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#musical freedom
mapecl-stories · 1 year
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epicstoriestime · 1 year
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Embracing Musical Freedom: Breaking the Boundaries of Genre
What is your favorite genre of music?   Introduction: Imagine a world where the barriers of genre vanish, where you are not confined to a single favorite genre but rather explore the vast landscape of musical expression. In this realm, every note, rhythm, and melody becomes an opportunity for discovery and enjoyment. Embracing musical freedom means breaking the boundaries that limit our…
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numenrecords · 2 months
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summit9999 · 2 years
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Oh god, it's been a while
A alternate/fanmade track cover redo for: Zaxx vs. Riggi & Piros - Alpha (2015)
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thelasthippie · 2 months
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family-aya · 2 months
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In one of the simple neighborhoods, a little girl lived with her family. She dreamed of a beautiful life full of colors and laughter. She dreamed of going to school every day, playing with her friends in the parks, and building a bright future
But war was looming on the horizon, destroying everything it touched. One morning, my daughter woke up to the sounds of shelling and explosions. Fear resided in every corner of our humble home. Despite all this, my daughter is trying to stay strong, helping me prepare food for our family. She sat next to the stove, carefully placing the wood and watching the burning fire, her tears falling silently down her cheeks
The dream that filled her heart with happiness gradually began to fade, to be replaced by fear and sadness. My child was trying hard to hold on to a glimmer of hope, but she was aware that the war was robbing her of her childhood and dreams. With every piece of wood she put in the fire, she felt more heaviness in her heart. She wished that life would return to normal, if only for a moment, so that she could live as children live in other parts of the world, far from the sound of cannons and the pain of separation. Save my children by supporting me and spreading my campaign
https://gofund.me/2946907d
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zikbitume · 2 years
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(Musical Freedom)  @tiesto - Can U Dance (To My Beat)’ by Musical Freedom
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beaulesbian · 1 year
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Hobie Brown || Spider Punk - Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
"My name's Hobie, Hobie Brown. That is, when I'm not playing shows, antagonizing fascists, staging unpermitted political actions slash performance-art pieces, or having a laugh at the pub with the mandem. I'm not a role model. I was briefly a runway model. I hate the a.m. I hate the PM. I hate labels. I'm not a hero because calling yourself a hero makes you a self-mythologizing, narcissistic autocrat."
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healing-and-free · 4 months
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“You said you wanna stop blaming your parents cause they, too, are just products of how they were raised. And you wanna stop blaming yourself , it doesn’t help, this idea of blame”
just stopped me in my tracks.
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from-the-dead · 9 months
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Red Death has come to take what is rightfully his own.
Version without wings under the cut:
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mapecl-stories · 1 year
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The Melody of One's Own Life: Jonas' Journey to Musical Freedom
Jonas had just turned 18 and lived in a town called Flensburg, characterized by various shops and rental houses. His parents owned a successful flower shop, and they had always hoped that Jonas would follow in their footsteps or at least help out at the store on Sundays.
However, Jonas had no interest in that path. He didn't want to spend his life surrounded by flower bouquets and plants. Instead, he often sat in his room, observing life on the streets from his window. Across the way lived Dennis and Angelique, a somewhat run-down couple. Both of them always wore jogging pants, held beer bottles in their hands, and their bellies had become noticeably rounder, not befitting their young age. They didn't seem particularly inclined to work and lived off some obscure income sources that Jonas couldn't quite figure out. Yet, one thing was clear: Both had a stroller in front of their door, despite their lack of regular jobs.
Jonas couldn't comprehend their attitude. He felt misunderstood and often frustrated. But he found solace in music, which he listened to in his room. One song, in particular, resonated with him, sung by a band that criticized society. The song's lyrics were full of sarcasm and cynicism aimed at the "yuppie pigs" - the wealthy, ambitious, and seemingly shallow individuals who saw themselves as the elite of society.
One day, Jonas decided to leave behind his boredom and frustration. He set out to find some excitement in the town. At a kiosk, he met John, a young man his age, proudly showing off his brand-new smartphone with a polyphonic ringtone to the other guys. However, as they chatted about the latest gadget, Jonas realized that John didn't really have his life under control. He seemed oblivious to the fact that his behavior and priorities might not lead him very far.
In that moment, Jonas recognized that he needed to take control of his life. He didn't want to end up like Dennis, Angelique, or John. He refused to sink into insignificance or settle for superficial pursuits. He made up his mind to forge his own path and not be swayed by the expectations of others.
From that day on, Jonas began exploring his talents and interests. He volunteered at a local youth center and discovered his knack for music. He learned to play the guitar and started writing his own songs - lyrics that dealt with genuine emotions and experiences, going beyond the sarcastic tone of societal criticism.
Jonas realized that music provided him with a means to express his thoughts and emotions, connecting with others. He started performing in cafes, receiving positive feedback from the listeners. Eventually, he found a band that shared his passion, and together, they set out to enrich the town with their music.
When Jonas' parents learned of his plans, they were surprised but also proud of him. They recognized that their son had found his own happiness, even if it wasn't in the flower shop. Jonas was finally content because he had discovered his passion and refused to be overshadowed by others' expectations.
Time passed, and Jonas' band gained regional recognition. They managed to use their music as an outlet for genuine emotions and thoughts, reaching many people. Jonas wasn't striving for instant success or wealth - he simply wanted to do what he loved: creating music and touching people's hearts.
As the stories of Dennis, Angelique, and John continued, Jonas had learned that he wasn't responsible for their lives. He could only shape his own life and make the most of it. The path he chose wasn't always easy, but it was his own - and that's all that mattered.
Thus, ends the tale of a young man who liberated himself from society's expectations and found his own voice, sharing it with others through his music.
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rocketbirdie · 5 months
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just a little bit further now...!
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numenrecords · 26 days
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writingwenches · 2 months
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Aemond x Peasant OC
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synopsis: Aemond leaves the comfort of the Red Keep to trek around the backwoods Riverlands, where an annoying peasant doesn't believe he is a prince. Then they do hand stuff near a lake.
themes: brat!Aemond, spoiled!Aemond, mixed race main character, mc grew up in a westeros version of a nunnery, surprise trans side character~ this is just the start of a larger “rewrite HOTD” type story.
word count: 10k (i hate me too.)
warnings: 18+ MDNI, no targcest, hand stuff, mouth stuff, mommy issues if you squint, mentions of sex work, mentions of child death and pregnancy complications. Religious nonsense.
PART TWO OUT NOW
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Freedom From – Act One
Charity is the only hope for useless girls, and not enough to go around. The Maidenhouse of Haronfall was an ancient structure, run by the Faith for centuries as a place to send discarded girl-children, forging useless girls into something worthy. It was their true calling, regardless of what those girls’ wants. 
For unwanted men of the realm, there was the Night’s Watch. Some unwanted boys are sent as soon as they were old enough to lift a sword. They were raised and trained to be useful along their brothers, forged to the sole purpose of defending the realm and never to be left wanting. 
The Septas of the Faith of the Seven recruited woman of fine birth, in want of a life not owned by a husband, and those who’s families were willing to pay handsomely for a life of purpose for their unfortunately female child. Women worked and clawed and won their way into the duty of a Septa, the Faith had no use for useless girls. 
There was no place in the realm for unwanted girls. Brothels did not want them. They already had enough bastards, and young flesh did not turn enough of a profit. Girls were not wanted unless they were useful, and many unuseful girls found themselves living on the streets or dead in a ditch.
That was what would befall Lyn is she were ever to be found wanting, of something more, of something else. She was lucky to have been given her place amongst the holy woman of the Faith, even if she was not going to benefit from their handouts much longer. Lyn had been found wanting at an early age, never reaching the hidden marks required to be gifted a role as a Novice. Those girls found wanting were given hard work of servitude, waiting on the Septas that filled the halls of the Grand Motherhouse, constructed around the ancient order’s orphanage, nestled in the swamp lands of The Bite. 
The prayer before work was never ending, but no one had the heart to interrupt the young girl, hands clasped together, eyes stitched shut, conversing with the gods in earnest. Lyn tried to shake her mind from racing at the thoughts of the future, focusing on the task at hand. House Erenford was not able to keep a staff his large permanently, but they would take every chance for a few strong-backed girl servants from the Faith to tend their Keep during festivals and feasts. House Erenford honors hard workers, and knows that the serving girls’ would be in need of work away from their lands as soon as they could find it. The elderly Lord Erenford would always put in a good word with visiting households in need of additional servants. 
