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huramuna · 5 months

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stoatfaced, dragonhearted - oneshot.

dark, mean prince regent aemond x wife reader

for my 200 followers poll, i've actually had this one cooking for a while so i'm happy this option won! this is absolutely filthy, i'm sorry in advance.

word count: 2.4k

i don't do taglists any more unfortunately, its mostly because i never remember and then feel bad about it so i've made a second blog just for reblogging my fics! @huramuna-fics -- follow & turn on notifications for just my fic postings!

content: slight dub-con, smut (specifics below cut), angst, mean aemond, toxic relationship, like in no way is this healthy, good god, smut with little plot, reader is described being from riverlands w/ auburn hair and brown eyes, no use of y/n, not beta read, i literally went into a haze writing this there are probably mistakes

tonight you belong to me - patience & prudence • vampire - olivia rodrigo

warnings: p in v, choking, breath play, dom/sub, degradation, creampie, cockwarming, orgasm denial, breeding, aemond is so mean here thats its own damn warning

Aemond knew what he wanted and the sacrifices that needed to be made to get such things. He wanted a dragon, it took an eye to get it. He wanted the Conqueror’s crown, it took his brother being burnt to get it. He wanted a legacy that would surpass his lifetime, etched into the very being of Westeros itself. The sacrifice needed for this would be to chain himself to a woman he likely wouldn’t be interested in.

That is where you came in.

You were sweet, he supposed. Sweet in a way that made his teeth ache. Sweet in a way akin to a mouse and how it looked up at the cat just before his jaws snapped around the mouse’s head.

He didn’t need to like you. Many marriages were forged in dislike or just plain indifference, set to a mutual goal. He supposed your mutual goal was children. All he needed was to use you as a vessel, a womb for his seed to take hold.

You poor thing, you didn’t really understand that he didn’t truly care for you. You were nice enough looking, of course– hair that reminded him of autumn leaves, always styled in some intricate style with half a hundred braids, dozens of pins and decorative pearls. You reminded Aemond of a stoat, dark eyes against muted auburn fur, lips always pursed, sniffing the air in search for hounds on your tail. You certainly were a skittish, jittery little thing.

The marriage was a quick affair, done at the Sept two days after Aemond wore the Conqueror’s crown for the first time. You weren't a part of some major house, all of the major houses were too close, too greedy, their breaths hot against his neck as they shoved their wedable daughters at him. The last thing he wished for was to be indebted to some trivial lord who thought his name elevated him to the same stratosphere as Aemond– a paltry lady of some low house bred in the Riverlands would do just fine, he expected his Valyrian seed to dominate any of their week genes anyhow.

He had met you once before, many years ago before he lost his eye. When he was forced to tag along on some meager diplomacy meeting with his grandsire– he remembers it as being forced, but in reality, he wished to attend. What else was a second son with no dragon to do? – and you had been there, hiding behind your father’s trousers. You had been wearing a blue dress, he remembered this distinctly, as it stood out against the ruby red of the apple you had offered him.

Aemond had tried to speak with you, but you only communicated in nods and soft noises– something you only partially grew out of. He never understood why he remembered this girl, as you were insignificant in the seas of faces he’s met over his life. Mayhaps it was your quiet nature that he remembered, something that, now at his age and state of mind, struck him as malleable, easy to mold into what he needed you to be.

And so it shall be.

–

It was about two and a half moons after your marriage, he returned from a late council meeting. Rubbing his eye, feeling the familiar thrum of pain right behind the socket, he was already in a particularly sour mood. The council meeting had gone south, ending in most of the lords bickering over one another like children.

It irritated Aemond to no end, the strain of an oncoming headache ever looming. He still struggled with intense pain from his eye, or rather, his socket and severed nerves. The pain was debilitating at times and if anyone dared to test his patience when it was particularly bad, he would snap at them like a cornered animal, no matter who it was.

Raising his head, he noticed the hearth was still going strong, multiple candles still lit in the solar, despite it being late at night. The now familiar crop of auburn hair was peeking from behind the couch— his wife was usually never up this late.

“Why are you still awake, wife?” he asked as he took off his gloves, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“… reading. I was waiting for you.” you murmured in your usual hushed tone, the sound of your book closing was louder than your voice.

“I told you not to do that. It’s unnecessary.” he grunted in response, undoing the latches of his leather doublet.

“I-I don’t mind it… I just sleep a bit easier…” you continued, no doubt twiddling the end of your braid between your fingers— an anxious habit.

“You need proper rest. I won’t have my wife looking like a sleepless, sloven mess,” Aemond chastised, discarding his shirt. “Now, what are you reading?” he was becoming increasingly irritated with you, feeling as if he had to force you to take care of yourself and unlatch you like a leech from him. When you looked upon him with your wide eyes filled with uncertainty and fear, he felt the overwhelming urge to wrap his fingers around your throat and squeeze until you passed out or mayhaps went limp, like a doll.

“Oh,” you slid the book towards him on the side table, it was a book on the history of Old Valyria and its language, usually used for children to begin speaking it. “Nyke j-jaelagon… naejot ēdrugon… va ao.” I wish to sleep next to you.

Aemond’s brow furrowed. “What use do you have to learn High Valyrian, wife? Issa dōna ābrazȳrys mijegon nykeā notion isse zȳhon bartos, wanting naejot gūrēñagon mirros ziry daor.” My sweet wife without a thought in her head, wanting to learn something she cannot.

You reached for the book, your comprehension not skilled enough yet to pull what Aemond was saying to you. Before you could grab it, he slammed his hand down on the book, effectively snatching it from your grasp. You pouted her bottom lip. “I want to learn… mayhaps it might bring us closer together.”

Aemond scoffed, the sound sending a sting of pain right into the core of your chest. “We are as close as we need to be, little one. We are married in the eyes of Gods and men and we fulfill our marital duty by trying to produce heirs, hm?” He placed the book back on the shelf. “This nonsense of wanting to be closer is moot. I won’t hear of it anymore.”

A glaze of sorrow flashed through your eyes before you got up from the couch, tightening the housecoat around your shoulders.

“Come to bed,” he said, moreso as a command than a suggestion. “I know you are cold, ābrazȳrys.” Wife.

You made a small noise of discernment, crawling into bed after him.

He looped his arms around you, pressing you to his bare chest. He radiated heat like a furnace and was quick to warm you up– you were always so cold, he noted. He surely hoped that your children together would inherit his fiery blood and not the weak-willed, uninsulated Andal blood you possessed.

Aemond bounced from being indifferent to you, paying you no more mind than a maid or a whore, to needing you, every part of you. He didn’t see you as a person, moreso an extension of himself, latched onto his body until he consumed you entirely, your bones fusing together as one. To him, you were a doll or plaything to entertain him, testing the mettle of your will, to see if you were of poor craftsmanship and would break. He had always broken his toys as a child.

You could tell by the rhythm of his breathing, he wasn’t going to sleep just yet– you’d become very attuned to his moods, his small intakes of air against your neck causing your skin to prickle into goosebumps. His lips ghosted over your throat, one of his arms coming up to wrap near the base of your windpipe, not yet applying pressure, but the threat was there.

No, it wasn’t so much as a threat than it was a promise– he quite liked applying pressure to your airways when you coupled, his lone violet eye centered intently on yours as they went from wide to half-lidded, soft whimpers of pleading to stop, sometimes for more, more. He relished in holding your very life in his hands and you let him.

“Mayhaps I should get you a collar, wife,” he hummed, his voice husky and deep, reverberating deep within your chest as your heart pounded. “But I think you like my hands much better, don’t you?”

“Y-yes,” you breathed, the small swallowing bob of your throat felt against the palm of his hand, causing him to grin. “... I fancy them– on my tender neck… between my legs…” you responded, feeling slightly bold at the notion you put forth. The heat of his body permeated your skin, warming your core into an ever familiar feeling.

Aemond all but growled at your comment, positioning the both of you to where you were laying with your back upon him, as if you were lazing upon him like a chair. “Feeling courageous tonight, are we? No matter, my dear, you will break all the same,” his mouth pressed to the shell of your ear, teeth nipping at your lobe. “Like every night before, and every night to come– your life is in my hands,” he enunciated this with a squeeze to your neck, eliciting a small mewl from you. “Is it not? Say it.”

“M-my life– belongs to you, husband,” you managed to squeak out.

“Not husband, not now. You know the rules.”

“M-my king, your grace,” you rephrased quickly.

He clicked his tongue in slight admonishment. “A bit slow on the take tonight, little one,” Aemond muttered, slotting his leg between yours and kicking your thighs apart. “Keep them open.” his voice was dripping with something between venom and sticky sweet honey. He felt akin to a God every time he was in the sky, every time he sat the throne with the crown on his head, and every time he rested his hand on your pretty little throat as he sheathed himself to the hilt inside of you so easily, so free of resistance. “So slick for me, just from the smallest of chokes– fucking whore.” he hissed, starting a slow, deliberate pace as his hips met against your bottom. The pair of you were like two threads, intertwined with his legs pretzeling around yours, keeping you spread open.

Your breath hitched in your throat as he continued to bully that sensitive, spongy spot within you– but you craved so much more, feeling waves of heat emanate from your sensitive bud as it screamed at your brain, begging to be touched. You made the critical error, thinking your husband was too focused on his own pleasure to notice you going for your own, as your hand slowly descended between your legs, rubbing small circles upon your pearl.

How wrong you were.

His arm came up further, his bicep pressing to the bottom of your chin, his free palm slapping your hand away from yourself. “Are you truly fucking stupid tonight, wife?” he spat, stilling his thrusts. “When did I say you could touch yourself? Have I fucked you stupid already?” Aemond huffed in frustration. “My poor, dumb wife– you cannot do anything right, can you?” he slid you off of him, then flipped over to loom atop you, taking both of your hands within one of his, his large hand encapsulating your wrists with ease, trapping them above your head.

You sniffed, tears welling at your lash line, threatening to spill– not just from his downright mean admonishments, but from your stolen gluttony, your pleasure stolen so close to the precipice. “‘M sorry, your grace,” you cried, “Forgive me.”

“You’re lucky you have such a sweet cunt,” Aemond mused, his immodest and downright sinful language going straight to your core as he nestled inside of you once more, menacing atop you like a darkening cloud. “I forgive you– and will even pleasure you. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To come?”

You nodded fervently, your lamenting tears spilling over and running down your cheeks.

“I’m feeling quite generous, then– I’ll let you. If you beg me.”

“P-please–” you blubbered, “Please let me come, my king.”

A sickly smirk came over his face once more as he pushed forward again, not bothering with the slow and meticulous pace he had before. His hips slammed into yours as he surged into you, as if you were nothing more than a cocksleeve for his pleasure. And yet, and yet– his hand didn’t move to the apex of your legs, chasing his own high before he would give into yours.

“Aemond, please, please– please touch me, f-fuck, your grace– my k-king, please!” you were all but wailing now, half in ecstasy and half in pure beseechment, pleading for just some semblance of the lecherous, stimulating and lewd sensation that only he could give you.

He took mercy on you, the pad of his thumb zeroing in on your leaking folds, giving your clit a cheeky pinch. It was a delightful pain– that was what being with Aemond was, what it came down to. Every waking moment with him was thrilling, sublime, agonizing, unending torture– and you fucking loved it.

Your mouth hung open, you were sobbing freely now, your lips quirked into a euphoric and maddened smile. “Thank you, tha-nk you, t-thank you, I love you, I love you,” you gasped, your lungs ballooning with air as you begged him further, “P-please, around my neck–”

Something animalistic came out of Aemond at your request, his hand draping around your throat like a necklace. “My sweet, dumb wife– you don’t know what to do unless I tell you, unless I let you, unless I guide you to your release, hm?” he prostrated each word with a deep thrust. The combination of his ministrations on your bundle of nerves, the head of his cock callously beating into your sweet spot, and the squeeze of his hand around your neck– it was enough.

With a garbled string of words, prayers, denotes of love, pronouncements of his prowess, his titles, his name– the coil inside of you snapped, lighting every nerve you had in your body on fire. You saw stars as your climax wracked through you like a tempest, the absolute vice grip of your core sending Aemond into his own completion, his seed painting your walls and then some.

In your fucked-out delirium, you thought you might’ve heard him say something– you didn’t decipher it until later when you were half asleep, his softened member still lodged inside of you somehow as he curled you into his chest.

“My love, my wife– I love you.”

#aemond fic #aemond fanfiction #aemond targaryen #hotd aemond #aemond x fem!reader #aemond #aemond one eye #hotd fic #aemond fanfic #aemond smut #dark aemond smut #dark aemond angst #my writing

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dr-aegon · 3 months

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🪿goosesona time!

be the goose menace you want to see in the world 😌

this is mine! 😊✨

no pressure tags, besties 💕 : @very-straight-blog @zaldritzosrose @troublesomesnitch @snowblack-charcoalwhite @barbieaemond @bouncehousedemons @huramuna @wolfdressedinlace @vhagar-balerion-meraxes @inthedayswhenlandswerefew @wynfylleth @st-eve-barnes @bucknastysbabe @targaryenbarbie @sunfyre-targaryen @liv-cole @jennathearcher @youraverageaemondsimp @heretherebebookdragons

#tag games #picrew #picrew game

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 2 months

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1968 [Chapter 4: Zeus, God Of Thunder]

A/N: Can you believe we're already 1/3 done with this series?? I sure can't! I hope you enjoy Chapter 4. I'm so excited to show you where we're headed. The times are indeed a-changin'... 😉

Series Summary: Aemond is embroiled in a fierce battle to secure the Democratic Party nomination and defeat his archnemesis, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. You are his wife of two years and wholeheartedly indoctrinated into the Targaryen political dynasty. But you have an archnemesis of your own: Aemond’s chronically delinquent brother Aegon.

Series Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, character deaths, New Jersey, age-gap relationships, drinking, smoking, drugs, pregnancy and childbirth, kids with weird Greek names, historical topics including war and discrimination, math.

