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The candles flickered in the sept, flames dancing on the altar of the Maiden which Aemma knelt in front of, hands clasped in prayer, even though she had long since said her words to the gods. She enjoyed spending time in the sept. It was quiet here, there were no masks to keep up and she didn't have to watch her words. With the Seven she could be honest.
As her education became more serious and the tales of Old Valyria became nothing more than distant memory, Aemma had found herself truly believing in her mother's gods, finding comfort in their presence and often visiting the Sept when she needed a bit of quiet, the Maiden especially cradling her in her arms, seemingly not incensed at her use of her color, the way she was using it to rile up the court. The Maiden represented purity and innocence, but she also was the patron of all girls and unmarried women, her eyes watching over them and offering comfort that could not be found in the overprotective arms of the Mother, or the distant might of the Father. Aemma felt safe here, praying to the Maiden, enjoying the quiet reverence that permeated the place, the soft glow of the candles and the gentle scent of incense that wafted around her. It was a sanctuary in way.
So Aemma was beyond annoyed when Aegon dared to invade that sanctuary, coming up beside her and awkwardly shifting from foot to foot. He did not kneel to pray, as a man and one as fond of whores as Aegon, he had no business praying to the Maiden, not that her brother had ever been especially worshipful to any of the gods, be they the New Gods, or the shadowy figures of Old Valyria.
Aemma pointedly ignored him, pretending to recite all fourteen verses of the Song of the Maiden just to make him wait longer. Never let it be said that she couldn't be spiteful.
When she was finished she rose and threw her brother a withering look over her shoulder, the young man shrinking slightly, before straightening to his full height, which was only a few inches taller than her, Aemma having grown rather tall for a woman.
“I have a gift for you, sister.”, he said, eyes briefly meeting hers, before focusing on the candles, their light flickering in the lavender depths of his eyes. Eyes that weren't clouded by drunkenness for once, though there were still heavy bags under them, the perpetually exhausted look never leaving the prince's face, even when he was sober.
She pursed her lips in suspicion, fully turning to face him and eyeing the little bag he held out for her like one might eye a snake. Aegon didn't give gifts, ever.
“Really? Is it wine? Or a whore? Oh! Maybe it's a knife!”, she sneered, the vindictive part of her enjoying the way her brother flinched at that last remark.
The last time he had promised her a gift it had been a pig for her, if one didn't count the knife to the face, which Aemma just might. She didn't take the bag, staring at her brother's shaking fingers which gripped the satin tighter and tighter the longer he held it out.
“I didn't- I would never- Aemma, please.”, he stammered, still not looking at her.
It only angered her further, the fact that he wouldn't meet her gaze. Aegon had last met her stare four years ago, shortly after he had cut her eye from her skull, and never after, his eyes always evading hers, unable to look at his ugly little sister whom he had made only uglier.
She hated him, just a bit, for that.
“Please, I just want you to have this. You don't have to wear it, you can throw it away if you want. I just- I just need to give this to you.”
With a disdainful huff she ripped the bag from his hands, opening it and emptying it's contents into her palm, expecting a necklace, or some other useless crap that he had gotten cheaply somewhere in an attempt to make up for what he had stolen. Instead a round, smooth sapphire plopped into her palm, a dot surrounded by a ring engraved into one side of it, making it almost look like an...
“What is this?!”, she shrieked, her shrill voice echoing eerily in this quiet hall of the gods.
Her brother stepped closer, a desperate smile exposing his teeth and an almost manic light in his eyes.
“I cannot give you your eye back, this is the closest I can get to it without removing my own eye from my socket... which I will! If that is what it takes to earn your forgiveness, then I will, Aemma, I swear!”
Rage swept through her at that, pulling her scarred face into an ugly snarl.
“You think this will make up for it?! That some pretty bauble is enough to make up for the piece of me you stole?! That it will make up for the lost sight, the lost beauty! For every harmful word and mocking whisper people have spoken about me since you maimed me?! Do you truly believe this is enough?! That anything could ever be enough?!”
And Aegon, her brother who had once dreamed of being the bravest, noblest knight in the kingdom, this once so proud and arrogant boy, fell to his knees clutching her skirts, looking up at her like she was his only salvation. Perhaps she was, seeing the way he had destroyed himself after the incident on Driftmark, how he had neglected his training and his lessons to spend more time in the taverns and brothels, escaping from his soul-crushing guilt.
“Please! Aemma, I am sorry! I have never been more sorry for anything in my entire life! If I could take it all back, then I would, I swear this on the Old Gods and the New! I never meant to harm you! I never wanted any of this!”
Aemma ripped his hands away from her skirts, a dragon's anger blazing through her veins, because she couldn't see any of the genuine remorse on the young man's face, had never seen his whoring and drinking as anything other than Aegon amusing himself, enjoying life without a care in the world for the sister he had harmed so grievously and the wife he shamed with every moon-tea their mother had to send to some servant wench he had lain with.
That was another reason for Aemma's fury. Helaena was her sister, her best friend, and she loved Aegon, a love he did not deserve for the way he shamed her, how he treated her like she wasn't there, ignoring her when he was sober and belittling her when he was drunk, parading his whores in front of her like they were accomplishments.
“You never wanted-?!”, she hissed, ripping the eyepatch from her head and dropping to her knees as well, taking a hold of his face and pulling him close, forcing him to stare into her empty socket, “This is what you wrought! Do you know how much it hurt, Aegon? Do you know what it felt like, when the maesters had to scrape the remains of the eye from the socket? Do you know how it burned for weeks, after, how I would get flashes of sight that only disoriented me further? How when I clean myself I have to be careful to not get any water in it? How I can't even take a bath, or cry without having to endure a cleaning afterwards, something that feels wrong and invasive, but I have no choice but to do? This is what you took from me, this is what you did to me, brother!”
