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Vaegon didn’t bother lifting his face to Baelon as he answered.
“No.”
The king-to-be had the gall to look at him with a mouth agape. Daella brought a hand onto his arm from where she sat beside him. Whatever she had thought, her face was already wrinkled to dissuade any argument.
“But why?” he smacked his hand on Vaegon’s desk, as if the force of his shock could tilt Vaegon’s opinion even a smidge. “Viserys is a kinder boy than most, and they always got on well. He likes her a lot,” he said, and continued. “Your daughter would one of these days become Queen. It would be well-fitting, don’t you think so, Daella?”
Vaegon squinted his eyes at his brother. If Baelon thought he could weaponize his wife against him, he had been sourly wrong, for the moment the concept of this match had been brought up at court, they both had their fair share of reservations.
“I don't know if Aemma has any wish to be a queen, big brother…” Daella answered softly, holding onto the folds of her skirts.
“There’s no reason she wouldn’t thrive in it,” Baelon said. “She’s well-beloved in the court, and exceptionally clever to boot. It’ll be a fine match.”
Vaegon’s mouth twisted to the side. Of course she’s clever; he and Daella had spent years nurturing a love of books in her. Her taking to learning had been peace to them both, but he had not taught her in preparation for any role. Yes, thankfully, she had been more like Daella in all matters that make girls endearing, but what was that to do with anything? Why should I give her to your flaky son? His daughter had got along well with everyone— a good connection was not unique to Viserys, by any means.
He wouldn’t say that aloud, Daella had long told him that for the better of them all he needs to hold his tongue some, but he maintained, that any reason for him to allow the marriage had not been quite there.
“She is only three and ten,” Vaegon answered back. She only just flowered, and he had more reasons to keep her beside him than let her be wedded. “I do not see a reason to wed her so soon.”
Baelon bit his lip. “You know why,” he said, the pressure of his voice being the very pressure of a realm whole.
Vaegon could barely keep himself from clicking his tongue. He knew that Baelon wanted to have Viserys look like a well settled heir. After Aemon’s death, their father’s choice of his brother as future King had brought Baelon much grief— the son with the heir as well as the spare had to take the mantle. Their niece, the passed-over Princess Rhaenys, hadn’t a boy with her Velaryon cunt of a husband yet to convince the realm whole her line could carry the weight of the Crown, but when she does, none of them doubted Lord Corlys would press her to demand dominance over the future of the Iron Throne. To this day Baelon raged he hadn’t insisted with Aemon to betroth her to Viserys sooner, before the Sea Snake could whisk her away— but now this mishap and its danger somehow fell to Vaegon’s daughter to fix.
There was hope that if Viserys would have a child soon, perhaps the two lines could be intermerged and reconciled with a betrothal, without disparaging the boy to seem a beggar king and wait on marrying the infant Laena. But who was to say that would go seamlessly by Princess Rhaenys and her husband, who was to promise there’d be no rage against his girl? And who was to say she’d so simply give Viserys an heir or daughter to make that pact viable, nature bending to the hopes of politicking?
He looked to Daella, who was biting her lip. His own wife very nearly died giving birth to Aemma— and henceforth, nature willed it she’d never be able to have another child again. They were forced to be wed when she was four and ten— the duty was done at the behest of both of their wills, and only a year later, he had watched her nearly bleed out on the birthing bed. He was rattled from that day since, and was reminded by it to be rattled to this day. He hadn’t known it then, he hadn’t even known for moons and years after, but that duty would’ve been the death of his only love, Aemma besides.
If he had to put his daughter in that same position, stuck with a man she hadn’t chosen just for the sake of appearances— just so she can fix the damage of this realm… fuck it all, in all truth.
“No,” he said again, voice straining against the bile in his throat. “And you know why as well.”
Your own wife died from these birthing ails.
Baelon’s mouth was tightly clenched. He and his brother weren’t aligned on many things, but this they could communicate about wordlessly. “I know your concerns, but it can be mitigated by—”
His anger welled up to his head, and Vaegon sharpened his gaze on his older brother. “If you had any hope to mitigate my concerns, your son would be here assuaging them himself with some promises of devotion or any other worthless platitude. But he’s not here, and you will not prevent him from being a groveling king by pleading for him,” Vaegon spat out, many more choice words waiting to slip out— at least until his wife brought her hand to his underneath the desk, lithe fingers begging their own hope with a squeeze.