Word Count: 7.3k

Tagging: @arcielee @huramuna @glasscandlegrenades @gemmagirlss1 @humanpurposes @mariahossain @marvelescvpe @darkenchantress @aemondssapphirebussy @haslysl @bearwithegg @beautifulsweetschaos @travelingmypassion @althea-tavalas @chucklefak @serving-targaryen-realness @chaoticallywriting @moonfllowerr @rafeism @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @herfantasyworldd @mangosmootji @sunnysideaeggs @minttea07 @babyblue711

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

You unzip the floral suitcase that Alicent gave the nurses to pack for you. Inside are the hundreds of greeting cards sent by people from the Atlantic to the Rockies; downstairs, Eudoxia is distributing a dozen bouquets of flowers throughout the house with appropriate grimness, and more arrive each hour. You lift cards out of the suitcase by the handful and lay them down on your bed. Every movement feels slow, every thought muddled, bare feet in cold wet sand that swallows you to your ankles. The windows are open, the sheer curtains billowing. The wind whips in off the ocean, smelling of brine and sun glare, life and death.

Aemond emerges from the bathroom in a gale of steam. He finishes adjusting his eyepatch and then dresses himself: white shorts, blue polo. Aemond wears a lot of blue. It is Greek, is it American, it is the Democratic Party, it is the color of the sky that was once believed to hold Olympus, it is everything he’s ever been or wanted to be. He’s humming The House Of The Rising Sun. It’s the first time you’ve truly been alone since the night before he caught his flight to Tacoma.

Beneath the greeting cards you find the books, cosmetics, and three new sundresses, none of which you ended up wearing home. Alicent bought you a plain black shift dress, matching gloves and flats, and opaque sunglasses to hide your face from the journalists who waited outside the hospital. And there is one last item to unpack. At the bottom of the suitcase is a clear plastic bag containing fabric, white dotted with bruises of common blue violets. At first you are confounded, and then you turn it over to see the dark, saturated stain of crimson. It’s the sundress you were wearing the day you were rushed to Mount Sinai to have Ari. The nurses hadn’t known if you wanted to keep it, burn it, bury it.

“Why didn’t you come back?”

Aemond’s brow furrows, like he’s surprised by the question. He goes to his writing desk and turns the chair around so it’s facing you. He sits, crosses one leg over the other, leans back and hides his hands in his pockets. His tone is gentle, but his gaze is hard. “By the time I heard that you’d had the baby, it was already over. You were out of surgery, he was in an incubator, and that was the immutable reality. I figured there was nothing I could do at that point to improve the outcome. And that’s true. Me flying back early wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“But you should have been there,” you insist, eyes wet, voice quivering. “You should have known him like I did.”

“Winning Washington was important.”

“Washington is a basket of votes, Ari was our child, he was real.”

“No one told me he was dying—”

“Because you didn’t pick up the fucking phone.”

Aemond is incredulous, like he couldn’t have heard you correctly. “It’s not like I was playing golf or drinking myself under some bar, I was campaigning 20 hours a day and it worked.”

“Nothing on earth could have kept me away from you when you got shot in Palm Beach.”

“So maybe it wasn’t just about Washington,” Aemond says, and his words aren’t gentle anymore. They are razored, dauntless, daring you to battle him. “It’s about the whole picture, it’s about the momentum. If I had underperformed in Washington, the dominoes would fall in Kentucky, and Utah, and Virginia, and then at the national convention in August, and then against Nixon in November. I don’t have the luxury of disappearing from the public eye to sit adoringly by your bedside when we both know there isn’t a single goddamn thing I can do to help.”

“It would have made you look like a better man.”

“But not a better president.”

And like a fracture being snapped back into place, you remember what Aegon said on that bloodstained night in Florida: You’re a vessel. You’re a cow. And one day he’ll be done with you. You stare down at the ruined dress entombed in plastic, still clutched in your hands. You don’t dare to let Aemond see your eyes. You’re afraid you won’t be able to disguise the betrayal glistening there. You ask, a whisper, a whimper: “Why aren’t you sad?” I thought you loved him. I thought you were always so worried about him.

“Of course I’m sad,” Aemond says, more kindly now, patiently, like he’s speaking to someone who can’t be expected to comprehend. “But it’s different for the mother.”

You can’t reply. If you do, something lethal will pour out, smoke and poison and arrows, something that shoots to kill. Ari was quietly interred at the Targaryen family mausoleum in Saint George Greek Orthodox Cemetery in Asbury Park. It had felt so wrong to leave his tiny casket there in a silent stone prison full of strangers.

Aemond is behind you now, trying to knead the tension out of your shoulders. And for the first time in two years, you wish he’d stop touching you. Your belly hurts, your head hurts, your heart hurts, you are a garden blooming with bruises and scars. “I know you aren’t in your right mind. Everything will be better soon. I promise.”

Tears gather on your eyelashes. “I miss him.”

“We’ll have others. Here, let me take that…” Aemond grabs the bag holding your ruined dress and it’s out of your reach before you can think to resist. “You should get ready for dinner.”

“Okay,” you reply numbly, now gazing down at your empty palms. Aemond leaves with his grisly parcel, and you never see it again. But once he’s gone you don’t shed your black mourning dress, blood-soaked pad, bandages, and shake loose your hair and step into the shower. Instead, you walk around the bed to pick up the mint green rotary phone on your nightstand. You speak to a series of operators before you reach the Harbour Rocks Hotel in Sydney. While you listen to the ringing through the intercontinental wire, you sit down on the bed. You’ve never felt low like this. You’ve never felt so unmoored from everything you had believed about your life.

A gruff, familiar voice answers. He’s just waking up, slurping on his morning coffee, dabbing his moustache with a napkin. “Hello?”

“Daddy, I don’t think I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

“What?” he asks, and immediately he is no longer groggy but desperately concerned. Your parents are away on a month-long tour of Australia and often incommunicado. By the time they received news of Ari’s death and called Mount Sinai in hysterics to speak with you, you had told them not to rush home. You were about to be released, and they would not make it in time for the funeral regardless. Aemond insisted on a swift, private ceremony, a detour on the drive back to Asteria, like it was something he couldn’t wait to put in his rearview mirror. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”

“Aemond, he…” He’s not the man I thought he was. I don’t know him, I don’t trust him. “He’s not acting right, he’s not…he didn’t…Daddy, it’s like he doesn’t care. And I don’t want to be here anymore. Can I fly down to Tarpon Springs when you and Mama get back? Can I stay with you for a while? And then…and then…” You don’t even know what words you’re looking for. They don’t exist in your universe.

“Listen, honey,” your father says with great tenderness. “Are you listening?”

“Yeah.” You’re trying to stifle your sobs so no one downstairs hears you.

“You’ve just been through something terrible. So terrible I can’t even imagine it. And of course you’re feeling out of sorts. But Aemond is your husband, he’s your protector and your ally, your best friend, your partner in life. He’s not the one responsible for what happened. You can’t misdirect your heartache at him.”

“But he’s…Daddy, there’s…there’s something wrong with him.”

“Oftentimes, it’s easier for women to talk about their emotions, both good and bad. But for men—especially men like Aemond who are so self-disciplined by nature—it can be like pulling teeth to express themselves. They don’t like to be vulnerable. They actually think they’re failing in their commitments to their wife if they let her see how much they’re struggling. Aemond is hurting just like you are. He might not show it in the way you expect, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. Of course he cares.”

How do you know, Daddy? Have you cut him open and studied his brain, his ropy nerves, the dark chambers of his heart? “I thought he saw me like you see Mama, I thought he included me in everything because he loved and respected me, but that’s not it. He just needs someone to help him get elected, that’s all Ari and I were to him, and I can’t…I just can’t…the thought of him touching me now…”

“Sweetheart, Aemond is a good man,” your father says. “He does love you. He does respect you. And he’s doing such incredible things for this country. I have friends in Florida who’ve been voting Republican since Hoover, but they’re crossing over for Aemond. They think he’s the one to clean up this mess. Vietnam, poverty, civil rights, the riots, the shootings, the hippies, the drugs, the Russians, the Chinese, someone has to pick up the pieces and create something that makes sense. Do you think Nixon or Humphrey would end the war by this time next year? Do you think either of them would compel the South to enforce voting rights or desegregation?”

“No,” you say, closing your eyes. But that doesn’t mean I can forget what I’ve learned about Aemond.

“Here, your mom wants to say something.” Your father vanishes; your mother’s voice comes piping across the copper submarine cables that span the length of the Pacific Ocean. You wonder—randomly, distractedly—if any of the wires connecting you to Sydney run through Arizona, the place Aegon told you he didn’t want to leave.

“Hello? Are you there?”

“I’m here, Mama.”

“Oh, honey,” she sighs, distraught, hearing the exhaustion and misery in your voice. “You’ve got the baby blues, and no baby to hold good and close to help them run their course. I’m so sorry. It’s just awful, so awful.”

You speak before you know what you’re going to say. “I don’t want to be married to Aemond anymore.”

“You’re confused, sweetheart. Your hormones are all over the place, you’re in pain, you’ve just had major surgery, and after this year with all the stress from the campaign and that horrific shooting in Palm Beach—”

“He’s not like Daddy.” Tears are flooding down your cheeks; your voice is hoarse. “I thought he was, but he’s not.”

“You cannot make a mistake like this,” your mother says, and she’s turned from silk to steel. “If you do something drastic now, you’ll wake up in a month or six months or a year and realize you’ve ruined not just your life, but the chance this country had at a better future. Don’t you realize what’s at stake here? Every marriage goes through tough times. Every husband needs to learn how to care for his wife, and every wife how to best support her husband. That’s natural, and you’ve only been married two years. Of course you and Aemond are still learning how to navigate life together. It only seems so much worse because of what’s happened to the baby.”

Is she right? Am I wrong? “I don’t know,” you say weakly.

“If you leave now, what happens?” your mother demands. “You abandon the campaign and Aemond’s support plummets. You are a divorcee, a sinner, a failure. You don’t get your son back. But you do lose everything you’ve helped build. Marriage isn’t an experiment, ‘oh let’s give it a try and if we hit any bumps we’ll call the whole thing off.’ No. It’s a covenant. Marriage is for life.”

Yes it is, in just about every faith, and certainly for the Greek Orthodox Church. You are suddenly consumed by mistrust for your own body, this flesh that failed your son and now is deceiving you with doubt so heavy—like cold iron or lead or platinum—it masquerades as truth. How could you imagine a life after Aemond? What waits for you in Tarpon Springs besides the promise of an eventual remarriage that is banal, powerless, bleak, exactly what you’ve always plotted so willfully to avoid?

“Do you understand me, honey?” your mother asks, and she’s soft and kind again. “I don’t mean to be strict with you. My heart breaks for you, and I love you. I’m not trying to upset you. I’m trying to protect you from yourself.”

“Yes.” There are people getting massacred in Vietnam right now; there are people who can’t afford roofs over their heads. Who am I to complain? Your tears have stopped; your breathing is now slow and measured. “Yes, Mama. I understand.”

After you’ve hung up, you stay where you are for a long time, your hands folded limply in your lap and gazing at the paintings hung on the pale blue walls: small replicas of The Birth of Venus, Romulus and Remus, Prometheus Bound, Perseus Rescuing Andromeda, Echo and Narcissus, Jupiter and Io. Then you get up to sift through the greeting cards you’ve piled on the bed, not really seeing them. Only one captures your attention. Only one jolts you out of the fog like a flash of lightning through dark churning clouds.

You take the card Aegon gave you back when you were still a mother and set it upright on your nightstand, consider it for a while, wander into the bathroom to scrub the despair from your skin and change into something less somber for dinner.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re playing Battleship with Cosmo by the edge of the swimming pool while all the other children splash around, howling with laughter and diving for toys they throw to the bottom and then fetch with their teeth like golden retrievers, G.I. Joes and Barbies and Trolls and even a waterlogged Mr. Potato Head. The nannies are observing intently, poised to leap in if anyone should appear to be at risk of drowning. If Ari had lived, I wouldn’t have wanted nannies to raise him, you think. I would have wanted him to have a normal childhood. I would have wanted to know him.

“Your turn,” Cosmo says with a grin. He’s the one who looks the most like Aegon, or how you imagine Aegon must have looked before the pills and the booze and the long caged decades. His hair is so light a blonde it’s nearly white, his eyes huge and glimmering and mischievous. Battleship is a bit advanced for a five-year-old. Cosmo keeps guessing the same coordinates over and over, so you periodically lie and tell him he’s sunk one of your ships. When you launch a successful attack against his, he seems to think it’s fair game to relocate the vessel to a more advantageous location.

“D7.”

He picks up his aircraft carrier and repositions it. From the record player drifts California Dreamin’. “Nope! Nothing sank!”

“Wow. I’m so bad at this.”

Cosmo is snickering. “Yeah, you are. Really bad.”

“If I got drafted, the Army would be better off leaving me at home. I’d just be a nuisance.”

“What’s drafted?”

“Never mind. Your turn to guess.”

“J12!”

The grid only goes up to 10. Nonetheless, you slap your own forehead dramatically. “Oh no, not again! You sunk my battleship!”

“Yay!” Cosmo cheers, then turns to the Jacuzzi. It’s brand new, just installed last month. “Mom, did you see? I’m winning!”

You glance over at Mimi. She has passed out, her latest Gimlet drained and her head resting atop her crossed arms, propped on the rim of the Jacuzzi. “Uh, Cosmo, run inside and ask Doxie to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, okay?”

“Okay.” He scampers off, toddling on reckless little legs.

With no shortage of difficulty, you manage to stand. Each day your abdominal muscles feel less like they’ve been shredded and then mended with threads of fire, but the pain is still bad, very bad, and there are spots of skin on your belly that are numb when you skim your fingertips across them. You will have a long vertical scar like Aemond’s, an irreparable reminder of the blood you’ve paid to the cause. And for all your anguish, this particular fact doesn’t torment you. It is proof that Ari existed, however briefly, however futilely.

