An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
But the smallest exchange can change the course of your fates.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
But the smallest exchange can change the course of your fates.
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Hi all,
Chapter 13 is now up. Thank you for the kind words and feedback.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
But the smallest exchange can change the course of your fates.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
But the smallest exchange can change the course of your fates.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
Until he finds you with one too many glasses of Dornish wine at a feast.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
Until he finds you with one too many glasses of Dornish wine at a feast.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
Until he finds you with one too many glasses of Dornish wine at a feast.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
Until he finds you with one too many glasses of Dornish wine at a feast.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
Until he finds you with one too many glasses of Dornish wine at a feast.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
Until he finds you with one too many glasses of Dornish wine at a feast.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
Until he finds you with one too many glasses of Dornish wine at a feast.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
As a highborn Tully, you have grown up and spent your blooming years in King Viserys' court. Amidst the growing tensions between the Queen's Party and the Princess' Party for the Iron Throne is Prince Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen. Despite your proximity over the years, you can count on one hand the interactions you've had.
Until he finds you with one too many glasses of Dornish wine at a feast.
Y/N, a Tully who has spent several years at King’s Landing, is present at Court at the closing of King Viserys’ reign. You have seen Aemond Targaryen countless times but for some reason, you both have always avoided and eluded each other.
Until King Viserys throws a feast fete and the one-eyed Prince finds you after you’ve had one cup too many of their best Dornish wine.
1.9K | M
It was a dangerous time to be in King’s Landing.
From the lords and ladies who were wined and dined at King Viserys’ court, to the smallfolk who lived beyond the Red Keep all the way to Flea Bottom, it was well known that things were changing. The years of plenty that were enjoyed under Viserys the Peaceful were coming to an end. The king was sick, if the rumors were to be true, and he had become recluse to some extent in recent days. The city was full of guards and watchmen on higher alert than usual – and ever so often, a silver-haired Targaryen would ride past.
As a Tully growing up under Viserys’ reign, you’ve always enjoyed the good parts of being a highborn lady. The Tullys have been in the good graces of the Targaryen kings since Edmyn Tully was named Lord Paramount of the Trident by the Conqueror. And Viserys is no different.
But the whispers have gotten too loud to ignore, even for you. Drinking, feasting, dancing – no music is loud enough – no wine sweet enough – to pretend you can’t hear them. A challenge to the throne. A challenge to Rhaenyra Targaryen, to whom your house has sworn fealty to as the lawful heir of the King.
Years after Rhaenyra’s birth, and after the death of Queen Aemma Arryn, Viserys remarried the daughter of his Hand, Lady Alicent Hightower. Alicent was mother to three children – a firstborn son, a second-born son, and a third-born daughter.
A firstborn son.
Aegon Targaryen’s birth had shifted the tides. Despite the majority of Great Houses swearing to Rhaenyra to appease the king, the people of Westeros had never wanted a queen. When Aegon was born, the murmurs began spreading that he should be the king. Not a girl. Aegon was the first-born son to a healthy, living mother. Truth be told, Aemma’s death had turned Rhaenyra into something of a myth. A woman who existed in sight and history - but she was only what Viserys wanted. Not what the people wanted.
As for you? You’ve always liked Rhaenyra. You like her passion and fire, her smiles and her wit. She is obstinate and stubborn, but she has always been kind to you. When you first came to King’s Landing, she was already almost seven-and-ten. She played with you in your crib, and when she had her own children, you played with them. At one-and-twenty, you are older than Rhaenyra’s children, but younger than Prince Aemond and Aegon.
You’ve never interacted much with Queen Alicent’s children. Aegon is loathsome – lustful, gluttonous, and permanently drunk. The Targaryen beauty is all but lost on him – with his greasy pale hair constantly stuck to his forehead, his eyes glazed over and bloodshot, his clothes stained and ill-fitting, and always reeking of spirits and stale wine. He has never deserved his sister-wife, Helaena.
Aemond is the other side of the coin. Tall, proud, and incredibly standoffish, he is as beautiful a Targaryen as you’ve ever known a man to be. He’s probably said approximately four words to you in your entire lifetime – with three of them probably being “no”. You’ve come to associate Aemond with his leather boots and eyepatch that covers an eye lost in his youth in a fight with Rhaenyra’s sons, and the straight blond hair that’s tied half-up to the back with a neat leather strap. Describing Aemond is incomplete without mentioning his mouth – a petulant, disdainful mouth, constantly positioned in a look of soft disgust.
All the Targaryens will be in attendance tonight at a fete being hosted by the King. As King Viserys’ appearances are few and far between as of late, you’re sure every Great House will make a grand showing to remind the King of the allegiance they have pledged to his name. With the generally tense air permeating King’s Landing, you find yourself looking forward to this. A night to eat, drink, and dance can only end well – or, if you’re honest, absolutely horrendously.
-----
The Tullys have been famed in history for red hair and blue eyes. By a stroke of misfortune, you had missed both those traits. Instead, you had inherited your mother’s deep brown hair, and flecked brown eyes. Carefully avoiding choosing black or green clothing or accessories (these colours had taken on an excessively political perspective in the Keep) and with the help of two handmaidens (and friends) Annis and Ceyla, you readied yourself for the night. You settled on a burgundy dress with gold lining, with a corset yanked until you’re forced to stand straight. Hating the austere look of an up-done hairdo, you let it fall about your shoulders, with your handmaidens dusting it with shimmer to look dressier. You never attend any of these events without your favourite gold earrings and a simple gold necklace which you’d gotten at a market when you turned sixteen.