He stopped himself, before anything he couldn’t take back came out. The room turned quiet, only the rustles from windows and behind his office’s doors were heard as he paced himself. His worries, Baelon knew of— but if Viserys was unwilling to face them on his own, there was nothing to talk about to begin with.
“If he is not brave enough to ask himself, I will not give him a queen that’ll have to be brave for him.”
Baelon frowned. “You needn’t be cruel. He’s doing what he can to adjust the role, and it is only I believe she’d help him best. He never had to think of being heir, no more than I, and he’s overloaded with new responsibilities.. what we can settle for him, we should. He already has much on his shoulders.”
He knew his brother would be his future king, but he could punch him, truly. And what of the weight on his daughter’s—
The doors to his office opened, and said daughter appeared. “Father,” her voice called innocently. Locks of moonlight thread were braided around her head, giving a maiden’s crown; the only crown she ever needed, if he was asked. “Mother, Uncle,” she soon added in belatedly, as she noticed them both, growing tentative as they all took her small form in. “...Perhaps I should return later?”
He hadn’t spoken. Even if he was to send her away, even if Baelon insisted on continuing arguing, she still came first.
Luckily, his brother had the shame to rise from his chair. “Always the mindful girl,” he said softly. “No, come take my place by your parents. I ought to go find my own son as well,” he said, eyes flickering towards Vaegon.
Vaegon looked away. He’d promise the boy nothing, even if he asked himself.
The squeeze of Daella’s fingers on his hand kept him from keeping his frown as his daughter sat, but it was somewhat futile, as it always was— his daughter had a better grasp on his expressions than he did, and she copied the furrow of his brows better than any mimicking glamour could hope to achieve.
“Do I look similar yet?” she asked in a giggle, her countenance drawing his harsh lines upon her round face. “What do you think, mother?”
Despite any concern, Daella could always draw a smile for her daughter. “A spitting image. Your father's reflection in the looking-glass could not compare, I’d say.”
Vaegon’s nose scrunched, and he forced himself to release his face from his too-heavy frown. “Gods’ forbid,” he said. It was mother and daughter’s common ploy to have him calm his pulled faces, he very well knew, but he would not have this comparison drawn. His daughter’s face was a precious gift from her mother, and he’d never have it grow as long and sour as his. “You both must stop speaking such nonsense.”
Daella laughed, and he well knew she’d never stop it— she grew from her naive youth, and spoke sense more than she did not day to day, but to poke at him with the whimsy of silliness became her favorite thing to do. As for his daughter, she spoke with more sense than most since she had been a child, and it never failed to calm his heart.
“Forgive me then, Father,” Aemma said. “I believe I’ll speak it forevermore.”
He then squeezed on his wife’s fingers, letting out a soft sigh. With his daughter nearby, all his taut muscles grew slack— her words were as soft as her mother’s, with as much certainty as he ever had in his own harsh speech. He’d like to believe her— that’ll very much do, if that way it could stay.
—
Baelon nor Viserys had come to him with any complaints and further requests the following week, that didn’t mean there weren’t some people with opinion.
“If I beat you in a duel, you have to let him marry her!”
The petulant demand might have been more intimidating if it hadn’t come out of his eleven-year-old nephew’s sour mouth. Little Daemon had grown some, but he was still a thin thing carrying upon him only a wooden sword he snuck away from the master at arms’ inventory. He directed said wooden sword at him, quite eager to fight; he would have no such thing, however.
Vaegon didn’t acknowledge him as he side-stepped and moved past him.
“Hey! Don’t ignore me!” the boy yelled at him, trying to catch up with Vaegon’s longer steps. “You can’t deny a trial by combat!”
“A trial by combat may only be invoked for punishable offences, nephew,” Vaegon said. “You ought to know the laws.”
Daemon tried swinging the wooden sword at him. Luckily for Vaegon, the only thing he had ever learned from either of the boy’s parents had been how to dodge a hit. He moved away before the oak length could whip at his shin, and caught it as well, though Daemon did continue to break the sword from it.
“I know the laws. My Father will be king,” he said, hands shaking with the sword, “and so will my brother. It’s treason for you to not listen!”
Vaegon would’ve rubbed his temples had his hand not been full. He often wondered if that boy would’ve been more or less willful had his mother remained alive, but that thought by itself had left more obliged to answer his siblings’ twerp. “If your father wishes me to continue running his treasury when he reigns, he should think twice and well of what to accuse me of.”