You amble over to the Jacuzzi, your roomy lavender dress flowing in the wind, and shove one of Mimi’s shoulders. “Mimi, wake up. Get out of the water.”

She mumbles incoherently in response. You reach for her before remembering you can’t lift anything. You look around. Alicent and Helaena are on lounge chairs at the other end of the pool; Alicent is trying very hard to look interested while Helaena shows her about 100 different butterfly species pictured in a kaleidoscopically colorful book. Criston is off giving Ludwika a tour of the property, flanked by a flock of Alopekis hoping for treats. Ludwika is Otto’s wife of six months but only newly arrived, 30 years old, perpetually unimpressed, modelesque, golden blonde, if Barbie was from Poland. Aemond, Otto, and Viserys—his sparse threads of silver hair hanging like cobwebs around his gaunt face, grimacing and clutching the armrests of his wheelchair—are conspiring on the lawn between the main house and the pool. They haven’t noticed your predicament. Fosco is sauntering by wearing some of the tiniest swim shorts you’ve ever seen. He is the son of an Italian count, gangly and chatty and from what you’ve seen almost certainly addicted to gambling.

“Will you help me move Mimi, please?” you ask him. “I’m afraid she’s going to drown.”

“Of course, of course, no problem. Let me handle it. Do not hurt yourself.” He has her half-dragged out of the Jacuzzi before Mimi startles awake.

“What’s going on?” she slurs. “Put me down, I can walk.”

“I doubt it,” you say.

“You are alright?” Fosco asks Mimi as he steadies her on the cement, wet with pool water. She clutches at his forearms helplessly.

“I’m fine. Absolutely fine.”

“Mimi, go inside,” you say. “Eat a sandwich. Tell Cosmo you’re proud of him for winning Battleship.”

“Battleship? Well, that’s just ridiculous. He’s five. Five-year-olds can’t play Battleship.”

“And yet you will congratulate him regardless.”

She can feel your impatience, your judgement, sharp like wasp stings. Mimi retreats like a kicked dog to the main house, somehow summoning the will to remain mostly upright.

You look to Fosco. “Do you know where Aegon is?” You want to see him, but you also don’t; each time you’re in the same room now is a disorienting storm of familiarity, curiosity, painful reminders, annoyance, awkwardness, longingness to again feel as close to him—to anyone—as you did during those fleeting moments at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.

Fosco chuckles. “Where is he ever? Napping, sailing, drinking, on the phone with one of his lady friends. I could not say. I have not seen him recently.”

“Okay. Thanks anyway.” The music stops—the record needs to be flipped over—and now you can just barely hear what Aemond, Otto, and Viserys are discussing.

“And you criticized me for going too young,” Aemond says to Otto. “What’s your age difference with Ludwika? 40 years?”

“She’s good publicity. She defected from the Eastern Bloc in search of the American Dream.”

“Being married to you?” Aemond quips. “I think she found the American Nightmare.”

“Speaking of wives,” Otto continues. “I assume since yours had one surgery, that’s how all the future children will need to be born, is that right?”

Aemond nods, frowning. “Yeah. And the doctors said she shouldn’t have more than three. It weakens the uterus, I guess, all that slicing and suturing. Do it too many times and ruptures get more likely, and those can be fatal.”

“Very unfortunate,” Viserys rasps. “Children are our greatest legacy. I wanted at least ten, but your mother…well…after Daeron, it just never happened again.” And you know that this is just one of the ways in which Aemond had planned to win his father’s admiration: by contributing more new Targaryens to the dynasty than anyone else. Now that’s impossible.

Otto sighs wistfully. “To have a brand new baby to parade around in the fall…that would have been wonderful.” For the first time in two years, you can sense that you have disappointed him. Fosco is watching you, uneasy, ashamed, sorry without knowing what to do about it.

“Absolutely,” Aemond says, as if this is not the first time the thought has crossed his mind. “But it’s done now. There’s no sense in dwelling on what might have been. We must look forward. It’s feasible that…well…if we try again and get good news by October, we can announce in time for Election Day…”

You can’t listen anymore. Your belly aching, your bare feet hurrying through warm emerald grass, you traverse the lawn and disappear into Helaena’s garden, painstakingly tended and continuously expanded since she was a little girl. There are marigolds and daffodils, tulips and roses, azaleas, asters, butterfly bushes, chrysanthemums, lilies and lupines, sunflowers, violets, life blooming in a hundred different shades. There are tiny statues too, tucked away in random places, stone angels and untamed creatures, alligators and turtles and rabbits and cats, the only sort the Alopekis will tolerate. At the very center of the garden is a tall circle of hedges with only one opening, an arched doorway cut into the thick lush green. You’ve been here before, though only with Aemond. On a property shared with so many family members—and the occasional intrusive journalist—it’s a good place to escape prying eyes. You pass through the threshold with a hand resting absentmindedly on your belly, as if you’re still pregnant. You keep doing this. Each time you remember you’re at the end of something rather than the beginning, it carves you open all over again.

Around the inside perimeter of the circle are twelve sculptures positioned like numbers on a clock: eleven Olympians and Hades, confined to the Underworld. In the middle of the clearing is the largest stature of all, a wrathful Zeus hurling lightning bolts and surrounded by a gurgling fountain of glass-clear water. Under the shadow of Zeus, Aegon is sprawled on the ground and smoking a joint. “So you’re hiding from them too, huh?” He gives you a sly, welcome-to-the-club smirk, then offers you his joint. “Want a hit?”

You shake your head, not taking another step towards him. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

He is confused. “Done what?”

“Any of it.” I told him about my life before. I made the mistake of thinking I could go back.

Aegon still doesn’t seem to understand. “You’re scared I’m gonna snitch?”

You shrug, evasive. It’s not just the fact that he knows. It’s the sensation that you’ve unlatched something—an attic room, a jewelry box, a birdcage—and now you can’t get it locked again, and the door rattles with every footstep and storm wind, and you are no longer Aphrodite or Io but Pandora, a hunger growing in your stitched womb like a child.

“What? What’s wrong with you?” And that’s always how he says it, not what’s the matter or are you alright or what did I do or how can I fix it?

“I’m kind of…embarrassed, I guess.”

“Embarrassed,” Aegon echoes. “Because of me?”

“I feel like I said and did a lot of things that were out of character because I was emotionally compromised.”

“They were out of character for who you’ve been trying to convince everyone you are since you married Aemond, sure. But they weren’t out of character for you.”

He’s treading too close now, arrows piercing their mark, a tremor near the epicenter. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Au contraire, I have acquired many interesting revelations recently.”

“Where’d you learn French? From Mimi?”

His smile dies. “Boarding school.”

You don’t know how to reply. You don’t know how to be around Aegon without either hating him or letting him see parts of yourself that you’re trying to drown like Icarus in the waves. You glance yearningly towards the doorway cut into the hedges.

All at once, Aegon is furious. “You don’t want to talk to me? You want to go back to how it was before, you want to pretend Mount Sinai never happened? Fine. You got it. Wish fucking granted. Whatever you have to do.”

He turns away from you. You flee from him. But that night when Asteria is hushed and still—Aemond, Criston, and Otto are attending a fundraising dinner in Philadelphia, and you are temporarily excused from accompanying them as you recover—you creep down into the basement of the main house to apologize. Mimi sleeps in a bedroom on the second floor, but here Aegon can keep odd hours and drink and smoke to his heart’s content, and even entertain clandestine guests, girls who are beautiful and giggling and never invited twice.

Aegon isn’t here. He might be passed out somewhere, or at a party, or maybe even upstairs with Mimi, and something about this idea twists through your mending guts like a blade. In his absence, you take a quick look around his room, something you’ve never done before. You hadn’t had any interest; it wouldn’t even have occurred to you. There’s a large green futon, a matching shag carpet, a television, a bookshelf full of notebooks and paperbacks—Kurt Vonnegut, Harper Lee, Sylvia Plath, Truman Capote, Ken Kesey—and vinyl albums, a record player, and his two acoustic guitars. The first is unpainted maple wood covered with stickers. I’d rather be nowhere reads one; Burn pot not people proclaims another. The second guitar is the souvenir he bought in Manhattan, an aquamarine blue six-string.

There's something strange on his end table. Along with a dozen empty cups is a full ashtray, and there’s a folded piece of paper tucked underneath. You slide the paper out and open it. It’s the receipt you used to solve the long division problem in your hospital room.

Why would he keep this? you think, mystified. There are footsteps above your head, and you quickly return the receipt to where you found it and leave before your trespass can be discovered.

When you emerge from the basement, Fosco is waiting in the hallway and carrying a Tupperware container filled with something that resembles kourabiethes, Greek shortbread cookies. “I thought I saw you sneak down there. What were you looking for?”

You scramble for an explanation. “One of the dogs is missing. Alicent wanted me to check the basement.”

“Ah, yes, I see.” He passes you the Tupperware container. “These are for you. I hope they are not too bad. I baked them myself.”

“Are they…” You shake it. “Biscotti?”

“They are ossi dei morti,” Fosco says. “Bones of the dead. We make them to remember loved ones we have lost. They are hard, so you should dip them in coffee or tea before you try to eat them.”

You open the lid. Inside are long thin cookies coated with powdered sugar. You inhale almond flour, cloves, cinnamon. And you are so touched you cannot find your words.

“You know, there still places in Italy where mothers wear black for years to mourn their children.” This is not trivia; it is an acknowledgement. Your son is gone. There is no shame in the grief that is left behind. In another house, it would be expected, it would be required.

“Thank you, Fosco.”

He smiles warmly. “We are in this together, no? We are pieces of the same machine.”

Then he plods off towards the living room, sliding a rolled-up horse racing program out of the back pocket of his tight plaid pants.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re in Louisville, Kentucky, where thunder quakes the eaves. An hour ago, Aegon was popping Valium and leisurely plucking at his pool water blue Gibson guitar, slumped against the wall, nipping at a flask filled with straight Bacardi. But he’s not anymore. Now he’s gathered around the small color television with you, Criston, Otto, Fosco, Helaena, and Ludwika. The news is just breaking. There was a civil rights protest at the University of Kentucky in Lexington one hour to the east. Someone threw a rock, or someone claims someone threw a rock, or someone threw something that was mistaken for a rock, and in any event the situation escalated from there and local police who were monitoring the demonstration opened fire on a crowd, killing five students and injuring another dozen.

Outside, word is spreading through the crowd of over 2,000 people that have gathered for Aemond’s planned speech at the historic Iroquois Amphitheater, a New Deal project finished in 1938. Rain is pouring, and the venue has no roof. Aemond is already 20 minutes late. The voices are becoming louder, more demanding, more wrathful. They’re shouting that Aemond is too afraid to face them now, that he’s trying to figure out what his statement will be, that he’s cowardly and calculating; and if President Lyndon Baines Johnson was here tonight instead of cursing his bad stars up in Washington D.C., he would certainly have something to say about the capriciousness of voters who love you, hate you, carry you higher, drag you down, all without ever knowing you.

In truth, Aemond is not stalling on purpose. He’s in the bathroom trying to get his prosthetic eye in. It’s been giving him hell all afternoon. He wears his eyepatch at home, but he’s never made a public appearance without his glass eye clean and perfect in his voided socket.

“He’s going to have to say something about it,” you tell the others as you watch the news coverage.

“Say what?” Otto snaps. “If he doesn’t treat those dead kids like martyrs he’s going to get booed off the stage. If he condemns the police he’s going to lose the suburbs. They’ll run to Humphrey now and Nixon in November.”

The weather report called for storms—which is why Alicent, Mimi, and the children are already back at the Seelbach Hotel for the night after a long day of shaking hands and smiling gamely—but no one expected it to get this bad. The room you’re huddled in is just off-stage, so you can see it all: the wind ripping signs and flags from people’s hands, drenched clothes, sopping hair, snarling faces, rain turning puddles to rivers. The stomping of boots is now as loud as the thunder. Rocks and bottles are being pitched at the stage.

“Is America always like this?” Ludwika asks, scandalized.

“No, not at all,” Otto says. “Goddamn animals…”

Aegon replies, not taking his eyes from the television: “You’d be mad too if cops were shooting your friends and the only graduation present you had to look forward to was getting disemboweled by guerillas in Vietnam.”

“I’ve had it with you and your Marxist bullshit! You want to liberate the dispossessed masses? Why don’t you start by donating your monthly drugs and rum budget to the—”

“We should cancel,” Fosco says. “Just call the whole thing off. Tell them Aemond is sick or something.”

“That’s the headline you want? ‘Senator Targaryen hides from grieving supporters who braved a thunderstorm to see him’?! Just give the White House to Nixon now!”

“I don’t think we can cancel,” Criston says softly. “I think if we tried to leave, they’d swarm the car.”

“It’s a riot,” Otto moans, rubbing his face with his hands. “This is what happens when you court voters like this, college kids and hippies, professional malcontents…”

“Aren’t there police outside?” Ludwika says anxiously.

“Yeah, a handful,” Criston tells her. “And if they try to do anything this will erupt and we can add to the body count in Lexington…”

You leave them and follow a hallway to the men’s bathroom; on the periphery of your vision, you can tell that Aegon is watching you go. You push the door open and find a row of stalls and three sinks, one of which Aemond is standing in front of as he stares into his reflection and attempts to shove the prosthetic eye into his empty, gore-red left socket. His suit is navy blue, his hair neatly slicked back, his shoes so polished they’re reflective like a mirror.

“Fuck,” he hisses, flinching. His right cheek is wet with tears of frustration and agony. It’s July 26th, and tomorrow are the final three state conventions in the Democratic primary. Humphrey is almost certain to take Utah; Virginia will go to Governor Mills Godwin, who is only running in his home state to control the delegates and will hand them over to whoever he feels is most worthy in August. But Aemond is the favorite to win here in Kentucky. Or at least, he was an hour ago.

“What can I do? What do you need?”

“You can’t do anything. It’s…it’s this goddamn nerve pain, it feels like I’m being fucking stabbed, I can’t get the muscles to relax enough…”

Like an apology, you say: “Aemond, the crowd is getting out of control.”

