naught but ashes.

Aerys Targaryen for Blood and Glory rp.

[olddragons]

he kept saying, "burn them all" / october 6th, night / closed to aerys targaryen and jaime lannister

[j-lannisters]

Politicians had an affinity for lying and Aerys was no different. They know you’re here. They’re coming. Whether or not Jaime believed it as the truth, it struck an urgency in him that cut into what would otherwise be toying with his prey. The longer he remained in the building the more he exposed himself and the closer to daylight it got.

Still, as many threats Aerys posed to him it couldn’t hide the fear seeping out of him in waves. It gave Jaime the advantage, just what he needed to make this look like an accident. He had to get him moving; the gun was no longer an option.

He values his own life far too much and he knows I’m here to kill him. Aerys made the mistake of thinking this was Tywin’s hand; Jaime thought briefly of how his father may very well disapprove wholeheartedly of this plot. Reckless. Foolish. Sometimes there just wasn’t time; sometimes it was kill or be killed. The solitary dragon did him a disservice in thinking this would fluster him.

Jaime had stepped partially into the shadows, only his shoulder illuminated by the fireplace but the flames danced on Aerys’ visage. They brought a grim life to him: a hollow shell, a walking corpse. It wouldn’t matter how foolish Jaime had been after Aerys was dead. “I don’t see anyone,” he taunted briefly in response to his threats. Only Jaime wasn’t looking for guards or spies, his eyes hadn’t left his target. Time was up.

Not if I kill you first, old man. Jaime lunged in his direction.

[olddragons]

The enemy's unwavering eyes were unsettling; like a staring contest, Aerys knew he'd lost a thousand times over already. In his desperate search for aid coming from the outside, he'd looked away more than once, while Jaime fucking Lannister had moved across the room unflinchingly. Aerys wondered if he had been in the room already, by the way he moved around, is if he knew already, as if he'd known it for a long time - who had betrayed him? Who had let him in? Pycelle had told him he would be safe.

The smell of burning wood filled his nostrils. Burn them all. The flames cast long shadows against the wall. Jaime Lannister's shadow reached up to the ceiling, not unlike a giant come to step on him, crush him.

When Jaime Lannister pounced, Aerys was one step ahead. With his hand he felt the wall behind him and ran to his right, toward the door. The muscles in his highs ached from the urgency, his bones lamented the sudden wrath in his movements. But he couldn't stop and abide his body's prayers; he had to run.

"Pycelle!" he bellowed, thunderous over the silence that enveloped the entire house. Is there a breathing soul in this place, he wondered, running. Jaime Lannister's footsteps were fast behind him, faster than his, approaching. He leaned against the wall outside the study. The warmth of the fire was gone. He kept going, but Jaime Lannister was behind him. He dared a glance back, and the feral smugness he saw there frightened him. Jaime Lanister was on him, too fast, too dangerous, and before he could do anything, the man's gloved fingers were clenching the fabric of his sweater, pulling at him.

"Pycelle!" he yelled again, clenching his own fingers against the man's wrists to try and pry him off, get rid of him and run just what more he needed to reach downstairs and call the guards, do something.

But Jaime Lannister was younger, and stronger, and he dragged him backward. He struggled, and so did the Lannister boy: his features grew harder as he pushed him against the railing. The wood was hard against his spine, his back bending backwards. "Coward," Aerys Targaryen hissed, fighting to resist the other man's pressure - useless. He was too weak, and his body betrayed him, offering no help. Aerys turned his head to the side, barely, Jaime's fists firm against his neck, pushing. Pushing. The floor downstairs was hard and so far away, and Aerys knew then that fall would be his last.

"Burn them all," he whispered to himself. "Burn them all."

And Aerys fell.

[thefangsareback]

september 26 // when i offer you survival // rhaenys & aerys

[thefangsareback]

Rhaenys looked about, agitated. Aerys Targaryen was of a different breed, a different race than she, and she was something foreign and unwelcome to him. She’d spent years searching for something in her that would let her identify as a Targaryen, a Martell — an anything, really — and had always looked towards what little memory of her parents she had, and had based her midset around representing those qualities deemed one family’s or the other’s. Perhaps that wasn’t her best idea. Her Targaryen family, at least from the impression she had already of Aerys, wasn’t something she would ever have found in Rhaegar.

She’d visited to see if there was some part of her that had come from her family, since she didn’t see any of herself in either of her parents The cold, calculating Rhaenys that she had become might have skipped a generation. But she needed something; in case things went sour like they did in St. Petersburg, the backing of a powerful family like the Martells or the Targaryens would come in quite handy. And the Martells might be just the smallest bit too nice for her taste.

"I can leave," she announced hotly, growing more uneasy, more on edge, by the second. "It’s completely fine. Maybe I shouldn’t have come." And then, adding it in just for good measure: "You’ll be dead soon, after all. Really no use in it."

