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lilibethwrites · 7 months

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thank you for your kind words 💜it's the kind of relationship that'll get worse before it'll get better, but that's not to say that it will get better of course 👀

Confessions of a Valyrian Opium-Eater

Modern!Aemond Targaryen x Female Reader Mini Series

Summary: You meet a gloomy, handsome guy at an addiction support group meeting. He’s charming, he’s smart, and he’s plagued by the ghost of a lover past.

CW: Angst, eventual smut, smoking, drug use and addiction, abuse, toxic behaviour

Word Count: 3500

You can also find this on AO3

It only took you a year of your friends’ begging to admit you might have a problem. It took you another year to consider seeking help.

From the moment you woke up in the ER with a tube down your throat all the way to your stomach, you’d say it didn’t take you all that long to stand at the paved way of this stupid building with a terribly colourful pamphlet in your hand.

Begin your recovery today at All Addicts Anonymous!

You looked through the list again, scoffing at some as though it would make you feel better about yours. Sex and love addiction? Come off it. But then again, love might have killed more than food or drugs. People walked past you, all with their heads hanging down, in their inconspicuous outfits, blending in the crowd; you followed them into the building.

There was a plump woman at the door with the Substance Use Disorders banner plastered, smiling a big smile in her gaudy, flower-patterned dress. You wondered if anyone had bothered to tell her she was rather discouraging than welcoming, trying to hug everyone and making failed small talk.

“Don’t be shy, now. Welcome,” she tried to usher you in with a hand held out. “You’re not alone. You’re so brave for doing this… Have you got any questions before the meeting starts?”

Gods, would you mind if I bashed your head in, you wanted to ask. Instead, you gave her a tight, much-practised smile and shouldered past her. The room was about as carnivalesque as you’d expected. All walks of life were conflated with paper cups in their hands and regret in their eyes.

Your eyes fell on the table at the back with what you assumed were stale doughnuts, biscuits and coffee with a stack of dry creamer packets. Then, to the brooding man leaning against the wall next to it. With a hand in the pocket of his leather jacket and another wrapped around a cup, he was staring down at his boots. His straight, waxen hair cascaded down his shoulders and fell like heavy drapes on the sides of his face. You wondered who forced his hand to come to this charade of a meeting.

All the talk of bravery for taking the necessary steps and opening up went in at one ear and out at the other. Your eyes fell on each and every one around you as they spoke, one of them had a terrible haircut, the other ill-fitting clothes; the one that stayed silent as a grave the whole time commanded your interest the most. With one slender leg in slim black jeans over the other and his back to the wall, the guy was unmoving save for the slow leaning of his head from one side to the other. There was a pin on the lapel of his jacket, a milestone pin that proclaimed to the world how many months you’ve been sober. It was hard to make out the number, and as if on cue, he lifted his head and locked eyes with yours—or rather, an eye. You sharply turned your head away, but you assumed it only made you seem more… guilty of staring.

At least the woman was merciful enough to let you off the hook with a short introduction. Your name, your “battle”, then, it was monotone greetings and droning on and on about how brave you were again, how this step was half the battle won already. You tuned out the meeting after that, your own sob stories were enough for you.

The small garden outside the building was too muddy for anyone to bother stopping on their way out. You gave your back to the warm, slightly damp stones of the half wall and shut your eyes. The night breeze stung in your lungs, and you thought those meetings must’ve spiralled more than they’ve helped recover.

“You’re in my spot,” came a low, velveteen voice.

The guy in the back from the meeting stood so close, looking so terribly like a modern greaser that you had half the mind to laugh and another half to leer.

“Oh?” You looked around in a moment of distraction, and then, scooted to the side. It was a half-wall with plenty of space for a lithe guy to lean on.

“Was only pulling your leg,” he mumbled, and the street lamp illuminated the upturn of the corners of his shapely lips.

He fished out a half-empty, half-crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and tapped a lighter out of the packet. He held it out to you. You shook your head no, and he pouted out his bottom lip in mock admiration.

“Were you at the smokers’ session, too?” he asked in earnest with the cigarette held between his lips and a hand covering the weak fire of the lighter.

“No. I mean, I probably should’ve been, but the runny tar did my stomach in. Don’t think a smoke’ll do me any good, now.”

He snorted at that, and held his chin up to blow the smoke up into the night air.

“You get used to it. With a handful of creamer and twice as much sugar, it’s digestible.”

You saw the pin more clearly, then. Eight months sober.

“Congratulations, by the way,” you gestured to the lapel of his jacket. “You must be like royalty around here.”

“Hm? Oh,” he looked down at the pin, and back at you. “Hardly. Edna’s three years clean, I think she likes coming here still because she doesn’t have anybody else to pester. I don’t think she was even using in the first place.”

You chuckled and the silence soon fell like a heavy blanket. It was only Aemond’s huffs and puffs and the occasional car driving by.

You pulled out your phone out of habit, to keep your hands busy, though you wish you’d done so earlier. Shit.

“What’s wrong?” Aemond asked, tilting his head to blow the smoke away from you.

“Missed my last bus by almost twenty minutes.”

“Oh. Should I feel guilty? I’d offer you a lift,” he nodded to the black muscle car parked underneath a streetlight, shining like a dark diamond. “But you wouldn’t really want an AAA bloke knowing your address, would you?”

“You could drop me off a block away, but I might trade my street for your name.”

“Right. ‘Course. Aemond.” He held his hand out to you, and you took it perhaps too eagerly. “I could’ve tailed you, but now you know too much. Not worth the risk, I’m afraid.”

You snorted and looked down at your feet.

“Fair… I’ll hail a cab.”

You gave him a two-fingers salute and began to walk off when he took one last, deep drag and crushed the butt of the cigarette under his boot.

He didn’t expect you to be on his mind by the time he pulled up to his flat. He didn’t expect he’d be on your mind, either, when you lay in your bed, tossing and turning.

Aemond walked into the familiar flat that’s been home to him and his lover for so long now with a bouquet of roses in his hand. But the smiling face of Alys turned into a sour scowl the moment she smelled the roses.

“They smell like someone else, Aemond,” she spoke sharply, and Aemond shook his head in defence.

“Tell me now, and I promise I won’t be too mad. Have you moved on? From me? I thought we were forever? Until death?” She took a few steps, and each time her feet dragged, the woodwork split open.

“You left me, Alys. What am I supposed to do?”

“Grovel at my feet again. Beg for me. Flay yourself open. Cry. You know I like it when you do that… so handsome. You know there are no women like me. Only me. And… her? Really? How is she gonna give you your fix?”

She turned to the couch, and there you were, sitting with terror in your eyes. Aemond felt his eye burn, and soon he was back in his bedroom with moonlight filtering through the blinds and sweat rolling down his forehead and naked chest. He ran his trembling fingers through his hair. There was no use staying in the bed, sleep never came again after such nightmares. He washed the residue of her from him under cold water.

You’d have to admit you only kept up with the AAA to see the tall, brooding guy who might or might not have been joking about moonlighting as a serial killer. You saw him leaning on his car near the building. The same leather jacket, the same black jeans, the same boots; instead of nursing a cup, he was fiddling with the silver rings on his fingers with a lit cigarette between them.

“Hey, you,” you sounded positively chipper, but his eye dragged slowly from his bony hand to your face, and one side of his lip twitched ever so slightly.

“Hi,” he sounded gruff, his voice was deeper than when he had seemingly made a willing conversation with you the last time.

“Small world, huh?” you tried again, and he only hummed.

You stood by his car in silence, awkwardly shifting your weight from one foot to the other, pulling the sleeves of your jacket as embarrassment began to set in.

“So… do you always come? To the meetings?”

“I try to.”

“Okay… What’re you in for?” You tried to sound unaffected, leaning closer, but you weren’t courageous enough to nudge his shoulder playfully as you intended to.

“Hm?” his brows were knitted when he looked up at you. He flicked the ash of his smoke, and took a drag while staring at you with a vacant expression. He was tapping his feet as if he were in a hurry and your small talk was delaying a life-or-death situation.

“Why are you here, I mean? Booze? Pills? Cigs?”

“That’s a conversation for inside the building, isn’t it?” He sounded sharper for a moment, slightly annoyed and terribly impatient to change the subject.

“Right… Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry. I’ll see you inside, then?”

He hummed again, and that was the only interaction you were to have with him for the day. He was a ghost in the back, staring down at his cup or out the window; and a breeze once the meeting was over, dashing out with long steps. The loud engine of his car was revving already when you were merely out of the building.

