melikasa1234

[melikasa1234]

NGNM

Friday: Nov 10 - Dreams/Theories/AUs

@fromtheboundlesssea

Aemond’s Crown

Everyone was yelling, which did not help with the pain. His eye was on fire, and it seemed what little milk of the poppy the maester had been willing to give was not working or simply had not kicked in yet. The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt. He just wanted it to stop. Regardless, his eye was cut out, gone in an instant. It happened so fast that he wasn't sure what had happened, but by the look of the faces around him, it was bad.

His siblings looked the worst out of everyone. Most of them were in tears. All of them were scared. His uncle Bealon was holding Aemma, who was openly sobbing in his chest. He didn't know why she was crying, but he would make sure to find out. Helaena was trembling in Robb's arms. Aegon looked scared and horrified. Baela was angry; she was always angry about something, so he quickly moved on from her. Viserys, Jace, and Luke looked a combination of angry, scared, and bloody, like they had just come from battle. So much blood. It was his and Saera's blood. The battle that he lost and, in turn, his eye. They were all a mess, and again, the yelling did not help matters.

"Make your apologies and show goodwill toward one another," his father said. "We will handle this in the morning. Your father, your prince, demands it!"

He looked at his father in complete shock. He wasn't going to do anything after all his speeches about the responsibility of the crown. He wasn't going to do anything. He wasn't going to banish Luke or take their dragons. Nothing. His heart was beating so loudly in his ear that he was sure everyone could hear it. Whether it was from the pain in his eye or the deep betrayal and heartache he felt from his father's actions, he wasn't sure.

His mother's voice broke the tension in the room and in himself.

"That is insufficient," her voice cracked with grief. "Aemond has been damaged permanently, and Saera shall carry that scar for the rest of her life. Rhaenor, goodwill cannot make them whole."

"I know, Alicent," his father said, stepping towards her. He could not hear the rest of their conversation, but by the looks of Lady Hanna and Lady Laena, they didn't seem to like what was being said.

"There is a debt to be paid," his mother proclaimed with her head high, no not his mother, The Queen. "If you shall not keep your promise, then I shall have one of her son's eyes as well. If she can have my husband's heart and her son can take mine's eye, then I can have that at least."

Once again, Aemond was shocked by his parents. He liked to think his mother was a kind person and only strong when she had to be. But looking at his mother now, she was breaking. She was at her limit with their father, and he couldn't blame her. Perhaps this would break their marriage entirely. A part of him blamed himself for this, but the bigger part blamed their father, too. He wasn't sure if he'd want to take Luke's eye, but he wanted something to be done.

He didn't see what happened next. Not all of it. He heard most of it.

His mother's hand was on his grandfather's dagger, and she lunged forward towards Lady Hanna. Lady Laena rushed towards them, trying to part them, keeping the dagger from slashing Lady Hanna's face. Everyone started screaming as panic and chaos broke through. The pain. Owww. The pain in his eye increased along with the shouting. His father had moved towards them trying to break them apart but was held back by Aemond’s uncles.

"Alicent, you go too far!" Lady Laena urged.

"I?" His mother demanded. "What have I done, but what was expected of me? Forever upholding the kingdom, the family, the law! While you both flout your freedoms and allowances in my face!"

"Alicent!" His father begged.

"Where is duty? Where is sacrifice? You were my friends! You were my friends and I trusted and loved you! You slept with my husband and gave him sons that I could not, and when I gave him one, you now take my son's eye. And even to that you are entitled."

"Exhausting, wasn't it?" Lady Hanna said, shoving Lady Laena away. "Hiding behind a cloak of your own righteousness."

Lady Laena managed to part them as his mother dropped the dagger to the ground, and its clattered sound echoed in the defining silence. His father was let go, and he rushed to his mother. She could no longer even look at him, let alone speak to him.

It was so quiet now, and in that quiet, he found a sense of clarity. The pain was still throbbing in his skull, but an afterthought to what he was thinking. He had gained his confidence when he claimed Cannibal, something he never seemed to be able to possess, unlike his siblings. In his clarity, ironically, he could see something he had only briefly noticed before. Lines were being drawn, a break between factions; perhaps it would never be repaired. He knew whose fault it was.