Her brother was crying, actually crying, sobs wreaking his form and an expression of abject horror on his face. Aegon wrenched himself away from her and Aemma flinched as he drew the dagger that dangled from his belt, her heart jumping into her throat in fear. They were alone in the sept, he could harm her without anyone hearing her screams.
But her brother didn't raise the blade to her, instead bringing it up to his own face, the trembling tip of the blade hovering underneath his left eye.
“I'm sorry... I knew the sapphire wouldn't make up for it, but I'm a coward... I see now that I will have to endure the same for you to forgive me. Maybe- Maybe the maesters can give you my eye and make it work for you. Wouldn't you like that, sister, to have your sight back? I will make it happen, I will!”, his voice cracked on the last word as the skin beneath his eye was pierced, a trickle of dark red blood flowing down his cheek, glowing eerily in the candlelight.
Time froze for a moment, Aemma's thoughts racing as she realized that Aegon meant it, that he would really cut his eye from his skull and gift it to her. That he was willing to mutilate himself for her forgiveness. It made her queasy, made her hands clammy and her heart stop beating, because for all she had said and thought it in the past, Aemma didn't truly hate her brother, she didn't truly want him to come to any harm and, most importantly, she never wanted anyone else to have to endure what she had, especially since she knew that Aegon wouldn't be strong enough to withstand it. The pain would drive him mad and the despair would drive him to death. Her brother was an idiot, but his spirit was soft, weak, if he did this it would shatter to pieces, leaving behind nothing but an empty shell.
“No, wait!”, she cried out, surging forward and snatching the hand that held the knife, Aegon made a broken noise, trying to ram the blade into his own flesh, but Aemma wouldn't let him. They toppled over, the princess on top of her brother in a strange reverse of the incident that had caused all this, the siblings struggling for a knife once more. And, just like it had back then, the knife ended up slicing into skin.
Aegon howled as his cheek was split open from his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth, blood pouring over his face, his teeth visible through the gash as he cried out in pain. Aemma threw the knife away, the bloody metal skittering away somewhere under the altar of the Father, and reached for a handkerchief to stem the bleeding as best as she could.
“You fucking fool!”, she hissed, hauling her brother to his feet, the young man swaying, a green tint to his skin. “Don't puke, or it's going to come out through your cheek!”
That comment made him actually gag, though he valiantly held it down as they stumbled along into the direction of the keep. They had to find a maester.
“Why'd you stop me?”, the prince slurred as Aemma rolled her eye, dragging him up some stairs that would lead them to the maester's chambers.
“I don't want your stupid eye, Aegon, how mad do you have to be to think that?”, she snapped, sitting down on a chair after the maester had ushered them in, cleaning the wound Aegon had received and getting ready to sew the cheek back together.
“ 'M sorry...”, he mumbled as the gash was stitched, squeezing his eyes shut as the thread was pulled through the flesh. She remembered how disgusting that sensation was and, after a moment of hesitation, grabbed her brother's hand, something that made him look at her in surprise, before hesitantly squeezing back.
“The wound should heal fine, but it will scar badly, my prince.”, the maester said after he was done, a row of stitches pulling oddly at her brother's cheek, she could already see how his mouth would be stuck in a permanent sneer in the future.
To her surprise, her brother snorted and actually met her gaze of his own volition.
“An ugly wound for an ugly deed. It is fitting, don't you think, sister?”
He sounded exhausted as he spoke, his shoulders bowed in defeat and, for the first time, she could see the toll her maiming had taken on him, how it had ate at him, destroying the confident, temperamental boy he had been and leaving this pathetic, hollow wight in his place.
The princess gave his hand a squeeze, her gaze thawing as she looked at her brother, the thick layer of ice that had separated them since that night beginning to melt away.
“You're right, your debt is paid, brother. I will forgive you, if you do one last thing.”
“Anything.”, Aegon answered without hesitation.
She held up the sapphire eye, which had been clutched in her fist the entire time, it was bloodied from their scuffle, but undamaged.
“I want you to put back what you stole.”
He frowned for a moment, but then nodded and beckoned her closer. Aemma slowly got to her feet, heart pounding against her ribs, and sat down next to him on the bench the maester had plopped him down on earlier. She hasn't been this close to Aegon since they were children and it is strange in a way. The young man looked at her for a long moment, reaching up to cup her cheek with a gentleness she had not known he possessed.
“I haven't truly looked at you in a long time, sister. You have grown into a beautiful woman.”
She could tell that he meant it and fought down the tears that wanted to rise in her eyes, the last thing she needed was to cry now. Shakily, she handed over the eye and Aegon exhaled slowly, raising his hand and carefully putting the sapphire into her empty socket, smoothing down the lid and wiping away the tear of his blood that trailed down her cheek, after.
She blinked, the weight of it felt strange, but also... right, like it was meant to be there. Swallowing thickly, she looked at her brother, who was studying her with an odd look in his eyes.
“How-How does it look?”
Aegon changed his grip from her cheek to her chin, tilting her face this way and that, a soft spark in his eyes as she let him, not flinching away from his touch.
“Gevie.”
Aemma's heart warmed and a smile curled her mouth at that, an affection she hadn't felt in a long time sparking to life in her soul as her brother leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead, before hopping to his feet and offering his arm to her.
“Come, let's tell our mother that we maimed each other again before any rumours can start flying around court.”
Aemma laughed at that and allowed her brother to escort her through the Red Keep, both their heads held high even as shocked whispers followed in their wake.
…