Lyn tried to for her back to appear straight, as she lowered herself enough to reach the basket of herbs that needed plucking. Her fellow maid, Hanna, peeled potatoes below the table and out of sight of piety. This was not the first time the group of maids had been contracted to work during a feast at House Eronford’s keep, and Lyn knew that they did not have time for endless prayers and blessings if they were to keep their schedule. Their traveling party lost many hours to traveling from the Motherhouse, where the young maids hailed. 
Lyn’s eyes remained downcast, she was raised by the Septas of the Faith of the Seven since as long as she had memory. She had learned to pray before she could do any other task, it took many years to learn how to appear to be praying, which is much more efficient. 
Her small movements had been noticed, however, by the Lady Aeditya Mallister. She had been raised on a far-off world, at a distance Lyn could not properly imagine, away from the tradition of the Faith. 
Lady Aeditya cleared her throat, trying to get someone’s attention, her empty cup dancing in her hand.
For years, Lyn assumed Aeditya was of mixed peoples, like Lyn herself, with skin of a strange middle ground between dark and light. But, after serving the lady on numerous occasions, she was assured that Lady Mallister was of impeccable birth, thought to possess ravishing beauty by her entire nation, a nation where all peoples looked like her, but obviously less beautiful. 
Lady Aeditya exhaled loudly, and no move was made to fill her empty cup while prayers were still being pledged.
Lyn agreed that Lady Aeditya was beautiful, but knew that her distant land would not welcome her for her skin alone. Their features were completely different, were Lyn was plump and sturdy, Aeditya was slim and narrow. 
“LYN!” the lady finally shouted. The prayers abruptly stopped. “My cup is empty. Where is the wine?”
“Of course, Lady Mallister,” Lyn said dutifully, flicking away the moist bits of shredded herbs from her fingers, glad that the room burst to life as work for the feast could finally begin. Behind the pillar of the wine cellar, Lyn suck a few gulps from the pitcher to warm her belly before returning to fill the lady’s empty cup. 
“Ugh!” Lady Aeditya huffed, as she lounged on the stone hearth, stroking her distressingly pregnant belly. “It’s too quiet in here, someone speak,” she ordered, her wine cup almost empty one again. 
“Is the duck ready for the oven?” Hanna chimed, thinking her thoughts aloud as she passed. 
“No!” Lady Aeditya stamped, “The babe grows ears! Do not speak of things I know nought about!” Her words staccatod for emphasis. “It is isolating to me, we must not encourage such things for the babe,” she said as if it were obvious. “Lord Ryver and Waltel Frey are sparring, as always, and I did not come here to be bored.”
Lady Aeditya came to Haronfall, along the edge of The Bite, all the way from Seaguard, the western most point before the Iron Islands. It was the only area of land Lyn had ever known. It was more than a week’s journey between the two settlements, and every pregnancy, Aeditya seemed to spend the majority of her time away from her lord husband.
“What would you like to speak of, Lady Mallister?” Lyn asked, sharing smiling glancing to the other girls working. She tried to get the savory herbs from beneath her fingernails, to not spoil the sweet pie filling she was mixing. 
Lady Aeditya signed again. “it is always up to me, the true burden of being a lady.” She sat up straighter and addressed the help with her eyes. The Lady Aeditya saw an unorganized gaggle of unmarried maidens, who were long old enough to bare children of their own. Poor, former infants that were abandoned by their destitute mothers at the Faith’s doorstep, now traded around as extra help for a few measly coins. Aeditya say little difference between this and woman who sell their bodies in other ways. She could never imagine sullying herself with such unfulfilling work with a true lack of purpose. She pitied them in some ways – an envied them in others. “Girls, be thankful your minds are not always at the helm of every stimulant in conversation.”
Honestly, Lyn was thankful as her brain was far away from the dank kitchens, hidden below the gathering hall. The windows were scarce and to allow only for light, rather than a beautiful view of the fertile swamplands surrounding the keep. Lyn’s mind was free to soar and wonder, watching a bale of turtles balancing on a single log as they competed for the best spot in the sun. Lyn often wished she were a simple turtle, floating along the creeks and bogs, armored against chomping lizards and long beaked birds. She was free. 
Very much unlike Lady Aeditya. 
“Oh!” she exclaimed, both hands reaching for her overlarge belly. “Come hither! The babe! He kicks!” 
The room flurried with rushing girls and dropped buckets. 
Lyn did not think Lady Aeditya so bad. Lyn was present at her last birth, as Aeditya’s labors began in Haronfall, and lasted days. The boy was born asleep, the Septas said, wrapping him in cloth and not allowing the mother a single look before carting him away, leaving Lyn and the other girls to hold Aeditya close as she wailed. At the request of Lord River, Aeditya remained in Haronfall to give Lord Mallister’s temper time to subside. 
Lyn smiled as she felt the babe kick, before other girls pushed her palm away to feel for themselves. Lyn didn’t know how much she believed in the gods, but she prayed to all of them on behalf of the Lady Mallister, prayed that they would finally bless her with a single child that lives, if only to spare her from her lord husband’s much-gossiped-about wrath. 
Lyn was very thankful she was a poor maid, with no hopes and no prospects. She had seen first hand what prospects could do to a woman. 
— 
Whatever the reason for Cinda Lannister’s personal crest being a lioness fighting a diamond snake, many speculated that she was much more the snake than a lioness. Perhaps the speculation began from Cinda herself. 
“My prince,” she curtsied impeccably. “Oh, how I wish you’d allow me to call you ‘my favorite prince,’” she teased, snaking her hand around Aemond’s arm, without him offering it. 
“As I have told you since childhood, you are allowed to do no such thing,” he scoffed, wishing he could shake her arms away like he could his mother. Cinda Lannister was a high-born lady, not something that could be manhandled, so he allowed her closeness begrudgingly. “What is it you want this time, Lady Cinda?” 
The younger sister of Master of Coin, and personal possessor of the largest sapphire mine in all of Westeros, threw her head back with a laugh, allowing the tall prince a better view of her bare neck and low-lying neckline. “You are always a laugh, my prince!” she mused, “I do not want anything from you. I simply wish you tell you of a surprise gift I have found for your dear, sweet, sister, the Princess Helaena.” 
“What is it?” he asked plainly, wishing the halls of the Red Keep were shorter, or any other reason for this conversation to end. 
“Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you!” she jested back, “no, I will not tell you what it is, simply where to find it, if you would wish to help me fetch it for her.” 
Aemond offered Cinda his hand at the end of a long staircase, as any proper gentleman should, and she gracefully accepted it. “Fine,” he held his tongue in anger, “where is it?” 
“Haronfall,” she replied quickly. 
“Heronhol?” he had heard, expecting the gift to be some haunted tree spider. 
“No, my prince. That is a common miscommunication. Haronfall, along The Bite, Near The Twins, but not quite. Ruled over by Lord Eronford. It is far older than Haronhol and some say it could be the inspiration for Lord Aaron’s naming of his own Keep.”
It was not often when Aemond took more than a thought to remember the heraldry of a house. “A heron on a pink banner?”
“Correct, my prince!” Cinda used this as an opportunity to giggle. “That is correct?” Cinda asked, turning towards Aemond’s back.
Aemond had not noticed the girl following behind, a girl, barely old enough to be called a lady, clad in bright red rubies and lace. “Yes, aunt,” she replied meekly, not looking up at Aemond. The daughter of the Realm’s Lannister Master of Ships. 
“Thank you, Cordelia,” Cinda said. 
Aemond had been offered the young Lady Cordelia on numerous occasions since her birth. The second-born prince had no interest in playing nursemaid to a child, or bedding one. 
“Haronfall is where I shall be traveling to, unfortunately I shall be missing the King’s nameday festivities, but as you know, your sweet sister’s own nameday is so soon after, that she rarely receives much fanfare.” Cinda said. 
“And with all of the troubles she has had of late with those nasty girls from the Stormlands. I simply shudder to think of the vile insults thrown her way.”  
In the past, Helaena’s ladies forced her around the keep, the princess’s feet dragging paces behind the ladies’ closely fortified wall of linked arms. They had all hailed from the Stormlands, a great honor bestowed by the crown. Jena Estermount, the eldest daughter to the second richest house in the region who openly mocked the gods, Arianna Tarth, a half-dornish girl, and Corenna Storm, a noble bastard of House Baratheon.
