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Visenya sighed heavily as her newly married spouse entered the chamber.
To be honest, marriage to her almost twenty years older, widowed uncle was not what she or anyone else expected. People whispered that Rhaenyra's last living child and only daughter would be married to the king's eldest living son to finally settle the conflicts gripping the dragon family, but all speculation was cut off when Aegon II publicly announced his children's betrothal and his niece's impending marriage to his brother.
So now here she was; just sixteen years old, trembling and almost naked before a man who, despite being the girl's uncle, was still somehow responsible for the deaths of her loved ones.
Aemond sat down in an armchair facing the bed and slowly began to untie his shoes.
"Sometimes when you smile you resemble your brother" the prince broke the silence after a minute, still bent over his shoes. Visenya blinked in surprise.
"Which one, uncle?" she asked quietly. She didn't actually remember any of her brothers, and she had five of them; somewhere in the back of her mind Visenya had a memory of servants who, unaware of their princess' presence, gossiped about the tragic war. One of them, an old one with hair dusted with gray, hinted that the king and his siblings had been close to their nephews in their youth. For a long time after this conversation, Visenya was still pondering what had changed and why.
"Lucerys" Aemond's hands remained motionless over his shoes for a while. His spouse did not miss the tone with which he said the name; longing, full of bitterness, saturated with regret and contempt. "Gods... you don't resemble any of these bastards one bit, and yet sometimes I see his smile on your lips. It's as if he's here to torment me after all these years" she sighed protractedly.
She recalled that sometimes, when she sat at the table and discussed with her cousin, Aemond would watch her like a hawk. Now she knew the reason.
"Maybe... may I ask what he was like? I mean... I don't remember him, but you don't have to answer if you don't want to " it was probably the stupidest question she could have asked. In response, Aemond completely abandoned playing with his shoes and spread out more comfortably in a chair.
Was she really going to sleep with him? The look her uncle sent her said that he would sooner cut something than be willing to consummate the marriage. Despite the obvious tension and slightly disheveled hair, Aemond still looked presentable and as young as in her earliest memories. Although Aegon was getting fatter with each passing year, and Daeron had died some time ago, for Aemond, time seemed to have stopped. The only signs of the passage of time were a few new scars and wrinkles around his eyes. And so he held up well for a man approaching forty.
"He was nothing like you. He was much more brash and cocky, a little bastard. He took my eye away, you know. He never apologized for it. He acted as if I deserved it. And even when he died he couldn't just leave me" only now Visenya realized how much her uncle must have drunk if he talked so much and on such a topic. The Velaryon brothers had been a taboo subject at court since the victory of the Greens.
"I'm sorry uncle" she didn't know what else she could have said, but the drunk and bitter man didn't fill her with as much fear at the moment as he usually did. Maybe she would have sympathized with him if she didn't know what he did to Lucerys in retaliation for that eye.
To her surprise, the prince only laughed.
"I'm sorry too, niece. Or maybe not. Maybe what they say is true. Maybe I really lost my heart along with the eye, hm? Your brother stole it from me" uncle's cheeks blushed slightly, probably under the influence of alcohol. He must have drunk really a lot, because he was not known for his libations.
Silence fell in the chamber. Neither of them knew what to say, embarrassed by both the conversation and their new situation. Visenya grunted.
"Did we..."
"The king thought it was a perfect joke" Aemond interrupted her. "Our marriage is nothing more than an excellent joke to him. He has been making fun of your little brother for years. After all, it's such a good joke, isn't it? Marrying me to a girl who could be my daughter just because she is the sister of the bastard who turned me into a monster" the princess had to focus on her uncle's words; alcohol made him start talking intermittently, often quietly, as if to himself.
"The king..."
"I should have laughed at him once. I, at least, had a reason not to.... To harbor a grudge against Lucerys. And what did the elder do to him, how was he? Jace, I think it was. Aegon never recovered. Isn't that stupid? To spend years longing for a boy in whom there was nothing special.... except maybe his hairstyle. I have never seen such a terrible hairstyle in my life. I still remember it to this day, in fact, probably even just that. Aside, of course, from the fact that he was such an annoying brat."
Visenya lost the thread of the conversation and, as a result, completely did not know how to react to it.
"Lucerys at least had a good haircut" he continued his pointless chatter. "I'll un-ironically admit that his eyes did, too. If I cut them out of him, would they still be here? You know, still pretty and human. I could stare at them for hours. A living remorse or something. Alive, hah.... not really. Gods, if I could, I would kill that bastard again and again. For what he did. For leaving me here. Fucking coward, that Lord Strong of mine. He didn't even have the guts to stay with me. Cunt" Aemond walked fairly straight to the bed, poured wine into a cup, then returned to his chair, completely ignoring his spouse.
"Why should he stay?" she asked quietly. The trajectory of this conversation was uncertain and could have ended unpleasantly.
"He has always haunted me, he might as well do it in person" Visenya was not sure if this was any answer to her question. "Years ago I even found a woman, another Strong's bastard. She was decent, even pleasant company, but she was so damn submissive. Just like you. Now I think I should be better for her, ensure a quick death. Aegon said she was not shown this mercy. Do ... Do you think Luke's death was painless? Do you think he died instantly before he felt any pain?"
"I would like to believe that. I would like to believe that both he and the rest of my family died painlessly" she frankly admitted. Aemond was probably too drunk to attack her in any way anyway.
"Vhagar is dead" he said in a drag, completely unexpectedly. He did not continue the thought, taking a long sip of wine.
"Did you ever like him, uncle?" a sudden surge of courage came over her. She liked the thought that this is what her father felt when he remembered Lucerys' fate fighting Aemond. She wanted to believe that this is what her mother felt when looking into Sunfyre's eyes.
"Gods... maybe, I don't know. When we were children we sometimes sat together, but he preferred Aegon. If he were here he would probably hit his head now, hah. Then... I'm not sure. I would like to hate him when I wake up and he is standing over my bed. Every time I see him in the crowd or in the corner of the room I want to kill him again. I just want to rip that smile off his face. Tomorrow he won't be laughing, ahem, I have a feeling that tomorrow he will be furious. Or maybe he's already angry? Maybe I just can't see him, after all, I only have one eye. But it's a lovely sight to see him wrinkling his nose, sitting next to me, interrupting my reading" with each successive word he sounded more and more like a man overwhelmed by madness, not intoxicated by wine. Only the last sentence sounded gentle, almost tender; like a lover whispering in his ear in the hope that no one else would hear the secret.
"Did you love him?" She trembled at this question. How pathetic. They were both pathetic; the killer despairing over his victim and his wife, the dead man's sister.
Now at least she had no doubt that neither she nor Aemond's previous wife had any chance of his affection.
The prince sipped the wine from his cup, pulling out a dagger and throwing it to his new wife.
"Leave some blood on the sheets. They are to believe that the marriage is consummated"
Visenya silently obeyed his command. They could do it another time, when he was sober.
She did not forget that he never answered her last question.