He stood from where the maester was treating him. Everyone looked his way as he walked towards the center between his mother, his father, Lady Hanna and Lady Leana. He looked at everyone in the room. His eye found each of them. They all seemed to be too shocked by what just happened to stop him.

"You've all had your chances to say your peace. Now, it is my turn." He looked at his grandfather for permission. He looked disgusted from the situation, but a curiosity had emerged as he nodded.

"First, I want to talk to all of you." His head turned, and with his eye, he looked at his siblings. They were scattered now, representing the factions that now stood. Aegon, Viserys, and Baela in one spot. Aemma had returned to Baelon's arms, and Helaena was in Robbs; they were near where Saera and himself were treated. The Strongs were in another spot. All of them formed a triangle with him in the center, making it easier for him to speak to them. All of them held a mixture of emotions inside them, and it was hard to pick one.

He addressed Jace, Luke, and Viserys, and although she was not part of what happened tonight, he addressed Baela as well.

"I apologize for my part in our squabbles and what happened tonight; we should not have snuck out, and I should not have said what I said. But let me make it clear: I am not the only one with something to apologize for." They all looked shocked and angry, except Luke, who just seemed scared. "I have made comments, and I have been mean, but I have never been cruel!" He had raised his voice on the last word. All the times they had made fun of him for not having a dragon, bullied him, or just been cruel were surfacing. It wasn't fair.

"You all hate me for one reason or another," he gestured his hands at them. "I want to know why?" His voice cracked. "Tell me here and now."

It was Jace who spoke first. "It's not fair. All of you get everything we could not. Not as we are now." His voice only grew with each word; by the end, he was shouting.

"You wish to be legitimized." He looked at both Jace and Luke, who turned his head the moment my eye met his. He looked at Baela; he suspected she felt the same way. She met his eye without flinching, trying to seem bored. It wasn't fooling him or her brothers as they turned her way with worry. Honestly, this was why they hated him. How stupid. It wasn't even about him.

"You think being legitimized will make a difference? People will still see you as they do now. I am a true-born son, and everyone seems to want to either kill me or take my position away." He proclaimed in exasperation.

"How stupid."

"It is not stupid!" Baela's shout broke her bored expression to anger.

"It is stupid!" He shouted in turn.

"You have been given more than any lord, bastard or true born as ever been given, and still you want more." He shook his head unconvinced as a quiet laugh threaded into it. "This isn't about being legitimized, not really…this is about being recognized and loved." By our father.

There it was for everyone to see. Their faces looked shattered as every emotion they had been feeling showed on their faces. Their neglect by our father was evident. He knew their pain well. He felt it too; our father's lack of care for us. The fact they couldn't recognize it in him, made him feel infinitely more lonely than any insult they devised. He was no different from them. They all had banded together in their shared neglect, thinking because he was the heir, our father loved him more. They couldn't be more wrong. Wasn't today proof of that? Maybe they would finally realize that.

"What about you?" He locked his eye on Viserys. He turned from Baela to him. Viserys searched his face, looking for something. His anger rose at every inspection; it seemed to be a theme with the Velayrons.

"You are the reason Aegon isn't heir. You stole it." So it was for Aegon's sake. That old song. Aemond looked to Aegon, who looked like he wanted to disappear. He always looked like that. Always seemed to hate the attention. He couldn't blame him. He turned back to Viserys, a calm washing over him as to what he was about to do. Viserys looked nervous at the change in him. He never looked at him like that. Good.

He turned to address Aegon.

"I can not steal something that never belonged to you, but I can give it to you."

In an instant, energy rushed through the air and suffocated everyone in the room. Aegon's eyes widened in astonishment…and fear. Aemond knew everyone was watching, but now he truly felt it. Their eyes and the fever of their greed. All on him.

"Aemond," his mother shouted.

"You have no right," His father joined her.

"I have every right." His eye remained on Aegon, never turning to the their shouts. "Father and grandfather will be gone. The throne will be mine to do with as I see fit." His voice remained steady.

They didn't want him to be king. Fine.

"Well, Aegon, do you want it? You must have felt some resentment for not being our father's heir."

Aegon looked around the room to his mother and then to his grandparents.