The affirmations that were supposed to take you out of bad mental spots didn’t work with Aemond. You sulked over tea, you sulked with a pillow hugged to your chest and cheery shows on. You kept playing that curt interaction in your head over and over again, dissecting it like a detective. Was it your outfit? Was it your hair? Did you look ugly in the golden hour? Did you make a bad joke? Were you offensively boring? Did he like to play with minds? He seemed the type, somehow. He seemed the type with closets of skeletons. There wasn’t a reason left to go anymore. The meetings didn’t tell you anything you didn’t know, you weren’t in the deep end like some of the others that went there anyway. You were managing just fine on your own. If anything, you thought Aemond was a risk—a siren’s song if sirens looked less like birds and more like a tall, lithe, brooding guy that caught your eye and mind and hasn’t let go. You were happier before your nights were occupied by him and what might’ve set him off so that he’d treat you like he despised you.

Aemond’s heart was crushed each time Alys made it clear he loved her infinitely more than she’d ever love him. His heart was shattered to bits when she walked out; and that clumsily mended heart lost a few pieces when he didn’t see you in your regular spot with your arms crossed over your chest, rolling your eyes at melodramatic stories of being born-again. He missed catching your eyes, raising his brows until you had to hide your lips behind your hands to stifle the laughter he so easily dragged out of you. He missed you staring into his cup, insisting his coffee was pudding. He missed lighting your cigarette with his each time.

The more he thought of you in his waking hours, the more Alys haunted and terrorized him in his sleep. She came to him as he first saw her, in high-heeled boots, fishnets and a short skirt that made her shiver in the night breeze. She came to him as how he first had her, with her hair done up and him riding the high of a race well-won, in the backseat of his car, her blood-red nails digging into his flesh and whispering in his ear that she’d had to pay him for how good he was fucking her. She came to him as his lover, watching telly with her head on his thighs and telling him she wouldn’t trade a thing for that. She came to him with her brows furrowed, telling him she was bored, that she didn’t like this Aemond anymore, that she missed the rebel without a cause and that she wasn’t made for domesticity like that. She came to him as she mocked him, running a finger down his scarred cheek and pouting, telling him he was much too young to know what love was, and just how long forever was. Were you surprised I’d never want another bloke? So what if I shagged him once? Be a man and stop whining. She came to him thrashing their flat, tearing Aemond’s books page by page, breaking plates, screaming that she wanted excitement, not this. You won’t even hit me back? What kind of man are you?! The worst of all, she came to him with a rubber band in one hand and a needle in another, sitting between Aemond’s legs and encouraging him to live a little, that being so uptight wasn’t such a good look for a guy who drove like the devil and threw fatal punches without breaking a sweat. Come on, daredevil. Not scared of a little sting, are you? She undid the knot of the band, and kissed where the needle drew blood. Then, she undressed as though it was Aemond’s reward each time.

Aemond hated you for this. It took him choking on his own vomit and his mother nearly dying on the spot to cast out the ugly ghost of Alys the first time she haunted him so terribly. The more he saw her in every corner of that flat, the more he turned to the poison she first injected into his veins. He was good, it was more than half a year that he had peace. Then, he saw you walk in, and he felt himself drawn to you like a moth to a flame that would burn him to ashes. He thought he’d have a friend in you, if he were lucky. But instead, you became another addiction, an obsession. The more he chastised himself for being so wicked, for thinking of you in ways he shouldn’t, the more you invaded his mind and heart. And instead of balming his loneliness, you brought his vengeful ghost back.

Aemond stirred in his bed to the droning of late night game show re-runs. He knew it wasn’t you he hated, it was him. Weak, weak, weak, Alys’ voice echoed in his head to the rhythm of fake laugh tracks and applauses. You act tough, but you can’t even go to sleep now. You can’t even ring her. Text her.

You were more fortunate. You had friends to take you out to pubs, to come over and keep your mind occupied. You had shoulders to cry on and ears to chew off about him. But even then, he was on your mind day and night. His quiet snorts, the twists of his lips, the cigarette held between his fingers, the jacket that almost teased you to pull off of his shoulders, the car that you’ve been waiting for another invite to enter, of how he so subtly sneaked into your mind and heart, how it was already too late when you caught on… Eventually, you were left to yourself, and it all came flooding back each time without fail. Yet, you managed to convince yourself Aemond was a crush that you got over. You told yourself again and again how you were better off without him in your life whatsoever, how you weren’t the one to hold his hand through whatever battles he had with his demons.

The veneer of indifference broke apart the moment you went back to AAA. A stupid pin was your undoing. You had planned it meticulously. The hour was odd, the meeting wouldn’t start for another hour. The day was odd, you knew Aemond didn’t come on Thursdays. But he’d made a change once your seat was vacant. To run from your ghost, he joined another group. He saw you at the end of the hall, talking with an acquaintance with a pin on your collar. He wanted to run, he wanted to scream until he lost his voice and his lungs collapsed, he wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury himself alive, but he simply froze where he stood, staring. It took him you staring back, your face going from disbelief to shock, and much to his dismay, discomfort and your back turning to him to gather his courage and hurry after you.

Aemond found you where he first talked to you, with your back on the stone wall, with a trembling hand struggling to light a cigarette. You’re in my spot, he wanted to say. He doubted you’d find it so endearing anymore. Instead, he simply walked up to you and leaned on the stones next to you in silence.

“You were kind of an arse. You are a massive arse, actually,” you muttered once the silence became unbearable.

“You’re right. I was. I am.”

“I mean—why did you even talk to me if you were gonna turn around and give me the cold shoulder later? Over nothing? It felt shitty. I felt shitty.” It was an understatement.

“Can I make it up to you?” He asked so simply, without a moment’s hesitation. Against your animated outburst, he was calm. The tempest inside of him wasn’t betrayed by how he looked or spoke to you.

You didn’t expect a guy like him to own up to his mistakes let alone try to make up. You didn’t doubt his sincerity, but his demeanour took you by surprise nevertheless.

“How?”

“Coffee? Tea? A pint? Desserts? Let’s go somewhere nicer? Anywhere you like.”

“Is this a date, Aemond?”

“Would you like it to be?” He didn’t miss a beat. His eye was wide and unblinking, staring at you unflinchingly.

“Oh—I—we hardly know each other?” But it wasn’t a no. It was a convince me. It was a chase after me even if for a moment.

“Alright. Just a friendly hangout, then? Let me apologise, then I’ll drop you off. At the bus stop. That’s it.”

Your shoulders dropped though you knew you had no right to deflate. Aemond was being a gentleman. He gave you exactly what you asked for.

“What if I won’t accept your apology?” You spoke after a short pause.

“Then I’ll leave you alone. I promise I won’t bother you again.”

The thought made your brows knit and tied your stomach into a tight knot. Until today, you found it comforting that you’d never see him again—or so you told yourself. Now, the same thought gave you dread.

“Okay… alright.”

Aemond perked up even before you said more. Just your accepting to hear him out was more than he could hope for. You saw him stand up taller, smiling ever so slightly with a glint in his eye.

“Anywhere I like?”

“Anywhere,” he caught up in two long steps, walking by your side.

“You’re paying?”

He nodded with twitching lips—what passed as a smile by his severe standards. “I am.”

You couldn’t keep the stern look on your face anymore, so you smiled in return, big and warm; the kind that warmed him up all over like the first sip of soup on a cold winter evening. You suspected you gave in too easily, that you might be setting yourself up for another week or two of despair; Aemond thought this little friendly non-date a second chance at life.

#spoilers? on my blog?#not likely #this girl is making things up as she goes babes #comments

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lilibethwrites · 7 months

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laura!! thank you so much! i'm so glad you enjoyed it, and your insight is so precioous 💜

Confessions of a Valyrian Opium-Eater

Modern!Aemond Targaryen x Female Reader Mini Series

Summary: You meet a gloomy, handsome guy at an addiction support group meeting. He’s charming, he’s smart, and he’s plagued by the ghost of a lover past.

CW: Angst, eventual smut, smoking, drug use and addiction, abuse, toxic behaviour

Word Count: 3500

You can also find this on AO3

It only took you a year of your friends’ begging to admit you might have a problem. It took you another year to consider seeking help.

Begin your recovery today at All Addicts Anonymous!

“Don’t be shy, now. Welcome,” she tried to usher you in with a hand held out. “You’re not alone. You’re so brave for doing this… Have you got any questions before the meeting starts?”

“You’re in my spot,” came a low, velveteen voice.