He had been Master of Coin for a time now, and he had done well enough in his part to generate good income to the coffers — he suspected that the wish to sustain him in the role had been why Father and Mother hadn’t dared tried to force his hand to comply with the marriage despite being very much for it. That, or they worried he’d take both his girls and leave on Grey Ghost before they could tell they’ve all left.
It was easier said than done, however. Perhaps it would’ve been different, had this family not lost four siblings to the count. The losses weighed on his heart enough, and on his wife’s softer heart more, and they both knew by now they had a part to play for the wellness of the family whole; but there was a line to draw in these ashes that remained.
Daemon let go of the wooden sword to clench his fists and shriek. “I could handle the coins for them if you won’t!”
“Could you?” Vaegon doubted, tossing the sword aside. With how demanding this boy is, he’d better see him collecting heads than collecting taxes, but his wife’s voice in his head beckoned him to at least allow the boy some belief he was not trying to personally disparage him nor his brother. That besides, perhaps a lesson was due— even if he never had a son, he certainly wasn’t short on any teachings that might suffice for one. He pulled a golden dragon coin from his pocket and tossed it over to Daemon with a flick of his thumb. “Do handle, then.”
And if you have no wish to be treated as a traveling act, don’t make a performance of your tantrums. Gods know it took him too long to learn that much; their new heir and spare should know better than make such fools of themselves.
Some servants chuckled watching, and if boys could growl, it would be the description of the sound that came out of his nephew. Vaegon walked away while Daemon bristled at the coin, ready to go about his day, when he sighted something by the great oak tree in the gardens.
His daughter was standing with a solemn Viserys underneath it, her hands enveloping one of Viserys’s bigger hands.
“Aemma,” he yelled her way, but it was Viserys who winced at the call, pulling away from her hold. Aemma looked backwards to him, round eyes widening as his own ones narrowed. What were they doing?
“Father,” she yelled back, “be careful!”
He hadn’t known what she was speaking of, for his own thoughts clouded his senses; but soon enough little Daemon had rammed himself fully against his side. “I said don’t ignore me!”
Fucking twerp…!
He hadn’t quite fell, for he caught himself on the wall, but the little demon had the sense to step on his foot as revenge. Aemma and Viserys both came over, with the latter picking up his brother with the most urgent handling that he had seen of a man.
“Stop it, Daemon,” he yelled at him. “You cannot do this!”
“I can do anything I want,” Daemon answered. “As do you! Tell him, Aemma!”
Aemma lined her lips and flicked the younger boy’s forehead with her index. “That’s too much, Daemon,” she said as the boy’s eyes winced shut. She looked to his brother. “Viserys can very much speak and think for himself, either way.”
Viserys remained an awkward thing in their midst, wrangling his brother and keeping his eyes only on the boy. And good it was, because had he dared looked him in the eye, he would’ve welcomed a most angry glare.
“Daughter,” he offered his arm to her, to which she obliged as always— and pulled her to his side. “Help me to my rooms.”
Her mouth twisted aside, in a way that was rather familiar to his discontented wrinkle of Vaegon’s own mouth, but she nodded the same. There was what to speak of; he needed to know what he just saw.
—
Alas, what he heard, he liked even less.
“You tried to comfort him?” he said when his rooms’ doors shut behind him. The word choice alone aggravated him, for vague words could mean many a thing— and the worst of the connotations had left her disparaged. “If he needed a comfort he should go to a pillow house, not you.”
Aemma looked at him with a mouth agape. “Would that be what you have me likened to?”
“It is exactly that I would not,” he said, reaching for his daughter’s wrists, warming thin wrists with his thumbs. “We all must brave our own pains. You needn’t do it for him.”
Aemma did agree with the sentiment. “I do not see why I should not help when he is struggling,” she retorted, hands taut in his hands as if they were chilling chains. “I know well that I can.”
“All know well that you can,” he said, a tad graver as anger ran through him. His daughter winced at that, and he forced himself to calm his tone. From her wrists, his hands lowered to her little hands, trying to fill the space. “You may not be aware of it, but there’s talk in the court. Most would have you wed him on the morrow with little to no regards to you. They’ll only hound you more to it if you give it any way.”
They’d have her shoved into the marriage if only because it is convenient and easy, as they’ve done with him and her mother alike— would it matter if she protested? It certainly didn’t matter when they did, and when it proved to have been an unwise decision that yielded bleeding consequences— who would be left to cry of it?