[olddragons]

It was satisfying in a very self-serving way, to see the child lose her temper and rise her voice. That might have almost been enough to let him reconsider, tell her perhaps she was not such a waste of time. Aerys smiled at the shaking outrage in his grand-daughter's niece: perhaps there was less of Rhaegar in her and more of him than he might have expected. Rhaegar barely lost control, barely let anger surface. His son was meek and concerned with some bizarre idea of composure that Aerys did not remember teaching him. And Rhaella... certainly he had caressed her enough that she would never try and teach such ridiculous values on his firstborn.

He was almost amused. Almost. Until she threatened him. (It sounded like a threat to him, it sounded like all the threats he received on a daily basis. People thinking his life wouldn't last people wishing him dead.)

He leapt to his feet faster than he realized, stumbling briefly, with his hand holding to the edge of the table. He walked fast, crossed the room until he was towering the girl. His right hand shot out, fingers wrapping around her arm, tight, The skin grew pale around his grip, and he pulled, forcing her to stand up. 

"You can't talk to me like that," he hissed, his face too close to hers, eyes narrowing at his own words. "Never talk to me like that."

His grand-daughter was not in Russia anymore; if this behaviour had served her in her stay abroad, it would not serve her now, not here, not with him.

[olddragons]

he kept saying, "burn them all" / october 6th, night / closed to aerys targaryen and jaime lannister

[j-lannisters]

Jaime never liked the circumstances that surrounded his job under Aerys – taking orders from a mad man – but he enjoyed what it entailed. Since youth he’d been physically gifted, first at fencing and then with a pistol. Security work let him exercise that and from his comrades he crafted further skill. Sometimes he thought the profession much more suited to him than the one he currently undertook but ultimately Jaime was still a Lannister; he went where they needed him.

The room was barely lit, the sole source of light the crackling fire beside where Aerys shifted. Any and all of his movements Jaime examined, first his search (presumably for something he could not find) which yet again left the younger the victor. Your whore sister. The blacks in his eyes snapped wider in anger, his teeth in a tight clamp before he spat out words of his own. “She’s more than he was ever worth. He had the right of it when he settled for that Martell girl.”

Aerys was mistaken if he thought it would unsettle Jaime because in his anger his instincts heightened; he became even more of a threatening beast, capable of precision now based on insult. For a second it looked like he was smiling before it became a sneer, fully aware of having trapped his prey.

The man had nowhere to run except out the door, if he felt suicidal enough maybe the window. Either way it made it easier for Jaime, but now with an edge to his thinking he decided to poke and prod before he devoured him in his entirety.

The jab of his finger got an abrupt bark of a laugh from Jaime, having taken a few more steps, sidelong, further from the door. Let Aerys think he has a chance. His words came with an accompanying shrug. “You’re not as thorough as you think, old man.”

[olddragons]

Panic refused to settle, while his brain struggled to stay alert. Aerys Targaryen would not fall prey to mind games -- his own were enough to keep him awake at night, whispering things in his ears he did not want to ear, threats he rejected on principle because he was Aerys Targaryen. So he scanned the room once more, as if he could find something he'd missed the first time, something that could come to his aid. But the room was spare, save for the essential. Aerys looked at the library behind the man, wishing it would miraculously tremble and collapse, crushing the Lannister man to the ground, under the weight of wood and paper. But it didn't, it was solid against the wall. It didn't even as much as oscillate in its place. The room was still, Jaime Lannister the only thing breathing, alive within those four walls. And him, Aerys, alone.

"It doesn't matter," he said, infusing some of that courage he needed to his own words. "They know you're here. They're coming."

Lies, of course. No one was coming. He slipped a hand down his thigh, to feel his pocket. It was empty. His eyes fell to the couch, where his beeper lay forgotten, stuck between the cushions. It must have fallen off his pocket when he was too busy watching the fire.

Jaime Lannister did not look frightening; his face was too soft, almost feminine, with hands that looked too gentle to strike. It was the eyes that gave Aerys reason of concern: those eyes were malevolent and calculating, hiding a sea of unspoken tricks behind the endless green. He'd seen those eyes many times before, in his life; the boy has Tywin's eyes. No, it wasn't Jaime Lannister he feared, it was the father, the puppeteer behind him, holding the strings. He could almost see Jaime Lannister's arms moving accodingly to Tywin's sharp tugs, hear Tywin's words through the son's lips.

"Your father has lost cunning," he said, laughing, loudly (perhaps someone would hear him if he was loud enough); "You will be arrested before the night is over. Or who knows, maybe even better: my guards are quick with a trigger."

Where are those useless cunts?