"No." His sudden shout made Aegon flinch back at him.

"Do not look at them for an answer. You already know what they want. I am asking you what you want. I am offering you the throne, not them… we will finish this once and for all." He searched Aegon's face for any indication of his choice. He couldn't find anything. He seemed to be thinking about it.

Then he looked at him and quickly whispered.

"No."

"No?"

"No, I don't want to be king. I never have." Viserys looked at Aegon, but Aemond couldn't tell what he was thinking. Aegon wouldn't meet anyone's stare.

Aemond nodded in understanding and looked around the room. Aegon was no different from the rest of them. It was funny, how it would always come back to our father.

"Helaena." His tone softened as he swerved from Aegon to her. She was still trembling but had left Robb's arms.

"Do you want it? The throne. I didn't steal it from Aegon, but I did steal it from you. You would be a good queen, and I think our siblings would be content with you." A smile cracked her sad expression, and shook her head in a no.

"What about everyone else? Who wants to be king?" He turned around in a circle to face each one of his siblings and probably looked mad.

"Jace, Viserys, Luke, you're certainly brave enough!" None of them spoke; they all looked shocked.

“Well, Baella, Aemma, Saera. How about a chance to be queen!" He waited and waited for an answer, his arms wide in invitation, but still no one spoke.

"No one wants me on the throne, but no one will take it either!" He chuckled at the absurdity of it all.

"It seems you're all stuck with me." He whispered quietly. He turned to his father, and he seemed almost horrified. Good, but he wasn't yet finished. As soon as he tried to meet his gaze, his father looked away. He thought his father was many things, but a coward was never one of them. He walked towards him, directly in front of him.

"Look at me." He didn't.

"Father, look at me." He looked at him, and it almost seemed he would break down at the sight. He'd probably seen worse on the stepstones, but his missing eye seemed more horrifying to him than anything he'd ever seen. He felt a grim satisfaction at that.

"Despite what happened tonight, I don't blame Luke or Jace or Viserys for my missing eye. I blame you." His father seemed shocked at his words, and he didn't seem able to speak.

"It is not Aegon's or Helaena's responsibility to care for us but yours as our father. You had every chance to face this. The conflicts between us, between our mothers. You didn't, and this was the cost." He pointed at his missing eye. "I paid your price." Letting his proclamation sink in, he continued.

“I know you love our mother." He looked at her as his father looked, too. She seemed so tired and broken down. Like he was, his father seemed to notice, too. "Sometimes it's as clear as day, sometimes you keep your love buried so deep…like you never felt anything at all. You do that with us sometimes."

"What would a boy of ten know about love?"

"I know what it should feel like. When my mother holds me, I know she loves me. I have no doubt that my siblings feel the same when their mothers hold them."

His father looked at him again, this time with utter shame.

"It's not fair. You give us a mere glance at your love while withholding the rest. Even I, who spend more time with you than the others, feel the absence of your love. It's selfish. Your love is selfish." His voice was cracked by the end but quickly turned resentful.

"It's always about you. You do as you please whenever you please without any consequence. Did you once ever consider what our mothers had to sacrifice to be with you?"

"Their reputation, their honor, their lives, any chance they could have had with a man who might have actually loved them. Maybe you do love them. Maybe you love us. At the end of the day, it never seems to be enough." He didn't look at his father's face anymore. He was too tired and in too much pain. He had forgotten about the pain until now. He reached for his eye as if he could magically return his missing eye back into his socket.

"You have utterly failed as our father. I suppose whether you will as a king remains to be seen." he felt tears and blood run down his cheeks.

To Aemond, it seemed the deafening silence had returned, even though he knew it had never really left. Through the haze, he added one last thing.

"I will be a better man, a better husband, and a better king than you will ever be. I swear it to the old gods and the new." He wiped the tears and blood the best he could from his face. Still clutching his missing eye, he bowed before his father, his mother and grandfather and left them all.

As he walked towards the door, the world dulled around him; he had the faint sensation of falling and someone catching him. His vision was covered in black dots, and through them, he saw Helaena holding him tightly. Then everything went black.

[melikasa1234]

Reblog if you also want to have Memorias de Idhún translated into English. :)