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After all these years, he’s at the same family table, but it feels like that table isn’t his.
Since his siblings are useless, to his mother, to keep her content; he smiles, he nods, he waits his turn, but there’s something strange. Someone makes a joke, everyone laughs as if everything is alright within the family.
Not only does he not find it funny, he can’t even figure out what they’re laughing at. When he tells a story at any day breaking their fast, everyone would fall silent, and eventually, he too would become quiet.
He talks, yes. But whenever he tries to open up, the conversation is diverted. He dives in before he can delve deep. The conversation isn’t shallow, it’s just distant from him, he tells himself.
Because he’s at the wrong table.
Then someone says something else, he joins in for a moment, but it’s as if the sentences need translation. He doesn’t feel like he belongs there. He doesn’t speak the same language, they don’t even hear each other.
It’s not about their words, it’s about their density, their tone. What he cares about and why.
He dwells on things they say ‘I wouldn’t think about’ for days. What he calls ‘meaningful,’ they say ‘he’s exaggerating.’
What they don’t understand is that what’s ‘absurd’ to one person holds a significant place in someone’s heart.
After the war has begun, his sense of duty to his blood keeps him awake at night, though it is a tension both her mother and sister dismiss with a flick of their wrists.
Yes, his side of the family are good people.
Yes, they’ve never done him any harm. But goodness isn’t everything.
They aren’t his people. If he can’t feel like himself around them, what does it matter how good they are? Some people always tell the same story when they talk.
He wants to change, but they keep going in circles. After a while, not sharing feels safer than being misunderstood. And this silences him. When he sits across from these people, he feels like he’s not really sitting there.
He’s physically there, but his soul wants to lean somewhere else. Like his room. Like away from home. Like new conversations where he’ll truly be understood.
He imagines the open sky atop Vhagar above the Narrow Sea, far beyond the stifling walls of King’s Landing.
He can’t form long sentences. Those words just don’t get there. Even when they meet at noon for dinner, they only revolve around questions like, “What did you do today? Who did you spend time with?” Even “How are you?” isn’t properly asked, and even if it is, no one cares about the answer.
His interests, perspectives and pace don’t match. While he can talk about a topic with excitement for hours, someone else finds him ‘too mouthy.’ Yet, for the first time, he had found the courage to talk about himself.
It’s not that he’s too much, he needs to be deep. Depth is unsettling in shallow waters.
It’s not like no one is ‘hearing’ him, but it’s also like no one is really listening. They look at the prince, the warrior, the rider of Vhagar but never at Aemond.
He’s there, but he’s not. He makes eye contact, but deep down he’s distant. Not speaking the same language isn’t about words. It means belonging to other lives. It’s about the heart; about intention, curiosity, depth.
He feels compelled to add explanations after his words such as:
“I’m kidding.”
“I’m serious.”
“I do care.”
He’s constantly underlining things because they’re always being erased. His every intent gets misinterpreted, twisted into hostility or arrogance by a family that never learned how to read him.
The issue isn’t perhaps being able to like the same tale, it’s being able to feel comfortable even in the same silence—although liking the same tale would be nice too.
People who understand him as much for what he says as for what he doesn’t say. In a conversation built with great difficulty, he suddenly finds his throat tightening. No matter how hard he tries, he won’t be understood here.
Maybe it’s not a bad thing, but it’s exhausting.
They are all human. Mankind wants to be understood.
Most importantly: people want to be accepted for who they truly are. It’s in its nature.
Not feeling like he belongs in a place where everything seems fine can make him feel like an outsider. Sometimes it takes months to realize he’s sitting at a table where he doesn’t belong. Even after he demanded his sister ride to war on Dreamfyre, after his mother stood against him with that look—treating him like a monster for trying to win the war she started years before he was born—the truth finally crystallizes.
Of course, it is Aemond who will take all the beatings so his loved ones will be safe. It is Aemond who will give up his wants and dreams so the others can live theirs. It is Aemond who will do the dirty work, become the monster they want so no one else has to.
First, he blames himself: Am I too fragile? Then he tries to smooth things over: I shouldn’t feel this way. Then he withdraws even further: I’m already too quiet. But in the end, a voice inside—a very subtle but very clear voice—says: This table isn’t mine. These people aren’t my people.
Even his mother, brothers or sister.
It’s not arrogance. It’s awareness. It’s a weary inner monologue he had at times and sometimes, it’s a closure. And he feels a little sad when he hears that voice for the first time.
Sometimes a bond can end without anything bad happening. Humanity is made to form connections, but they are not obligated to connect with everyone.
He no longer wants to sit at these tables randomly. He doesn’t want someone to make room for him; he wants to be next to someone who notices his presence, who forms a genuine connection with him. Because when he has so much to say, he doesn’t always want to keep it all inside.
There are people in this world who think like him, feel like him and speak the same language as him. He just may not have met them yet. Beyond Westeros, across the Summer Sea, in the ruins of Valyria, the free cities of Essos or another unknown land—the world is vast and untamed!
So don’t sit at tables where you don’t feel you belong, just to avoid being alone.
What’s meant for you will find you, he thinks to encourage himself for the last time.
He turns his back on the Red Keep, on the crown and on a family that only loved the shadow he cast.
Down by the cliffs, Vhagar answers his call, her low rumble echoing off the stone. He mounts her, and together they ascend high above the clouds, where the air is pure and silence is no longer heavy.
So Aemond Targaryen flew.