The guy in the back from the meeting stood so close, looking so terribly like a modern greaser that you had half the mind to laugh and another half to leer.

“Oh?” You looked around in a moment of distraction, and then, scooted to the side. It was a half-wall with plenty of space for a lithe guy to lean on.

“Was only pulling your leg,” he mumbled, and the street lamp illuminated the upturn of the corners of his shapely lips.

“Were you at the smokers’ session, too?” he asked in earnest with the cigarette held between his lips and a hand covering the weak fire of the lighter.

“No. I mean, I probably should’ve been, but the runny tar did my stomach in. Don’t think a smoke’ll do me any good, now.”

He snorted at that, and held his chin up to blow the smoke up into the night air.

“You get used to it. With a handful of creamer and twice as much sugar, it’s digestible.”

You saw the pin more clearly, then. Eight months sober.

“Congratulations, by the way,” you gestured to the lapel of his jacket. “You must be like royalty around here.”

You chuckled and the silence soon fell like a heavy blanket. It was only Aemond’s huffs and puffs and the occasional car driving by.

You pulled out your phone out of habit, to keep your hands busy, though you wish you’d done so earlier. Shit.

“What’s wrong?” Aemond asked, tilting his head to blow the smoke away from you.

“Missed my last bus by almost twenty minutes.”

“You could drop me off a block away, but I might trade my street for your name.”

“Right. ‘Course. Aemond.” He held his hand out to you, and you took it perhaps too eagerly. “I could’ve tailed you, but now you know too much. Not worth the risk, I’m afraid.”

You snorted and looked down at your feet.

“Fair… I’ll hail a cab.”

You gave him a two-fingers salute and began to walk off when he took one last, deep drag and crushed the butt of the cigarette under his boot.

He didn’t expect you to be on his mind by the time he pulled up to his flat. He didn’t expect he’d be on your mind, either, when you lay in your bed, tossing and turning.

“They smell like someone else, Aemond,” she spoke sharply, and Aemond shook his head in defence.

“You left me, Alys. What am I supposed to do?”

“Hey, you,” you sounded positively chipper, but his eye dragged slowly from his bony hand to your face, and one side of his lip twitched ever so slightly.

“Hi,” he sounded gruff, his voice was deeper than when he had seemingly made a willing conversation with you the last time.

“Small world, huh?” you tried again, and he only hummed.

You stood by his car in silence, awkwardly shifting your weight from one foot to the other, pulling the sleeves of your jacket as embarrassment began to set in.

“So… do you always come? To the meetings?”

“I try to.”

“Okay… What’re you in for?” You tried to sound unaffected, leaning closer, but you weren’t courageous enough to nudge his shoulder playfully as you intended to.

“Why are you here, I mean? Booze? Pills? Cigs?”

“That’s a conversation for inside the building, isn’t it?” He sounded sharper for a moment, slightly annoyed and terribly impatient to change the subject.

“Right… Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry. I’ll see you inside, then?”

“You were kind of an arse. You are a massive arse, actually,” you muttered once the silence became unbearable.

“You’re right. I was. I am.”

“I mean—why did you even talk to me if you were gonna turn around and give me the cold shoulder later? Over nothing? It felt shitty. I felt shitty.” It was an understatement.

You didn’t expect a guy like him to own up to his mistakes let alone try to make up. You didn’t doubt his sincerity, but his demeanour took you by surprise nevertheless.

“How?”

“Coffee? Tea? A pint? Desserts? Let’s go somewhere nicer? Anywhere you like.”

“Is this a date, Aemond?”

“Would you like it to be?” He didn’t miss a beat. His eye was wide and unblinking, staring at you unflinchingly.

“Oh—I—we hardly know each other?” But it wasn’t a no. It was a convince me. It was a chase after me even if for a moment.

“Alright. Just a friendly hangout, then? Let me apologise, then I’ll drop you off. At the bus stop. That’s it.”

Your shoulders dropped though you knew you had no right to deflate. Aemond was being a gentleman. He gave you exactly what you asked for.

“What if I won’t accept your apology?” You spoke after a short pause.

“Then I’ll leave you alone. I promise I won’t bother you again.”

“Okay… alright.”

Aemond perked up even before you said more. Just your accepting to hear him out was more than he could hope for. You saw him stand up taller, smiling ever so slightly with a glint in his eye.

“Anywhere I like?”

“Anywhere,” he caught up in two long steps, walking by your side.

“You’re paying?”

He nodded with twitching lips—what passed as a smile by his severe standards. “I am.”

#comments

202 notes · View notes

lilibethwrites · 7 months

Text

thank you for your kind words, arcie! I'm glad you enjoyed the first episode 💜

Confessions of a Valyrian Opium-Eater

Modern!Aemond Targaryen x Female Reader Mini Series

Summary: You meet a gloomy, handsome guy at an addiction support group meeting. He’s charming, he’s smart, and he’s plagued by the ghost of a lover past.

CW: Angst, eventual smut, smoking, drug use and addiction, abuse, toxic behaviour

Word Count: 3500

You can also find this on AO3

It only took you a year of your friends’ begging to admit you might have a problem. It took you another year to consider seeking help.

Begin your recovery today at All Addicts Anonymous!

“Don’t be shy, now. Welcome,” she tried to usher you in with a hand held out. “You’re not alone. You’re so brave for doing this… Have you got any questions before the meeting starts?”

“You’re in my spot,” came a low, velveteen voice.

The guy in the back from the meeting stood so close, looking so terribly like a modern greaser that you had half the mind to laugh and another half to leer.

“Oh?” You looked around in a moment of distraction, and then, scooted to the side. It was a half-wall with plenty of space for a lithe guy to lean on.

“Was only pulling your leg,” he mumbled, and the street lamp illuminated the upturn of the corners of his shapely lips.

“Were you at the smokers’ session, too?” he asked in earnest with the cigarette held between his lips and a hand covering the weak fire of the lighter.

“No. I mean, I probably should’ve been, but the runny tar did my stomach in. Don’t think a smoke’ll do me any good, now.”

He snorted at that, and held his chin up to blow the smoke up into the night air.

“You get used to it. With a handful of creamer and twice as much sugar, it’s digestible.”

You saw the pin more clearly, then. Eight months sober.

“Congratulations, by the way,” you gestured to the lapel of his jacket. “You must be like royalty around here.”

You chuckled and the silence soon fell like a heavy blanket. It was only Aemond’s huffs and puffs and the occasional car driving by.

You pulled out your phone out of habit, to keep your hands busy, though you wish you’d done so earlier. Shit.

“What’s wrong?” Aemond asked, tilting his head to blow the smoke away from you.

“Missed my last bus by almost twenty minutes.”

“You could drop me off a block away, but I might trade my street for your name.”

“Right. ‘Course. Aemond.” He held his hand out to you, and you took it perhaps too eagerly. “I could’ve tailed you, but now you know too much. Not worth the risk, I’m afraid.”

You snorted and looked down at your feet.

“Fair… I’ll hail a cab.”

You gave him a two-fingers salute and began to walk off when he took one last, deep drag and crushed the butt of the cigarette under his boot.

He didn’t expect you to be on his mind by the time he pulled up to his flat. He didn’t expect he’d be on your mind, either, when you lay in your bed, tossing and turning.

“They smell like someone else, Aemond,” she spoke sharply, and Aemond shook his head in defence.

“You left me, Alys. What am I supposed to do?”

“Hey, you,” you sounded positively chipper, but his eye dragged slowly from his bony hand to your face, and one side of his lip twitched ever so slightly.

“Hi,” he sounded gruff, his voice was deeper than when he had seemingly made a willing conversation with you the last time.

“Small world, huh?” you tried again, and he only hummed.

You stood by his car in silence, awkwardly shifting your weight from one foot to the other, pulling the sleeves of your jacket as embarrassment began to set in.

“So… do you always come? To the meetings?”

“I try to.”

“Okay… What’re you in for?” You tried to sound unaffected, leaning closer, but you weren’t courageous enough to nudge his shoulder playfully as you intended to.

“Why are you here, I mean? Booze? Pills? Cigs?”

“That’s a conversation for inside the building, isn’t it?” He sounded sharper for a moment, slightly annoyed and terribly impatient to change the subject.

“Right… Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry. I’ll see you inside, then?”

“You were kind of an arse. You are a massive arse, actually,” you muttered once the silence became unbearable.

“You’re right. I was. I am.”

“I mean—why did you even talk to me if you were gonna turn around and give me the cold shoulder later? Over nothing? It felt shitty. I felt shitty.” It was an understatement.