As they wafted through the walls of the Keep, Aemond thought it plain to see that the princess’s ladies were not interested in the princess at all. Helaena did not seem at all bothered when the Queen dismissed the group of catty ladies from court after she discovered them mocking the princess behind her back. Queen Alicent distrusted each girl for their own glaring flaw, and only had the prejudices enforced through the girls’ actions.
In reality, Helaena had not minded the names they called her. Some of the names were quite clever. One of the girls, the bastard, had called her “Batty.” Helaena had never given much thoughts to bats before that name, and since has discovered she finds them quite fascinating.
Cinda had always seemed to have the Queen’s interest at heart. Aemond figured Cinda was a child when his mother was married, basically offered as a gift from the Lannister family. Cinda was a Lady in her own right, the rightful daughter to the Lord Paramount of the West, and had the authority born from her great house, to assist the queen with any ladyly matters that concerned women. 
Aemond wasn’t sure what ladies did all day, but he supposed planning gifts for a princess was a worthy endeavor. 
Aemond had only known Cinda to honor his mother in whatever way necessary. He liked the way she made people squirm. 
“Careful, Lord Larys,” she quipped once, while his mother and the clubbed foot whispered in the corner. “If you aren’t careful, I shall marry you. And I shall keep my husband on a much shorter leash.” 
Cinda was young enough to be a proper match to marry Prince Aemond, but old enough to lack many more fruitful child baring years. It would basically be admitting to the realm of his care for the woman, which he had none, no matter how many times he returned to her bed to lay his head upon her chest. It meant nothing, he told himself, even as the tears stung the corners of his eyes as he burrowed himself into her. 
Cinda was just a teen, helping the Queen Mother after Aemond’s incident on Driftmark, letting the small boy lay on her chest as he was sick on milk of the poppy. 
His mother was there, asleep on the chair near his bedside, but she could not bare to touch him. The last time she cradled his face, the night it happened, she erupted with rage and she was horrified, afraid she would lash out at the boy with her anger like she had attacked her once best friend. 
It was Aemond that snuck into Cinda’s chambers a few moons past when they stopped sleeping in his own chambers. It was the first time he had seen a lady without a corset, when he climbed into her bed, teary eyed and pouting about the pain his family was tired of hearing. She let the pitiful boy sleep on her chest, Aemond thought her was much more comfortable without her corset. 
Cinda had never changed the way she looked at him. He had always been the poor, second son that she loved to dote upon. Even after gaining Vhagar and losing his eye, she never faltered in her incessant mothering of him, always to his annoyance. 
The winter following his lost eye, Cinda had made sure to strap him into his winter coat personally, buttons, belts and all. So many, the young boy would grow too impatient every time he attempted to shrug it off. 
Aemond would threaten to feed Cinda to his new dragon at her every annoyance, and every time she would hug him close, and before long he was tall enough to get a face-full of her ample chest. 
It had become a game for him, without him realizing what he had been up to, with his newly formed fascination with women’s breasts. 
Cinda was the first to notice his little scheme, calling him out in their quiet place, “I thought you my favorite prince for being so different from your elder brother, His Grace. I can’t have you being a leacher as well.” Her thumb as passed over his lips as she caressed his cheek and he felt every inch of skin set aflame. 
He legs stormed him out of her room and down two corridors before he was able to hear the world again. The blush did not leave his flesh for weeks, as every time the young boy caught a glimpse of a red dress, he was reminded of her alluring words. 
Aemond had been panicked for so long that Aegon noticed. When Aegon approached Cinda about the incident, she licked her thumb to wipe away from dirt on Prince Aegon’s nose. He lost interest quickly, not enjoying her mothering the way others did. 
His grandsire had even requested to speak with him about something important. Aemond was enameled by the strategic maps and sums that scattered the office of Hand to the King. 
It was a meeting, much worst than he could have ever feared. Otto thought it had been time that the young prince he spoken to about urges. Aemond thought about jumping from the Hand’s Tower, surely death was better than this. 
“I don’t…” Aemond was cut off, Otto was not going to let him get out of this one. 
A large, ancient tome was presented to the young prince. Aemond closed the book as quickly as he opened it, after seeing the crude drawings of nude bodies. “I don’t want this,” he said, pushing it back to his grandsire, not making eye contact. 
“Think of it as an early nameday gift,” Otto patted him on the head, not allowing Aemond to leave without the book. 
The young prince held the tone like it was covered in acid, not wanting it to suddenly burst into flames. That was until he noticed Aegon a floor below, and Aemond hid the book under his shift, tucked into his breeches to unsuspiciously walk past his elder brother and little cousins. 
It obviously did not work. 
It never worked. 
He stopped seeing Cinda unnecessarily after that, only allowing a passing conversation at a mutual dinner or ball. It wasn’t something he needed, he reminded himself, with his hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the Harvest Ball in the Red Keep. The festivities were distracting his brother and his club of suitors from The Reach, all who took great pleasure in Aemond’s discomfort. If the Reach Ladies ever found out about his secret nighttime travels to Cinda’s chambers to be swaddled with a babe…the only option would be to sacrifice himself to the Old Valyrian gods by Vhagar’s dragon fire. 
Even as a man grown, Aemond could still picture the sting of Lady Ivyanne Tyrell’s voice in his imagined scenario that he allowed to play on loop every night. 
“By the gods, One-Eye, do you love Cinda Lannister?” He could feel their laughter, even without it ever happening. 
Not that he had thought about the exact scene in his loneliest hours of sleep, Cinda was never at a lack of quips and womanly come-backs. Lady Cinda Lannister was not afraid to call out Ivyanne for the sapphic invert she truly was. “Have fun with your Game of Flats, I’m sure Prince Aegon enjoys watching.” 
Not that Aemond ever imagines such things, especially right after he had just finished his imagining. It was always the last time, every single time. 
Lady Cinda Lannister bathed in the morning, before the sun is fully risen, beginning her day before some of the Keep’s servants. Aemond knew that much about her routine, after being gently woken and forced to trek back to his own chambers before the castle was awake. 
The early morning after his thirteen nameday festivities Aegon had talked him into, Aemond found himself in Cinda’s chambers once again. She did not have to ask, his tears could not be controlled. 
Cinda had derived a way to lock the doors from the inside, she was never one to to be caught off guard. 
They both bathed in their shifts. Aemond cried into her neck as she washed his hair and sponged his face. She distracted him with Lannister family histories, courtly gossip she had overheard, talk about her excitement for his sister princess’s new ladies-in-waiting arriving from the Stormlands soon.
They couldn’t stay there forever, as Aemond would have wished. The dream between sleep and awake evaporated together into the cloud of his memory. Aemond could not remember if he asked Cinda to marry him that night, or if it was only a fleeting dream. Regardless, there was a sweet declaration of her painless rejection. Aemond had not minded. 
— 
“I hope you are daydreaming of me, my little prince,” Cinda laughed, grazing his cheek with her fingernail. 
The waking nightmare had been so real that Aemond started back to attention, tripping young Cordelia, who was following him too closely.
“You will be gone for weeks,” Aemond continued forward, leaving the young Cordelia to pick herself up from the floor. 
“I hope you do not miss me too fiercely while I away,” she shined. 
“I never do,” Aemond blanched as she pressed her lips to his cheek. 
— 
Aemond could not withstand another moment of his father’s sixtieth nameday celebration, and took to the skies before the great hunt had finished. He had been given his heading of The Bite, and he had studied the wastelands of the kingdoms in his youth for this very reason. He had no need for a map. 
Vhagar circled the estuaries trickling out of The Bite, the bitter air of the cold swamp fluttered upwards, the smell of fresh death, and decay played inside him. Only a place like this could grow the strange bog creature his sister was surely going to cherish from Lady Cinda. 
The settlement had been easy enough to find, after a few hours of searching the shores. Vhagar’s legs sank into the muck as she landed, the elderly she-dragon grunted with every movement, refusing to lean on her wings for support. She took two additional landings for Aemond to calm her enough to dismount.
Before his dragon had disappeared from view, tall, squawking birds had found perch upon her wide back. Aemond was sure her dragon fire would not find purchase amongst the brush and trees, the place was too dank to be set ablaze. 
By the time he reached the settlement, Aemond had cursed every rock and root he had passed for the past few miles. He wished Vhagar had roasted the entire countryside rather than spend another moment knee deep in cold muck. 
— 
“Ryver has gone mad yet again,” Lady Aeditya’s slurred down the stairs, she risked tumbling for a change at her favorite exaggerated eye roll, marking her judgement on others. “He thinks there is a Targaryen prince at his door.” 
The work in the room stopped at once. 
