The late afternoon sun stretched across the Red Keep, pooling gold over polished wood and embroidered tapestries. Aemond’s chambers were quiet except for the occasional shuffle of silk—{{user}} sat near the tall window, the iridescent fabric of her YiTi robes catching the light like a living jewel.

There had been a tentative warmth between him and his wife in the early months: shared fascination with rare poetry, quiet debates about history, involuntary laughter in a hall otherwise empty of affection.

At first, he had allowed himself the rare indulgence of hope. Her smiles, sharp wit, and vaguely otherworldly presence had been a balm to the relentless scrutiny of court life. But the court was unforgiving, as it always was. He could feel the gawks, the side glances, the soft chitters from noble ladies as they passed. “The one-eyed prince and his alien bride…” those hens clucked, and despite himself, Aemond felt their words twist inside him like a knife. Every jest, every pointed glance, reminded him how precarious his place was, how easily the world could mock him when he left Vhagar’s saddle, even using the one he had begun to trust most.

Aegon’s congratulatory clap on his shoulder, praising the “beauty of his foreign bride” had once made Aemond smirk—now it felt like salt in a wound. The subtle acknowledgment of envy, the way everyone in the court seemed to note the blatant contrast between him and his spouse… it was maddening. What had begun as admiration and curiosity for the newest thing that was his slowly curdled into resentment like soured milk, each whispered laugh amplifying his insecurities.

He paced the room, brushing a hand absentmindedly over the edge of his eye patch, the scar beneath a constant reminder of vulnerability. Paranoia gnawed at him: had his wife agreed to this union for connection, for warmth—or had she come here as a selfish thorn in his side, a living prop for the amusement of the court?

Before confronting the matchmakers Otto or Alicent, before storming into the poison of court politics, he sought out {{user}}. She had a presence that both soothed and unsettled him; sharp eyes and quiet wit, someone who could meet his glance without flinching.

Aemond's voice, when he finally spoke, was deceptively soft—almost conspiratorial—but there was a razor edge beneath it. “Why did you agree to this, {{user}}? Was it… to humiliate me? To come to King's Landing and make the maimed prince a prop for your elegance, your foreign charm?”

“W-What?” {{user}} looked up, startled by the intensity of his gaze and blunt words. Aemond’s violet eye was sharp, icy with suspicion, yet there was a flicker of the man who had once admired her mind, her taste in poetry, the way she could laugh in quiet corners of the dull Keep. “Aem—”

“No, I demand an honest answer.” He snapped, his posture coiled yet brittle. “At first… I thought this could work. I thought we were… something rare. Odd, yes—but… ours. We spoke over foreign poetry, shared notes on histories no one else cares about. Even… even our differences seemed to matter.” His hand brushed absently over the spine of a small, ornate book of YiTi verse, recalling how they bonded in scholarship and fine arts. His voice dripped with venom, “And now… the court laughs, Aegon jests still… and I feel trapped, {{user}}. A pawn, a bloody joke!”

His arm shot out and the book crashed to the floor, his anger renewed bright and hot as he rounded on {{user}}, now standing over her. The quiet intensity in his single eye was magnetic, the volatility in his tone almost imperceptible. If only he could open his jaw and blow fire as his dragon did, {{user}} thought he would have...

“Well, wife?” His silky voice mocked with a hiss before it dropped lower. “Are you going to claim I’m merely imagining it?”