It hurts, it hurts so bad, please!
Daella’s dying screams remained harrowing to this day. For years he grappled with his own compliance and the pain it had yielded her. He should not like to repeat it.
Alas, his daughter had her own will. Aemma pulled her hands away from him. “I am aware,” she said defiantly. “I’m not stupid, Father.”
Vaegon stared at her as his heart sank low. Then… “You’d like be queen..?”
Aemma’s glare sharpened on him. Between allegations that better suited gone sisters, be it the faraway Saera or the late Viserra, Aemma proved that she had been her mother’s child, with droplets for tears in her eyes and a most innocent conviction.
“No! It is that it doesn’t matter, Father,” she yelled at his face. “I don’t fear a wedding. I’d like to help my family in their time of need. Even if you don’t care he’s suffering, I do.”
She left the room in a storm of stomps, and he remained there, feeling the thundering feelings ringing in his ears.
—
For the rest of the day he stewed over the argument, body tense whole as he maintained his position in his mind. Aemma wasn’t willing to sit by him at supper, and while Daella tried to speak to her, she hadn’t convinced her otherwise. He only wished to protect his daughter from court-made schemes and horrors, nothing more. Why should he feel at fault?
The eve had come upon him, and he worked in his rooms as he always did when irritable— his own wife watching over from where she sat on the bed. Over the years she grew brave enough to say he was an absurd sight when writing with such a sour mouth, but today she had been kind enough to keep herself from poking at him. At least that’s what he had hoped, when her gentle voice was heard.
“Husband,” she said. The mousy quality of her call never quite faded, but her tone gained a fondness that made it soothing rather than grating. “Is it not enough for the eve?”
“I could do more,” he answered. His fingers pressed hard on the quill; they might as well had been attached to it at this point. He may just be able to finish with all this moon’s reports if he perseveres a while longer.
“But must you?” Daella asked, and it was a feathery question— as if a vane of one caressed against his ear, beckoning blistered fingers to stop their choke of the quill’s hollow. “I should like you beside me too.”
That did make his hand stop, and subsequently allow an ink stain on the page due to lacking control. He could spend his time frowning at the page, but he sighed and allowed himself to let it go. He could fix it to a proper standard after— while he enjoyed the distraction while it lasted, it wasn’t quite fair to neglect his wife for much longer.
She smiled at him as he approached, arms open towards him in invitation. She welcomed him this way often when he was upset— touch was a language easier for her to express herself in without doubt, though he himself had always been rather awkward in it, fearing any pull of his muscle could be misrepresented. He lowered himself to match the alignment of her hands, as if second nature, her fingers threaded through his hair, easying him to the crook of her neck.
“It’s heavy today,” she jested, and he knew the small grin that he would’ve seen on her face. In their reckoning of each other she had adopted the notion he had too many thoughts in his own head for his own good. All that you don’t put to writing turns to stones in your mind, were her exact words of complaint, but her instruction after those complaints always remained the same. “You ought let your mind rest.”
It felt odd until it didn’t— he struggled with being placated like a child until he accepted there was no childishness in leaning against her for a moment’s peace. On the cusp of thirty he had felt thirteen himself when anger welled in him, but the world and its concerns disappeared to black at the hiding spot that was her clavicle.
Still. To hide away from a problem had never resolved it, and it’d be easier to to let go of things if he hadn’t felt the dread of all going awry.
“It’s difficult with your daughter running round in it,” he said in a sigh.
Daella pressed spreading fingers onto his scalp, the soothing feeling contrasted by her retort. “Her stubbornness is all from you, though.”
“The charity to stand by troubled boys is certainly not mine own,” he answered in a sigh.
She hummed. Daella’s hand lowered to his jaw and she looked down to him. “Care is not a curse, I’d think.”
“It is if it will lock her to as his to be wedded and bedded by,” he stressed. “It’s too soon.”
That boy hadn’t even dared to look him in the eye. If it was only duty to the family, it was hardly worth it; apologies hardly meant a thing, if a loss was already had. How many apologies had he for his own wife for his own lack of conscientiousness towards her? To this day all he could do is kiss her where she once ripped— he’d do it, again and again, but functions that were lost, the ones that made her grieve boys and girls that won’t come, the ones that made her feel so lesser when she wasn’t— were not not be returned to her. Why put his daughter in any proximity to similar grief?