“…another one?” Hanna asked, her hands almost burning on the pan she paused handling. 
“It seems so,” Aeditya shook her cup until it was filled. 
“This shall be the fourth ‘prince’ to show at up his door, correct?” Lyn asked, she could not hide a smile stretching over her lips. 
“When his Lord father is away, Ryver will open the Keep to anyone with silver hair and a claimed title.” 
“What do you think this one will be like?” Hanna asked, “handsome for once?” 
They all had a laugh at that. 
“This one is different,” Aeditya answered, “Or so Ryver claims. This one…has lost an eye.” The lady stretched out her iris as she drained her cup. 
Lyn did not understand the gesture. 
“The prince,” a quiet maid said, “one of the prince’s is missing an eye. They call him ‘One-Eyed!’” 
There was mumbling amongst the ladies, Lyn even joined in. 
Aeditya could not help but be correct in all things, “Girls! Do not be such gullible lambs! Are we really to believe there is only a single silver man in the entire world and he lives at the king’s palace?” 
The new mumbling confirmed that the Lady had a point, as she usually did. Lyn was glad that her worldly education was being put to good use somehow. “Girls these days–” Aeditya said, ignoring their clearly overlapping ages, “–are so quick to believe whatever best suits them. Back when I was a maid, girls were instructed on forming more than the quickest of opinions.” Her hands were at her belly, wishing her wisdom above all for her future son. Wisdom and breath. 
“And besides, I’m sure he would have been born without the eye. Marrying one’s brother dilutes health, it is a simple matter of nature. And besides,” Aeditya looked over the gathered foods. “How would a young princeling lose an eye to begin with? They own the strongest guards on the continent” 
“Perhaps it could have been an accident?” Hanna asked, seeing it as a reasonable offer. 
“No.” Aeditya put down her goblet. “I saw the creature’s face, that scar was no accident.”
— 
Lyn did not want to admit to herself that she wanted a peak at the potential prince herself. If only for the chance to see a nasty scar. Lyn wasn’t one for violence, but she did think the human body a fascinating thing. She sometimes forgot about the prominent marks that scar her own face, a thing that some Septas preach as a consequence for a mother’s sinful life. She was only reminded by her betters. When a traveling Septon instructs her to stand as an example for his sermons on the ill-effects of sin on the body. Lyn did not mind the occasional Maester passing through their congregation asking to examine her. She had been assured that there was nothing malicious about the marks on her face. 
Lyn likened her marks as her calling card, she was an easy face to remember a few summers past, it was what helped her gain her odd-jobs, helping rebuilt fences and carrying stone for ailing paupers. Most in the Realm would scoff at the offer of manual labors from a woman, but those in need are much kinder. They they are not always grateful, it is not because of her sex but because no one wants to turn beggar. Though, accepting help from the Faith was always easier on an ailing conscience. 
For as long as Lyn could remember she had been amongst the statues of the Seven Gods, and the Septas of the faith. She had learned to clean herself by them, she learned discipline by their rods, she learned how to be of use to the world.
Lyn was grateful for her life amongst the Septas, but was glad to be away whenever possible. Lyn thanked the gods that they only appear in Haronfall for the markets, and only require novices to accompany her during work in the Erenford’s Keep.
Lyn surmised most of the Septas had not imagined ending up in such a cold, dank place in the middle of the Kingsroad. The western shores of The Bite was unforgiving terrain, a swamp of brackish, mud-colored water that every structure eventually sinks into. The Reverend Mother often reminded the girls of her life in the southern Reach, of the endless summer days and sweet smelling grass. The wet, grey skies where the North, Riverlands and Vale meet leaves much to be desired for a southerner. 
Lyn was not meant for a life as a Septa, as was foretold since her youth. The maesters and Septons tested the young girls as they came into the charge of the Faith and Lyn, and the other girls of the Maidenhouse, left them unimpressed. She had not shown intelligence, or gifts for art, or sums, or memorizing prayers. So, she was ranked amongst the useless girls who needed to be molded into something more.
Lyn knew of the dangers of a beautiful face, the Septas told them every tale that could exist of beautiful girls being dragged away and savaged by men of all ages and sizes. It was horrifying. Lyn was glad that no man would ever want to drag her away or trap her in a tower. Lyn did not mind being disgusting and ugly because of the marks on her face. 
Besides, girls did not care about such things as ugly, they cared about her all the same. So, she was glad the world was not ruled by women, just like the Septas they would force a use for her in their world, no matter what she looked like. 
“You can really give it to him, my Prince!” The eldest child of the current Lord Erenford called. “We Riverman can handle our own!” Lord Ryver shouted, as he hurled his sword into the guarding shield of his companion Waltel Frey. 
The two young men began fighting in earnest, as a third party looked on. The Supposed Prince. Lyn assumed.
A small boy ran into the fray, wooden sword blazing and iron helmet blocking his line of sight, requiring a few strikes to properly attack his opponent’s buttocks. 
“Yes Robyn! Attack!” Ryver shouted, “Go for the legs!” the small boy wrapped himself around the Frey’s knees as the clang of realm swords sounded until Waltel Frey yielded, which was traditionally followed by a rant of Red Ryver from the Erenford boys.
“Oy!” Waltel called from his chosen place to end his tragic death rattles for the amusement of Little Lord Robyn. 
“Well, isn’t it my favorite grayscale woman!” Robyn leaned against the fence encircling the training yard. 
“Have you ever seen greyscale?” Lyn asked, her tone trying to convey that this was not her favorite greeting. 
“Obviously not,” Robyn answered, he might have been known as the Red Ryver, but he didn’t have a death wish.
“It does not look like this,” Lyn pointed to her face, “I know this because Maesters have shown me their drawings.” 
“Do you speak to Maesters often?” It was the turn of the Supposed Prince to speak now. 
Lyn regarded him, with her eyes. “Charmed,” she stated, echoing the word of Lady Aeditya to denote that she was less than pleased.
 “Lyn lives at the Motherhouse!” Little Lord Robyn added, firing an arrow into the fencepost Lyn was standing in front of, thankfully his ever present helmet did not effect his view, this time.  
“The Maidenhouse?” Waltel questioned.
“Maidenfort!” Ryver echoed his common words for the Faiths Cloisters. 
“We get plenty of Maesters there, if it please you,” she stated, bowing slightly in the presence of Supposed royalty.
“Are you a Septa?” Aemond regarded her this time. She had a ruddy face covered in mess and sweat, brought upon by the brisk pace of a servant’s life. Her hair was braided down slick to her head, it was either flecked with blonde or dirt. What Aemond first guessed was mud on her face turned out to be her, freckles could not contain the black stains that blotched her cheeks. “You are dressed like a child servant.”
Lyn’s skirts were inches shorter than the noble ladies and their proper servants, “It’s easier to walk,” Lyn stated the obvious. She did not need yards of extra fabric mucking about her purpose in life. “And I am no Septa,” Lyn clarified, though not wanting to explain her life any further to this imposter.
“So…it seems the Prince of the Realm has come to Haronfall.” Just as Aeditya had many times before, Lyn brought the conversation to the group. Ryver had wasted no time to clasp his hands upon the Supposed Prince’s shoulders. He did not seem to like that. “That is exciting. What brings you here Ser–Prince?” Lyn had never thought how to address a royal before.
The Prince scowled, “I am here to fetch a gift for my sister,” he answered plainly. 
“I make baskets!” Lyn could not help but exclaim proudly. The Septas had instructed her to always he in search of work, then one would never be wanting for it. “If your sister is in need of a gift.” 
The Haronfall boys were dutifully thrilled at the suggestion. 
“–no,” the Supposed Prince chuckled the word with an arrogance Lyn had not experienced in a man of his young years. 
“Alright!” Lyn did not need to defend the usefulness of a basket very often, and her blood was beginning the boil.
“You make baskets?” he mused in her direction, not lowing himself to speaking directly at her.
“I do. I make them all m’self, I do. I harvest the grass, I dry them, I weave them, without help from no one,” the words bubbled from Lyn’s mouth. “Unlike the looks of you, who could nought tie his breeches alone.” 
Aemond did not like when she pointed to his breeches, or their ties, or the general area in which they reside, in some field, in the damned Riverlands. It was unseeingly! Prince Aemond Targaryen was a god amongst men, the rider of the largest dragon in the world and he would not have his manhood regarded by some peasant. 
“I am a Prince of the Seven Kingdoms–”
“More like six,” Lyn said loudly enough for Ryver and Waltel to stifle a laugh. Ryver’s only respite was promising to explain the jest to little Robyn at a later time. 