You didn’t expect a guy like him to own up to his mistakes let alone try to make up. You didn’t doubt his sincerity, but his demeanour took you by surprise nevertheless.

“How?”

“Coffee? Tea? A pint? Desserts? Let’s go somewhere nicer? Anywhere you like.”

“Is this a date, Aemond?”

“Would you like it to be?” He didn’t miss a beat. His eye was wide and unblinking, staring at you unflinchingly.

“Oh—I—we hardly know each other?” But it wasn’t a no. It was a convince me. It was a chase after me even if for a moment.

“Alright. Just a friendly hangout, then? Let me apologise, then I’ll drop you off. At the bus stop. That’s it.”

Your shoulders dropped though you knew you had no right to deflate. Aemond was being a gentleman. He gave you exactly what you asked for.

“What if I won’t accept your apology?” You spoke after a short pause.

“Then I’ll leave you alone. I promise I won’t bother you again.”

“Okay… alright.”

Aemond perked up even before you said more. Just your accepting to hear him out was more than he could hope for. You saw him stand up taller, smiling ever so slightly with a glint in his eye.

“Anywhere I like?”

“Anywhere,” he caught up in two long steps, walking by your side.

“You’re paying?”

He nodded with twitching lips—what passed as a smile by his severe standards. “I am.”

#comments

202 notes · View notes

lilibethwrites · 7 months

Text

Aemond Targaryen

NEW: Confessions of a Valyrian Opium-Eater

Chapter 1

NEW: Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end

Chapter 1

Growing Pains (finished)

Ch.1: Growing Pains

Ch.2: “To Crave What is Given to Another”

Ch.3: Theirs is the Fury?

Ch.4: The Delights of the Realm

Requested: A Curse and a Blessing

Requested: To Have and to Hold

Head that Wears the Crown

Love Given Unsought

Aegon II Targaryen

A Midsummer Night’s Pain

#i just remembered to update with the first chapter of confessions of a valyrian opium-eater

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lilibethwrites · 7 months

Text

Confessions of a Valyrian Opium-Eater

Modern!Aemond Targaryen x Female Reader Mini Series

Summary: You meet a gloomy, handsome guy at an addiction support group meeting. He’s charming, he’s smart, and he’s plagued by the ghost of a lover past.

CW: Angst, eventual smut, smoking, drug use and addiction, abuse, toxic behaviour

Word Count: 3500

You can also find this on AO3

It only took you a year of your friends’ begging to admit you might have a problem. It took you another year to consider seeking help.

Begin your recovery today at All Addicts Anonymous!

“Don’t be shy, now. Welcome,” she tried to usher you in with a hand held out. “You’re not alone. You’re so brave for doing this… Have you got any questions before the meeting starts?”

“You’re in my spot,” came a low, velveteen voice.

The guy in the back from the meeting stood so close, looking so terribly like a modern greaser that you had half the mind to laugh and another half to leer.

“Oh?” You looked around in a moment of distraction, and then, scooted to the side. It was a half-wall with plenty of space for a lithe guy to lean on.

“Was only pulling your leg,” he mumbled, and the street lamp illuminated the upturn of the corners of his shapely lips.

“Were you at the smokers’ session, too?” he asked in earnest with the cigarette held between his lips and a hand covering the weak fire of the lighter.

“No. I mean, I probably should’ve been, but the runny tar did my stomach in. Don’t think a smoke’ll do me any good, now.”

He snorted at that, and held his chin up to blow the smoke up into the night air.

“You get used to it. With a handful of creamer and twice as much sugar, it’s digestible.”

You saw the pin more clearly, then. Eight months sober.

“Congratulations, by the way,” you gestured to the lapel of his jacket. “You must be like royalty around here.”

You chuckled and the silence soon fell like a heavy blanket. It was only Aemond’s huffs and puffs and the occasional car driving by.

You pulled out your phone out of habit, to keep your hands busy, though you wish you’d done so earlier. Shit.

“What’s wrong?” Aemond asked, tilting his head to blow the smoke away from you.

“Missed my last bus by almost twenty minutes.”

“You could drop me off a block away, but I might trade my street for your name.”

“Right. ‘Course. Aemond.” He held his hand out to you, and you took it perhaps too eagerly. “I could’ve tailed you, but now you know too much. Not worth the risk, I’m afraid.”

You snorted and looked down at your feet.

“Fair… I’ll hail a cab.”

You gave him a two-fingers salute and began to walk off when he took one last, deep drag and crushed the butt of the cigarette under his boot.

He didn’t expect you to be on his mind by the time he pulled up to his flat. He didn’t expect he’d be on your mind, either, when you lay in your bed, tossing and turning.

“They smell like someone else, Aemond,” she spoke sharply, and Aemond shook his head in defence.

“You left me, Alys. What am I supposed to do?”

“Hey, you,” you sounded positively chipper, but his eye dragged slowly from his bony hand to your face, and one side of his lip twitched ever so slightly.

“Hi,” he sounded gruff, his voice was deeper than when he had seemingly made a willing conversation with you the last time.

“Small world, huh?” you tried again, and he only hummed.

You stood by his car in silence, awkwardly shifting your weight from one foot to the other, pulling the sleeves of your jacket as embarrassment began to set in.

“So… do you always come? To the meetings?”

“I try to.”

“Okay… What’re you in for?” You tried to sound unaffected, leaning closer, but you weren’t courageous enough to nudge his shoulder playfully as you intended to.

“Why are you here, I mean? Booze? Pills? Cigs?”

“That’s a conversation for inside the building, isn’t it?” He sounded sharper for a moment, slightly annoyed and terribly impatient to change the subject.

“Right… Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry. I’ll see you inside, then?”

“You were kind of an arse. You are a massive arse, actually,” you muttered once the silence became unbearable.

“You’re right. I was. I am.”

“I mean—why did you even talk to me if you were gonna turn around and give me the cold shoulder later? Over nothing? It felt shitty. I felt shitty.” It was an understatement.

You didn’t expect a guy like him to own up to his mistakes let alone try to make up. You didn’t doubt his sincerity, but his demeanour took you by surprise nevertheless.

“How?”

“Coffee? Tea? A pint? Desserts? Let’s go somewhere nicer? Anywhere you like.”

“Is this a date, Aemond?”

“Would you like it to be?” He didn’t miss a beat. His eye was wide and unblinking, staring at you unflinchingly.

“Oh—I—we hardly know each other?” But it wasn’t a no. It was a convince me. It was a chase after me even if for a moment.

“Alright. Just a friendly hangout, then? Let me apologise, then I’ll drop you off. At the bus stop. That’s it.”

Your shoulders dropped though you knew you had no right to deflate. Aemond was being a gentleman. He gave you exactly what you asked for.

“What if I won’t accept your apology?” You spoke after a short pause.

“Then I’ll leave you alone. I promise I won’t bother you again.”

“Okay… alright.”

Aemond perked up even before you said more. Just your accepting to hear him out was more than he could hope for. You saw him stand up taller, smiling ever so slightly with a glint in his eye.

“Anywhere I like?”

“Anywhere,” he caught up in two long steps, walking by your side.

“You’re paying?”

He nodded with twitching lips—what passed as a smile by his severe standards. “I am.”

#timezone rb

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lilibethwrites · 7 months

Text

Confessions of a Valyrian Opium-Eater

Modern!Aemond Targaryen x Female Reader Mini Series

Summary: You meet a gloomy, handsome guy at an addiction support group meeting. He’s charming, he’s smart, and he’s plagued by the ghost of a lover past.

CW: Angst, eventual smut, smoking, drug use and addiction, abuse, toxic behaviour

Word Count: 3500

You can also find this on AO3

It only took you a year of your friends’ begging to admit you might have a problem. It took you another year to consider seeking help.

Begin your recovery today at All Addicts Anonymous!

“Don’t be shy, now. Welcome,” she tried to usher you in with a hand held out. “You’re not alone. You’re so brave for doing this… Have you got any questions before the meeting starts?”

“You’re in my spot,” came a low, velveteen voice.

The guy in the back from the meeting stood so close, looking so terribly like a modern greaser that you had half the mind to laugh and another half to leer.

“Oh?” You looked around in a moment of distraction, and then, scooted to the side. It was a half-wall with plenty of space for a lithe guy to lean on.

“Was only pulling your leg,” he mumbled, and the street lamp illuminated the upturn of the corners of his shapely lips.

“Were you at the smokers’ session, too?” he asked in earnest with the cigarette held between his lips and a hand covering the weak fire of the lighter.