[thefangsareback]

september 26 // when i offer you survival // rhaenys & aerys

[thefangsareback]

It took a moment or two to dawn on her that Aerys wasn’t taking any of her shit. After being in his house for this long, she was starting to wonder how she ever could have suspected him to be some old, senile idiot. She did have his genes, after all. And she could see some of that; his posture, the intonations of his voice, his suspicious gaze. He mimiced her — or, rather, she mimiced him. Rhaenys still hadn’t decided whether it was reassuring or disconcerting. For now, both would have to do. She did, however, narrow her eyes at his words, pursing her lips a bit.

[olddragons]

"I’m not here for money," she said sharply, trying her best to stare him straight in the eye. Up until now her replies, just like all of her interactions, had been almost rehearsed, like watching herself in a movie. Now that Aerys was going off-script, she had to be quick on her feet, willing herself to maintain confidence. Did she want money from him? She was, she acknowledged, too proud to ask, too proud to even accept. And she had enough of her own. Did she want a job from him? That’s what she’d contacted the Martells for. She wouldn’t be caught up in some Targaryen conspiracy theory. Gods knew they had them, and she had enough to deal with to be a part of that. So why had she come?

"I can just visit, can’t I?" She retorted. It wasn’t the whole truth, but she needed a moment to collect her thoughts (the improv course she’d taken in high school was less effective at the moment than she’d hoped). After a moment of brow-furrowed concentration, she finally came up with a truthful answer. "I don’t want Rhaegar to be the only view of a Targaryen I have. I’m sure you’re not all so deficient. Needed to see for myself."

Aerys frowns. Somehow he can't put his finger on the girl sitting before him: too much fakeness in the way she acts and talks, some evident mask that makes him wonder what she is hiding, what her true motive is. If she thinks to fool him, she's been mislead: Aerys is smart and knows beter than that. He's dealt with sycophants his whole life, and each one of them was always after a piece of him. His money, his glory. They wanted to take everything from him, and some of them even managed. Tywin Lannister managed.

Still Aerys' lips quiver at his grand-daughter's lack fo filter: perhaps it's because he knows Rhaegar turned out to be less than what he might have expected him to become; or perhaps it's the bitterness of that awareness. His son, Aerys hoped, should follow in his footsteps. He did not. He chose something different, a weakness that reminded Aerys of his late wife. 'The boy has nothing of me,' he remembers scolding Rhaella when Rhaegar had insisted for piano lessons. 'Disgraceful,' again, when his older son showed no interest in the ambition Aerys had tried hard to thrust upon him.

"Watch your language," he quips, folding the newspaper and casting it aside on the far end of the table. His tea has gone cold, and when he tries to sip it it's lost its taste: Aerys grimaces and pushes the cup away as well. Nothing is as it should be, no one does their job the way they should. Not even Rhaenys. He places a dilemma before him, and it makes him uneasy. It doesn't feel safe, to have her in his house: blood is only a warranty for as long as it's kept under surveillance. His grand-daughter has spent way too much time away from the fold, prey of rumors and whispers that might have corrupted her. Blood, in this case, is not enough to trust her.

"Well, you have visited," he concludes, less than amiable. "Whatever you're looking for, you won't find here."

[thefangsareback]

september 26 // when i offer you survival // rhaenys & aerys

[thefangsareback]

Rhaenys contemplated the man who she was to suppose was her grandfather. She didn’t see any recognition of herself in him, nor Aegon, nor from any long-ago memories of her parents. Could she truly be related to this man? The man who needed an artillery of a security force for his fortress of a mansion, when she left the door not only unlocked, but even sometimes ajar, in her studio apartment in a bad neighborhood? She glanced quickly around the room, trying to find any connection to the man, but found no photographs she could recognize, no books she’d ever heard of, nothing.

[olddragons]

Which brought back his question. What was she doing here? Sure, she’d had to leave St. Petersburg, but that didn’t mean she’d had to come back to London. She’d had an education, and she had the right name, and good connections, anything she needed to have a stable life; she could have gone to the Americas, or Asia, Australia — anywhere. It wasn’t as if she had a fierce urge to reconnect with her family. She was sure Aerys had already figured that out himself.

"I’m not after anything," she grumbled, fighting the urge of politeness telling her not to roll her eyes and doing so anyway. "What, I can’t attempt to rekindle my love for my favorite Grandaddy?" After a moment, she chuckled at her own sarcasm. It was only then that she came up with a response suitable for both the man in front of her and herself. "Now that I’m back, I’ve got to find someone that doesn’t make me want to claw their eyes out every time I look at them. I figure trial and error is the best way to go about it. Find someone to keep me sane." She paused for a moment, cocking her head to the side, chewing gingerly on her nails. "How come you let me in, then, if you’re going to be so suspicious?"