Lyn pointed at his breeches straps again, just to watch his face twist in annoyance. 
“I could have you whipped for saying that,” Aemond spat, nearly disrupting the wooden fence separating him from the swampland creature that dared to grace his–
“If you were the real prince–“
Aemond’s mind echoed the if, convulsed his annoyed face into confusion. 
“If!” Lyn repeat to overpower the groans from Lord Ryver, who had thought the group was at a place far past this. He had only been wrong three times before. That did not denote a pattern. Yet. 
Lyn looked the supposed prince in the eyes, a gaze devoid of any reverence or interest. “If you were the real prince, you could have me whipped no matter what I say,” she regarded the man no further. “If it please you, I have a job to return to.” 
Aemond’s hand was on his dagger, he had every right in the whole of the realm, on any continent on this earth to carve a hand from the woman’s body and feed it to Vhagar on his return to the Crownlands. 
“But! He had one eye!” Ryver called after the disappearing peasant. 
A shiver dripped down Aemond back like a bead of sweat on a hot day, his body defensively braced himself for a jest at his own expense. 
“Everyone here seems to think,” Lyn turned and shouted across the lawn, “that the prince was born with only one eye! So, perhaps, have your tale at the ready for your…situation,” Lyn mimed his injury with her giddy hands. 
She was too far away for a sword, but Aemond was sure he could hit her if he pried the bow from the little boy Lord’s hands. 
In reality, Aemond was greeted by the stare of Haronfall boys who seemed to think the peasant woman had a point to make. 
Aemond could feel Vhagar rushing through him, she was far from this place, instantly disliking the frigid swamp mess. The easiest option would be to cart the nonbelievers to his dragon, but he knew he would be too tempted to order Vhagar to feast upon them before taking to the skies to burn the village to the ground. 
It seemed that the truth was taken as fact relatively quickly, with little questioning. Both Lord Ryver Erenford and Ser Waltel Frey seemed to ponder a vague memory of their fathers reading a message over dinner, some years ago, regarding the tale.  
It seemed that the lowborn, lord, peasant men and the helmet clad child believed him long enough for supper and a bed, though he was growling unsure he even wanted that.
— 
Prince Aemond had never been to such a disorderly affair, seated as one of many at a large cypress table that curved around the hall. The food was served in no rememberable order, plates of meats and desserts lingered together on the table. 
Lord Ryver regaled his guests with the grand tale, depicted on the keep’s newest addition to the tapestry gallery. In the threads it told the story of renowned warrior, The Red Ryver, and House Erenford’s defeat of some Rivermen, somewhere. Even Ryver’s younger brother, little Lord Robyn, was featured, wearing the iron he has refused to remove for the past six moons and his miniature bow. 
Aemond watched as the help gathered around the table, listening to Ryver climb upon the hall’s table to reenact memorable battle moments.
The servants were dressed in an array of clothing clothes and fabrics, as if the group had been bandied together for this night alone. Most of the maids wore a grey dress fit for a child, the length only reaching to their mid-calf. Aemond had a mind to walk back to Vhagar and never leave the comfort of King’s Landing again, Cinda could fetch her own surprise. 
Aemond did not make himself sick from wine and exotic liquors often, but this was a specific situation he wished to forget his memories as he went about making them. 
There was dancing after the meal, and the maids joined in on that as well, acting as if they were High Born ladies, dancing with visiting lords and 
Lyn stepped out of the overly warm keep, to get a deep breath of the fresh night air. It smelled of rotting plants and decaying leaves, like the smell of new life sprouting from under every stone. She noticed that she was not alone. 
“I see we both needed time away,” she said to the figure, clad in leathers like he was ready to ride away given the slightest reason. 
The prince had just excused himself to be sick on the grassed levee fortifying against the encroaching swamp. 
Prince Aemond scoffed at the girl, his mouth foal with the taste of wine and sick. The peasant girl’s skirts were riding even higher on her legs from the dancing, her leggings as disappeared hours ago as the temperature of the kitchens rose and warmed the entire keep. She looked like someone begging for his coin. 
“Hello, Greyscale,” he retorted, his mind shifting to the quick insult. 
“Hello, Cripple,” Lyn barely tolerated the language from her friend and employer, this man would get no sympathy. 
Aemond did not like that. He did not like a single moment. His skin lit up in a drunken daze as if he were standing on guard for a fight. His hazy mind did not know where he had placed his weapons. 
He opened his mouth to speak, but thankfully was interrupted, for he would not have been able to swallow his sick back into his stomach in that moment.
“Listen closely, Silver-boy,” Lyn began, as Aemond gripped the hilt of an imagined dagger. 
“As I am sure you are well aware,” he started. The moon was mostly full in the sky, but the torchlight of the terrace was not enough to see his lavender eyes sway drunkenly as they attempted to focus. “Your brothers have visited here. Three times now, I’d wager.” 
“What?” That made no sense to Aemond, as his mind reeled to Cinda. Had she charged Daeron and Aegon into her mission? She would never do that to him. 
“And I think it only fair, seeing that the last Targaryen Princeling to weasel their way into these walls stole a favored sword of the Lord Erenford!” Lyn’s tale weaved itself. She was sure Haronfall had been the talk from the North to the Vale after the beating Ryver’s Lord Father gave him after that. 
“I just think,” Lyn continued, “That after the feast, you should just take your leave. Lord Erenford need not know of this feasts guest of honor.” 
“I will not be ordered about by some–“ Aemond was sick again. 
“You’ve filled your belly, just leave quietly,” Lyn laughed at his misfortune, “It was smart of you to come during the King’s nameday celebrations. The Septas told us of the King’s nameday and all of his grand plans. And I would assume…” Lyn moved closer, clasping her hands behind her back. “…That you knew Lord Ryver would be left alone and… vulnerable, with Lord Erenford traveling to the capital…where I would assume the true prince is,” Lyn enjoyed immensely being right. “–celebrating his own father’s nameday?”
Never in Aemond’s life had he needed to prove his lineage, it had been clearly written on his face and stitched into his clothing. The green of House Hightower was as thick in his veins as the blood of dragons. And yet here, he was some imposter.
And he was growing tiered of this ruse he was seeming to play. He was growing tiered and perhaps too drunk. It reminded him far too much of the time a young Aegon recruited the Reach Girls and his cousins to pretend that he had been rendered invisible for weeks on end one boring winter in their shared youth. 
“Fine!” Aemond had been many things in his life, he had been a failure, a twat, an annoyance, a disappointment, but never…no one. “Fine! I shall leave! Just stop with the ceaseless tales, of rivers and princes! My head is spinning.” He could walk to Vhagar and leave this place and no one would never know or believe that a real prince had graced their halls.
It could have been the wine, or the company, but Aemond could not prevent a laugh when regarding his current fate. 
“I’m glad that you agree,” Lyn was pleased. “I was a good plan. Little Robyn even believes he saw your dragon fly above the keep.” The deep breath of the night air carried with it something that she had only smelled somewhere in the memory, that she could not place. 
Aemond could not stand the taste of sick in his mouth and fished a forgotten fruit from his coats pockets. 
“What is that?” Lyn asked.
“What?” Aemond asked, as the woman pointed to what he was idly palming between his hands. 
“Is it something for your dragon?” she laughed.
“This?” he asked, “is an orange.” Aemond was sure he recalled his mother telling a story about it being one of his first words as a babe. 
“An orange? Like the fruit?” she asked.
“Yes, you imbecile.” 
“Well, where did it come from? Was it a gift from The Twins? Ryver has never–– it seems so–“ The wine rushed through Lyn’s system, and the beautiful smell embolden her. 
“No, I thought it for my travels,” he quipped. “I am glad of it. I was not aware the Riverlands to be such a dreadfully barren place” 
“The land is plenty fruitful here, when it wants to be,” she replied, holding out her hand. “Now, give it here, I want to try it.” 
The fantasy played through Aemond’s head that it pulled a smile onto the corners of his face. The image of himself offering her the fruit, and just as it graced her palm, he would use his entire strength to throw it into the fucking swamp. His glorious vision was interrupted by the disappointed eyes of his mother. Her furrowed brows were too vivid from much wine. Aemond groaned and handed over the mysterious fruit.
Lyn inhaled loudly, the smell like she had never experienced before. It filled her nostrils and woke up her blood. 
Aemond’s hand twitched slightly as she prepared an opened mouth bite into the skin. His hands were then crossed under his arms. 
