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Aemma smiled as her single eye flittered over the contents of the letter Luke had sent her. It was a staple of courtships all across the realm for the betrotheds to exchange letters and, on occasion, appropriate gifts. For the last four years, every fortnight, like clockwork, a letter from Lucerys Velaryon would arrive in the ravenry of the Red Keep, a response sent by Aemma within days, hours even at times. Theirs had been a sweet courtship, holding none of the awkwardness and stilted small-talk that could usually be found in those first few letters which turned more cordial, sometimes even intimate over time, though for some the distance never faded. In case of Aemma and Luke their exchanges had always been warm, a life-long friendship only deepened by their betrothal. Though, Aemma wouldn't say she was in love with her nephew just yet, she would be a liar if she said that she wasn't fond of him, differently than her fondness for her friends. For she still exchanged letters with Baela and Rhaena, the latter writing shorter but more frequent missives, while the former would write only sporadically, but when the older twin wrote it was usually a spill of words that covered pages upon pages of parchment. Jace had only written here and there, until his letters had dropped off completely once his education had picked up when he turned two and ten, the boy being prepared for his role of the future crown prince and king of Westeros. While he didn't have time to write her directly anymore, her eldest nephew did sometimes leave footnotes in Luke's letters, most of which were rather humorous and often made her chuckle to herself. Even Rhaenyra wrote sometimes, though her letters were few and far between and all the more precious for it. She was glad of the friendships she had forged on that shadowy night on Driftmark, even more happy when sweet, awkward Helaena started up correspondence with their more distant family as well, striking up a surprisingly strong friendship with Rhaena, Helaena often confiding in the younger girl with things that she wouldn't even talk to Aemma about, as well as tentatively asking their sister for advice once she became pregnant with the twins.
Aemma wasn't jealous of this, she was glad, really, her sister had such a hard time making friends that seeing her trust their cousin and sister was a relief more than anything, especially after she had married Aegon. While not outright cruel to his sister-wife, their brother was often unintentionally callous, dismissing Helaena's dragondreams and most often leaving her to her own devices to drown himself in his whores and wine. This addiction, for it could not be considered anything else at this point, had started after the incident on Driftmark, Aegon drinking himself into a stupor out of guilt and deciding that he rather liked the numbness that alcohol gave him, thus seeking it out any way he could. Their mother now spent many a feast watching out for her eldest, trying and failing to keep him from falling deeply into his cups. At least she tried when she wasn't busy wrangling a kingdom, more and more responsibility falling onto Alicent's shoulders as Viserys became more and more ill. Nowadays the king spent most of his days in bed, only attending court once a month, if that, and looking wan and sickly as he sat on the Iron Throne, his skin sallow and face bloated from milk of the poppy.
She rarely saw her father anymore, not that he had been the most attentive parent before, but Viserys had still told them tales of Old Valyria and the glory of their ancestors whenever he remembered they existed. It was an odd sensation, missing someone who had never been there in the first place. She didn't know what to make of it, how to deal with it. All she knew was that it ached and Aemma didn't know how to alleviate that ache.
The girl, a woman flowered now at seven and ten years of age, smiled at the gift that had come with this letter, her thoughts drifting away from those sadder, heavier topics as she beheld the necklace her betrothed had sent her. It was a string of saltwater-pearls with a pendant of ivory, shaped like a seahorse. It was a rather bold choice of her young nephew, giving her his sigil to wear, marking her as his for all of court to see. Unexpectedly possessive, but not something she would discourage, rather liking the idea of sweet little Luke showing the world he was more dragon than was visible at first glance. With a grin, Aemma put the necklace on, the pendant resting just beneath the hollow of her throat. She went to her vanity, examining the look of it and deciding that she liked it very much. Aemma had grown a lot over the years, shooting up in height, growing slim and willowy, her hips flaring only gently and her breasts remaining small, sharing her eldest sister's Targaryen build as opposed to Helaena, who had inherited their mother's wider hips and more generous bosom. She had been jealous of it, for a while, though Helaena had, once more, assured those insecurities, reminding her that she took after their valyrian ancestry, valyrians being famed for their ethereal beauty, something Helaena, with her Hightower looks in everything but coloring, couldn't claim.