The Martells' family tree is a blur to Aerys, mainly because he never cared enough to inquire. The day he had allowed his son to marry Elia Martell it had not been because of some high cause: the Martells were new money, but well known enough to make a good match. His son liked to think he had married for love, but Aerys knew better than that: Rhaegar had married because he, Aerys, had allowed it to happen. He remembers Doran Martell, but more importantly he remembers his death at that silly birthday party in London. Aerys supposed he had gotten what was coming to him, venturing on such events with such little security, mingling with things that he had no business mingling with. Parties. Events. Distractions. Dangers.

There were other people too, names rather than faces, but eventually Aerys could agree: he was the only person worthy of a visit, the only member of a disrupted family who could piece it back together (granted he got what he wanted in the end) and it did make sense that the girl would come to him.

Perhaps she had seen in Rhaegar the same thing Aerys saw: wasted potential, weakness after weakness and the slow vanishing of any ambition. His son had been buried with Elia Martell a long time ago, and what remained was a shell that caused more trouble than Aerys was ready to admit.

The point remained of the motive behind his grand-daughter's return. What she offered were snappy retorts of make-believe, and lines heard in movies. Rekindle, Aerys repeated in his head. What was there to rekindle if there had never been anything to begin with? he could scarcely remember, and surely the same went for her: how old had she been the day Rhaegar had sent them all away, for their safety?

Still he would not stand to be questioned in his own house. He ignored her inquiries then.

"Do you need money?"

[thefangsareback]

september 26 // when i offer you survival // rhaenys & aerys

[thefangsareback]

She followed the attendant down the hall; not before tripping her, though, although the girl was too oblivious to even notice. With a smirk, Rhaenys whistled a single note, and the attendant looked around in confusion (“Must have been the wind,”). But Rhaenys soon lost her carefree attitude. The high ceilings trapped her in, immediately overwhelming her. She vigorously shook her head — what, had she been expecting a shack? Still, the corridor seemed never to end. Would she recognize the man she’d come to see? Would he recognize her? For some reason she couldn’t place, she hoped not. I only came because I had too, she told herself hurriedly. Grandfather. Relative. Have to remake connections. Have to find a job. It wasn’t doing a goddamn thing, though.

It sure as Hell wasn’t like Rhaenys’ apartment. She always had the television blaring, even while she slept or was out — though she could hardly imagine the soundtrack of Aerys Targaryen’s home being reruns of Beavis and Butthead. It was too tidy, too put together. Surely he couldn’t muck it up very often, which led to her speculation about his staff; they surely weren’t just maids and butlers. And if they were, well, that might have been worse. But no. She felt watched. She felt observed. She felt the more she ventured into the house, the less ties she held with the world she’d just been in. The outside world.

And then, there he was. She recognized in him only what she’d recognize in any Targaryen, as well as the calculating, observant, borderline something-or-other look she’d seen in the mirror from time to time. No, Aerys Targaryen wasn’t what she’d expected, but she didn’t let it be disconcerting. She perched herself immediately on a plush chair and forced her eyes to meet him. She was silent for a moment, thinking of a way to introduce herself, contemplating how the scene might play itself out.

She decided on possibly the worst introduction in history. “That girl? The flat-chested one who walked me in?” She shook her head slowly. “A fucking idiot, that one.”

[olddragons]

The girl who entered only minutes later was not at all what Aerys expected, and yet he wondered how he could ever have expected anything different: Rhaenys walked like Elia, and looked like her as well. Just as she did when she was a baby, in Aerys' faded memories of a time long gone. It was when she talked, however, that the resemblance faded. Rhaenys had a sharper tongue, and a temper Aerys could not remember ever seeing in Elia. Nor had he ever seen it in Rhaegar. Overall, Rhaenys seemed different. Whether that was a good thing or a bad one, he still had to decide on.

He eyed her carefully, his hands on the newspaper, brushing mindlessly over the words, dragging some of the fresh ink along. Those headlines spoke of people he barely knew but still he was more familiar with the names of famous strangers than he was with the young woman sitting in his dining room. What did he truly know about his son's daughter?

Aerys glanced at the door where the housemaid had just disappeared with a small grin; then back at his grand-daughter. There was something to be said about the way she carried herself: there was confidence and assertion oozing off every inch of her. It was refreshing, compared to the snivelling Aerys was used to. Did he like it? Not necessarily. But he noticed.

For quite a while, Aerys stared the woman down. In a way he felt like he was looking at an old photograph, one of those Rhaegar kept stashed away and thought no one would know. One of those photographs with torn corners and worn out edges, those photographs made yellowish by time and the sweat on the beholder's fingertips.

"Why come back now?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "Are you after something?"

Aerys had pondered on how to deal with this child, barging into his house because of some blood right and misguided romantic idea of family. In the end he had resorted to what his guts has suggested him: caution.