“Is it safe to eat?” she asked, stepping forward to eye him in the dim lamplight. Aemond felt the stone wall of the terrace against his leather clad back. 
“No, it’s poison, I will gladly watch you die.” 
Her laugh sounded like a pigs snort. Her smile was quickly replaced with a scowl as her teeth peeled a thick membrane of skin into her mouth. “It’s–delicious,” she forced herself to say, open mouth chewing the bitter bite. 
“No! You fool,” he wrenched the fruit back before she could cover it in any more of her bile. “It must be peeled first.” 
Aemond was so glad of the dark night’s lack of light upon their shadowed corner of the terrace as the woman spit the bitter taste into the dirt. The Prince nearly dropped the orange in disbelief of a lady performing such a disgusting act. 
She laughed at him once again. 
“Here!” He huffed, as he had picked away the disgusting bits. His bare fingers gripped the dripping fruit as he held it out as an offering. 
The blood drained from his body and disappeared deep inside of him at the contact of her tongue on the tips of his fingers as she took the fruit from his offered hand with her mouth. Aemond had not been aware of the deep breath that had been held up inside his lungs, but they emptied as the girl’s eyes flashed in the torchlight, the color of honey passed before a flame. The prince watched the endless dance of emotions over her face as she experienced the flavors for the first time. 
“Its a mess!” The fluttered giggle that left her made him offer another piece without thinking, and she took it the same way. 
He responded somewhere between a right and a yes as he tried to memorize the coloring and ridges and valleys of her face, as if he would need it later to solve a life threatening puzzle. He wanted to lick the juice that he had watched drip down from her chin, to the place under her clothes. 
He felt things under his own clothes stir. 
“Come swim with me,”
“What?”
“Its the least you can do after eating all the food I helped prepare,” she said, beaconing him away from the terrance and into the expanse of the night. “A prince would be in want of a bath, I am sure,” she laughed, for she nor any other servant would be prepared to carry water up stairs after a feast like tonight. 
Aemond allowed himself to be led away. His hands still grasp around an imaginary dagger, at the prospect of her robbing him blind. 
“I do not plan to steal your virtue, princeling” Lyn’s words had a drunken edge in their own right. She did not often partake in wine, as it was not offered to her as it could take away from the Septas reserves. 
Aemond’s hand released the dagger that had never been there, as his eyes played their way over her body as he followed her into the moonlight. He played the scenes of her trying to overtake him and none seemed to have purchase. Unless she attacked him with a stone, but Aemond was sure his arms were longer. This had not been the first time since they met that he had imagined choking her. 
“So, where are you from?” Lyn asked, flexing her lady-like conversational skills that Aeditya spoke so highly of. Lyn allowed him some time to answer, as they maneuvered past a precarious log. 
“A Valyrian bastard,” he replied, just like his nephews. “I hail from Dragonstone. It is an isle in the mouth of Blackwater Bay. Near the capital.” He got close enough to see her face in the dark, adding on more information until he found recognition take root. 
“Could you see the palace, from your isle?” she sounded eager to be fed more.
“From my own palace?” he felt something inside of him at her gasp. 
“Did you really live in a palace?” 
Aemond could not begin to guess what she had been imagining, but he liked watching the wheels turn in her mind. “When I was a boy,” he did not want to get too far from her now. 
“What was it like? Could you simply ask for an orange and it would be fetched for you?” He nodded until she continued. “And there would just be oranges in the kitchens? And what if the kitchens run out? Would they–“
“They would be punished severely,” he added, strangely not enjoying her new gasp as much. “But–“ he had to think quickly to play her throat like an instrument. “We could never run out of oranges, they grow on the island.” She enjoyed this more, he enjoyed when she licked her fingers at the lingering taste. “Giant orange bushes, all along the ocean’s edge, too many to ever eat in all the feasts of the year.” 
She touched him with her next astonished laugh.
“And when you needed clothes they would clean it? And when you wanted a bath…would they bathe you?” her last words were a whisper, a topic proper ladies should not be speaking about.
The Septas and girls of the House of the Faith all bathed together. It was a cloister of women, no one had anything to hide. And Lyn had once heard Lord Erenford state that men should not sit in stagnant water, it unaligned the humors. 
“Yes,” Aemond whispered back. “They would bathe me every day.” 
“Would they only bathe you? Or would there be–?” 
Aemond licked his lips as he watched the moonlight dance on the dipped juice along her chin. “Would there be what?” he could barely hear himself speak over his heart beating. “What could they have done?” he played dumb, he could smell the orange on her breath. 
“They would have…” Lyn eyed his lips, his eyes far too towering above her head. She guessed that he liked being tall. Lyn could not help but laugh. “… they would have stolen your virtue!” 
“The servants did not bathe me!” He admitted, rolling his eyes at her naivety. “They were servants, they only fetched water.” 
Aemond would mow anyone down with his sword if they overlord the ‘wow’ that left his lips as the girls twirled in the moonlight. 
“We are here!” she announced, it seemed to be a river. 
“Turn around! It is too dark to see anything!” she called, her hands moving to unclasp her work clothes. 
“If it it too dark, when why must I turn around?” 
“Valyrian gentlemanly duty?”
He turned without much fuss until he heard her body splash into the water. He had been a gentleman and not looked, he had given his word. 
His eyes fell on her discarded clothes and drifted to her swimming form. He did not know the state of her, but from the pile she left behind it didn’t seem she have many options to be left wearing. 
“Now you turn around,” he ordered, as he kicked off his shoes. 
He watched her turn, not knowing when to stop himself in his state of undress. 
Aemond watched as her head turned over her shoulder. He undressed completely and wadded into the water. He had not taken a breath the entire time. The water was warmer than he expected.
They spoke about the sky, and the weather, and whatever other topics that flattered them, their distance ebbed and flowed like the tides, inching closer to one another and then pulling away. 
“Ryver is a bastard?” Aemond asked, his toes could feel the bottom of the lake if he put his mind to it. 
“No. Ryver is the first true born child of Lord and Lady Erenford,” Lyn explained. “But, little Lord Robyn is the heir because Lord Ryver was born…as Lady Ryver.” 
There was a pause in the air as Aemond let it all sink in. 
“The Lord Erenford allowed it, and all will be well as long as Robyn lives to inherit after their father dies.” 
“And if not?” Aemond asked.
“Lord Erenford’s brother does not approve of…any of it. And he is next in line after Robyn. But! Even before then, The Red Ryver wishes for a Keep all his own. ‘Feast Keep’ he calls it. A place where all and everyone are welcome. Fortified to withstand any threads from his uncle and…those would you see them all hang. Away fro the Septas…”
“Away from King’s Landing,” Aemond added, understanding her meaning, forgetting his imagined birthplace. He turned his body in the water to face her. 
His hands floating in the water to support himself, just as she did the same in the moonlight. He had washed his mouth out of the water many times over, he smelled her beautiful orange breath, assuming his own was foul. The orange juices had been long wiped away, but Aemond will imagined her lips would taste of sweetness.
He was brought back to reality when she spit a mouthful of water into his face. 
“That’s disgusting!”
“We’re in a lake,” she shrugged one arm above the waterline. 
Aemond eye was at the water’s edge when he saw the moonlight glisten off the skin on her bare shoulders. She had marks there too. He wondered where else on her body she had them. He watched her skin disappear below the water, like a beaconing ancient puzzle. 
“You’re disgusting.” Perhaps for the first time in his life, he did not mean that has an (entire) insult. 
“And you’re a liar,” she pointed out. 
Aemond enjoyed being a low-born, if only because he knew it was entirely temporary. He let out a laugh and a breath at a realization he had yet to make. 
“You’re naked with a liar,” he whispered, if he could see her bare shoulders then what else could she be wearing. 
“Well!” she laughed, “You are to, I’d say.” 
“But–“ That was entirely different.
“Because I’m a girl,” she barked back.
Aemond swam after her. 
“–a woman,” she corrected. “A lady, even!” 
“You are no lady,” he was enjoy this game that he could not tell you last time he had ever been angry. 
“How would you know?” she teased. 
“Because–” they had stoped swimming, just treading water, his toes dipped to the pebbled floor if he covered his nose. She was close enough to touch. Aemond reached his hand out and brushed her bare waist. “I’ve met ladies, and they would never be so–” 
Did she not notice his touch to not flinch away? Or did she simply not care? There was no word for this feeling. He had felt it above the clouds, away from the red keep, and now between his toes in the muck. 