“So you came in here to rush me?”

“No, I’m here to help.”

“You’re not helping. You’re doing the exact opposite.”

“I think you should give this speech with your eyepatch on. It looks good, and you’ll be as comfortable as possible, and the crowd won’t have to wait any longer than they have already.”

“No.”

“Aemond, please—”

“No! FDR didn’t make speeches in his wheelchair and I’m not making mine without my eye in.”

“Do you want me to get you Aegon’s pills? Rum, weed?”

“You don’t think I’ve already taken something?” He tries to force his eye in again and strikes his fist against the sink when he can’t.

Then you ask gingerly: “Do you know what you’re going to say about the shooting?”

“Get out!” Aemond shouts. “You’re making it worse, just get the fuck out! Go!”

You bolt from the bathroom, hands trembling, throat burning. You don’t want to return to the television where the others are standing; you’re worried they’ll be able to tell how upset you are. You go to the edge of the stage, arms crossed protectively over your chest, and peek out into the crowd. Above their chants and jeers and howled threats, lightning splits the sky.

I don’ t think we’re going to be able to find our way out of this one. I think this is the end of the road.

“Hey,” Aegon says, tapping your shoulder. “Back up.”

“I’m fine here.”

“No you’re not.” He grabs your arm and tugs you farther backstage. Seconds later, an Absolut Vodka bottle explodes into crystalline shrapnel where you were standing. You yelp and Aegon gives you a little eyebrow raise. I told you, he means.

“Someone has to go out there,” Otto says, still lurking by the television. Fosco is comforting Helaena, who is quietly weeping; Ludwika is watching the news coverage in horror, surely reconsidering all her life choices. A sixth University of Kentucky student has been declared dead. “We can’t wait.”

“No we can’t,” Criston agrees. Then they both turn to you expectantly.

Your blood goes icy. Tonight was meant to be your first official appearance since the baby. Your hair is up, your dress a navy blue to match Aemond’s suit, gold chains around your wrist and throat, a gold chain of a belt. You thought you were ready. But it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

“Don’t you look at her,” Aegon says, sharp like a scalpel, like a bullet, like something that punctures arteries and lungs. “They’re throwing glass. You figure something else out, don’t even look at her.”

Otto relents, perhaps halfheartedly. “No, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Criston starts heading for the bathroom to get Aemond. Otto is watching the television again, his face vacuous as his ambitions are carried away by a flood of rain, wind, rage, blood. Aegon snatches his guitar from where he left it by the wall. He tosses the strap over his head, gives the strings a few experimental strums and retunes them, starts walking towards the stage.

“Aegon, what are you doing?” you ask, panicked.

“Someone has to distract the crowd.”

“No, stop, you can’t—”

“Hey,” Aegon says. And when you glance past him at the uproarious, storm-drenched frenzy, he turns your face back to his to make sure you’re listening. His hand is insistent but gentle, his voice steady. “Don’t go out there. Okay?”

“Okay,” you agree, startled.

He gives you one last small, parting smile, a flash of his teeth, a daring glint in his murky blue eyes. Then he’s out in the torrential rain, soaked to the skin in seconds. His frayed green Army jacket clings to him; his hair is ravaged by the wind. As he takes his place behind the microphone, a stone that someone has hurled skates by him and nicks the apple of his left cheek. You can see a trickle of blood snaking down his sunburned skin before the rain washes it away; you feel a desperate gnawing dread that someone will hurt him, not just here but anywhere, not just now but ever. The crowd is still seething, shouting, stomping their feet to join the inescapable growl of the thunder. Aegon’s pick flies over the guitar strings as he begins playing, raindrops cast from his fingers like spells. At first, you can barely hear him.

“Come gather ‘round, people, wherever you roam

And admit that the waters around you have grown

And accept it that soon you’ll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you is worth saving

And you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone

For the times, they are a-changin’”

The audience is settling down now. Some of them are singing along. You can feel that Otto, Ludwika, Fosco, and Helaena are gathering around you, but you don’t grasp anything they’re saying. You can’t tear your eyes from Aegon. It’s like you’re seeing him for the first time, this radiant sunbeam of a man, a light in dark places, a constellation that whispers myths through the ink-spill indigo of the night sky. How could you ever have hated him? How could you ever have thought he was worthless?

“Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen

And keep your eyes wide, the chance won’t come again

And don’t speak too soon, for the wheel’s still in spin

And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s naming

For the loser now will be later to win

For the times, they are a-changin’”

Aemond and Criston appear beside you at the edge of the stage; Aemond’s prosthetic eye has at last been successfully placed with no lingering evidence of a struggle. You expect him to apologize for what he said in the bathroom, but he doesn’t. Instead he says when he sees Aegon: “What the hell is he doing?”

“Saving your career,” you reply simply.

“Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call

Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block up the hall

For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled

The battle outside raging

Will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls

For the times, they are a-changin’”

Now Aegon peers pointedly off-stage to where Otto Hightower is gawking. Aegon beams, throws his head back to get his dripping hair out of his eyes, comes back to the mic.

“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land

And don’t criticize what you can’t understand

Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command

Your old road is rapidly aging

Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand

For the times, they are a-changin’”

Everyone you can see in the crowd is singing and swaying. It’s not just a Bob Dylan song from 1964 but an anthem, a prayer, a rallying cry, a dire warning for the powers at be.

“The line, it is drawn, the curse, it is cast

The slow one now will later be fast

As the present now will later be past

The order is rapidly fading

And the first one now will later be last

For the times, they are a-changin’”

The audience is applauding and whistling. Aegon steals a glimpse of where you are standing backstage, checks that Aemond is still there with you and that he’s ready.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Aegon broadcasts with a wicked grin. “I am now proud to present the next president of the United States of America, Senator Aemond Targaryen!”

And Aemond is crossing the stage, no trace of pain or self-consciousness or prey-animal fear, no mere mortal but someone chosen by the gods, and the rain is slowing to a drizzle, and the clouds are opening to let through rare pinprick aisles of daylight, and the riotous spectators are now his disciples, exorcised of any rage they’ve ever felt for the scarred senator from New Jersey. He and his family are not the enemy; they are the solution. They are revolutionaries who have bled for the cause. They bring with them the change that is required. Aegon steps back and the rest of you join him in a semi-circle like a crescent moon behind Aemond. When you walk out onto the stage, the cheers swell to screams.

Aegon takes off his guitar and then leans into you. “He’s lucky you aren’t 35,” Aegon whispers, soft lips that curl into a smile as they brush your ear. And he’s teasing you but he’s not mocking, he’s not mean. He’s so close you share the same atmosphere, the same gravity. “Maybe when he finishes up his second term you can start building your resume for your first.”

“I want your endorsement.”

“From the disgraced former mayor of Trenton? What an honor. You’ll have to fight for it.”

You ball up a fist and playfully bump your knuckles against his chin. He pretends to bite at you. And you laugh for the first time since a doctor and priest entered your hospital room 13 days ago. Aegon slings an arm around your shoulders, pulls you against him, soaks you in his rain.

“Today in Lexington, we lost six brave and brilliant souls,” Aemond says, his voice booming through the amphitheater. A hush ripples through the crowd as they listen, enraptured. “Their sacrifice was for the most noble of causes, but they should never have been forced to pay the ultimate price. They deserved long, full lives in a better America than the one we now call home. This tragedy is a symptom of the sickness that has infected this nation, a fatal failure to empathize with our fellow countrymen, a deafness to pleas for justice, a blindness to mercy. But the remedy is within all of us, for it is our own humanity. When we purge the diseases of war, prejudice, and ravenous greed, we will reclaim our best selves—our true selves—and our nation will at last be cured.”

The amphitheater is illuminated with not only strobing lightning but the flashbulbs of cameras. The journalists have arrived just in time.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #aegon x y/n #aegon x you #aegon ii x you #aegon ii x y/n #aegon ii x reader #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon ii fanfic #aegon ii fic

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troublesomesnitch · 1 month

Text

New tag game, because I found this medieval picrew and it's fun! Create an Aemond/Aegon self insert/OC love interest.

This is my self insert. I think she is from the Vale.

Picrew by @horatiosroom

Tagging everyone and anyone who wants to do it, plus a random assortment of mutuals.

@dr-aegon, @snowblack-charcoalwhite, @aemondsbabygirl, @aegonx, @humanpurposes,

@arcielee, @sylasthegrim, @boundlessfantasy, @zaldritzosrose, @huramuna,

@sepherinaspoppies, @flowerandblood, @bouncehousedemons, @hoosbandewan, @thekinslayed.

#tag game

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neptuneiris · 3 months

Note

Hi!! I love all your modern aemond fics and no one writes him like you do but I’ve read all your stuff more than once and need new recs 😭 would you consider making a list of all your favourite modern aemond fics/authors? Would highly appreciate 🫶🏻🫶🏻

hello love! thank you so much for your very kind words, it means a lot to me that you like my writing so much🥺❤ and well, it's hard to make that list since I haven't found modern aemond fics lately, even you probably already read the same fics as me, but it doesn't hurt to re-read those too😊

curiosity by @aemxnd

i love this one shot, I always come back to it because absolutely everything is so good👌

teacher's pet by @sapphire-writes

this modern and professor aemond got me in my knees! the plot and the smut is incredible!

just a word by @onesapphireeye

I can't even explain what I feel reading this one shot, the angst and smut here is a delight😭

a little game by @endless-ineffabilities

another masterpiece, I loved it!

valentine's day by @vhagarlovebot

it has slight angst but it's so good, I loved reading this!

his property by @aegonification

there's no way you haven't read this, but if you haven't, what are you waiting for? girl this made me get down on my knees, this daddy aemond made me beg him for more😭👌

after the closing shift by @marthawrites

this author writes amazingly and this one shot…. uff, I don't even have words, just read it please🙏

"be quiet" by @youraverageaemondsimp

there's no way you didn't read this either, but you have to re-read it, give it the support it deserves, it's just amazing, fluffy and with the smut we deserve!

de facto by @humanpurposes

no words, simply amazing. I always love to read it, I can't get enough of it🙌

unhealthy addiction by @myfandomprompts and you were always with me

this girl here has really good fics and THIS ONE SHOT just confirms how well she writes, i love it! i also added a series by her that is not modern aemond but totally worth reading, it's amazing, i swear you won't regret it!

summer's end, autumn's beginning by @marthawrites

another one shot from this writer that had me completely captivated and in love, simply amazing👌

the winter formal by @valleyof-goldenlilies

this one its just SO COOL! and the smutt👀👌

baby said by @mydemimonde

SO HOT AND SO GOOD!

after hours by @sepherinaspoppies

this one had me all red and hot🥵

a fine line by @officialaemondtargaryen

this series has me biting my nails, I'm so excited to see what happens next! if you haven't read it, please read it and also give it lots of support that it deserves it!

growing on you by @huramuna

this broke me and gave me back my emotional stability at the same moment, incredible writing👌

rumble and sway by @targaryen-dynasty

SO HOT, SO HOT AND SO FUCKING GOOD!

one more night by @eraenaa

omg I don't even know what to say about this one shot, I loved it

hearts and handcuffs by @aemonds-fire-writes

this was definitely so good, I loved reading it all,

late night visitor by @valeskafics

omg this one shot-GIRL!

#fic recommendation #aemond targaryen #aemond fanfiction #modern aemond

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aemondtargaryenonlyfans · 2 months

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TAG GAME!

rules: go to pinterest, put in your birthday month, day, and "core aesthetic." pick the first nine photos, and let's see your moodboard!

here‘s mine:

no pressure tags: @connorsui @zaldritzosrose @rafeism @vhagar-balerion-meraxes @multyfangirl @huramuna @marthawrites @arcielee @sylasthegrim @black-dread @eyelinerandcigarettes @succnfuccubus @ruefortherealm

#tag games

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aegonx · 2 months

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shuffle your liked songs playlist, and then post the first six

Tysm for the tags @alicent-archive @aemondstark ❤️❤️

No pressure tags: @bottlesandbarricades @acrossthesestars @undertheorangetree @sapphire-writes @scaly-freaks @hellshee @alicntsdnce @randomdragonfires @barbieaemond @jiang-mingyi @helaenna @arcielee @assortedseaglass @the-wonderland-madnesss @huramuna

#tag games

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randomdragonfires · 5 days

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do you have any modern aemond fic recs? time can’t stop me quite like you did got me feeling some type of way and now i’m in desperate need of reading something else to fill the void while we wait for the next update 😩

HELLO ANON!

Good news is, I am writing a bit of Chapter 3 tonight. Nothing huge, just a scene or so. Work is a bitch but my dinner and chores are done with and it's not even 10pm hehe

So I can study for a bit and then write a little! And I HAVE SUCH A NICE SCENE PLANNED for tonight I'M GIDDY

Okay. As for fic recs, here are some off the top of my head. I'm definitely forgetting some, so if anyone sees this, feel free to add on!

@humanpurposes and @sapphire-writes have some of the best modern AU fics this hellsite has ever seen. They are immersive and so well written.

@inthedayswhenlandswerefew has a few gems you NEED to check out. Comet Donati and Napoleonville are FANTASTIC🤌😩

@huramuna has an angsty aemond oneshot THAT I WOULD GO TO WAR FOR - its called growing on you.

@targaryenrealnessdarling has some AMAZING modern AU fics to check out. Figure skater Aemond? Musician Aemond? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP.

@lauraneedstochill writes some of the best Aemond fics I know, and she has a modern college AU fic that I absolutely adore.

@theoneeyedprince A REFINED TASTE. Enough said.

#sam tries to answer stuff #house of the dragon #hotd fic

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noeverse · 23 days

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Among Crowns, Prologue: The Wheel of Fate

Author's Notes

Be welcome to my first HOTD fic! I'm excited to share it with y'all and see where this story takes me. I hope you guys love Aurynn and her story as much as I do!

English isn't my first language, so please forgive any typos/grammar mistakes

If you wish to be tagged in this series, let me know in the notes and asks!