“I agree,” she said, thumb sliding on the sharp of his cheekbone. “But I understand her. She always liked him, and he used to laugh and smile so easily… but since Aemon died, it’s all strained,” she said. “She sees his fears and discomforts on his face. It is hard not to respond to them.”
Vaegon’s eyes furrowed, and his hand came onto hers, stopping it from moving bout his face. “Are these fears and discomforts enough reason to put her in risk of hurt?”
“I would never say so, as her mother,” Daella said, looking into his sharpened eyes. “But at her age.. Had I any belief that I could ease your saddened scowls with a kiss to make it better, I know I would’ve liked to try.”
At the very core of their struggle, had always been the way she made him waver as wrong even when in his own mind, he was irrefutably right. That never changed, but he had made a conscious effort not to fear it as judgement to his thoughts— even when the vulnerability required to gain another perspective had left him hot of cheek, one way or the other. To be subservient to the feeling he could never be, but to hold tightly onto her waist or the teardrop-shaped mound that held her heartbeat, had been the fiercest comfort as she proved that at times two truths can indeed exist at once.
He straightened himself and held her face this time, his hand cupping the round of her cheek. It was this that reminded him he was more than a defiant scowl to begin with. If his sour lips couldn’t relax for the world around them, they’d relax for her as he pressed onto her a kiss— to leave her with some sweetness, when all felt so dour.
Her surprised squeak against his lips was a spell of tingles, as was the following press of her lips that matched his. He only willed himself to break away to make his point— lest he find himself atop her with all his unbecoming thoughts weighing her down and onto the bed.
He sighed. “I’d understand, too, if she didn’t make herself sacrifice for his sake. I won’t compromise her.”
The flush on his wife’s face was all the more complimentary to her as her eyes gained a softened crinkle. “Then don’t compromise her,” she said. “Find a suitable compromise for her.”
He was hesitant, but the kiss she soon demanded returned to her had been the fruit of life-long compromises— and he never regretted those.
—
He called Viserys himself the morrow that followed.
The boy had come to him in half-a-cower, one that did not fit neither an heir nor a prospective good son, but as he thought through the night, he decided that in his office he would not yet look at him as either of those— but as his nephew, as well as a boy attempting to be a man.
“Uncle…” he acknowledged the upturn to his lip uncertain as he sat across from him.
There was an awkward silence that followed, as he tried to understand if the boy was trying to continue his words or mincing them ahead of time. He breathed in, ready to talk simple to him; although not as beckoned as his daughter by the discomfort display, he would admit that seeing a lad regularly so hearty be so nervous wasn’t a happy occasion. Alas, he beat him to it.
“I rebuked Daemon after you left,” he suddenly blurted out, as if he had been on trial himself. “I apologize. He misunderstood Aemma, he thought he needed to stop you from interrupting something, but you interrupted nothing. I swear it, I hadn’t even known she’d speak to me.”
Misunderstood Aemma…? He rubbed his temples, as the puzzle of a plan seemed to put itself in order. She set that up herself. His daughter had a way of clearing the path for herself, and if she heard he was opposed before… the way she barged in the room when Baelon was here— he hadn’t expected her to use Daemon as pawn, but he could see the scheme clearly now.
Vaegon sighed. “The fault does not lie with you, but she certainly knew a conversation was to be had,” he said. Vaegon kept himself from frowning as redness spread on Viserys’s cheeks; it confirmed ahead of time the path this conversation was going to take, but it was up to Viserys to take the steps. “What do you think of it?”
“Of it…?” he said tentatively.
He gave him a deadpan look. If his nephew was going to make him talk about his daughter throwing herself at him he would have Vaegon’s hand, and it’ll be on his neck. “Of the idea of the match, Viserys.”
“Aha, um,” he let out, licking his lips. “She’s beautiful, and kind, and very witty, but…” his mouth twisted uncomfortably.
But? What but he would exactly have? She is all those things, and he should’ve counted his blessings she likes him at all. The boy stumbled with his words, looking at his lap, and his indecisiveness alone would’ve had Vaegon kick him— but then he noticed his nephew’s eyes were bleary.
“Father says I should take a wife. That it is important now, for my own security. For the whole house's security,” he began. “He says I should have a child, and take more lessons, and sit more councils, and claim a dragon— Uncle, last time I entered the pit, Caraxes nearly ate me.”
