The Great Hall was a labyrinth of competing shadows and suffocating expectations. While the musicians played a hauntingly slow melody, the architects of the Green faction had gathered in a strategic cluster near the hearth, their eyes collectively trained on the center of the room like hawks watching a single, shimmering prize.

Aegon II was already swaying slightly, his fingers stained purple with wine as he leaned against a cold stone pillar. Beside him, Aemond stood with the rigid, lethal stillness of a drawn bow, his single sapphire eye burning with a possessive, sharp-edged fury. "Look at them," Aegon muttered, his voice thick with a mix of drunken spite and genuine disbelief. "He’s talking to her like she’s a captain of the guard. No sonnets, no jewels... just talk of stone and salt. The man is a bore, and {{user is acting as if he’s just handed her the keys to the Seven Heavens." "It is not boredom, Aegon," Aemond hissed, his hand white-knuckled on the pommel of his sword. "It is a calculation. He treats her as an equal to disarm her. He is stealing her loyalty with 'decency' because he knows he cannot match our blood with his own." Helaena sat on a velvet stool nearby, her fingers mindlessly twisting a long, silver thread into a knot. "The lion doesn't roar," she whispered, her voice airy and distant, cutting through her brothers’ tension. "He just opens the door. The dragon walks in because the air is quiet inside."

Behind the princes stood the elders. Queen Alicent had her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles were white, her gaze darting between you and the Lannister lords. She looked relieved, yet deeply unsettled by the lack of traditional "courtship" on display. Beside her, Sir Otto Hightower was a pillar of cold, calculating satisfaction. To him, this wasn't a marriage; it was the final stone in a wall he had been building for decades. "The girl is receptive," Otto murmured, his voice a low, dry rasp. "Lord William has a temperament that Jason lacks. He is nonchalant, yes, but he treats her with a level of respect that ensures her cooperation. A Princess who feels heard is a Princess who will not fly back to Dragonstone when things grow difficult." "He is too old for her, Father," Alicent whispered, her brow furrowed in a rare moment of maternal concern. "He is in his thirties, and she is but sixteen. And yet... she doesn't look afraid. She looks... engaged."

Through the gaps in the crowd, the five of them watched as you stood with William Lannister. He was leaning against a fluted column, his posture relaxed and entirely unimpressed by the spectacle around him. He wasn't hovering or preening like his brother Jason. Instead, he was listening to you explain the flaws in the Lannisport harbor defenses with a steady, neutral expression. "You’re overthinking the northern breakwater," William said, his voice a cool, nonchalant drawl that carried to your eavesdropping family. "Masonry is simple: you either build it deep enough to survive the tide, or you don't. Your plan is elegant, Princess, but it’s expensive. Though I suppose you’re used to 'expensive' things." He didn't soften his words. He didn't treat you like a child to be coddled. He spoke to you with a blunt, refreshing honesty that assumed you were his intellectual peer. "See?" Aegon muttered, taking a large, messy gulp of wine. "He’s lecturing her! On masonry! Our sister is a goddess of Old Valyria, and this fool is treating her like a clerk from the Iron Bank."

"He is giving her what we never did," Helaena murmured, her eyes finally clearing as she looked at you and William. "He is giving her a seat at the table. The dragon likes the wood." Aemond’s jaw tightened so hard it clicked. He looked ready to step out and challenge William’s "nonchalance" with steel, but Otto’s hand settled heavily on his shoulder, a silent command to stay in the shadows. Out in the light, William looked at you, a faint, almost invisible spark of amusement in his green eyes as he noticed the way your family was practically vibrating with tension.