This series will contain canon-typical sexism, sexual themes, violence, infidelity, among other tags to be added, as well as some canon takes from both Fire and Blood and HOTD, and even some liberties of mine

Summary: Princess Rhaenyra, seeing the state of her court and claim to the throne, decides to switch her cards; her firstborn son will marry Lady Aurynn Mormont in order to have a shot with ensuring the North's allegiance, and Lord Rodrik Mormont shall take Baela as wife in Jacaerys' stead. With war at their doors, these siblings will play whatever tune its sang in order to live in a volatile enviroment.

Words: 2.0k

Pairings: Jacaerys Velaryon x OFC (Aurynn Mormont) Baela Targaryen x OMC (Rodrik Mormont), eventual Cregan Stark x OFC & Alyn Velaryon x OFC (Aurynn Mormont) and OFC x OFC (Visella Targaryen @blood0fthedragon x Aurynn Mormont)

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: None (they will be added as the series progresses)

Tagging: @aeksion-aekse @mini-kunoichi @huramuna @blood0fthedragon

Princess Rhaenyra paced herself in her chambers, the thought of war coming soon heavy on her mind. Alicent had made her move already, and she was running out of time. For ten years, they had been playing the political chess. Her eldest son was of age. And Baela seemed perfect for him; however, she was not blind. She had seen the way Jace looked at the Mormont girl.

She was certainly a beauty, with a long cascade of brown curls, expressive brown eyes and a wit and charm that easily matched others. And she was from a beloved and fierce house from the North. Baela was a Targaryen, and a daughter of her beloved husband, however, it was clear that there was no attraction between one another. If Rhaenyra was to sway the North to her side, then a successful marriage between a Northern and her son would be the wise thing to do.

She also was aware of Rodrik’s eligibility. He was strikingly handsome, an accomplished warrior, a patron of the arts and cunning in politics. However, his wandering eye escaped nobody. Someone as brazen and ill-tempered as Baela could either make him better or worse. Perhaps, if she played the game right, it could be done well.

Summoning her advisors to the chamber, she asked “Tell me, my lords, about Lady Mormont.”

Both men looked at one another “Well, Princess, she is a certified beauty, and an accomplished one at that. A famous companion of the princes, and someone very much wanted in all of Westeros. Why, only on her thirteenth name-day we received numerous letters from all the places. Do you plan on arranging a marriage for her, Princess?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” She folded her hands.

Aurynn was brushing her very long hair, sighing as she performed her nightly dance with her Northern ringlets. It had been almost eight years since she arrived at Dragonstone after a pact between her late lord father and the princess. Life had been good, playing with the princes and getting to hone her courtly skills. And perhaps find a good marriage, one with a lord that would treat her well and give her beautiful children and a purpose.

Suddenly, a knock interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see sweet Luke, doubt in his eyes. She had always seen him as a little brother, and the feeling was mutual. “I… am not interrupting, am I, Lynn?”

“Of course not, sweet boy. Do come, tell me what’s on your mind.”

He sat at the edge of the bed, used to seeing her in nightgown and her hair down, something that raised many eyebrows “As you know, Mother is to send us to gain alliances. With our dragons.” He was fidgeting, as he usually did. She got up from her seat and squeezed her hands in his, calming his racing thoughts.

“Take a breath. Order your thoughts,” he did as she told him “Now, speak slowly.”

“I’m afraid, Lynn. What if something goes wrong? What if Arrax gets sick? Jace looks so confident…”

“Just because someone sounds confident doesn’t mean that they are. And I know what you’ll say: ‘but Jace is perfect’. He is virtuous, yes, but he is but a boy. As am I. As are you. There is nothing wrong with being afraid every once in a while.”

“Are you ever afraid, Lynn?”

“Many times a week, my boy. That I will be betrothed to a cruel old man. That everything I’ve worked for isn’t enough. Of my house’s fate.”

Luke flushed “If it helps, I’d sooner marry you than ship you off to a cruel old man.”

Aurynn threw her head back and laughed, a melody that often calmed and soothed the young prince. Then, she kissed his cheek “Oh, Luke, my dearest boy, I’m afraid I’d be deemed to old for you. Besides, you and Rhaena seem to get along just fine.”

“The sentiment isn’t only mine.”

Aurynn frowned, amused “How come?”

Lucerys flushed, the face he did when he talked too much “I, uh, should go to bed. I have much to prepare with, uh, Arrax. Good night, Lynn!” Then, he sprinted away from the room, leaving an amused and confused Aurynn.

The next morning, Aurynn had dressed herself with a beautiful purple ensemble and had finally coiffed her hair in a complicated hairdo when her door was knocked “Who is it?”

A masculine voice replied “Princess Rhaenyra sends for you, my lady. I am to escort you to her.”

Feeling nervous and excited, she polished herself and opened the door. Taking a deep breath, she nodded “Let’s go then.” After crossing a corner, she asked “Do you know what business does Her Grace want to do with me?”

“I do not know, my lady. I am only following orders.”

They finally entered the room, where at the top of the table was Rhaenyra, Prince Jacaerys and Lady Baela. Curtsying to them all, she gave them a friendly face “Did you summon me, Your Grace?”

“Do approach the table, Aurynn. Would you like some wine?”

“No, thank you, I’ve had breakfast a few minutes ago.” It was a small lie. Her stomach was made of knots, and she prayed that none of them heard her intestine roar.

“As you know, you’ve reached age of marriage, and your presence has not escaped my allies. Men all over the Vale, the North and other regions have been sending me owls for your hand, offering you all sorts of luxuries. Even houses that are allied to Alicent’s party have offered to swear fealty to me if I were to give you your hand in marriage.” She looked around the room “However, my council and I have agreed that none of these men are a match worthy of you, and have thus come to a decision.” She then looked at her eldest son and proclaimed “You and my son Jace shall marry within the month, and you, Baela, shall marry Lady Mormont’s brother Rodrik. He is handsome, rich, young and a formidable ally. He is sailing to accept your hand as we speak.”

Aurynn’s gaze turned to an equally stunned Jace. They had known each other all their lives, and Aurynn had always admired Jace and had fancied him for long, even after his duties had taken over. They have had a strong connection that raised question of marriage before Princess Rhaenyra married Prince Daemon and betrothed his daughters to her sons.

Nevertheless, one couldn’t simply reject the formidable Prince of Dragonstone. She bowed to the princess and recited “I thank you for this privilege, Your Grace, and promise to be the loveliest, most dutiful wife to your son.”

Jace woke up from his shock and gave them a rehearsed smile “If it pleases my mother, it shall be done. Might I have a moment alone with my betrothed?”

He didn’t even wait for his mother to respond before they both curtsied and he practically dragged her out of the room.

“Jace!” Aurynn exclaimed, surprised at her reaction.

He didn’t seem to hear her, still in stupor. They walked and walked, his grip on her, until they finally got out, in the beautiful garden they used to chase one another and laugh and munch berries.

“Jace, you’re hurting me!” Lynn finally exclaimed.

Said words seemed to wake him from his stupor and let go of her hand, clearly embarrassed “Forgive me, Lynn. I didn’t think I was gripping you too hard.” He examined her hand and gave it some gentle strokes. Her breath caught. “I didn’t know that my mother would pull this off.”

“Jace, it’s alright—,”

“Lynn, being my bride is being in the eve of danger. I understand if you’re scared.”

She looked at him defiantly “I am a Mormont, Jace. I am not scared of a drunken prince and his desperate mother.”

He squeezed her hand, a small smile on his lips “I know that you are as fierce as a Northerner comes, but this is different. You’d be queen someday, if we aren’t betrayed. Besides, you deserve better than someone whom they call ‘bastard’ behind his back.”

“I don’t care about that, Jace. I care about your good opinion and your mother’s. If you don’t wish to marry me, say it. You have the power to undo the alliance.”

He smiled sadly “I am flattered that you think me of someone with power, but my mother’s made her choice. Your brother is on his way. And… I do like the idea of marrying you.”

Lynn looked at those tender brown eyes and swallowed “Truly, Jace?”

He gave her a tentative look “Do you, Lynn? Like the idea of marrying me as well?”

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, her gaze went to his lips, and he seemed to notice. Soon, his hands were on her hips, squeezing the light Dornish lace and stroked aside a wild ringlet.

“I—,”

“Jace!” A familiar voice called.

They both bolted away, clearly flushed. Luke was running towards them, Joffrey in tow, “Is it true? You and Lynn are to be married?”

It was Lynn who spoke “Yes, dear Luke. Your mother was generous enough to allow me to join our family.”

He smiled “Amazing! It’s just like when we were boys! You and Lynn married, in those imagine games we used to play when—,”

Jace, clearly embarrassed, placed his hands on his brothers’ shoulders and cleared his throat “Let me tell you all about it in our dragon pit. I am sure Lady Mormont has many preparations to make for my brother-in-law’s arrival, don’t you, Lynn?”

Trying not to chuckle, Lynn nodded, taking the opposite direction to the castle, wanting to busy her toes in the sand. When she reached the beach, she found a familiar silver hair. She slowly and gently approached her “Might I sit?”

Baela looked at her and nodded wordlessly. She sat besides her at a respectful distance and looked out at the sea “If you’re wondering, I am not angry. Neither of us asked to be moved around like chess pieces.”

Baela sighed “Isn’t that all we are? Chess pieces to move and discard to their heart’s delight?”

Lynn bit her lip “Gods, I hope not. I suppose that, to our fathers, we are, but Princess Rhaenyra is no man.”

“She ought to behave like one if she is to hold the throne one day.”

It suddenly hit her. Baela was tragically right. Being a woman was unsafe as it was in Westeros, and Princess Rhaenyra must’ve felt cornered by her rivals for her to make such sudden move. Jace was a great man, but a man nevertheless. As was Rodrik, and Luke, and everyone in the council.

She liked Jace, and with time, she might even grow to love him, but she was no fool either. She knew from a young age which role to play if she wanted to win the eternal game of survival in a world where women were feeble and discardable little things.

“Let them think that we are,” she declared “but we will know the truth. Let them believe the illusion that we are innocent, meek and playable things, as long as my will is made.” She looked at Baela “reforming a man like Rodrik is no easy task, but it is not impossible.”

Baela seemed to catch up “Go on.”

“Give him something that no common girl can give him. A reason to be with you alone. Let it be your bedding skills, or wealth, or the illusion of having the girl he’s dreamt of having, and he’ll be yours. Make yourself irreplaceable, and he shall be yours. Isn’t that what men want in a woman, after all? A gem so rare, so wanted, that if they do not take care of it, it may slip from his fingers.”

Baela smiled at her “I pray to the Gods that your brother is as cunning as you, Aurynn. We’ll need all the wit and conniving we are allowed to show in this tryst.”

#house of the dragon fanfiction #hotd fanfic #rhaenyra targaryen #oc: aurynn mormont #jacaerys velaryon #baela targaryen #oc: rodrik mormont #lucerys velaryon #mywriting*#hotd au

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presidenthades · 2 months

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Nine people I’d like to get to know better ☺️

Tagged by @huramuna ❤️

The last song I listened to: Big Girls Don’t Cry by Fergie (part of my Compromise playlist)

Favorite color: royal blue

Currently watching: Shogun (it’s SO GOOD, anyone who has any interest in historical dramas must watch it)

Spicy, sweet, or savory: sweet > savory > spicy

Current obsession: uhhh House of the Dragon? 😙 Also fashion history and medieval daily living, but that’s related to HOTD too 🔥

Last thing I googled: how to copy paste a tumblr post on iPhone 🤡 (but before that it was how long does it take to carve leather)

No pressure tags: @aerica13 @inthedayswhenlandswerefew @elleinmotion @julyzaa @queen-ellisande @alexandria-millie @yaosaysobjection @looneytun3s @shiranai-atsune

#tag game #about me #i love tag games #please keep tagging me

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huramuna · 4 months

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firehaired, lavendereyed -- oneshot.

mean prince regent aemond x pregnant wife reader

a sequel to stoatfaced, dragonhearted. it can be read as a standalone, though! its not as dark or mean as the first one and is (kinda) fluffy. thank you @echos-muses for inspiring this!

word count: 2.5k

@huramuna-fics -- follow & turn on notifications for just my fic postings!

content: smut (specifics below cut), angst, fluffy, meanish aemond, prob unhealthy relationship, emotionally constipated aemond experiences emotions, reader is described w/ auburn hair, no use of y/n, not beta read, i literally went into a haze writing this there are probably mistakes, pregnancy

cloudbusting - kate bush • i bet on losing dogs - mitski

warnings: oral (f receiving), p in v, talks of choking and biting but its not in this fic, BREEDING KINK

Being the wife of a prince, a prince-regent no less, always felt like an honor. People would bow at you in the corridors, maids would bring you your favorite sweets without asking, courtiers would invite you to countless luncheons and extravagant events. It made you wonder, though– was it out of respect for your station– or out of fear for your husband?

He was constantly your shadow now, insisting on being with you at every waking moment ever since the maesters confirmed your pregnancy. His hand would constantly be guiding you on the middle of your back, towards whatever destination you were off to. He would insist you eat more for the babe, would rub your feet and prop pillows behind your back when you both retired for the day.

As he shepherded you into the throne room, he glanced at the courtesans and sworn lords alike– he had worn the crown since his brother fell from the sky in flames, burnt and scarred. He melded into the role like he was meant for it, as you so told him.

‘It looks better on you than it ever did on him, husband.’

‘Careful now, dear wife. That sounds treasonous, does it not?’

It wasn’t hard to spur him on into a feral state of being lately, as he adored your body filling out, belly stretching, breasts growing as you carried his child. His, his. He was still cold, in his way, of course– that would be something you would never pull him out of.

‘Husband?’ you had mewled softly as you came back from the maester’s chambers after receiving the news.

Aemond was sitting on the loveseat in front of the fire, one hand parting the pages of a book. He looked deep in thought, bristling slightly at being interrupted. ‘What?’

‘I’ve just come from the maester’s chambers,’ you started, walking slowly towards him like a skittish animal.

