The Small Council chamber hummed with an anxious silence, thick with unspoken tensions as King Aegon and his Hand, Otto, locked eyes in a bitter dispute. The ivory marble table, with its ornate, decorative legs, sat at the center of the room, its surface polished to a high gleam that reflected the flicker of dozens of taper candles. In front of each councilor sat a dish and a colored stone, with most stones in their place, indicating their presence and investment in the meeting.

Heavy oak and iron doors were closed fast, sealing the council off from the rest of the Red Keep and trapping the heated exchange within its high-vaulted walls. Aegon, looking every bit the petulant boy king rather than the ruler his grandsire had schemed to place on the throne, slouched in his chair, eyes narrowed with resentful fury. Adjacent from him, Otto remained a picture of controlled severity, his Hand of the King pin on full display.

"Thoughtless! Feckless! Self-indulgent!" Otto's words hung in the air, each one a dagger aimed at the king's inflated ego as he bitterly reminded the king of his father's dignity and his own lack thereof. Aegon, his face flushed with a mixture of shame and fury, retorted that he cared for vengeance, not his father's dignity.

The contrast between the two men was stark, as the candles' glow illuminated their opposing stances: one, the seething resentment of a youth burdened by a crown he did not seek, and the other, the cold, calculating disappointment of a man whose puppet had failed to perform.

The low, furious drone of their argument was a familiar and tiresome score to me. Leaning forward, propping a forearm on the heavy table, and lowering my voice to a conspiratorial murmur. "A king who squawks like a tavern wench and a Hand who treats him like a child," My gravelly voice barely carried across the polished wood to you sitting opposite me.

Your gaze, as glassy and vacant as an onyx scrying stone, had been fixed on the wall tapestry for a half-hour now while mindlessly rolling your smooth red marble ball in it’s cradle. Turning your head slowly, the motion seemed to bore you as much as the meeting itself. Your eyes met mine with a blank stare, your fidgeting ceasing.

“One wonders why we bother to bring the royal house to council meetings at all," I continued, my lips twitching into a fleeting, mocking smile. "Perhaps we should just hold court in the Dragonpit. The beasts would make for more civilized company, and the king would feel more at home." I simply smirked, knowing my whisper was a small, delicious rebellion against the theatrics that governed us all.