[thefangsareback]

september 26 // when i offer you survival // rhaenys & aerys

Her breaths fogged in front of her. Her heartbeat quickened. She let her cigarette drop from her limp fingers — the man who’d patted her down hadn’t let her bring her lighter in. And he’d found the blade in her bra — she’d had to pay him off not to mention it to her grandfather, and made him swear she’d get it back when she left. But God, had it always been this cold in London? Her childhood memories had always produced the warmth of summer. It sure as hell didn’t compare to Russian weather, but her Russian jacket did the job of keeping her warm well enough. The man at the security fort by the gate (she hadn’t quite recalled that either) had had earmuffs on, and she didn’t think she’d ever been more jealous of anyone in her life. But more than the chill in her bones had shifted. Had her father always lived here? The door looked familiar — she’d seen it in the backdrop of photographs, faded and tattered, a pushpin hole  through the number atop the doorframe so that it was almost an imaginary place — but the street didn’t feel like it was welcoming her home at all.

She dropped her cigarette on the street, staring up at the windows, trying to determine which might hold her father (she wasn’t under the impression it would necessarily be one with the lights on; she wasn’t naïve enough to think she knew who the fuck he was). After a moment, she lowered her gaze to the ground — the sidewalk was dirtier than it had ever been in St. Petersburg’s nice neighborhoods, though she supposed people did more walking and socializing and spitting here in London — and watched the smoke rise from her cigarette. She’d almost forgotten she’d dropped it, and, with a grimace, she raised her foot and violently stamped it out.

She stared at the smashed embers. Balled her fists. Raised her arm. Knocked.

[olddragons]

The announcement came from a small woman whose name Aerys didn't know -- he didn't know the servants' names, there were few of them allowed inside the house and they went by the colour of their hair or other physical traits. The blonde one. The one with a mole on her nose. The man who couldn't fit through doors. Aerys was sitting down in the large dining room when the one with small breasts and smaller wits announced his grand-daughter's arrival. She'd been searched, and awaited at the door. Aerys frowned, as he tried to remember: a bundle of wool and winter clothings, that was all that came to mind. Eyes as dark as Elia's, and nothing of Rhaegar. Had he ever held his granddaughter? Did she expect him to? How old would she be?

"And how do you know it's truly her?" was the simple question that followed. Anyone could slap on a sharp smile and pride themselves in his last name, the lowest of citizens could walk up to his door and his staff would drink their lies like sweet draught. He made a mental note to heighten secutiry at the main entrance.

The woman mumbled about documents, and a previous phone call Aerys had not been informed about. She's legitimate, she was saying. She's your grand-daughter.

Should he be glad? She was by all means a stranger. Did they expect him to smile and hug her, give her candy and tell her a story about mighty dragons burning down valiant but misguided knights? He would not. He would not be what his grand-daughter expected him to be, and Aerys knew enough of Rhaegar to know better than to expect anything but disappointment: the girl would be weak, like her mother. 

He put on his reading glasses, unfolding the newspaper and flattening it against the table. "Let her in," he barked. It was a nuisance, not some grand return. A nuisance he could do without.

[olddragons]

he kept saying, "burn them all" / october 6th, night / closed to aerys targaryen and jaime lannister

[j-lannisters]

Pycelle served as a dutiful, crinkled snail; maybe there was some wisdom locked up in him somewhere after all. The country liked to turn its blind eye to his madness, at least while it was convenient, but they couldn’t get away with that any longer. Jaime couldn’t, at least, not while he could see his father with a bullet between his eyes or his siblings blackened to a fried crisp. If he stopped for so much as a spare second to question the consequences (or worse yet, to question the severity of what he was doing), it could be Eaton Hall burnt to a crisp in a mysterious stove malfunction.

[olddragons]

Kill or be killed and Jaime was built to survive.

Attempting to be as inconspicuous as possible, Jaime wore dark but casual clothes: a black jacket, a black cap, dark wash jeans. Pycelle gave him word in the exchange of security guards but he still couldn’t risk anything; he had one chance at this. If he fucked this up the wrath of their insane dynasty would fall down all around them.

The wind whipped a chill around him that stung his exposed skin, not a distraction when he dipped below the half wall and crept past the chatting guards. For all they were getting paid they appeared not to find such relevance in Aerys’ paranoia as the former prime minister did. Unlucky for them, in the morning they’ll lose their jobs and all their creditability. Making his way through the house went smoother but the gun, pinned between his back and his belt, felt heavy.

Up the stairs, the first door on the right. The staircase wound up and up and Jaime became keenly aware via his surroundings why they named it Dragonstone. His gloves gathered dust at the fingertips, his breath quickened with the effort of the incline. Still, when he stepped in front of the door – surprisingly enough devoid of any lock, expectant servants, doctor, or no – Jaime wore the task effortlessly.

Even his footsteps barely shuffled, the only sound a creak from the old wooden door and the clank of the brass knob. Whatever shadow he gave off paled in the darkened silhouette of his former employer, framed in the light of dancing flames. The gun was a precaution – Jaime shouldn’t, probably couldn’t use it if he wanted to live the rest of his life outside a prison cell. He had to find a neater way to do this.