“No. I mean, I probably should’ve been, but the runny tar did my stomach in. Don’t think a smoke’ll do me any good, now.”

He snorted at that, and held his chin up to blow the smoke up into the night air.

“You get used to it. With a handful of creamer and twice as much sugar, it’s digestible.”

You saw the pin more clearly, then. Eight months sober.

“Congratulations, by the way,” you gestured to the lapel of his jacket. “You must be like royalty around here.”

You chuckled and the silence soon fell like a heavy blanket. It was only Aemond’s huffs and puffs and the occasional car driving by.

You pulled out your phone out of habit, to keep your hands busy, though you wish you’d done so earlier. Shit.

“What’s wrong?” Aemond asked, tilting his head to blow the smoke away from you.

“Missed my last bus by almost twenty minutes.”

“You could drop me off a block away, but I might trade my street for your name.”

“Right. ‘Course. Aemond.” He held his hand out to you, and you took it perhaps too eagerly. “I could’ve tailed you, but now you know too much. Not worth the risk, I’m afraid.”

You snorted and looked down at your feet.

“Fair… I’ll hail a cab.”

You gave him a two-fingers salute and began to walk off when he took one last, deep drag and crushed the butt of the cigarette under his boot.

He didn’t expect you to be on his mind by the time he pulled up to his flat. He didn’t expect he’d be on your mind, either, when you lay in your bed, tossing and turning.

“They smell like someone else, Aemond,” she spoke sharply, and Aemond shook his head in defence.

“You left me, Alys. What am I supposed to do?”

“Hey, you,” you sounded positively chipper, but his eye dragged slowly from his bony hand to your face, and one side of his lip twitched ever so slightly.

“Hi,” he sounded gruff, his voice was deeper than when he had seemingly made a willing conversation with you the last time.

“Small world, huh?” you tried again, and he only hummed.

You stood by his car in silence, awkwardly shifting your weight from one foot to the other, pulling the sleeves of your jacket as embarrassment began to set in.

“So… do you always come? To the meetings?”

“I try to.”

“Okay… What’re you in for?” You tried to sound unaffected, leaning closer, but you weren’t courageous enough to nudge his shoulder playfully as you intended to.

“Why are you here, I mean? Booze? Pills? Cigs?”

“That’s a conversation for inside the building, isn’t it?” He sounded sharper for a moment, slightly annoyed and terribly impatient to change the subject.

“Right… Sorry. Didn’t mean to pry. I’ll see you inside, then?”

“You were kind of an arse. You are a massive arse, actually,” you muttered once the silence became unbearable.

“You’re right. I was. I am.”

“I mean—why did you even talk to me if you were gonna turn around and give me the cold shoulder later? Over nothing? It felt shitty. I felt shitty.” It was an understatement.

You didn’t expect a guy like him to own up to his mistakes let alone try to make up. You didn’t doubt his sincerity, but his demeanour took you by surprise nevertheless.

“How?”

“Coffee? Tea? A pint? Desserts? Let’s go somewhere nicer? Anywhere you like.”

“Is this a date, Aemond?”

“Would you like it to be?” He didn’t miss a beat. His eye was wide and unblinking, staring at you unflinchingly.

“Oh—I—we hardly know each other?” But it wasn’t a no. It was a convince me. It was a chase after me even if for a moment.

“Alright. Just a friendly hangout, then? Let me apologise, then I’ll drop you off. At the bus stop. That’s it.”

Your shoulders dropped though you knew you had no right to deflate. Aemond was being a gentleman. He gave you exactly what you asked for.

“What if I won’t accept your apology?” You spoke after a short pause.

“Then I’ll leave you alone. I promise I won’t bother you again.”

“Okay… alright.”

Aemond perked up even before you said more. Just your accepting to hear him out was more than he could hope for. You saw him stand up taller, smiling ever so slightly with a glint in his eye.

“Anywhere I like?”

“Anywhere,” he caught up in two long steps, walking by your side.

“You’re paying?”

He nodded with twitching lips—what passed as a smile by his severe standards. “I am.”

#aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen x reader #hotd #hotd x reader #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen x you

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lilibethwrites · 8 months

Text

Bloody thou art; bloody will be thy end

Aemond Targaryen x OFC

Warnings: Angst, heavy violence, eventual smut, Targcest. This will be a very dark fic with potentially multiple disturbing or triggering elements. Each chapter will have warnings accordingly.

Summary: Rhaenyra’s firstborn daughter, Aelenore Velaryon is as vicious as she is ambitious. Growing up knowing she is a bastard and bitterly rejected by Prince Daemon, when she finds herself beginning to lose the favour of her family and infatuated with Aemond, an opportunity to earn more than any woman can have in the Seven Kingdoms presents itself. With a man as broken and wronged as herself, they burn everything around them to feel the warmth denied to them, even if their own flesh may catch on fire. Ambition and greed beget violence, and the blood of the dragon spills like wine.

Word count: 6k

Also on AO3

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

(Richard III, I.i.37–40)

It was a humid, scorching summer’s eve. The flowers of the royal garden had all turned shades of burned pigments heated over a candle for too long. Grasshoppers lay heavy where they had ceased flapping their wings. The nightingales that lent their name to the hour were quiet. It was only Princess Rhaenyra’s wails and groans peppered with curses and insults that echoed off the polished walls of the Red Keep. The heir to the throne, the beloved daughter of King Viserys has been in labour for so long that the younger Maesters made to stand back and observe behind the ranks of seniors and midwives began to whisper the long winter would come before the babe ever did.

Some wondered where Ser Laenor was, others remarked that it was the Breakbones pacing the hall beyond the door, and that it was rather odd that the Commander of the City Watch took such interest in the first labour of the princess.

But the babe came, persistent as she was in remaining in the womb as if she possessed prescience enough to know the realm she was brought into would have no joy to offer.

With the blood still on her, Rhaenyra cradled the babe to her bare chest, weeping and thanking the gods of old. Even a slight rub of her hand over the babe’s head was enough to furrow brows and a new wave of mumbling to rise as if dust after her dragon’s landing. Dark hair; unmistakably, uncharacteristically dark, like the night she was delivered. Dark hair, unlike the kind on the head of the second son Queen Alicent had recently delivered in a chamber nearby.

Ser Laenor was the first to see the babe, though she was cleaned and swaddled in an ornately embroidered blanket that could tear down and rebuild the entire Flea Bottom with how many yards of soft velvet and spools of gold threads it took to weave, then.

Then joined them Harwin Strong, and only then the babe was lifted from Rhaenyra’s arms, and given a name.

“Aelenore,” Rhaenyra said proudly, still keen on the name she had come across in a tome on Old Valyria while the babe was no bigger than a fig in her belly.

“Aelenore,” Ser Harwin Strong raised the babe to his chest and whispered in her ear as Ser Laenor looked on with a proud, warm smile.

By late morrow, King Viserys was cradling his first grandchild, a babe he hadn’t once found unlikely to be the fruit of the marriage he had imposed upon two young people with the blood of Valyria in their veins.

King Viserys blessed the babe’s name, with the swaddle in his arms and pride in his eyes.

“Princess Aelenore Velaryon,” he declared, “may her life be long and prosperous.”

He commended his daughter and her husband, Ser Laenor Velaryon. Yet, Queen Alicent did not share the spirit of festivities. Having given birth to her third babe recently, another boy with the proud colours of Old Valyria, her brows creased when she beheld the babe in her husband’s arms.

Neither Aegon nor Aemond, the heirs Viserys so desperately desired that he would butcher his lover, were welcomed into the world as fervently as her husband’s first grandchild was by him.

The King was still in his prime, then, and he could pace the chamber with the babe in his arms until he grew restless, then, he would tour the shorter halls, stop by alcoves with stones warmed by the broiling sun. He accepted praises and well wishes from his court, with Rhaenyra still reclined on a chaise and Queen Alicent left alone with her.

“Congratulations,” she begrudgingly said at last.

The room was cold with resentment, and the bodies that filled it were all stiff like corpses washed ashore.

“My congratulations, as well,” Rhaenyra repaid the kindness, or the visage of it, just before Aelenore was returned.

“Rather short and without a fuss, mine own labour was,” the Queen spoke without patience at her stepdaughter’s nonchalant disregard of the rules of nature herself. Bastards were cursed, this, everyone knew. Bad omens; treacherous, sly, with deformed souls and frightening capacity for evil.