It had led Aemma to tell her sister she was very beautiful, indeed, and that she didn't need to worry about not looking Targaryen enough, something Helaena had fretted over greatly, especially after her pregnancy with the twins had left her pudgier than before, a bit of fat consistently clinging to her middle and rounding her face. Personally, Aemma thought the softness suited her sister rather well, Helaena looking the very picture of the Mother, when she was with her children, even if she was self-conscious about it.
At least she didn't have a big ugly scar on her face, ruining any claim to beauty she might have had. Sure her body may be fine, but Aemma would never be called beautiful, not with the eye-patch she was forced to wear in order to hide the gaping hole that was her empty eye socket. If she didn't have it, she may have called herself pretty, her features sharp and striking and haunting in the way only Targaryens were, but the eye-patch marred it, the scar that peeked out beneath the black cloth only ruining her face further, the skin there raised and uneven, not smooth and soft like it was on the other half of her face. She hated it. She hated how she had been mauled and how the only reprimand Aegon had gotten was a slap in the face. She sometimes wished she could return the favor, take a blade and cut her brother's eye, but she knew he wouldn't care about it, mayhaps he'd even thank her for it, thank her for paying his debt and assuaging his guilty consciousness. No, she wanted Aegon to suffer, and the way to do that was to leave him be, to let him stew in his guilt and self-loathing, let him drown in his wine and slice what remained of his tattered heart to pieces with her icy silences and cold glares. It was what he deserved for taking her eye from her, for taking one of the only things she, as a woman, had to hold over the men around her: her beauty. For she had been denied the sword and the bow, had been sequestered off with her septa to learn to sew and sing and be a meek little wife, her lord husband's servant. The court was filled with silent battles, the fate of entire families being decided in the hallways and gardens of the Red Keep, a well-placed barb enough to end a dynasty. Beauty was a woman's sword in the Game of Thrones, because a beautiful woman could fell many a man with a single bat of her eyelashes, could have them burn the realm to the ground for her smile, but her brother had robbed her of that, had left her defenseless in the midst of a battlefield. So she had to make due, she learned how to forge words into arrows, learned to wear her gowns and jewelry like armor, learned to lay ambushes and when to retreat. She became a soldier, a commander, a knight in a dress, and she was one of the very best fighters in this war of Green and Black. Aemma was careful, though, careful to wear neither color, never wearing the Hightower green that her mother favored and had plastered all over the keep, she never wore the gold that represented Aegon, those who wished him on the throne having taken to wearing a golden dragon on their person, representative of Sunfyre. Aemma never dressed black either, avoiding the color like the plague, especially when her lack of green was noted and she was approached by the Black side of court looking to her to give back their dwindling power, but she did not wish to be a savior, that wasn't who she was. Aemma never dressed in blue, either, more specifically, Velaryon blue, while she would marry Luke once he came of age, reminding the court of this union was a dangerous thing, mostly because many doubted his legitimacy and reminding the court who it was she was supposed to marry, reminding them of the uncertainty of her betrothed's birthright would only make her a target. So Aemma went her own path, dressing in crimson silks, her gowns dramatic and eye-catching with bold neck-lines and dangerously cinched waists, dragons of white thread snapping at her skirts while garnets and rubies, ivory and pearls, made up her jewelry. The Greens wore Hightower green and Sunfyre gold, the Blacks wore charcoal and Velaryon blue. Aemma wore daring dresses of Targaryen red and cloaked herself in the creamy white of the Maiden, holding her head high as people sputtered at her audacity, at the perceived obscenity of wearing a passionate, sensual, perhaps even violent, color like red next to the purity and innocence of the Maiden's white.