“Ladylike?” she offered.
Aemond watched as her her hand breached the water, like she was trying to not frighten her prey, and rested itself atop his shoulder. 
“What are ladies like?” she repeated herself, after her second hand touched his shoulders. He had not heard her the first time. 
“They must…” he tried to remember anything else that wasn’t here, in this lake, under his moon. “Beautiful, and well-read. They should sing, and dance, be pious, but not overly-so. Painting, embroidery…drawing, even, an art is important for ladies to be accomplished with.” 
Lyn was surprised there was even more.
“She should know her histories, and geographies, and sums so she might not bleed her husband’s purse dry. And, there is just something about her,” he almost sighed, “in her manner, and walk. Her air should be build to maintain her husband’s social and political alliances.”
“All at once?” She removed her hands from his shoulders. “All the time?” Lyn could not help but laugh.
“Not all the time, but yes! All at once! Some try and many fail,” he scoffed. 
“You seem pleased with the failures of women,” she mocked, stretching herself backwards to wade towards the shallow edge. Her back arched and she felt cold air on her chest.
There was a pause in Aemond as his brain worked, a whisper brushed against his mind that reminded him of Aegon. “…What women?” he asked, closing the distance between them. 
Lyn was pleased, this time, she wrapped her arms around his neck, not close enough to touch him. She nodded her head, and he copied, she shook it and he did too. 
“Good boy.” It was as quiet as the wind. He could stand easily, and palmed her waist with a sigh. 
There was a long silence.
“…have you…?” she asked, he felt it in his chest, as if she had said it in any worldly tongue he would have known what she was asking. 
“Yes. Once. A long time ago.” The words came out, slowly, one at a time, but it was said. “My brother, took me to a brothel on my thirteen nameday. And…never again.”
“Oh,” she only said, her tone dipped in sadness at the edge of the sound.  
“Have you?” his brow furrowed, in a genuine question. He had never given much thought to the purity of lowborns.
“No,” she answers firmly. “…yes,” but she corrected. “He…It wasn’t my…” she sighed into the story, never having told it before. “Last winter,” it had been over a past year, “A friend got sick, the Septas wanted us to pray but, she a needed medicine, and there was a man…and he was very handsome…so I…got the coin…” She picked her fingers behind his back. “But at least…I did not lie to a Riverlord for a free meal?” 
“But aren’t you worried the Septas will check you?” Aemond heard her attempt to make light, but ignored it. 
“I don’t think they can tell,” she answered.
“What?”
“I grew up with girls, and some went out and…had their fun, and some were taken before getting there, and some swore to have never and…I think the Septas feel what they want to fell.”
“So you think they're lying about it all?”
“Maybe!” 
“You think everyone is lying,” he teased. 
“Perhaps, sometimes, they are!” 
He wanted to kiss her, to feel her lips on his, but she stopped him.
“Come sit on the dock with me,” she motioned, they were back where they started. Her hands gripped and pulled herself out of the water in one fluid motion, to sit atop the dock, bare as when she was submerged. 
Aemond watched the watch drip from her hair down her neck and disappear into the shadows of the night, if only he could see in the dark. He was at her knees, standing in the waist deep waters, he could rest his chin on the dock if he liked. He liked his lips and place his hands on the girl’s knees. 
“Have you ever seen a lady like this?” Lyn asked, she shoulders swayed in the sticky night air and her should feel her breasts shake as they lay on her crossed legs. 
He shook his head in answer. 
“What about this?” she asked, moving her hands with her knees and she spread her legs wide, exposing her cunt to him. 
She had something else snarky to saw, but Aemond did not hear it. The moon and the stars would not support his endeavors to drown in the sight of her. Where his hands had been idle before, he gripped her knees to pull her further spread before him. 
“What are you–?” 
He was close enough he could almost…His tongue licked up her core and she played him music with her voice. He moaned into her as his tongue explored the raised flesh where her opening met. His tongue circled whines and moans around the bundle of nerves until he kissed her clit with his lips and didn’t let go. He suckled the bud, as he had wanted to suckle hard nipples of bellowing beasts in his sick fantasies. Her hands are in his hair, Aemond would not be freed from his prize, leaving Lyn to fist his hair like reins of a saddle. Her moans were shaking her entire body.
His finger played at her entrance. “Have you ever touched yourself?” he finally relented, for his desperate question. 
“No!” she shook her body. “It’s…messy and wet and,” she could never bring herself to do it, and he did not let her finish. 
His two fingers sank in, “You are wet.” She spread her own legs now, bucking against him as he returned to lapping at her clit while he coiled his fingers in side of her. “And messy,” he pumped in and out, his free hand twisting her nipple in his hand. He had never seen it gentle, but she clasped both hands over her own mouth to scream. 
Aemond felt her clenching around him fingers as his mouth continued its attack. She bucked and tried to press her legs together, but he would not allow it. “Ahhhg!” she moaned, into the air, and slowly her quakes came to and end. 
“Stop, stop…please–” she panted, her back layer against the dock. 
Aemond did not like his lack of a view, and joined her on the platform, his own breath panting as he studied her face like a treasured map. She breathed, and her chest rose up and down, the water had dried from her skin but dripped from her hair. Aemond’s hands were firmly planted on the dock besides him, not wanting to touch something to fragile that she might run away. 
“My turn,” she finally said, sitting up and catching his lips in a kiss. He had tried kissing before, but not often, mostly in games of children who could still play innocent. His mouth opened slightly and her tongue licked at the entrance. 
He moaned into her as she wrapped her hand around the base of his cock. Lyn nipped at his lips lightly as she began to pump him, she could feel his skin tighten with every stroke, growing longer, and wider, filling her hand.
His mouth was useless for her kisses, she licked his tongue as his mouth hung open in pleasure. Aemond’s head found the crook of her neck and moaned into her skin. Her free hand fingered the strands of his silver locks. He was a shivering mess as he pumped his hips into her firm palm. 
“Mmm,” he moaned as her free hand found his balls, palming them with every trust of her hand. He matched her pace and trust himself with her, she breathed heavy in his ear to match the pace. 
“Lyn!” a voice called out from the darkness.
“What?” she shouted back, the loudest and sweetest sound Aemond had ever heard.
“Where are you? It is the Hour of the Owl! We must be going!” The ghost voice cursed them. 
She moaned. “I am coming! I shall be there! Away! Please!” she begged.
Aemond had lost his pace, his head was shaking, he could not do this anymore. 
“Wait,” Lyn hushed him, “Shh, shh, wait.” She was assuring, her strokes still strong as she could feel him hardening into her hand again. 
“Let me,” she moved herself to between her legs and lowered her face to his cock. Her tongue starting at his base and licked up to twirl his head around her lips. She peppered kissed down his length as her hand returned to stroke him. Her kissed reached the base and went lower, kissing and sucking in the skin of his balls as he trust himself into her hands. He did not last long, the naked girl with her mouth on his cock. He trust and whine and pumped and he could hear her laughing and sucking and breathing and he came shaking on his chest. 
They breathed together, and their breathing turned to laughter. Their discarded clothes still in the same pile it was forgotten. 
“You’re called Lyn?” he said, praying to whatever god allowed him to remember her name. “I’m called–“ she interrupted him with a finger over his mouth.
“I don’t care,” she said, kissing his cheek and disappearing into the darkness, leaving Aemond a mess of himself.
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//authors note – thank you SO MUCH for reading! This is the first project Im posting that I am proud of. It is barely edited, so I will eventually work on that. But, this is the beginning of a story worked out well. Plenty of twists and turns to come! I am always here for encouraging words, fic recs, headcanons, questions, and anything else~
My work on this fic inspired THIS POST. I’m just fascinated at HBO’s lack of “courtly ladies”, especially in a family where sisters are born to marry their brothers. So, I changed that and made some angsty mean girls to make fetch happen
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astralaffairs · 1 year
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hi!! before i go i jus wanna say, I love your work 🙏🏽 and I finally watch hamilton last night so I might write for it as well 😋😋 but i have a drabble idea.
anyways— thomas having a dance/ball for a campaign during the election and he meets aaron’s little sister, mc, who snuck in. and he can’t help but take interests in her.
“Now, what’s a lady like you doin’ getting a drink just for yourself? Nobody’s offered to do that for you yet?”
Y/N froze as her fingers met the stem of the champagne flute. She had promised herself she would stay to the outskirts of the ball, and her only goal for the night had been to avoid courting attention. However, the packed room was warm, and it was only more so at its perimeter under the lights, and the crisp bubbly had looked oh-so-inviting.
