown? Was he not responsible for his mental torture? What exactly in his petite frame gave him the gaul to curse him so, yet hide away and never face him?
What exactly made him think he was allowed to stray from the Prince he forever maimed?
In truth, while the bastard prince was clever with his magic, he was still the same as when they were but small children. Lucerys was still small, still naive, still inferior to Aemond in every way.
He would catch the boy, the trembling craven hiding behind his mother's skirts. He would catch him and force him to face the consequences of his witchery. He would catch him and when he did–
"Do you wish to hurt the boy?" His mother's voice startled him out of his thoughts. He flinched, yet didn't make any attempts to pull away from her strangling hold. "When his bastardly sorcery torments you, do you wish to see him hurt?"
Once clear green eyes were glazed over, as if entranced, and his eye shied away from the view.
"I do, mother," he confessed, throat raw and mouth dry, as if he was speaking the words of devils, "I wish to be free of this torment. Only his own misery can serve as my cure, of that I'm certain."
"Only his misery may not be enough, my son," she whispered against his hair, his wise mother, "No… no, that is not what you wish for."
A strangled noise escaped his throat, "What, then? What shall I do to rest?"
What a ludicrous notion, he couldn’t help but think. If he did not wish for his nephew's mutilation, why was it the only thing he saw? Why, then, when he was haunted by the boy's facade, was the picture of him writhing in pain the only one in his mind's eye?
He saw Lucerys in the thralls of misery, missing his eye, missing his skin, calling for help, begging for mercy. He saw his nephew, tiny, naive, precious nephew, with his face and body bruised, nose broken, fingers shattered, lips bleeding and teary eyelashes fluttering up at the maimed Prince. He saw the result of breaking his tormentor, he felt the thrill despite knowing it was all illusion – how could he not want this?
"You are lying to me, Aemond," the Queen's voice was soft, airy, a stark resemblance to her ever dreaming daughter, she shook her head, "You are lying to yourself."
And if the visions of the haunted second son saw beyond the simple bloodshed, was that not his secret to keep? Was it not, as it had always been, the ever fleeing, every alluring bastard's fault that the dutiful Prince saw not only the shine of a blade but the pink tint on cheeks? Was it not the tempting devil's fault that he saw himself not only cutting but caressing, not only hitting but embracing?
And if he saw the mocking face of the illusion and chose to hold it gently a while before taking his debt…
He silenced his screaming in the warmth of a mother’s embrace. Alicent held him gently, running a heavy hand through his hair, silent in her encouragement.