-----
Annis and Ceyla walk you to the doors of the Great Hall where you leave them behind, as you trade the cold hallways of the Keep for the warmth of the festivities inside.
The Targaryens are all there. Seated at the head table to either side of the King are the rival factions of his family. Princess Rhaenyra, Prince Daemon and their children sit to the King’s right, while Queen Alicent, Otto Hightower, the Princes, Princess Helaena, and Helaena’s children sit to the King’s left. Almost inadvertently, the first person’s eye you catch is Prince Aemond’s. He wears a red cloak, attached to a dragon brooch at the neck of his black leather collar. The intensity of his gaze and the disquiet of his mouth catches you offguard, and your breath catches in your throat. You look away quickly, your cheeks hot, seeking a serving-girl or serving-boy to diffuse the awkwardness of the moment with a goblet of wine.
Over the next hour, the night turns from formal into a more relaxed form of revelry. Rhaenyra brings her boys to come say hello, and even Prince Daemon acknowledges you with half a raise of his left eyebrow. You don’t realize you’ve finished at least four glasses of wine until the room takes on a pleasant gold haze, and the music begins echoing in parts of your brain it hadn’t been before.
“Is this your first time drinking Dornish wine?”
You turn – a little too fast – not the best idea – to the source of the condescending comment. It’s Prince Aemond. Because of course it is.
“Is that a concern to you?” you ask.
“Not remotely,” he says coolly. “You merely reminded me of the folk I see in Flea Bottom, is all.”
He’s at least a foot taller than you, and reaches out a hand to snap his fingers to call the attention of a serving-girl a few feet away. She comes across as quickly as she can with a goblet in hand, pale in the face – bowing and curtsying to him at once. He takes the goblet, never acknowledging her further than that.
You resent him for it, but it reminds you that as the son of the king, you are also constrained to offer him a curtsy. You do it half-heartedly, not looking at him.
“Oh, surely you can do better than that,” he says, his eye glinting in the firelights. The Dornish wine agrees, and it pushes you to do the deepest, most non-genuine curtsy you have ever mustered.
His mouth is a tight line. You wonder if you’ve pushed the envelope too far. Queen Alicent’s sons are well-known among the masses for their low tolerance for disrespect.
“I’ve grown up in King’s Landing,” you say, changing the topic. “But this is the most you’ve ever spoken to me.”
“No clue as to why?” he asks. “Your conversation is pitiful, Tully.”
“Please do not feel forced to speak to me then, my Prince.”
He laughs, then. A strange, cold laugh. “I have never done a single thing in my life that I have not wanted to do, my lady.”
You chug the remainder of your wine. It’s sweet and tart, and there’s a metallic tang of the goblet which comes up at the end. The music has changed, and people are beginning to take to the floor with dancing partners.
“Truth be told,” he says, looking around at the Hall, “I hate these silly things.”
“I like them,” you respond. You are warm and content. There’s a reason why everyone loves Dornish wine. It takes you someplace far off. “It feels nice to be here. It feels nice when things seem alright and tomorrow seems far away.”
He turns to you then, sipping his wine slowly. Calculated, like a snake. His right eye bores into both of yours, and you watch the movement of his neck as the drink goes down his throat.
“Dance with me, then.” His words are slow. Intent.
“Is someone paying you to take the piss out of me?”
You have never trusted Aemond Targaryen as far as you can throw him (which is nowhere at all). But this seems unkind, even for him.
“I see a prince asking a highborn lady for a dance. Is there something the matter?”
There’s a wicked glint of a grin on his face, and his visible eye never leaves your face. He puts his empty cup on a nearby table, and holds his hand out to you, with almost mocking fervor. You stare at his hand, and back to his face.
You grab his hand so suddenly it even takes him by surprise. The tempo of the music is somewhere between fast and slow, and only when he puts one hand on the small of your back and draws you closer to him, you realize that this feels much more intimate than expected. His hand is large and covers yours, but he doesn’t squeeze it. His thumb brushes over your knuckles - lightly - holding you in while you move.
You try to look at his chest, which is where you reach him at your tallest. Anywhere is better than that damn eye. He smells good, you think. He smells clean. Like a misty morning on a hunt –
You are painfully aware of his other hand at the small of your back. It rests against your skin with the slightest bit of pressure. You can tell where each finger is, where his palm burns. You move together; he’s as light on his feet as you expected. A good dancer, but you expected no less from a swordsman and a dragonrider. The hand starts to move slowly up your back – subtly – to another person in the room catching a glimpse of it, there would be nothing unseemly about it. Your heart skips a beat and a half – this is too much, all of it is too much, too strange –
It’s in your hair. His hand is in your hair. Gentle, inquisitive fingers rake through from root to tip – it’s over before it starts, back at the small of your back. You look up at him, searching for an answer. The eye is cold again.
He lets you go when the music comes to an end. You’re still staring at him. Confused, offended, a little drunk – a little – you don’t know what. He turns on his heel, in those knee-high leather boots, and walks away from you without turning back.
You don’t think you can swallow any more of this night. You turn and look for the nearest way out of the Hall. You need Ceyla and Annis.
Because what in the name of the Seven was that all about?