Make it look like an accident. Jaime closed the door behind him, another delicate sound that erupted into the silence like thunderous fury. When he did take steps it was to the side, keeping to the perimeter. A cat stalking its prey. “I thought I’d seen the last of you,” he began, inappropriately casual given the situation. “You should’ve kept your son locked up in here with you.” He thought of Cersei then, with Rhaegar sunken between her legs and the words probably came out sounding like a threat rather than a dismal observation.

Jaime Lannister had been his man, once. With many others, he had been one of those guns who had protected him in a crows, the muscle of a large body of security that had kept him alive. Seeing him now, Aerys knew he was a loose dog who served a different master. His father, his sister, himself. That was what frightened him: he knew the man, knew what he was capable of. The ruthlessness had been useful when Aerys could take advantage of it, but the memory of Jaime Lannister's steel was a source of concern. He could not control it now. He was not his to command. Jaime Lannister followed orders well: the trouble was, it wasn't Aerys' orders that had brought him there, that late at night. And if it wasn't his orders, whose were they?

He felt the wall behind him, pacing sideways just as the other man did; Jaime Lannister was a predator and Aerys had prided himself in being one many times. Now, with the fire on one side and a corner on the other, Aerys Targaryen felt caged and he didn't like it. As the Lannister boy paced the room, -- a boy he had been, and a boy he still was, following instincts and and thinking so little, -- Aerys' eyes looked at the door. It was too far away to hope for a leap, and he knew his bellowing would fall on deaf ears: damn his excesses, guards were not allowed inside the perimeter of the house, and Pycelle... Pycelle was older than he was, and sick, a pathetic shell of a man. Aerys doubted he could help him.

The next thought was that of finding a weapon. Something heavy or something sharp, it didn't matter: he needed time to reach the door and bolt, time to reach the guards on the outside. He could hit the boy: he was younger, yes, and faster than Aerys was, but he had never been too bright, in Aerys' recollections. He looked down, but the poker was on the other side of the mantelpiece. All heavy objects were on his desk, for him to keep under control at all times. It seemed in the end he was a hinder to himself.

"Perhaps I should have," he spat, feeling the blood rise to his cheek as his heart beat faster. "Perhaps that would have kept him from your whore sister." He could have laughed, sure the offense would hit where it mattered. But the circumstances were too heavily unbalanced, and not in Aerys' favour. Jaime Lannister paced the room and so did he, keeping a distance: there was anger in the boy's eyes, and some sort of amusement, like a child toying with his food. Aerys would not be anyone's food, not tonight.

"How did you slip through security," he barked, pointing a finger at him, making a point of each word. If only he could buy enough time to reach the door...

[bloodandglory-rp]

character: aerys targaryen (bio) affiliations: targaryens (conservative) stellan skarsgård

[olddragons]

he kept saying, "burn them all" / october 6th, night / closed to aerys targaryen and jaime lannister

The fire crackled feebly, the old marble mantlepiece streaked with orange shadows dancing in time with the flames. Aerys felt a lonely drop of sweat slide from his temple, down his cheek, to disappear under the collar of his white shirt. The temperature of the room was too high for early October, but there was something fascinating in the way the flames would lick the wood and blacken it, make it turn to ashes.

Hot, wild fire.

Aerys dreamed of fire sometimes, but it was of a different kind. Green, not red, unextinguishable, burning the flesh of many an enemy, burning them alive. Burn them all. Pycelle had once limped into the room in the middle of the night, alarmed by Aerys' night terrors. According to the old doctor, he'd been screaming in his sleep, the same thing over and over again.

Burn them all.

It wasn't hard to see it. Tywin Lannister, Robert Baratheon, Jon Arryn and the likes of them, all enveloped in eternal green flames, flesh melting off their faces leaving only black bones behind. England, he had thought more than once, England in itself: burn them all. Men, women, children, for they betrayed him, and flames was all they deserved.

Aerys was gifted with exceptional intelligence, and he knew what people thought, he could hear their thoughts, sometimes louder than his own; they wanted him gone, so he wanted them dead. It was not the first time he had used those means: many a political opponents had found their untimely end at the hands of men whose pockets were filled to burst with Targaryen money. His money.

It had been easier, then: one man could be handled, two men even. He'd had good men, loyal men quick with words and even quicker with guns. All of them had abandoned him for a better option, a Baratheon option, and Aerys was alone now. Even worst, the enemy was too big. A man was nothing, while a country was a monstrous beast. And he was alone, surrounded by people who would sell him for a pot of gold.