Aemma reveled in it, in her open and yet silent defiance. She had always been a mockery to those at court, first having no dragon and then being maimed and scarred. She had not let the jeers bring her down, instead taking their outrage and wearing it like a crown. She would not be bogged down by politics, would not be a pawn in her mother's and grandfather's game. She was a princess of the realm in her own right, she would not encourage a war that could destroy her family, especially one as unnecessary as the one Otto Hightower was planning and using his daughter for. It had not been hard, once she had started to understand the politics that surrounded her, to see how the Hand had pushed and pushed and pushed her mother to a point of breaking, how he had poisoned her friendship to Rhaenyra and stoked her paranoia to a point where, when she looked at her former friend, she saw nothing but an enemy, nothing but a monster. It was sad, in a way, how her mother had fallen victim to her father's schemes, but also infuriating.
It was infuriating, not only for the harm it had done her mother, but also because Aemma was powerless to stop it.
The teen sighed and put the necklace down. She liked it, oh so much, but she would be unable to wear it openly. The seahorse was a dead give away and she could not reveal her allegiance, or lack there-of, to court. Maybe once Rhaenyra had taken the throne, and Aemma prayed that her ascension would go smoothly, or once her and Luke were wed, she could wear it proudly, but for now, it would have to stay in her jewelry box.
A knock at her door caught her attention and the princess bade whoever was outside to enter. A servant scurried in, the girl curtsying low enough the hem of her green dress brushed the ground, all the servants wore green, since Alicent was the one running the household, although, to her surprise, peeks of red had started to appear here and there, crimson scarves wound around throats and deep red handkerchiefs peeked out of pockets, some of the servants joining Aemma in her silent rebellion.
“Pardon the interruption, princess, but his Grace, the king, has requested your presence.”
Aemma's eyebrows nearly hit her hairline in surprise. Her father had been confined to his chambers for two weeks now, unable to so much as rise to piss in a champerpot, his illness having reached it's worst stage, leaving him insensate with pain most of the time, or at least that was what she had heard, not having seen the king in a long time.
That he called for her was strange beyond belief. Why would Viserys want her company now, when for all her life, he had done nothing but ignore her?
Regardless, the girl rose, dismissing the servant, and went towards her father's chambers, running into her mother there, the woman fiddling with one of the stone dragons on the model of Old Valyria, turning it this way and that, a strangely wistful expression on her face.
“Mother?”, Aemma asked tentatively, the queen looking at her and giving her a sad smile.
“Your father has asked for you.”
She swallowed dryly, the scent of incense hung thickly in the air, cloying and sweet, it did nothing to mask the stench of rot that came from behind the gauzy curtains that hid her father's bed from view.
“So I've heard...”
Alicent rose from her seat, putting the figurine back on it's perch with a strange reverence, and cupped her cheek, sorrow swimming in her eyes, even as her mouth briefly twisted in disapproval as she took in the plunging neckline of her gown.
“His mind is... addled. The pain makes him forget things, twists memories out of context, he may have called for you thinking you were just a babe... Just-Just be considerate and... and be aware that he is very ill and does not look as you remember him.”
Aemma frowned, her mother was acting like she had not watched her father die for the past decade, but she nodded anyways, trying to ease her anxiety. Alicent stroked her cheek with a thumb, avoiding the scar, she never touched it, before letting go of her and leading her towards the bed.
She thought she had been prepared.
She was not.
For a moment, Aemma thought she was gazing at a corpse, so still and gaunt did her father look, his skin gray with deep bruises under milky eyes that flittered about feverishly. The slow, labored rise of his chest was the only thing that confirmed that Viserys was, indeed, still alive, his mouth with it's blackened, broken teeth opening, but nothing more than a croak coming out as he shakily raised his hand in her direction.
Aemma moved as if in a dream, a nightmare really, gliding forward to take that clammy, talon-like hand in her own, giving it the most careful of squeezes, afraid she might break it on accident. The king looked frail enough that the brush of a feather could shatter him to pieces.
“Aemma...”, he finally got out and for some reason, tears sprung to her eye.
She had never heard him say her name like that, like her mere presence was a blessing, like she was precious and loved. She had never believed that Viserys loved her, or any of his second wives' children, all his love had gone to Rhaenyra and the woman who had taken his heart with her when she died. But maybe she had been wrong? Maybe he did-?