“And a rather unmistakable likeness to his sire, Aemond bears… Though, ‘tis only the first of yours,” she spoke disdainfully, then. The gentle tone with which she spoke couldn’t veil the anger stirring within her.

“I shall pray that the Gods will give you a babe that resembles… either of you next time.” Her smile was bitter, her eyes hostile.

Yet, the Gods didn’t. Next came a brother for Aelenore, with the same dark hair that tended to curl into ringlets. Aelenore gave up her toys, save for a wooden replica of her quickly growing dragon, to instead spend her waking hours near her brother. Not long after came Lucerys. Aelenore was grown enough then to participate in at least the first hour of the labour with her hand on her mother’s swollen belly. After that, she was hastily escorted out to wait along with the rest of the court. Such sights were not for a girl who would labour in a birthing bed of her own eventually.

Rhaenyra was not allowed to ever forget it, that her firstborn child was no true Targaryen, and none other that came after was any different. As if she knew from when she was a babe the meaning behind hushed whispers hidden with jewelled fingers and curious looks with thinly veiled disdain, Aelenore grew into a difficult character, unfriendly to all save her siblings.

It was King Viserys’s suggestion that the girl might enjoy playtime with a boy senior to her only by a year, and a quiet girl that never cried unless pinched or spooked. It was one of the rare times Viserys remembered at all that he had other children beyond his beloved Rhaenyra. So, Aelenore was brought with her basket of carved and painted toys to the chamber where Aegon, Helaena and Aemond were tended to. She sulked the entire time, ignoring her much-loved toys to attempt to rip the carpet out with her fingernails whenever she wasn’t attempting to decapitate her uncles with her eyes. She resented them, she suffered terribly from green-eyed jealousy that she spent all the hours thinking of all the ways she could upset the boys. She wondered if their hair would stain if she boiled flowers torn from the gardens, and dropped the concoction over their heads. She wondered if she could sneak a pair of scissors the next time royal seamstresses came to measure her for a new dress. She could chop a braid right off, or cut through the tomes the boy closer to her in age seemed to be mesmerised with. But, she never had another hour with them after the first few disastrous ones, and so her plans never came to fruition.

Aelenore surprised not a soul when she grew into a brooding young princess; quiet yet unsettling with eyes severe and pale as the smoke dancing over the sea. She was old enough to understand what it meant that her eyes were grey as a rainy morrow, and her hair dark as earth after the heavy clouds passed. She was swiftly assigned a Maester to be tutored in the proud history of her blood. She found it a rather cheap charade, and her lips were often twisted into an irreverent, lopsided smirk as the Maester harped on.

“I know what I am,” she once told her mother over tea. “I do not wish to entertain trivial lies anymore.”

But Rhaenyra was patient with her, and each time Aelenore brought the subject up, she took her hand and asked her if a child without the blood of Valyria could ever ride a dragon. To that, Aelenore shook her head. The more she was posed with the impossibility of her inferior nature by virtue of the beautiful wyrm resting in the Pit, the more her self-disdain turned to vanity.

The court was reminded of the unruly princess in her youth when her daughter insisted that she would only ever wear her riding habits. Even to breakfasts and lessons, she would don coats and trousers with gloves always neatly tucked around a belt or hanging from a pocket, and always complete with a jewelled pin of dragons.

She was a curious young woman, raining questions down upon anyone nearby about Valyria and dragons. When she wasn’t interrogating the Maesters of the Red Keep or unsettling the courtiers with her unwavering gaze set upon anyone she suspected to have whispered about her, or eating, reading and writing near her beloved dragon, she fast became a second mother to Lucerys, demanding that she learned all she could about tending to a babe. To anyone except Rhaenyra, Ser Laenor and Ser Harwin, it was so unlike that a child as cold as her eyes would ever possess the capacity for affection. Even then, they watched her with well-concealed fright when she looked over the bassinet for the first few times. Lucerys must have immediately taken a liking to his sister as well; where Rhaenyra, Leanor Velaryon and Harwin Strong all failed to lull him to sleep, Aelenore managed to soothe the fussy babe into slumber with ease that surprised even the most weathered of wetnurses.

She was proud when Lucerys’s egg hatched, swelling her chest and proclaiming that it was her choice, that egg. Luke, Jace, and Nole, as she was so adoringly and adorably called by Luke from the moment he could speak, the three siblings became inseparable... and perhaps, rather insufferable to some. They loved mischief. From tying buckets of cold water over doors to soak Maesters at early morning lectures, spilling ink on the newly-washed garbs of Septas and Septons when they delivered the daily service of the Seven, taking their dragons out of the Pit to stomp around and frightening the poor smallfolk nearby, they have become a trio of terror. Aelenore was the mastermind, the one that came up with jokes and pranks bordered on cruelty while Lucerys and Jacaerys gladly played her henchmen. Aemond had his fair share when he found his neatly written summary of a manuscript on Valyrian traditions torn to pieces on his assigned desk and the siblings missing from the lecture altogether, or when his book was drenched in ink so badly he couldn’t read a word anymore while Aelenore and Jacaerys were markedly keeping their hands gloved and under a table or behind their backs the whole day.

“I wish they would go away,” Aemond once complained to his mother. He needn’t name them.

“I know,” was all the woman could offer, and a sweet kiss to the growing boy’s temple. She was helpless in the matter; Viserys loved Rhaenyra and his grandchildren more than he ever did Alicent or the babes she produced.

Aelenore still dreamed of staining and chopping silver hairs and upsetting her uncles, though less often with her mind always on her beloved pale and crimson, slender Naerax. On the opposite end of the wing, curled up on his bed, however, Aemond began to dream of upsetting his niece, as well. He couldn’t bring himself to be anywhere as cruel and calloused as she was, and whenever his fists were squeezed into balls and he attempted to strike back with a sharp word, Aelenore happened to rub her thumb over the silver three-headed dragon pinned to her collar, and the boy stepped back.

“He’s not a real Targaryen,” she began to say to her peers, pompously and with a grotesquely mature lilt to her tone. “I am. Hair makes a man not Targaryen, but the dragon that resides within the Pit.”

On the morrow when she greeted Aemond with a smile, he thought perhaps Aelenore could yet be a friend to him despite all the mockery and cruelty. She even abandoned her usual seat between her brute of brothers and instead sat next to Aemond. He suspected she needed his neatly drawn table of irregular verbs in High Valyrian for the lesson on the afternoon, but instead, she leaned over and promised him “a grand surprise” after lunch. She claimed it was an offer of friendship, to start anew.

“What is it?” He asked, cautious still but naively excited deep down.

“Would hardly be a surprise if I said, no?”

Just a few hours after, the blush was wiped from his cheeks. His face was dirt and tear-stained; he was in Alicent’s arms, bemoaning that the grand surprise was a pig with haphazardly attached wings and his own brother in on the terrible spectacle, laughing along with the rest of them.

When Helaena’s sight came true, Aemond didn’t only find trading an eye for a dragon—the biggest and the mightiest of the realm, that was— fair. He found it a payment, a rather steep but justified cost for his prayers that Rhaenyra and her children be removed. They were. As Aemond mounted Vhagar and followed the ship that carried his family back to King’s Landing, Rhaenyra and her kin made for Dragonstone.

He found the Red Keep opened up to him with the chambers of his tormentors vacant and halls safe to roam as he pleased. The library was all his, the tutoring chamber was freed of pranks and loud chatter when it should have always been a quiet, contemplative haven of studies. He came and went as he pleased without ever having to look over his shoulder. He had Ser Criston all to himself, as well, since Aegon delved too deep into his cups to participate in sword practice.

Years passed easier for Aemond, and faster, too. A punctual man down to the mere second, he awoke, followed his schedule and slumbered expeditiously, never a minute off. He was Alicent’s honour and pride, as well as her one true friend. Days never started or ended without a visit from her beloved son, even if all they did was sit in silence by the fireplace and sip tea or wine.

It was one such day, though Aemond would look back on it later and recognise the omens that had eluded him. He was up much earlier than he should’ve been. The hour was so early that the sky was still dark. He turned to the window, and then, frustratedly, gave his back to it. He pulled the covers over his naked shoulder, then, pushed them down to his waist. He hugged a pillow to his chest, then, pushed it away, too. Nothing helped, and he knew he would go through his day exhausted, with merely a few hours of sleep.

So, he bathed longer, dressed slower, and visited Queen Alicent before breakfast. She gave him a smile that would’ve seemed like all the other smiles to any other eyes. Aemond, however, saw distress from the way his mother’s lips pursed.