Aerys downed the last of his scotch as the flames kept flickering, sending warm caresses down his face, bright red, orange, yellow; he himself was a canvas for such a masterful, untameable artist. When he finally stood up his breath was heavy, laboured, like a man who has been running for a long time finally reaching a halt and bending to catch air. And bend he did, kept both hands close to the fire, went as far as to pass one over the flames, feeling the burning on his fingertips, brief but there. 

The house was silent. Ever since he'd returned all those years before the house had been a silent tomb. Sometimes a whisper, a cowering servant bringing tea to his bedroom. Once in a while his snivelling sons, to excuse their mistakes: he loathed that the most. But not today, none of that. The house was silent and so was he, but he could still hear his thoughts.

"Burn them all." This time, he said it out loud, and he smiled at the friendly flames.

Then, in the silence, the door creaked. Slow and menacing, until the doorknob hit the wall softly. When he stood up, he saw the black shape of the intruder, reflected in the big oval mirror above the fireplace. 

He saw his green eyes and blonde hair before he could see anything else.

Aerys' hands were shaking.

[lordvarysthespider]

We Used To Live In A Golden Age [Closed to Aerys] [August 19th]

[lordvarysthespider]

Aerys poses a query ad Varys comes to think about how he hasn’t heard anything about elections yet. “Until the people come banging down his doors, it seems,” he begins, thinking about what might happen then. He wonders, would Aerys put his name into the hat for a bid? The man seemed to have never lost his lusting for the position. But Rhaegar is the most sensible choice. “He’s too wrapped up in the Scotland business and the aftermath of the anarchy. All that sense of duty has him focused on that rather than any sort of campaign.” Varys can’t begrudge him those sentiments, although it’s the matter of the right leadership to fix the nation. Varys, on his own, can only do so much. And he’s trying. 

“If he continues to show he can’t protect the country, it won’t leave the people any choice but to look for other options. Proven leaders.” Was it too much to ask for peace? For peace and prosperity? Which was more important? That the country didn’t burn or that it didn’t starve? It’s why he was here.

[olddragons]

Aerys listens, not because he doesn't know all this already, but because the man standing before him was his pet once, his project. I made you, he thinks. Varys proved his loyalty time and time again, for a long time, but Aerys is wary of prodigal sons, and just like the Lannisters returned when the time was ripe, he wonders if Varys is made of the same stuff. (Where was he, after all, in the long years after Aerys' demise?) 

"Scotland," he snorts derisively. "That's a downright mess. This never would have happened under my watch. Ned Stark hid under a Baratheon skirt for years, and now he runs from the other. It seems to me he's done enough to show them who he reallys is," and Aerys doesn'y know if he's talking about Eddard Stark, or Stannis Baratheon, or both.

"We are not options," he snaps back, his voice thundering albeit never rising, never too loud. People are listening, everywhere, and even Dragonstone has more ears that he would wish for. "We are the only plausible continuation. My son, Rhaegar, he is the only plausible continuation."

Truth be told, Rhaegar is a puppet. Easy to control, even easier to persuade, as proven by the last few days. The problem lay in just who was controlling him. Aerys put his son in the spotlight, in hope to be one day the moving force behind Downing Street again: if the people won't elect him, so be it, he'll fetch his own power via other means. And Rhaegar could be useful on that front. But Rhaegar must be protected by other vultures. Lions.

"When Stannis falls, it will be our time." Not if; when. It goes without saying that the Baratheon dictator will be kicked out of Downing Street before he has a chance to as much as sign the papers. "But once that hapens, I need to be sure my son is not compromised." He pauses, wondering how much he can say.

"Tell me Varys, what do you know of Tywin Lannister?" The name is bitter on his tongue still, after such a long time. "And what does he want with my son?"

[lordvarysthespider]

We Used To Live In A Golden Age [Closed to Aerys] [August 19th]

[lordvarysthespider]

Varys says nothing, for after all, he was here on Aerys’ request and some old habits do die hard. Does he still feel like a protégé, standing here? No, perhaps not; he’s learned to stand on his own after all these years. And now he serves the nation rather than a single man, as he once did. Aerys stuck the small device in his pocket, but never for a second was Vary allowed to relax his guard.

[olddragons]

“I never thought of Robert like that,” he replies, the pause giving a moment to consider Aerys’ words in full. They were cruel, even unnecessarily so considering Aerys knew of his past. It wouldn’t be the first time he would have lost a father, would it? If anyone might have stood in for a father, it would have been Aerys. Funny to think that he would have been the eldest son if it were like that; he was a year older than Rhaegar. Varys hadn’t been talked down to like that in a very long time, but he endured through it with the paramount patience that he’d gained by working with men like Aerys and Robert. “I’m still the director of MI5,” he continues, wondering what else to mention. He felt like he needed to choose his words carefully, judging from the direction of this conversation. “Stannis isn’t at liberty to do any more reorganizations right now.” Varys wasn’t precisely sure where he stood with him right now, but he was secure enough where he was while there was political instability and by the fact that there were terrorists threatening the nation. “I imagine you saw his death as good providence.” He comments, considering how the chessboard must appear. Varys wasn’t a superstitious man, though what might he say of his life when he saw the death that plagued it? There were some men who were only superstitious when it counted: any bad luck meant nothing but good luck was a positive omen.