Vaegon remembered that attempt at claiming. It was a topic of laughter in the court, but not amongst the dragonkeepers nor the dragonkin. Caraxes injured Grey Ghost just the other day, and snarled often at Dreamfyre too; he hadn’t been calm since Aemon passed away. Vaegon had known the event to be embarrassing, but it was no shame for him to carry. “Even dragons grieve.”
Tears slid down the boy’s cheeks. “I miss uncle Aemon,” he said, voice shaking with him. “Nothing’s been the same since he died. Father’s not the same. Daemon keeps rambling of me being a future king to everyone, but it feels so hollow. Rhaenys told me in the funeral, that I don’t deserve it. That I’d ruin everything. And the more I think of it, the more I think I will.”
The teary eyes were not a fact, but a memory. A generational one, everlasting. Of boys and girls coerced to duty too soon, forced to uphold tradition that would tear their hearts asunder. He knew those tears, he saw them slid down his wife’s face. He knew those tears; they had slid down his own ones, too.
“I like her. V-very much,” he swallowed down his tears. “But I don’t know what I’ll do if I ruin this too.”
He didn’t come to ask himself because he was afraid for her.
At that very moment, he wasn’t a groveling king, nor a groveling, future heir. He was a groveling boy, asking for any hand at all.
Vaegon swallowed. Not only the bile at his throat, but his judgement as well as pride— all the same, what came out, was fire.
“You will never ruin her. Even if you try, I would never let you,” he said. “Don’t make the mistake to think it is a possibility,” he said, taking a pitcher of water from beside him and pouring some into a nearby cup.
“O-of course, uncle,” he said, quickly wiping at the tears still spilling from his eyes. The fear in his eyes was palpable, as Vaegon leaned forward, and offered him the cup. Viserys looked up at him then, but the dreadful words that came after were not dreadful to the young boy.
“Are you willing to wait a few years?” Vaegon asked, and with the snotty lad widening his eyes, figured he had to say it clearly. “To wed Aemma?”
“F-Father and grandfather think it's best now…”
“Your father and grandfather also thought it best to put you in this uncomfortable position. It is unfair as it is dreadfully planned,” he answered. “Over my daughter’s marriage I hold certain jurisdiction. If they want you two wed, they will wait until she’s strong enough to carry duty to term. As for you, none would expect you to become perfect heir at a moment’s request, but if you are to be a proper heir, you must nurture a mind of your own, and sow the correct seeds for your hopes to come true,” he paused, and then continued. “So I ask you again— are you willing to wait a few years, nephew?”
Life at court was hardly ever paced. Alyssa had allowed her boy the joys of flight and skies from the very moment he was born, but she was long gone, and the boy was downed with dread as he watched his family flounder with fire and grief. He hadn’t known the way back to the sky on his own yet— but Vaegon had been there too, and he’d offer a helping hand.
Viserys hadn’t drank his water. Perhaps he didn’t want to put out the little fire nurtured in his next words.
“Yes.”
Vaegon breathed in. Was it victory, or was it defeat? He wouldn’t know any time soon, but a compromise was made— for his little daughter. “Then I’ll have a betrothal arranged.”
The doors to his office swung open in excitement, said little daughter as well as her mother revealed. Daella beamed at him from across the room— he told her to let him see how it goes first, but it seemed she beckoned their daughter to eavesdrop this time.
Aemma, on her side, had run over first to her to-be-betrothed, who had spilled his cup of water as she clutched onto him from behind the chair he sat on. “I told you all will be alright,” she said, cheek rubbing against the top of Viserys’s head.
The poor husband to be had no water and nearly choked on his own spit all the same. He’d die with a smile, should he let him, but with this decision he had the duty to be a proper good father as well. He sighed; he had the feeling he’d have to extend his hand much more in the future.
“Pace yourself, daughter,” he said loud and clear, frown dedicated to the cause… if also for the fact that while he agreed, he hated seeing his own daughter in such rush to be grown.
Aemma looked up at him, smile wide and eyes crinkling. “I don’t think I will,” she said, and lunged from Viserys’s side to his— kisses peppered all across his face in joy that he’d will himself to last. He wouldn’t have her match his frowns forevermore, and there were many reasons he’d resent such notion, but on top of all, he’d rather her be able to say, it was his smile that remained to her in inheritance. For that, he’ll give any hand asked.