He wasn’t one for empty niceties or belabouring, so his hands shifted from Alicent’s elbows to her wrists, to the raw and picked cuticles.

“Tell me, mother.”

Alicent shook her head at first, and stared out of the stained-glass windows. She knew she would be delaying the inevitable, her discomfort hardly ever eluded Aemond. She knew he would abandon his entire day’s plans to sit here with her, caring and stubborn, until she told him.

“We shall have visitors soon,” she spoke through clenched teeth, her eyes shifting to the missive left on the table where Criston had delivered it.

The downturn of Alicent’s mouth was nearly enough, though Aemond still cocked his head in a quiet question. Who?

Alicent scoffed, looking down at her son’s pale, graceful hands.

“Princess Rhaenyra and her children. Prince Daemon along with them, of course.”

If Aemond had had !breakfast, it would have heaved in his stomach.

“Why?” He nearly lamented after a moment’s silence.

“Why?!” Aelenore echoed petulantly across the sea, on Dragonstone. “Why must we go? Can you not go alone?!”

Aelenore was happy on Dragonstone. The entire land from the shores to the peaks of volcanoes was her oyster. She woke up as she pleased, strolled and flew to her heart’s desire. No one was there to accuse her own acting untoward when she unlaced her boots, uncuffed her sleeves and chased Luke across the sandy beach and the waves carried their joyous screams while their dragons flew overhead.

King’s Landing was stifling. The Red Keep’s stones did make a prison and the stained windows a cage. Aelenore almost forgot she didn’t look the part of Princess Rhaenyra’s daughter on Dragonstone. Unless Prince Daemon’s cold gaze lingered, she hardly thought of how would it be to have silver hair and violet eyes, and if they would indeed escalate one above men all by themselves. She would be abandoning her home for a sea of pale hairs and hostile eyes.

“Because,” Rhaenyra sighed over the cup she nursed as men paced around the room hurriedly. “Your grandsire’s health is in fast decline.”

“That cannot be all. We are not Maesters. What good are we to his decay?”

“But we are bringing Maesters of our own… I do not quite like you when you are so… without compassion.”

So, Prince Daemon spoke, and her mother listened, then? The conviction wasn’t Rhaenyra’s, Aelenore knew. She remained quiet yet didn’t make a move to leave the hall.

“The matter of your brother’s inheritance must be resolved,” Rhaenyra spoke again after a surrendering sigh. She only understood how difficult she had once been when her own stubbornness stared back at her.

“I will not let them rob Luke of what is rightfully his. We cannot permit it.”

Aelenore nodded to it. That, she would help her maids pack up for. That she would tolerate King’s Landing for.

“Thieves,” Aelenore spat. “They shall steal all their covetous eyes may fall upon.”

Rhaenyra shifted in her seat. She thought that Aelenore sounded too much like Daemon at times. Perhaps that was why the two were like wildfire and a burning candle.

For the following days, Aemond felt the transitory nature of all things deeply within him. Sometimes, when the halls were empty, he ran his fingers over the stone walls. Even to them he felt as though he was giving his farewell. For an hour or a moon, he would be robbed of the freedom he perhaps came to take for granted. They would be anywhere at any time; she, the head of the poisonous serpent, would be, and the rest would follow slithering.

On the morrow the entire King’s Landing crowded the crooked streets to catch a glimpse of the horde of dragons, Aemond watched the sky with disdain, with his arms folded behind him and the skin of this thumb picked so tragically alike his mother’s. The cavalry was led by Caraxes and Syrax, the unmistakable red and yellow that flew side by side. Behind them were three others, one in the front and two in the back, like an arrowhead loosened to pierce Aemond’s serenity. His eye was glued to the last two, looping around each other. The pale one with crimson wings and waxen belly that resembled Aemond curdled milk dipped and rose while the smaller, pearlescent-and-yellow one tried to sink his teeth into the elongated neck of the other.

Aemond looked to the side. Helaena didn’t seem to bother that they were so brazenly being marched upon, Aegon was hungover from a long night’s tryst to care; it was only his mother and Ser Criston among the Kingsguard that seemed tense. He would not have don a thing beyond an undershirt for a company as undeserving had it not been for Queen Alicent visiting his chambers, begging so selflessly for him to behave, for her if for nobody else.

When the heavy gates were pulled open and the vapid bunch marched on, it was only Alicent and Rhaenyra that shared a smile in courtesy. Prince Daemon’s chin was high, his nose was scrunched up as if the mere sight of the Keep nauseated him. Behind him, Jacaerys was nudging his sister and his younger brother to cease the gossip. Aemond’s eye fell and remained on the girl, taller and more mature, though only in appearance, since he last saw her. Her hair was down, though the damage to the curls showed it wasn’t always so freely flowing.

While Helaena simply embraced a new friend she barely remembered and Aegon was delighted that a pert arse under heavy skirts, pronounced waist squeezed by corsets and exposed flesh were now present to ogle, Aemond simply scoffed.

When it came to acknowledge her at all, Aemond nodded sharply. His greeting was as cold as the pale icicles that stared at him. Unsettling, he thought, her irises almost bled into the whites of her eyes. She simply nodded, as one would dismissively to a servant. Aemond’s arms were still folded behind him. He made no move to touch her; not to take her hand and press a kiss, not to offer a half-hearted hug. Aelenore didn’t seem willing to offer an olive branch either, with her gloved fingers tightly intertwined in front of her with an arrogant smirk plastered on her face.

Oh, how Aemond desired violence.

“What a warm welcome, this is,” she muttered under her breath, loud enough for Aemond to hear and Lucerys to snicker.

Behind them, servants began to drag heavy packs to the Keep. Aemond hoped it was simply out of vanity that they each brought more changes of clothes than necessary. While their chambers were prepared, Rhaenyra insisted on a visit to the King. There, it was only willing ignorance that barely maintained Rhaenyra’s illusion of her daughter. The young princess barely approached the bed and pointedly kept a handkerchief to her nose. The King’s beloved first grandchild looked down upon him with disgust, sneering at the rotting body and the dying face as his hand was left untouched by her.

“Sweet girl…” Viserys strained to no avail.

“Grandsire,” Aelenore muttered coldly after Jacaerys nudged her once again. “Lovely to see you.”

Aelenore rolled her eyes after that, looking around the room and wondering what was for supper while his mother silently wept at the corner of her father’s bed.

If the exchange in the King’s chambers was cold, the supper was the never-melting ice of the North. Where Alicent was covered to her neck, Rhaenyra and her daughter wore dresses that left their shoulders bare, and as if that was not enough, the young princess’ sleeves were split from the highest seam to the cuffs, exposing the entirety of her arms each time she so much as breathed. Aemond shook his head again and again, stabbing the pie in his plate, his eye burning into the shameless woman sitting at his side. Aelenore barely wore headdresses, and barely pinned her hair all the way up. Queen Alicent shared her son’s mind, she was one busted seam away from a harlot of the Street of Silk.

Aelenore was all wrong, Aemond thought. Untoward, improper, exposed like a desperate wench of a cheap pillow house. She laughed loudly, she moved in a manner that was ill-fitting to a princess. Aemond looked to his side again, and his brother was already charmed. Aemond hummed. Of course he would be.

“Say, when has she… blossomed and—and, sprouted such teats, hm?” Aegon slurred behind his cup to Aemond.

“I would rather not think about her… flesh,” Aemond lowered his voice along with his head, “if it’s all the same to you, brother. You’d do well to remember your wife, as well.”

The banter was cut short by Rhaenyra’s dry cough. Onto the matters at hand. She shared a look with Daemon, and he nodded in support.

“For our Maesters to study and prepare cures of their own, we must needs give them sufficient time. A moon’s time,” Rhaenyra spoke.

“During that time, my children must not fall behind in their studies. Yet, to allow Maester Gerardys to work uninterrupted, the princess and the princes must share the library yet again.”

Aemond’s head shot up along with Aelenore’s. They wouldn’t look at each other, but they shared the same sentiment. No. Absolutely not.

“Oh? So, the princess will not trust our Maesters with the care of the King, but she will entrust her children to their lectures?” Alicent was bitter in response, her brows were knitted above the practised, tight smile of courtesy.

“I trust my children to know the truth from a lie.”

Come morrow, it was very little consolation to Aemond that Rhaenyra’s bastards might be feeling as discomfited about their forced reunion as he was. He paced his room and fiddled with the neat stacks of tomes and the line of inkwells. He was always early, three days early than a minute late, he often defended his being too early that the Maester soon began to feel guilty for his being on time and not as early as his pupil was. But that morning, he wouldn’t be.