She turned with a polite smile as she picked up the glass, but her eyes widened when she saw the man behind her with his gleaming smile and his velvet suit. She recognized him instantly; after all, she’d seen him before, and he’d even been in her home, but they’d never formally met. He raised an eyebrow when her smile faltered. “I’ve only just arrived. I haven’t had a chance to speak to much of anyone just yet.”
“Then I’m gonna have to count myself lucky to have found you when I did. Thomas Jefferson.” He offered her a hand as he introduced himself, and when she took it, he dipped down to press a soft kiss to her knuckles. Her eyes went even wider.
She cleared her throat as he drew himself back up to his full height, still holding her by the fingertips, and it took a moment for it to occur to her to withdraw her hand. “You’re the host of this ball, then, if I’m not mistaken. Thank you for opening your home to us like this.”
“Believe me, sugar, the pleasure’s all mine,” he said. “Who’re you here with? Feel like I’ve seen you around, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Oh, um, my family’s here somewhere. I came on my own, though, and I was planning to meet them here.”
“Your family?” He pursed his lips. “You’re not a Schuyler, are you?”
“No, no, certainly not,” she replied before hastily adding, “although the Schuylers are lovely people, of course. To be a part of their family would make one lucky.”
“So you know the Schuylers, then?” he mused, and she nodded. His growing smile was making her mouth go dry. “I know where I recognize you from; you’re a Burr, aren’t you? Aaron’s sister?”
“I am, yes.” Her smile was tense, laced with unease. His grin was bright as he plucked a drink for himself off of the table behind them.
“So why haven’t I seen you at one of these before? Your family trying to keep you locked away from all the politics?” he asked, and as her eyebrows fell, he could see the look in her eyes sour.
“They’ve decided I can’t be trusted at this kind of event,” she said bitterly, and he quirked a brow. “Aaron claims he’s afraid I’ll say the wrong thing and jeopardize his career, but really, I think he just can’t deal with the idea of splitting people’s attention between us.”
“But you finally proved yourself trustworthy?” he asked mildly, taking a sip of his drink, and she shrugged uncomfortably.
“I suppose so.”
“Then where’s your dear brother now, hm? Why aren’t you here with the rest of your family?” He watched her expectantly, and when she didn’t answer right away, his grin broadened. “They don’t even know you’re here, do they?”
“No, and you’re not going to be the one to tell them,” she said sharply, pointing her champagne flute at him. He raised his eyebrows, amused by the fervor in her tone. “I had to walk miles alone in the dark to get here; I am not being thrown out as soon as I arrive.”
“Well, sweetheart, if you’re not with them, then really, I should be sendin’ you on your way.” Despite the threat, his voice was breezy, and she frowned.
“And what do you have to gain from kicking me out?”
“The respect and appreciation of your family,” he suggested blithely. “The knowledge that I’m not leavin’ a young lady to walk home alone ‘n vulnerable at the end of the night. ‘S just the right thing to do, really.”
She eyed his small smile for a moment before slowly asking, “But despite that, you’d rather I stay, wouldn’t you?” He shrugged unabashedly. “You’re quite shameless, aren’t you, Mr. Jefferson?”
“Only on a good day.” He winked as he took a sip of his drink. “After all, you went through all that effort to get here. There’s gotta be a good reason for it, huh?”
“Of course. I’m here to expand my mind just like everyone else," she said, and he raised an eyebrow.
“And not for the charming future president we’ve got roaming the ball?”
“Oh, I wasn’t aware there was one. Let me know if you see him?”
His full laugh proved him undeterred, and Y/N’s self-satisfied smile was reluctant. "'M glad to see you inherited more of the family wit than your brother seemed to."
"Please, don't tell him that. A lady needs to keep some things a secret."
"It'll stay between us, then," Thomas said, "but I don't think I ever got your name."
"Why, so you know whose presence to report to my brother?"
"So I know who to ask after the next time I see him." His response was quick, and it had Y/N on her heels. Her eyes were wide, eyebrows raised, but when she opened her mouth to answer—
"Y/N." Both she and Thomas turned on their heels at the loud voice to find her brother striding across the room toward them, and her groan was unchecked. The fury in Aaron's voice was barely contained. "What in the world do you think you're possibly doing here, sneaking out after dark? How did you even get here?"
"I brought myself, since nobody else was willing to take me," she bit back, and Thomas raised his eyebrows as he took a sip of his drink.
"That wasn't your decision to make," Aaron snapped. "We are a family, and you have to respect that—"
"Respect what? That you have total control over my life in the name of family values? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?" she asked. "I respect that you have a career and a reputation to maintain, but I am a person, and—"
"And nothing, Y/N. Put the drink down, and leave Mr. Jefferson at peace," he demanded, and Y/N narrowed her eyes, her jaw set. Aaron turned to Thomas, and much of the fire in his voice had subsided when he said, "I'm sorry for her intrusion, Thomas. We didn't know she had followed us here, and we'll send her home at once."
"Now, Aaron, what makes you think she's uninvited company?" Thomas asked, and both Y/N's and Aaron's brows were raised. "Y/N's my guest here this evening; 's the opposite of an intrusion."
He frowned, glancing between Thomas and Y/N. "You mean you're responsible for her presence here tonight?"
"Well, I invited her, so I suppose you could say that," he said casually, and if he winked when he caught Y/N's eye, Aaron didn't think anything of it. Aaron's lips were pursed and his shoulders tense as he glanced between them.
"Why didn't you tell me Thomas had invited you?" he asked Y/N, and she shrugged.
"I didn't think you'd want to hear it, and I didn't want you trying to prevent me from coming."
"If I'd known he asked you to come—"
"So, what, my personhood is dependent on his permission now?"
"Your presence here is, at least."
"As a Burr, I would've been welcome either way."
"Not unattended, however."
"I can attend to myself just fine."
"You know that isn't what I mean when—"
"Aaron, was there somethin' else you needed?" Thomas cut him off, and Aaron's gaze was affronted when it snapped to him. However, he held his tongue. "I was just about to ask Y/N to dance, assuming that's her decision to make 'n all."
Y/N had to bite back her smile at his words, and although Aaron seemed to recognize the challenge in them as his jaw ticked, he said, "Of course. I'm sorry to have interrupted."
"Don't sweat it. Your concern for your sister is awful sweet, even if it isn't needed here," Thomas responded, his smile warm.
"'Concern' isn't how I'd describe it," Y/N muttered bitterly, and Thomas nudged her with his elbow. She frowned.
"Carry on 'n enjoy the rest of the ball, though, and please send my best to your wife," he said. Aaron could only offer a tense smile in response.
“You as well. I suppose I should go find Theodosia.” He looked down skeptically at Y/N. “How are you planning to get home?”
Y/N’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, I…” She hadn’t thought that far, so her gaze was hopeful when it snapped to Thomas, who held her with a hand at the small of her back.
“I’ll arrange for a carriage to take her home,” he promised. “Don’t you worry, Burr. She’s in safe hands.”
“Right,” he said hesitantly, looking Thomas over. “I’ll leave you to it. Don’t do anything stupid, Jefferson.”
“‘S like you don’t even know who you’re talkin’ to,” Thomas said incredulously, and Aaron scoffed.
“I’m sure.” He barely spared them both another glance before departing unceremoniously, shaking his head all the while, and Thomas chuckled. Y/N turned back toward him.
“You’re a regular local hero,” she said sardonically, but the smile in her eyes betrayed her bored tone. Thomas grinned.
“I do try, sweetheart,” he said lightly, “maybe even in a way that deserves a ‘thank you’?”
“Thank you.” Her voice was sincere. “Really. I owe you.”
“Well, if you mean that,” he said, and his eyes were shining as he looked down at her, “I wouldn’t mind making good on that dance I mentioned. Unless you’re in a real rush to get back to your dear old brother.”
He offered her his arm with an eyebrow raised, and she left her empty glass on the table behind them when she took it, drawing a wide grin from him. “How could I say no to our charming host?"
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family-aya · 1 month
Text
Do you hear me?
I just want to tell you that it
I'm not well!!
Do you hear this sound?
How do you feel?
Do you eat every day?
I hungry.I swear did you well?,, I think I haven't slept for aweek!💔 Is your family with you??
I don't,,, where is the humanity?Tell me???
Do you really feel for me??
If ti helps me🍉🇵🇸
Help me please 😭
If you can't?
Today is my birthday, but the war still goes on,I hope this genocide ends as soon as possible
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