“My love... where have you been? Is... is little Nyra making trouble again...? She is... such a spirited... child...”
Her heart plummeted, ice coursing through her veins as all her breath left her in a gasp.
Viserys had not called on her. He had called for his wife. The woman he loved more than anything, the only equal to the reverence he held for her being his first daughter. Oh, how Aemma wished she could hate her sister in that moment, how she wished she could resent her and blame her and fly over to Dragonstone and burn her to ashes just so some of the pain that had crumpled her heart could be alleviated. But she couldn't, because she loved Rhaenyra, too. It was a shame her sister was so easy to love.
She heard her mother make a pained noise behind her, soft fingers fluttering against the girl's shoulder, an offer of comfort that was unsure of it's reception. Her and her mother had drifted, in a way, her not approving of Aemma's silent rebellion, of her friendship with her cousins, of her love for her eldest sister. She did not approve, but she didn't love her less for it and even if they had drifted apart over the years, she would not stand by and watch her youngest daughter suffer, especially not at her husband's hands. Viserys had brought her and her children enough suffering through his neglect.
But Aemma didn't lean into her mother's touch, she did not throw the clammy, bony hand she was holding away and storm off, she did not snap at the rotting man on the bed, because Aemma, at her very core, was a gentle soul.
And she saw this man, this poor suffering creature, and felt nothing but pity. And so, Aemma sat at her father's bedside and carefully lifted his head, bringing the cup of milk of the poppy that stood to the side to his lips, allowing him to drink down the temporary relief it brought.
“No, husband, Rhaenyra is not in trouble. She was remarkably well-behaved today. Perhaps your illness is making her more obedient.”
Her father hummed and weakly squeezed her hand, fever-glazed eyes rolling in his skull as he tried to think of a response while fighting the pull of sleep that the milk of the poppy brought.
“Ah... She should not worry... I will be up and about soon...”
Aemma felt the tears spill from her eye, she hated crying it meant cleaning out her socket thoroughly, which was always uncomfortable, but right now she couldn't help it, because her father would never be up and about again. He would only get worse and worse, until he joined his beloved Aemma in the afterlife.
“Yes, my love, sleep now. You need to rest.”
With a small smile on his face, one that was soft and intimate and utterly foreign to her, her fell into slumber. Aemma wanted to weep.
“You did not have to do that...”, her mother said from behind her, watching with a peculiar expression as the girl gently tucked the blankets around her father and pressed a kiss to his forehead, the same way she would tuck her niece and nephew into bed. The way she herself had never been tucked in by her father.
“You are right, mother, I owe him nothing.”, she twisted to stare at the older woman, the pale light that fell through the curtains turning the tears on her face to liquid silver, her single lilac eye burning with determination, “But I know what it feels like to be abandoned and I am not cruel enough to abandon an old man to his pain.”
She was not cruel, not as cruel as Viserys, abandoning his daughters to the mockery of the court, different for all three of them but no less painful for it, abandoning his only son to drink, abandoning his wife to loneliness. No, she had inherited none of Viserys' unique brand of cruelty. She would stay even when it got ugly, when she had to help the measter change the bandages over his rotting wounds, when she helped him wash off the puss and blood and excrement, when her father howled and raved in pain, the milk of the poppy wearing off and it being too soon for him to receive another dose. She stayed through it all and read to him, sang to him, told him of her day and the ongoings of court. She was the parent to him she wished he had been to her and if she shed any tears for his pain, if she wept at the way he spoke to her with all the love he had held for her namesake, one he had never held for his daughter, if she curled into his side and stroked his hair back until he fell asleep wishing she had memories of him doing the same for her, well, no one needed to know. No one needed to know how much she loved the man that had held nothing but disinterest for her, no one needed to know how she ached for him and longed for him to recognize her as his daughter, just the once, and say her name with that same tenderness regardless, no one needed to know that she enjoyed this in a twisted way, getting to spend time with her always absent father and bask in his attention, even if the love he showered her with was meant for a dead woman.
No one needed to know how selfish she was truly being when caring for her sick father.
…