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Maekar flings his goblet at the wall.
“Is no one going to say anything?” He roars.
Baelor sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Brother…”
“Maybe I should go,” says the hedge knight for the umpteenth time that morning. He begins to rise, but he doesn’t make it far. Aerion lunges for him, sinking his nails deep into his arm.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” Aerion hisses through bared teeth, violet eyes blazing.
The hedge knight sinks back into his seat.
Aerion slides his own chair closer. Before, the two pieces of furniture had been a hand’s width apart; now, there is no space between them at all. The prince and hedge knight are pressed together from shoulder to thigh.
Aerion lays his head upon the hedge knight’s shoulder. “My father will come around,” he tells Ser Duncan, heedless (or uncaring) of the fact that his father can still hear him perfectly well. “He will learn to like you, even if he pretends not to.”
His eyes narrow, and he seizes the hedge knight’s jaw. Ser Duncan yelps like a much smaller man as Aerion angles his face down towards his own.
“You are not to like him,” he orders. “Only me.”
Maekar slams his fist down onto the table.
“My son has gone mad, and we are all sitting here as if everything is perfectly normal,” he snarls. “Does no one care?”
“It’s almost nice, not being the only mad one,” Daeron mutters into his goblet. He quails under the furious glance Maekar sends his way.
Baekar rests a gentle hand on the nape of Maekar’s neck.
“It’s not that no one cares, valonqar,” he says gently. “Remember what the maesters said. Aerion’s mental state is delicate right now. It’s best not to challenge him overmuch, lest he become too distressed and injure himself further.”
“His delusions have gone too far,” Maekar barks. “I could accept it when he thought he had somehow slipped backwards in time. But this? To think himself wed to this, this — peasant?”
“That reminds me,” Aerion says, looking up from his task of slipping food on Duncan’s plate and glaring at him until he eats it. Earlier, he had tried to feed the hedge knight directly, but the poor man had nearly combusted in embarrassment, and no amount of stabbing him with a fork had compelled him to open his mouth. “I must speak to Lord Ashford after Duncan is finished eating, so that his septon may be called. I wish to say our vows again at once. Our son will not be born a bastard.”
Maekar leaps from his chair with a roar, as Daeron and Valarr glance towards each other with wide eyes. Baelor closes his own eyes for a long moment.
“You — what are you saying?” Ser Duncan demands. He looks desperately to Baelor. “My prince, I swear I never touched him — “
“Don’t talk to him!” Aerion hisses. “Only me! You’re mine!”
He seizes Ser Duncan by the hair and drags his head down to give him a kiss that’s more of an attack than a show of love. Ser Duncan makes muffled noises of protest, but Aerion refuses to budge. When he finally releases the hedge knight (or, rather, is dragged away by an outraged Maekar), poor Ser Duncan’s lower lip has been ravaged by Aerion’s sharp teeth. Blood drips down his chin, though he seems too dazed to wipe it away.
“Be careful with him, Father,” Daeron says as he watches Maekar drag Aerion away. “Think of the babe!”
Valarr does not quite snicker, but there’s a definite twitch at the corner of his lips.
Maekar grips Aerion’s upper arms, leaning in close.
“Are. You. Untouched?” He grits out.
Unbothered, Aerion sucks his bloody teeth, and then smiles, apparently enjoying the taste.
Maekar gives him a shake. “Tell me!”
Aerion’s eyes glitter with mischief.
“I’ve been married for years, Father,” he says innocently. “How could that be possible?”
A vein throbs in Maekar’s temple so violently it seems likely to burst at any moment.
“Aerion — !” He roars.
“I believe he means in this time, nephew,” Baelor interjects, only willing to watch his favorite brother be tormented so much.
Aerion rolls his eyes, displeased his fun is being interrupted.
“If you look at it that way…I suppose I am,” he relents.
Maekar sags in relief, and Aerion takes the opportunity to worm free of his grip, returning to Ser Duncan. He eschews the seat still scooted up against the hedge knight's own this time and throws both legs over Duncan’s thighs instead.
“I do not intend to be for long, however,” he says, tucking his head beneath Ser Duncan’s chin quite sweetly. “I want to see my Maegor again as soon as possible.”
“…only you, cousin, would name your firstborn after Maegor the Cruel,” Valarr says after a long silence. “Will the second, perhaps, be after Aemond One-Eye?”
Aerion sneers at him.
“Aemond is my eighth. A number you can only dream of, as you hardly managed to even sire three.”
Valarr chokes.
“Eight is…quite the number,” Baelor says diplomatically, rubbing Maekar’s back with a soothing hand. His brother had stumbled back to his chair in a daze, and seems to be approaching catatonia.
Aerion smirks. “I’ve eleven in all. More than you and Father combined.”
Daeron frowns, lifting his gaze from his goblet.
“Only eleven?”
“‘Only’,” Maekar scoffs faintly.
Aerion narrows his eyes. “Why? Have you seen something?”
“I dreamed of an elm tree, with a dragon coiled around it,” Daeron says, voice going distant. He stares past Aerion at something only he can see. “The dragon was setting the tree ablaze, but it did not burn. And in the sky were fourteen stars, lighting up the night…”
“Fourteen…” Aerion muses. “One more than Alysanne…”
He looks speculatively at Duncan, who blushes beneath his gaze.
“…I did always want a large family,” the hedge knight says softly.
Aerion grins, showing all his teeth. He leans in until their noses are brushing, and all Duncan can see are his glittering violet eyes. Will the babes — Maegor and Aemond and all the rest — have eyes like that, too, Duncan wonders?
“And I will give it to you.”