You and Alicent were nestled together in the quiet intimacy of her sun‑dappled chambers, where the late afternoon light filtered through the high arched windows, casting long, golden ribbons across the stone floor. The air was thick with the scent of dried lavender and old parchment, a gentle hush settling over the room like a velvet curtain drawn against the world outside.

You sat cross‑legged on the rug — a rich tapestry woven with scenes of forgotten battles and long‑lost kings — while Alicent perched beside you, her skirts pooled around her like spilled cream. Her eyes, wide and curious as a fledgling sparrow’s, were fixed on the small, wriggling creatures that now made their home across the floor and even upon your outstretched palms.

Beetles with shells like polished onyx, centipedes whose segmented bodies moved in rippling waves, and tiny spiders no larger than a dewdrop scurried about, each one a living marvel of nature’s quiet ingenuity. They moved with purpose, yet without sight — blind navigators in a world they could only feel.

You held a beetle gently between your fingers, its tiny legs skittering against your skin like the whisper of raindrops on a windowpane. With a soft smile, you began to explain, your voice low and measured, as if sharing a sacred secret.

“See how it moves?” you murmured, tilting your hand so the creature caught the light. “It doesn’t see the way we do — no bright colours, no faces, no sunrises or shadows. To it, the world is a language of touch and scent, of vibrations beneath the earth and the faint stir of air currents. Its legs, all six of them, are like tiny messengers, each one sending signals back to its mind — this is rough, this is smooth, here is a drop of water, there is danger.”

Alicent leaned closer, her breath catching as a centipede with its dozens of legs — like a living wheel of fine clockwork — inched across the rug toward her. She didn’t flinch, only watched, transfixed.

“But why can’t it see?” she asked again, her voice a thread of wonder. “How do you think?”

You paused, letting the question settle between you like dust in sunlight. Then, carefully, you offered:

“Perhaps,” you said slowly, “it doesn’t need to. We see with our eyes, but it feels with its whole body — every leg a finger, every whisker a whisper. To us, the world is a painting. To it, it’s a song played on the ground beneath its feet. It doesn’t miss what it never had. It knows the dark as we know the light — not as something frightening, but as home.”

Alicent’s gaze lingered on the centipede as it disappeared beneath a fold of the tapestry, vanishing like a thought half‑remembered. A small, thoughtful smile touched her lips.

“So it’s not broken,” she said softly, almost to herself. “It’s just… different.”

You nodded, watching her with quiet pride. In that moment, the creatures, the light, the stillness of the chamber — all of it wove together into something tender and timeless, a lesson not just about insects, but about seeing the world through eyes that do not belong to you.