‘Why? Are you hurt?’ he closed his book with a loud snap and set it aside. ‘Come.’ he prostrated himself on the couch, legs spread slightly as an indication.

You lifted your skirts and sat upon his lap, as you do– as he commands, usually. It was easy to know what he wanted without words. He inspected your face carefully, turning you from side to side, skin taut between thumb and forefinger. Then, the back of his hand felt your forehead. ‘You aren’t running a temperature. You aren’t sick, are you, little wife?’

‘N-No… I had thought so with… the issues of late.’

‘Issues? What issues?’ he pressed, his lone eye boring into you with intensity.

‘I… ehm… have had an upset stomach– and… my…’ you blushed as you spoke. ‘My breasts have been tender.’

‘... hm.’

‘The maesters– they… inspected, thoroughly. They say I am with child… two moons.’

‘Pregnant. You’re… pregnant?’

‘Y-yes.’

Aemond stared at you for a long moment, not blinking. You had feared his reaction, you weren’t sure why, though. You knew your husband… liked you, didn’t he? In his own, special way. The way that he loved to call you stupid and bite you and choke you and never tell you that he loves you, except when lost in the throes of pleasure.

‘Husband?’ you squeaked out, anxiety swirling in the pit of your stomach at his lack of reaction. Aemond was good at concealing his emotions– but you could see the pupil of his violet eye dilating like a creature in the dark.

‘Good,’ he said simply, a hand on your waist, squeezing slightly. Then, a moment of recollection came over his face and he stopped squeezing, letting his hand laze on the curve of your body.

‘... good?’

‘Yes. Good. Do you wish praise for doing your duty?’ he grunted, already beginning to unlace your bodice. He wriggled it down your chemise and pawed one of your breasts. ‘Hm.’

‘W-what?’

‘They do seem… larger.’

He was gentle to you that night and every night after that. In touch and act alone– his words still left much to be desired.

As you both perused the throne room, approaching the iron throne, Aemond’s jaw clenched in irritation. You were well along in your pregnancy now, eight moons, and were quite round and stout, feeling all the part of a plump trout carrying eggs, trying to swim upstream–

“Where is the chair?” Aemond barked suddenly, causing you to jump.

“T-the chair, your grace?” one of the servants mumbled.

“The chair for my lady wife, you fool. Do you expect her to stand?” He thoroughly scared the daylights out of the poor servant, who rushed off to find a chair. “Incompetent.”

“... I pray he returns soon– my ankles are protesting this walk.” you murmured.

“If all of these prying eyes weren’t here,” Aemond whispered in your ear. “Mayhaps I’d have you sit with me on the throne.”

The thought of it sent a thrill through you, tingling all the way to the base of your spine and beyond. It was a wonderful fantasy, but you couldn’t get the logistics of it out of your head– you would certainly impale yourself on one of the unruly swords. “Mayhaps we can arrange something in our chambers after this, husband?”

Aemond uttered a sound between a growl and a quiet moan before guiding you further to your seat, now properly prepared. You leaned back on the chair, adorned with a pillow, putting a hand over your swollen belly.

As much as you appreciated Aemond’s… concern and vigilance with having you everywhere with him, you wished you could skip the tedious things. Your mind wondered the entirety of the session, tuning out the droning voices of the lords and only focusing on your husband’s. He sounded so powerful, commanding his lessers as if they were the sheep and he the shepherd. You didn’t lie when you thought the crown looked better on him than Aegon– Aemond was more suited towards this life.

You know he wanted it all– the title, the crown, but not at the expense of his brother, never at his expense– so he would have to be content with what he could make for himself. That included you and your unborn child. You wished so dearly that it would be a son, a son for him to continue his bloodline, his legacy.

Finally, the meeting ended and Aemond all but swept you off your aching feet to your rooms. He set you down on the bed and undressed you without much ceremony. “I couldn’t keep my mind off of you that entire time– if I were a lesser man… I may have not waited until our chambers to succumb to you.” he whispered, dragging kisses up from your knees, to your thighs and then your belly.

A gentle, but calloused, hand wrought over the stretched skin. He loved touching your belly, he couldn’t get enough of it– he was a scholarly man in all accounts, secretly in wonder of the machinations of the human body and how it could vessel something like another person. He would never admit this, of course, but you could tell just by how his eye roved your form, how he took in every detail. He parted your legs, swiping a finger between your already soaked folds– as it didn’t take much for you to become feral these days, either. You had been since he suggested the idea of the throne, forced to squeeze your thighs together through the duration of the hearing to relieve some of the ache.

“So wet for me already, are you?” he hummed, gathering your slick with two fingers this time and kissing your thigh, so close, so close to your aching center.

“... y-yes, husband– you kept me waiting,” you murmured. In your pregnancy, you’d become indignant and spoiled– and he let you. “So cruel.”

“Cruel?” Aemond questioned, a brow raised. “Cruel– you know me cruel, my dear wife,” he growled, parting your folds and licking a line from bottom to top. “Cruel would be… letting you sit for hours longer on the edge and not giving it to you,” he anointed his point by roving his tongue over your pearl, eliciting a keening whine from you. “Or mayhaps, not giving it to you at all. Shall I be cruel, wife?”

You shook your head fervently. “P-please, Aemond,” you panted, the heat of the moment and your out-of-whack hormones already making you perspire, sweat beading at your forehead. You felt like a bitch in heat, every touch of him on you was like a thousand sparks from a flint, trying to light your pleasure, trying, trying– but then dying, but it was always so close, on the precipice. “Touch me– don’t tease me.”

“Hm,” he roved it over in his mind for a faux moment. “You are doing so well carrying my child, aren’t you?”

“Y-yes, please!”

“Mayhaps I will reward you for being a good wife, a good mother.”

“Please, my king,” you whimpered, using his title only reserved for bedplay. You wanted it bad, and he knew.

Once again, his pupil waxed and waned like the moon phases, like the ebbing and flowing tide– and then he began to feast upon you like the animal he truly was. His tongue roved over your sensitive core, suckling and nipping. Your hand flew to his hair, clenching it into your fist. He had become so expert in pleasing you with his mouth, something he only started after you became pregnant– you hoped this would stay.

“A-Aemond, f-fuck,” you cursed, throwing your head back on the pillow, clutching his silky strands between your fingers. “M-more, your grace–”

He lavished you like he was starved, not letting up at any point to even let you breathe– it was a constant assault on your clit, with only a few moments of relief when he caught his breath, looking up at you like the cat who got the cream, a smug grin on his face, the glisten of your essence on him. His thumb finished what his tongue started, kneading over your sensitive bud as you babbled and cried, fluttering around nothing as you came.

You heard the sound of his belt undoing, and his hand was in yours, guiding you to his rock hard member. “Don’t you see what you do to me, hm? I quite like you round, so full of my child,” he said as he lined up with your entrance, sliding in with no resistance. “Mayhaps I shall keep you like this and we will have an entire castle full of children.” he stayed upright, hands on your thighs. You still ached for his hand around your throat, so badly– but it wasn’t good for the babe.

He began a slow, almost lazy pace, staring down at you now as he loomed like a shadow, picking up his speed. As he sped up, he reached up and tore off his eyepatch, throwing it aside. The sapphire in his eye socket gleamed at you and you swore you could see yourself reflected into it–

It didn’t take long for him to reach his own peak, grunting and growling, balls tightening. His hand also itched so desperately to lace around your throat like a necklace, but his hand just twitched and clawed into the sheets as he emptied himself into you. He, regrettably to both of you, pulled out and encircled himself around you, arms resting on your ribs as you were lulled to sleep by his breathing and closeness.

You awoke, not knowing how many hours later, to him speaking. “Nyke jaelagon ao emagon aōha muñnykeā's pungos.” I hope you have your mother’s nose. “Ao'll rhaenagon gūrēñare lēda iā egros rȳ izula. Iā kostilus tōma. Aōha muña kessa daor hae ziry, nyke gīmigon.” You'll start training with a sword at age four. Or perhaps five. Your mother will not like it, I know.

His head was laid near your belly, faced away from you, his hand draped over it softly. He didn’t know you were awake– he was… speaking to the baby. You could only catch bits and pieces of what he was saying– but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t a conversation for you to know. You closed your eyes once more.

–

“M-may the mother… guide me… and bless me with a son,” you murmured. “Bless us with a son, please.” you groaned as you tried to get up, your knees bruised and sore. You had been praying every day for the last fortnight as your delivery loomed closer. You feared to give him a daughter– as accompanying as he’d been during your pregnancy, you knew… you knew what he wanted. And you knew it was a coin flip to give him what he wanted.

You felt heavier than usual, finding it difficult to get back up after being down for so long– you felt a strain in your lower back, then an acute pop. A gush of wetness flowed down your legs. “A-ah– ser!” you called to your sworn sword, a member of the Kingsguard picked by Aemond specifically to be with you at all times when he wasn’t around. Presently, Aemond was taking a ride upon Vhagar. “Ser!”

“My lady?” the Kingsguard rushed in, eyes wide. “Are you alright?”

“T-the… the babe–”

–

“Why wasn’t I notified?” Aemond growled, stalking through the corridors as he paced to the maester’s quarters.

“Y-You were in the sky, your grace– we didn’t know how to reach you–”

“Fuck’s sake– is she alright, then?”

“Yes– uhm…”

“Uhm? What? Is my wife alright or not?!”

“Yes– she and the babe are alright.”

Aemond fumed as he opened the doors, eye zeroing in on the maester, then you. You were mortified, crying, holding a little bundle against your breast.

“A-Aemond,” you croaked. You were shaking like a leaf.

“Congratulations, your grace,” the maester spoke. “It is a healthy baby girl.”

Girl.

You couldn’t stop sobbing as you watched his face, impassive, turn to confusion, to longing, to grief, to anger, to…. Nothing. He stared at you blankly then.

“Aemond– please– I- I prayed to the Gods every day for a son, I’m sorry,” you blubbered. “I’m so sorry–”

“Don’t.” Aemond’s voice snapped like a whip as he walked closer. “Let me see the babe.”

You offered the bundle to him– a baby girl. She had curls of red hair like you and lavender eyes like her father. Sensing movement and a change of presence, the baby sneezed, staring up at her father. He stared back, his expression unreadable. “Vaella. Her name is Vaella.” he didn’t ask, nor suggest. He declared. Glancing back at you, he spoke quietly. “We will just have to try again, won’t we, wife?” His tone was like a fog upon you– it was proposed like a thinly veiled threat, a promise– but then his gaze softened almost imperceptibly. You wonder if you imagined it. “Kirimvose, ñuha dōna ābrazȳrys.” Thank you, sweet wife. “Ñuha hūra,” My moon. He turned back to Vaella, whispering. “Se ñuha qēlossās.” And my stars.

–

Aemond ended up getting his heir and then some, a year and a half later. You gave birth to triplets. All boys.

Maegon, Vaelar, and Rhaelor.

#aemond fic #aemond fanfiction #aemond targaryen #hotd aemond #aemond x fem!reader #aemond #aemond one eye #hotd fic #aemond fanfic #aemond smut #my writing

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hotd-bigbang · 2 months

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Thank you so much to everyone who took part in the Spring Picture Prompts event! Our next prompt event kicks off tomorrow (April 1st), so please keep an eye out for that!

Below the cut is a list of everything everyone contributed - thank you again for all of your wonderful contributions. We have tried to be diligent in keeping a note of all contributions, however, Tumblr tags aren't always the most reliable. If you don't see your work on the list below, please let us know ASAP so we can include it.

March 4th - Cherry Blossom

Petals Consumed by @lya-dustin

Helaena x OC Moodboard by @theoldpersonliveshere

Helaena x OC Moodboard by @queen--kenobi

Beneath the Cherry Tree by @sapphire-writes

Wither on the Vine by @a-world-of-whimsy-5

New Bloom by @barbiedragon

Dreams of Blossoms by @huramuna

Costume Appreciation by @spoolofblack

Blossom Wishes by @emilykaldwen

Helaena Moodboard by @zaldritzosrose

Beneath the Blooming Branches by @marthawrites

Under the Cherry Tree by @the-dendrophile-bookdragon

Citrus Flowers by @/thedarkwhisperedtome

Maybe We Exist to Burn by @far-shores

March 11th - Moon

Creatures of the Night by @/huramuna

Alysmond Moodboard by @/zaldritzosrose

No More Than I Was or Than I Am by @acrossthesestars

Jacaerys x OC Moodboard by @/theoldpersonliveshere

To the Moon and Back by @/boundlessfantasy

A Moon Like This by @/lya-dustin

Hūra Vāedar (Moon Song) by @/barbiedragon

Mysaria Costume Appreciation by @/spoolofblack

Criston Cole x OC by @darkwolf76

Moonshadow by @/emilykaldwen

A Tale of Two Moons by @/marthawrites

In the Moonlight by @thedarkwhisperedtome

Gaze of the Moon by @raz-writes-the-thing

March 18th - Lake

A Kinder Sea by @/lya-dustin

Corlys x Rhaenys Moodboard by @/zaldritzosrose

Aegon x OC, Aemond x OC by @/theoldpersonliveshere

Criston Cole x OC by @/darkwolf76

Rhaenicent Moodboard by @/barbiedragon

New Peace by @/thedarkwhisperedtome

March 25th - Forest

Aegon Moodboard by @/zaldritzosrose

The Youngest Victor by @/lya-dustin

Alicent, Rhaenyra & OC by @/theoldpersonliveshere

Baela Moodboard by @/barbiedragon

𝕵𝖊𝖍𝖎𝖐𝖆𝖗𝖞𝖘 by @/thedarkwhisperedtome

Criston Cole x OC by @/darkwolf76

#hotd #hotd fan fiction #hotd fandom #house of the dragon #house of the dragon fan fiction #house of the dragon fandom #hotd fan art #house of the dragon fan art #hotd spring prompts 24

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 2 months

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1968 [Chapter 2: Hera, Goddess Of Childbirth]

A/N: Enjoy Chapter 2 a little early! See you on Sunday for Chapter 3 🥰

Word Count: 5.4k

💜 All of my writing can be found HERE! 💜

You are buzzed at a private party in the Rainbow Room of Rockefeller Center, Midtown, February 1966, chandeliers and candlelight, pink and red hearts made of paper hanging from shimmering strings and littering the floor. Your roommate Barbara Nassau Astor—yes those Astors, Astor Avenue in the Bronx, Astoria in Queens, “the landlords of New York”—brought you along tonight, and the chance to be swept up into her glittering existence is precisely why your father sent you to a school like Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart. Barb knows people who know people who know other people and every single individual in that grand design is wealthy and worldly and could possibly lead you into the generous arms of your future husband. You are from Tarpon Springs, Florida, heiress to a sea sponge fortune, and your father nurses powerful ambitions of intermingling his blood with the Northeastern elite.