“No,” Aemond murmured to himself. That might show a sense of eagerness, and present the three-headed serpent with an opportunity to bother him. Yet, how late he had thought he was, he wasn’t as late as his tutoring partners. It was only Maester when Aemond took his seat, and it remained so for one full turn of the hourglass before the door swung open.

Aelenore was the first to enter, snickering with a tome under her arm and in yet another dress that bared more than concealed for Aemond’s taste.

“Oh?” she stopped in her tracks as though she expected the chamber to be empty, and looked back at her brothers, who were just as vain and proud of the interruption.

Aemond squeezed his fist under the table, dug his nails into his palm and with a clenched jaw, stared ahead and away from the girl that stood between him and the Maester.

“I see you start terribly earlier than Maester Gerardys does on Dragonstone. My brothers and I are rather fond of late eves, might it be that—”

Unapologetic. Proud. Without shame or decorum, Aemond thought to himself, the true mark of a bastard. Rotten to the core, a scourge. The Gods are truly testing us this time.

“And I am fond of order and duty. We shall be at odds, it seems,” he spoke up with vitriol the likes he hadn’t allowed to bubble up to the surface in so long.

Aelenore turned to him with a raised brow and a bemused smirk. At least her words were not lies, her eyes were swollen from slumber with a faint touch of darkness around them, only exacerbated by how pale her irises were.

“So it seems, Prince Aemond.”

She took her seat right next to Aemond, then, with her brothers by her side. The entire session was marred by their obnoxious giggling and the passing of notes. Aemond wondered why they would even bother to show up, though he reminded himself to be easy on them. It wasn’t their blood nor their history that was taught. Very little must have concerned them beyond a mere mention of a Valyrian lord and his harem that made the boys snicker.

As soon as the morning’s tutoring was concluded, Aemond departed without so much as a nod to the Maester and with his belongings so uncharacteristically collected in haste. Large steps carried him to the comfort of the secluded corner of the Keep’s larger library, to the dim spot that became a second bedchamber to him. He went to scribbling angrily. He was distracted, his cursive was sloppy, his words out of order, his thoughts mismanaged. The treatise was all wrong, he knew, yet the more he crumpled up parchments and started anew, the worse it got.

He heard the clicking of heels on the stone floor, then. Curious, he thought, as Queen Alicent knew not to disturb Aemond unless an urgency demanded it. Yet, the heels that dragged without hurry didn’t denote any such urgency. For once, Aemond hoped to be wrong in his conjecture as he looked up from his work.

There she was, the bane of his peace, the curse of all the malicious spirits of Valyrian mythos. She had a thin stack of parchment in her hands, strolling as if she were in the gardens between aisles of tall bookshelves. Aemond watched her with the suspended fury of a dragon prepared to strike out of the dark. She stopped soon after, reached up for a book and only raised dust. She stepped back, looked around once again, and pulled a few heavier tomes without discrimination only to toss them to the floor and step on them. Aemond had half a mind to jump from his seat and strangle the girl. A barbarian would be more reverent than she was, he thought. Gods, the state of Dragonstone must make even an untaught common man weep. A wicked den of sin where the heraldry of the Seven must be mocked in orgies and the written word was torn from bindings to wipe the aftermath off.

“You again,” Aelenore’s contemptuous acknowledgement pulled Aemond out of his thoughts. “I was hoping to be alone.”

“You would be, if you remained in your chamber and spared us the displeasure of your company.”

How dare she? This very spot has been always his from the moment the pain in his eye subsided. Would she be so misled of the mind to think she could usurp his home?

Aelenore seemed unbothered by his retort. In fact, it was Aemond who was the more perplexed one. He expected all sorts of disgrace from her, yet such blatant disrespect from a prince would—should have sent any woman with a modicum of virtue fleeing from his presence in shame. He assumed even Aegon’s whores must be more dignified than Princess Eleanore. Some princess she made.

“Do you not have more… princely pastimes?” She retorted.

“Are scholarly endeavours not princely enough for you?”

“No. Scholarly work is a consolatory waste of time for those who are not befitting to don a sword or fly a dragon.”

Aelenore turned her back to Aemond without waiting for his response and tossed the book to a table nearby. She was used to having the final say so long as the addressee wasn’t Prince Daemon.

“Both I can do,” Aemond rose from his seat and followed her, aggravated and ready to prove his words should she question his proficiency with either.

“Hm. No doubt,” she snorted with her head buried in the old tome.

“Who are you to subject me to lowly mockery?!” Aemond thought to demand with his hands wrapped around her neck. It was slender enough that even a single hand would do, and her body was easy enough to fling out of the window. But instead, his hand moved to his eyepatch. A reminder, a reassurance, a prayer: It passed, this will, too. It passed, she will pass, too. Only a matter of time. All passes, the good and the bad.

“But how well is the question, is it not, Prince Aemond?” She spoke up again. It seemed it wasn’t only Aemond who wasn’t willing to conclude this exchange.

“You do have certain… odds against you, do you not?” She pulled back from the book with a menacing look and an ugly smirk that Aemond wanted nothing more than to cut from her face with a letter opener.

“You did start flying later than all of us, and the sword? With your… unfortunate circumstance… well.” Her cold gaze shifted so pointedly from his face to the sword leaning against his desk, then, back to him.

“If you wish to challenge me to a flight or a duel, say it so plainly, Princess,” he spat the title as if it were a curse.

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Though I am surprised you wouldthink to take for an opponent a woman rather than your own sex.”

The Stranger’s mistress. A vermin. A freak of nature. Something to be eradicated, stomped out before it sprouts her branches further.

“Apologies. I mistook your brothers for proper princes, but they are not the kind to be your champions, are they?” The fire within him was stoked with each moment he spent standing near her. He knew it to be a mistake, a man in command of his emotions wouldn’t have entertained a bastard who clearly wished to drag him down to the depths of hell she swam in. Yet, Aemond remained as if stuck to the mast of a ship drifting towards tall rocks.

“They would much rather hide behind skirts than face me.”

“They would not face you, that much is true, though for entirely different reasons.” She didn’t give Aemond the chance to give in to his impulses entirely. In a matter that seemed radically different from the frivolous villain she has been so far, Aelenore discarded her quill and reasoned. Though she spoke too slowly for it not to be insulting at least in the slightest.

“Because I am no more pleased than you are that I am here and neither are my brothers. Yet, no blood shall be drawn as I would like to fancy us all, yes, even you, Aemond, above simple brutes or mindless animals. No iron shall be drawn, no duels shall be had. I assure you I count the days until I am gone more eagerly than you.”

Aemond remained quiet with his lips pursed and his eye slowly dragging across her face. Maybe she could be reasoned with, after all. But he reminded himself that a bastard’s oath was bound with a withering twig; an easy tug and it was undone.

Both Aelenore and Aemond stayed in their heads for a moment, staring at each other but entirely unseeing. Aemond thought of all the ways Aelenore had wronged him. He remembered how she had run to Jace and Luke, how she had kneeled by them, holding washcloths to their noses and lips while his eye was sewn shut by a needle about the size used to weave thick blankets. He remembered how she had encouraged the boys to speak up, how she was the one to give voice to them.

“Aemond” she had called him with disdain, “slandered the princes.” Princes. Bastards. Treacherous liars.

“He called my brothers bastards, mother,” she had spoken with false solemnity, her pale, lifeless eyes dragging from Rhaenyra to Viserys so deviously.

On the morrow, they had all laughed. They had broken fast, they had jested and chatted while Aemond’s life changed forever. That was her, that has always been her. An uncaring, dangerous creature in love with misery and misfortune so long as none befell her.

He realized she was indeed at his mercy then and there. He could claim an eye for his, perhaps do not stop there and cut an ear, too, for interest. Perhaps even half of her ugly, upturned nose that perpetually disdained everything it saw. Consequences be damned, he thought, yet his shoulders fell and he blinked out of trance all the same. He felt the familiar throbbing in the back of his head slowly creeping to surround the precious stone lodged in his eye.

“I do not want you here, in the library,” Aemond spoke sharply. He was threatening enough that Aelenore was no longer too eager to tease him. “Find yourself elsewhere to spread your rot.”

It was his turn to speak the final word, and Aemond spun on his heels to abandon his study and Aelenore both. For once, he would break his schedule to demand Ser Criston’s time without a prior appointment, and he would do unto a sturdy shield and a worthier opponent perhaps half of what he so passionately desired to do to the girl invading his sanctuary.

#timezone rb

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