You scan the selection as you sip your Pink Squirrel. You could marry a doctor and sit in the living room waiting for him to come home at 9 or 10 or 11 p.m., fix him a Whiskey Sour or a Sazerac, listen to him bemoan the complexities of nerves and veins before accompanying him to bed and repeating the whole process the next day. You could marry a lawyer or an advertising executive, and your fate would be much the same. Your own parents are partners in life and business, but you have seen enough to know how rare this is. These men of the Rainbow Room, 65 floors above icy streets radiant with headlights, want a wife whose hands will stay manicured and idle: nannies will tend to the children, maids will clean the house, mistresses will massage the knots out of the muscles of his back. And you—a relative upstart, new money among ancient bloodlines—will have no right to demand otherwise.

A man interrupts your reverie. He wants to know about the pendant you wear around your neck. You sigh before you turn to him; you resist the instinct to roll your eyes. And then you see him. Tall, blonde, blue-eyed, with a curious intensity and a teasing little smirk, an Old Fashioned in his grasp like molten gold. You don’t know it yet, but he is a senator from New Jersey, very recently elected, victorious yet still hungry. He steals the oxygen out of your lungs. He drowns you in the amber-musk warmth of his cologne.

“It’s Athena,” you say, touching your fingertips to the silver medallion self-consciously; and you are rarely self-conscious. The black polish has been scrubbed from your nails and replaced with a soft, shimmering champagne. You spent two hours this afternoon having your hair painfully teased and arranged into a Brigitte Bardot-inspired updo.

“Goddess of wisdom.”

“And war and peace. And math.”

“Math?” He is intrigued.

“That’s what I’m studying at school. Math.”

“And yet you are not disinterested in the humanities. You know Greek mythology.”

“Well, Tarpon Springs has a lot of Greeks, and that’s where I’m from, so.”

“Studies math. From Tarpon Springs, Florida. I’m learning everything about you.” He smiles, this magnetic stranger who has captured you like a moon lured into a planet’s gravity. He swallows a mouthful of his Old Fashioned, moisture glistening on his lips. “Do you like Greek food?”

You can’t seem to follow his words. Blood is rushing into your face, hot and dizzying. “What?”

“Greek food. Have you tried it? Hummus, tzatziki, gyros, spanakopita, horiatiki, baklava.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve had it. It’s great.”

“My family owns a house on Long Beach Island,” he says casually. “We eat a lot of Greek food there. You should join us for dinner sometime soon.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Very soon. Maybe this weekend. Are you free?”

No, you’re not; but you’ll cancel plans until you are. “Um, okay. Sure. And who…sorry, I might have missed it, but…who are you…?”

“Aemond Targaryen.” And he shakes your hand like you’re someone who matters. “I’m a senator. I’m trying to end the war.”

With him, you could be a part of something magnificent. With him, you could help save the world.

~~~~~~~~~~

Asteria is the goddess of falling stars, but the home of rising ones. On the north end of Long Beach Island, New Jersey—only 100 miles south of the sleek bladelike skyscrapers of Manhattan—lies the sprawling Targaryen estate. The nine-acre property features one main house and another three for guests, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a ten-car garage, a boathouse, a pier, and an ample stretch of beach that abuts the Atlantic Ocean, open water with nothing interrupting the infinite, miles-deep blue from the East Coast to the Iberian Peninsula. It is the first week of July, 1968, and your 23rd birthday. You are lazing in a lounge chair on the emerald green lawn and eating your third slice of melopita, a cheesecake-like dessert made with honey and ricotta. It originates from the Greek island of Sifnos.

“You two can’t murder each other while I’m gone,” Aemond says. He’s sitting between you and Aegon. His stitches have healed, the worst of his pain has subsided, his poll numbers have only improved since the assassination attempt. He has a glass eye that he can insert for public appearances, but he dislikes it; at home he wears a leather eyepatch that still unnerves the children. Tomorrow, Aemond is flying to Tacoma to campaign ahead of the Washington State Convention on the 13th. Most of the family will be joining him, with only three Targaryens remaining at Asteria: ailing Viserys, useless Aegon, and you, officially too pregnant to travel by plane. You are wearing a floral, flowing, two-piece swimsuit. The sun is blazing in a clear sky. The record player is piping out Time Of The Season by the Zombies.

Aegon waves a hand flippantly, then adjusts his preposterously large blue-tinted plastic sunglasses; he is shirtless, flabby, very sunburned. “I’ll barely be here.”

Aemond looks over at him, amused. “Oh yeah? And what pressing engagements do you have to attend to? I’d love to know.”

You take a bite of your melopita and scatter crumbs across the swell of your belly: seven and a half months along. “I’m sure the prostitutes miss him.”

“They do,” Aegon snaps. “I’m their favorite customer.”

“Well you’re a reprieve for them. It’s always over so quickly.”

Aemond is snickering. Aegon says to him: “23, huh? A 13-year age difference. She could almost be your daughter.”

“And 17 years younger than you. She could definitely be yours.”

“That’s how Aegon likes his girls,” you say. “Too inexperienced to recognize end-stage degeneracy. Still stumbling their way through Shakespeare for English class.”

“Why can’t she stay at the brownstone?” Aegon asks irritably. Aemond owns a historic townhouse in Georgetown for when Congress is in session, though he’s rarely been there since he announced that he was running for president.

“Because Doxie is here to make sure she’s taken care of,” Aemond replies. Eudoxia has been the head housekeeper of Asteria for decades, a formidable battleaxe of a woman who speaks very little English and has a seemingly endless supply of patterned scarves to wrap around her ink black dyed hair. There currently aren’t any permanent staff stationed at the brownstone, and Aemond does not trust strangers. “And because my future first lady is hosting a tea party on the 10th.”

“A tea party!” Aegon gasps, mocking you. “Surely that will patch the wounds of our troubled nation. She’s an inspiration. She’s motherfucking Gloria Steinem.”

“She’s Aphrodite,” Aemond says, beaming with pride, his remaining eye fixed on your belly. He’s lost one piece of himself, but in a month and a half he’ll gain another. “Goddess of love.”

“There must be a more appropriate mythological character. Medusa, perhaps. Lyssa was the goddess of rabies, Epiales was the goddess of nightmares.”

“Aegon, I had no idea you were so…” You search for the right word. “Literate.”

“Io was turned into a cow.” He grins at you, toothy, malicious.

“She’s also one of Jupiter’s moons,” Aemond muses. He draws invisible orbits in the air with his long, graceful fingers. “Beautiful, celestial, pristine…”

“A satellite,” Aegon says. “Mindless. Aimless. Going wherever she’s told.”

Aemond insists as he twists the bracelet around your right wrist, a delicate gold chain he bought during your honeymoon in Hawaii: “Aphrodite.”

“Didn’t she fuck around with, like, everyone?”

“Maybe you should be Aphrodite,” you tell Aegon.

Mimi appears, tottering across the lawn with the straps of her sundress sliding off her shoulders and her Gimlet sloshing precariously in its glass. The children are playing in the surf with the nannies and Fosco, who is entertaining them by diving for seashells and delivering his treasures into their tiny, grasping palms. Criston is supervising from the sand, though he steals frequent glimpses of Alicent as she feeds a wheelchair-bound Viserys—much diminished after a number of strokes—his own slice of melopita, one careful, patient spoonful at a time. “Can we…” Mimi bursts out laughing and almost falls over. She claws her way upright again using the back of Aegon’s chair. “Um…I was thinking…”

“What?” Aegon asks, annoyed, avoidant. If they’ve ever been happy, it was a transient epoch that came and went long before you joined the family. It was before the asteroid killed the dinosaurs.

“We should go back to Mykonos. We had such a nice time in Mykonos. Didn’t we? Didn’t we just adore Mykonos?”

Aegon sighs, glowering out over the ocean. “Yeah, we sure did. Ten years ago.”

“Exactly!” Mimi gushes, oblivious. “When can we go? Next week? Let’s go next week.”

“Mimi, you and the kids will be in Washington, remember?” Aemond says. Alicent will have to be her handler; usually it’s your job to make sure Mimi is ready for photos, eats enough to stay conscious, doesn’t trip over her own feet, doesn’t talk too much to the press.

“Washington?” Like she’s never heard of it.

“The state. Not the city. For the convention.”

“Oh right. Right.” She gulps her Gimlet. You could set your watch by Mimi’s drinking. Tipsy by lunch, drunk at dinner, crawling on the floor chasing the dogs around by 8 p.m. The Targaryens keep a drove of Alopekis, small and white and foxlike. “Well…maybe some other time.”

“After the election,” Aemond says with an abiding, encouraging smile. He tolerates Mimi because he needs her: happy wholesome family, American Dream. Down at the water’s edge, the nannies are giving towels to Fosco and the children as they scamper out of the frothing waves, Mimi’s five and Helaena’s three: Daphne, Neaera—no one can ever seem to spell her name correctly, least of all the six-year-old girl herself—and Evangelos.

Mimi departs, on the hunt for a fresh Gimlet. Aegon reaches into the pocket of his swim trunks—Hawaiian print, royal blue—and pulls out a joint and a Zippo. He sticks the joint between his teeth and goes to light it.

“No,” Aemond says immediately, yanking the joint out of Aegon’s mouth and stomping it into the earth. Then he points down the beach towards the sand dunes. “You know journalists will sneak around trying to get photos. You know we’re never truly alone out here.”

“They can’t tell what I’m smoking!”

“Don’t argue with me.”

“You know there are teenagers getting their limbs blown off in Vietnam right now? I think society has bigger problems than me smoking grass.”

“And yet to solve those bigger problems, I have to win in November. And the suburban housewives will not vote for me if they think I support legalizing marijuana. Trust me, I know. I’ve met them.”

“I wouldn’t want those people’s votes,” Aegon says derisively.

“You’d rather Nixon get them?”

Aegon doesn’t have a speedy rebuttal this time. He contemplates the Atlantic Ocean, the wind tearing at his hair.

“It’s hot as hell,” Aemond says to you, gathering up the newspapers he’s been leafing through, never not thinking about the election, never not strategizing. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

As you accompany Aemond towards the main house—and of course you follow him, always, anywhere—Alicent waves you over to where she and Viserys are sitting to wish you a happy birthday again. From this vantage point, you can just barely spot Otto and Helaena strolling through her garden, a jungle of butterfly bushes and herbs. The stricken Targaryen patriarch beams at the swell of your belly. Viserys likes you, you are his favorite daughter-in-law, though perhaps this is not so lofty an achievement. Moreover, he likes that you are carrying the child of his decent son. Aemond has already decided on the baby’s name: Aristos Apollo. If it is in fact a boy, you suppose you’ll call him Ari, but he doesn’t feel real to you yet. He belongs to Aemond, to the Targaryens, to the nation, but not quite to you. He is more myth than flesh.

“Nothing is more precious than children,” Viserys tells Aemond, raspy and frail. “I would have had at least five more if I could.” Alicent bows her head, an acknowledgement of her failure in this regard. Viserys expects it. You and Aemond politely avert your gazes.

“Thank God for this baby,” Alicent says. “After the year we’ve had? That the whole world has had? We all need something to be grateful for.”

“Yes,” Aemond agrees, smiling. It must be the promise of a son that has made his maiming go down smoother, and maybe it is his soaring poll numbers too, and maybe it is gratitude that he escaped with his life, and maybe it is even the fact that he has you.

But long after dusk when you’re getting ready for bed—slathering yourself in Jergens, stepping into your chiffon nightgown—as you pass through the sliver of light pouring out of the bathroom, you catch a glimpse of something that stops you. Aemond is standing in front of the mirror with his hands on the rim of the sink, his eyepatch slung over the towel rack, his voided eye socket exposed and gory and irreparably wounded. There’s something in his scarred face that you can’t recall ever seeing before. There is a seething, secret, animal rage. There is fury for everyone who has ever denied him anything.

You remember who you were before you met Aemond at the Rainbow Room in Manhattan at a party you were almost not illustrious enough to attend. You wore your hair long and loose, you downed shots, you smoked, you swore, you slept through class almost every Monday; and then you packed all of this away in your allegorical attic and became someone who could stand beside a senator, and then a candidate, and then a president, someone who could tip the scales of fate.

And you think as you lurk unnoticed in the doorway: Maybe he’s been hiding parts of himself too.

~~~~~~~~~~

July 10th, 10 a.m. He’s snoring on a couch in the living room, the one patterned with sailboats. He’s hugging his acoustic guitar like a child clinging to a teddy bear. Sometimes he plays it for the kids: Get Rhythm, Twist And Shout, Stand By Me, You Can’t Hurry Love. That’s about the extent of his involvement in their lives. He has a law degree from Columbia that his father bought for him. Aside from a brief and disastrous stint as the mayor of Trenton, he has never been gainfully employed. You pour the cupful of ice cubes you collected from the freezer all over his bare chest.

“What the fuck!” Aegon screams as he startles awake. “What is wrong with you?!”

“The guests are arriving in two hours. And you’re going to help me host.”

“I’m not slobbering at the feet of those manicured elitists.”

“It’s easy to say ‘vive la révolution’ from your family’s mansion that you reside in as a professional failure.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I’m so worthless. If only I spent more time hosting tea parties.”

“I can’t small talk with governors and congressmen, so I have to charm their wives instead. That’s how it works, you idiot.”

Aegon rolls off the couch and rubs his forehead, wincing, hungover. In the dining room, Eudoxia is readying cups and plates, polishing silverware, folding napkins. The caterers will be here soon, and there are also three dishes that you made yourself: stafidopsomo, a bread with raisins and cinnamon; rizogalo, Greek-style rice pudding; and baklava you spent hours chopping walnuts for. At least one show of domestic prowess is an expectation, two is impressive, three is above and beyond, something for the other political wives to chatter about. You know the importance of making a good impression on them. They are as much a part of their husbands’ careers as the speech writers, communication directors, fundraisers. “I need a Bloody Mary,” Aegon groans.

“You need to pull your goddamn weight. Everyone else is working to get Aemond elected. Your five-year-old kid is out on the campaign trail and you can’t walk around with a tray of hummus and mini spanakopitas? Are you serious?”

“I’m dead serious,” he says, standing with some difficulty and then shoving by you. “Fuck off, Miss America.”

“Aegon!”

But he’s padding off towards the kitchen with his bare feet, tiki print boxer shorts, bedraggled hair. You follow after him in your spotless white heels and sundress patterned with common blue violets. Your earrings are pearls. You’ve wrangled your hair into a tidy French twist. Aegon is getting a pitcher of tomato juice out of the refrigerator, a bottle of vodka from a cardboard Apple Jacks box. He keeps booze and pills hidden everywhere; you’re always stumbling across his caches.

You open your mouth to unleash something hurtful, something hateful, but then you feel the cold flare of liquid on your thighs as the ocean breeze gusts in through the windows. My dress, you think, alarmed. What did I spill on it? One of the ice cubes you threw at Aegon must have caught on the skirt somehow and melted. That’s your first guess, and it is welcome; water doesn’t stain, and you aren’t sure if you have another outfit that is both formal enough and will still fit you. But when you reach down to touch your leg—now the liquid reaches your knees—your hand comes away red.

You look up at Aegon. He’s staring back at you, thunderstruck, horrified. His Bloody Mary ingredients are now forgotten on the countertop. He shouts for the housekeeper: “Doxie?!”

There is indistinct, cantankerous Greek grumbling in return.

“Doxie! Call an ambulance!”

“I don’t understand,” you say to Aegon, bright clotless blood dyeing the whirls of your fingerprints. I ruined my dress, you think nonsensically. “It doesn’t hurt. Shouldn’t it hurt?”

“Don’t move, don’t do anything, just wait for the paramedics.”

But the edges of your vision are going dark and hazy, and the room spins like a flipped coin. Your knees and ankles fold, bones turned to paper. As you drop, Aegon dives for you. You clutch at him, but there’s nothing to grab onto, no suit jacket, no tie, only skin that glows with sunburn. “If I don’t wake up, tell Aemond—”

“You’re not dying, bitch. My luck’s not that good.”

But his eyes are panicked; and they are the last thing you see before you black out.

~~~~~~~~~~

Arteries of cement, bones like lead, heavy eyelids opening to reveal strange white walls.

Am I dead?

But no: you hurt all over. Heaven isn’t supposed to hurt. There are needles pierced through the backs of your hands, a splitting rawness in your throat.

Was I intubated? Did I have surgery…?

You try to sit up. The pain is blinding; the severed and sutured latticework of your abdominal muscles is a pit of glass. You gasp, moan plaintively, fumble for the nurse call button on the wooden nightstand.

“Will you stop moving?” Aegon says as he walks into the room. He’s slurping on a straw that pokes out from a Dairy Queen cup. The fluid inside is clumpy and red. Instantly, you think of blood, and a wave of nausea punches through the shredded gore that was once your belly. Aegon flops down into the salmon pink armchair beside the bed and props his combat boots up on the ottoman. “They sliced you up like the Black Dahlia. You’re gonna rip your stitches.”

“They did a c-section…?”

“Yeah, you had some kind of uterus…thing. I don’t remember.”

The baby?? Is the baby alright?? “An abruption?”

More slurping. “No…I think it started with a P.”

“Previa?”

“Yeah, that one.”

You remember waking up a few times: on the kitchen floor as men were lifting you, in an ambulance as the siren shrieked. Someone said you were being taken to Mount Sinai in Manhattan. And that makes sense, that would have been Criston’s plan. Mount Sinai is one of the best hospitals in the country. You look around the room for a bassinet or a crib. Instead you see a wheelchair and a myriad of flower bouquets; word has already gotten out, and so the customary well wishes are pouring in. Lady Bird Johnson sent bluebonnets, the state flower of Texas; Abigail McCarthy sent lilies of the valley; Muriel Humphrey sent roses, traditional, safe, uninspiring; Pat Nixon sent blood orange gladioli. Mrs. Wallace, newly deceased, neglected to call a florist. “Where’s the baby?”

“He’s fine. He’s downstairs in an incubator.”

Ari, you think, though he still doesn’t seem real yet. “What…?”

“His lungs are underdeveloped. But the doctors think he’ll be alright. You want a Mr. Misty? There’s a Dairy Queen like two blocks from here.”

“No, I don’t want a Mr. Misty,” you say, incredulous. “I want to see the baby.”

“Well they can’t move him and they can’t move you, so you’ll have to wait.”

“I’m going to see him—” You swing your feet off the bed and feel daggers, fire, a splintering like someone has taken a hammer to your bones. You almost scream; it takes everything in you to choke it down and only gasp as your flesh becomes an inferno. I want a joint, you think randomly, an urge you’d believed you had exorcised from yourself, an archaic relic of a past life.

“Told you,” Aegon says smugly.

You lie panting, helpless, glancing at the phone on the nightstand. “Aemond knows?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve called everyone. He knows.”

“Good. So he’ll be here soon.”

“Sure,” Aegon says, perhaps a tad noncommittally.

“Okay.” You’re still trying to catch your breath. Tacoma is a six hour flight away. Even if Aemond doesn’t leave until morning, he’ll be here by sundown tomorrow. “You can go now.”

“Go?!” Aegon exclaims, then laughs, one of his reckless, taunting cackles. “Oh no. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You definitely are.”

“No, I’m not,” he insists, grinning. “For once in my life, I’m the person who’s exactly where he’s supposed to be. I’m the honorable one. The sacred heir of the favorite son has just been born, and the blessed mother has been sawed in half like Saint Simon the Zealot, and where is Aemond? Where is literally everyone else? Across the continent shaking hands and forcing smiles to win him the great state of Washington. I’m not going home. I’m collecting every second I spend here like coins from a slot machine. I won the jackpot, babe. No one is ever going to be able to call me the family fuckup after this.”

The pain is horrible, insurmountable; you can’t think through it. You close your eyes and try not to sob, to wail, to split yourself open in body and soul. I can’t let him see me break down.

“What’s up?” Aegon asks. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I want a Mr. Misty. Go get me a Mr. Misty.”

“Okay,” Aegon says doubtfully. “What flavor?”

“I don’t care. Not red.”

“They have orange, lemon-lime, grape—”

“Just pick one!” you shout, tears brimming in your eyes. Get out, get out, get out.

“Calm down, psycho!” he yells back, heading for the door.

As soon as he crosses the threshold, you snatch the call button off the nightstand and press it frantically until a nurse arrives. You get more morphine and sink into a stillness like deep water, down, down, down.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s dark outside, stars and a crescent moon. On the television is grainy footage from the Battle of Khe Sanh. American soldiers younger than you are dragging their wounded brethren to a Chinook helicopter for evacuation: bandages, burns, missing limbs and faces. Aegon had dozed off in his chair—assisted by an ample amount of Vicodin, surely—but is stirring awake now. He blinks groggily at the screen.

“It’s so fucking awful,” you say, and Aegon’s eyebrows shoot up; it’s the first time you’ve ever sworn in front of him. You trained yourself to stop when you met Aemond. “30,000 Americans dead, God knows how many Vietnamese peasants, Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire, and for what? So we can say we did everything we could to stop communism? So we can humiliate the Russians? There is no liberation of Vietnam. All we’re doing is making those people hate us. And we’re destroying ourselves too.”

“I didn’t know you cared about the war.”

You look at him, mystified. “Everything I do is about the war.”

“But you never really talk about it.” Aegon yawns and stretches, reaching up towards the ceiling. “You talk about Chanel dresses and tea parties.”

“Well yeah, because it’s…it’s unseemly, I guess. For me to speak on the war. Me specifically.”

He snorts. “Because you’re a woman? Who told you that? Aemond?”

You hesitate, watching the television again. Now there are napalm bombs incinerating villages and rice paddies. “I had a boyfriend before Aemond, you know.”

“What, in kindergarten? Chasing each other around the playground? Illicit snuggles beneath the slide?”

You chuckle, shaking your head. “A real boyfriend.”

“No way. You did not.”

“I did,” you insist, smiling a little. “We met at a party my freshman year of college. He was at NYU studying…oh, I always forgot, that was one of our jokes. It was either archaeology or anthropology. I actually thought I was going to marry him for a minute there.”

“Scandalous.” Aegon is gazing at you with his murky blue eyes, grinning, playful. “What happened?”

“He had a moral crisis about poor kids getting shipped off to Vietnam to be slaughtered while he was tucked safely away in his ivory tower. So he enlisted, and honestly it was shocking how quickly I started to forget about him. We exchanged a few letters, it didn’t last long, I think he was forgetting about me too. But he ended up getting killed in action in October, 1965. His old roommate told me.”

Now Aegon is thoughtful. His crooked grin dies. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s his parents I feel bad for. He was an only child. I heard his father drank himself to death.”

“You’ve been carrying a story like that around with you and you never used it? Not in an interview or an article, not at one of your asinine little tea parties?”

“I can’t,” you confess. “Aemond doesn’t want me to. He doesn’t like to be reminded about…you know. That there was someone else before.”

Aegon throws his head back and cackles, combing his fingers through his disheveled blonde hair. “As if Aemond was a virgin when you met him.”

But it’s not the same. It isn’t to Aemond, and it wouldn’t be to the rest of the world either. It is your eternal disgrace. It is something you will be expected to atone for until you’re in the grave. “Give me a joint.”

Aegon is amazed. “What?”

“I know you have some, you always do. I want one. Give it to me.”

“You smoke grass?”

“I used to. Then I gave it up. But I’m making an exception.”

He gawks at you for a while, then slips a joint out of one of the front pockets of his green army jacket. He places it between his lips, lights it with his little chrome Zippo, and inhales deep and slow. Then he offers it to you.

“I don’t want herpes.”

Aegon laughs. “I don’t have herpes. I swear.”

“Not yet, maybe. Give it time.”

“Are you gonna smoke or not?”

You take the joint and fill your lungs with earth, floral notes, a tinge of spice. It’s been years, but it comes rushing back in an instant as the high hits your bloodstream: calm quiet weightlessness, a sense of wellbeing that fills the honeycomb hollows of your bones. “I need to see the baby.”

Aegon stalls. “The doctors were really insistent that you stay here.”

“And all the sudden you care about rules.”

He considers this, drumming his palms on his thighs. His jeans are ripped; he’s biting his lower lip. Then abruptly, he stands. “Alright.” He grabs the wheelchair and pushes it up against the bed. “Let’s go.”

You take another drag and then discard the joint in your empty Dairy Queen cup. You throw off your blanket and try to touch your bare feet to the cool linoleum floor. It hurts, it feels like razor blades, but you keep going. Then you remember you still have one IV in the back of your left hand. “Wait, how am I going to…?”

“You’re in luck. I am well-versed in needles.” Aegon holds out a palm. Nervously, you give him your hand. He peels off the medical tape, takes a moment to examine the vein, then slides out the needle so smoothly you don’t feel it at all; it barely even bleeds. He balls up a Kleenex from the box on your nightstand and secures it to the wound with the same strip of tape. “You’re welcome.”

“Junkie.” You try to lower yourself into the wheelchair and a yelp rips from your throat.

“Oh, this is pathetic,” Aegon says, but not quite unkindly. “Here.” He leans down in front of you. Too desperate to be prideful, you link your arms around the back of his neck. Aegon’s shaggy blonde hair tickles your cheek; his hands skim gingerly to settle on your waist, steadying you without too much pressure. He helps you into the wheelchair, where you collapse gasping and sweating bullets.

“If you ever mention this again, I will guillotine you.”

He winks. “Relax, little Io. I never kiss and tell.”

“I’d assume you’re usually too plastered to remember the details.”

“Be nice. I could roll you down a staircase.” But he doesn’t; he rolls you into the hallway instead.

The lights in the corridor are dim for night, for dreams. You see a few nurses shuttling in and out of other rooms from a distance, but none seem to notice you and Aegon. He steers the wheelchair into the elevator and you ride it down two floors, then cross another hallway and pass through a set of doors. There must be a dozen incubators, half of them occupied. The nurse on duty—currently cradling a tiny infant in her arms, a girl judging by the pink hat, and feeding her from a bottle of formula—gapes at you.

“Ma’am? You aren’t supposed to be—”

“Shut up,” Aegon tells her, and the nurse doesn’t say another word.

Aegon pushes the wheelchair down the line of incubators until you reach the one with a name card labelled Targaryen, Aristos Apollo. And there he is: unmistakably fragile, impossibly small, blue veins like a roadmap beneath translucent skin, tangled in tubes and wires. In his sleeping face you don’t see Aemond or even yourself, but rather an inexplicable familiarity. You feel like you’ve met him before. You feel like you’ve known him all your life.

You press your hand to the clear, domed wall of the incubator; shadows in the shape of your outstretched fingers fall over Ari’s face. “He’s real.”

“Of course he is.” Aegon is watching you; you can see him on the periphery of your vision, a blur of blonde hair and high cheekbones. When you turn to him, he immediately looks away.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing.” But his voice is distracted, bewildered, like someone fumbling for a light switch in a dark room.

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