"But others did," Aerys snaps, turning hastily and walking to the liquor cabinet. He doesn't reslly feel like drinking, so he looked at the bottles instead, his eyes scanning each and every label. "They saw him as a saviour, and look at what he gave them." He smirks, when he thinks of the English people: they sought solace in a new tyrant, when the one they were efusing was the only one who could possibly ever know how to handle the country.

He eyes the other many wearily and snorts. "Good providence?" he repeats. "Politics know no providence, I thought you might have learned that. Politics are men and what they do, what they say. Politics are a consequence of what the people who matter decide they are." His focus falters for a moment, and he remembers a time when politics were what he decided of them. Soon enough. "Robert learned that. The people who called out for him digged his grave and shoved his body into the coffin."

They will call my name soon enough. They will remember soon enough.

Aerys likes to think they will all pay the way Robert did, in due time. Tywin Lannister and his traitor son, Stannis Baratheon and hic council of idiocy, the Tyrells and their flock of hens and cocks; the Starks in the North will shove indipendence up their cold arses as soon as it begins. War. Aerys had been through more than a war: he can smell it in the air the way a hound smells a truffle. It's rght behind the corner. He has an advantage on the rest of them: he knows it's coming, and he has prepared for this his whole life. He thinks of himself as a general, merciless and cruel, but needed.

"What news of elections? How much longer does Stannis Baratheon think he can stall?"

[olddragons]

the words you're whispering, they're mine // august 18th // closed; aerys and viserys

[dragonbred]

Perhaps.  It’s not a no.  Not immediate rejection.  There’s a promise in perhaps, there’s potential, and Viserys swallows hard.  He could still overtake Rhaegar.  Eventually, his father will see - will understand that he’d punished the wrong son. 

[olddragons]

It’s Viserys who’d belonged in England all along.  The idea blooms - Aerys, sighing and admitting that he’d made a mistake, that he’d underestimated Viserys, while Rhaegar stands stiff in the corner, feeling every sting and stab of rejection Viserys had known for twenty years.  Even while Viserys’ cheek bruises, his lips tighten in a small, hopeful smile.

“I will.”  The Lannisters have secrets, he knows that - and they trust him.  Cersei loves him like a son.  Needs him, she’d said.  She’ll tell him whatever he asks for.  He’ll redeem himself in his father’s eyes, and Cersei and Myrcella need never find out who it was that’d slipped Aerys their secrets.

Guilt squirms in his stomach, but he can’t give it his attention now.  If he falters in front of his father, Aerys’ confidence in him will falter too.  “If that’s everything, sir,” he forces himself to say, wary of misstepping, of triggering another blow.  “I’ll have something m-more for you soon.” 

There is a forced sort of strength and vehemence in Viserys’ urge to please him that could have fooled the hardest of hearts. Aerys, however, is so much more than that, and it’s the fear he smells, short of desperation to get a pat on the back. His son is not a dog – although sometimes he likes to bark like one, and wiggle his tail – he won’t be getting any cookies for this. In itself, the fact that Viserys is only doing this in the stupid hope that it will change his father’s idea of him is pathetic, and it makes him angry: is there no dignity left, no conception of reputation?

It should have been obvious, to his sons, to take those steps without him having to point in that direction. Instead they went and stumbled into the lion’s den, and it was up to him to grab them by the hair and tear them from the Lannisters’ claws.

It is a pity, he concludes, that neither of his sons ever became half the man he is nowadays. There is more Martell blood in his grandchildren than Targaryen, and the Targaryen blood in his sons seems to have gone rotten, spoiled by terrible decisions.

“Report to me, and only to me,” he says at last, standing up and walking to the window once more, in the same exact position he was when Viserys knocked. The lawn is still burned out, still empty, dead. There is a certain beauty in dead nature, he tells himself.

“Leave.”

[olddragons]

the words you're whispering, they're mine // august 18th // closed; aerys and viserys

[dragonbred]

He’d waited twenty years in another country in the vain hope of pleasing his father.  He’d declined University; he’d swallowed every gasp of something is wrong because his father had found the possibility disgusting.  To be of use to him now should feel like an honor, not a burden.  An opportunity.  It’s a way to right himself in Aerys’ eyes; to prove that he’s more than he’s been estimated, more than Rhaegar; a worthy heir.

[olddragons]

“There’s one thing,” he hears himself saying, “they’ve told me.  Cersei…”  Viserys tastes the words in his mouth before he spits them out, and they nearly choke him, “She’s losing her grip.  After her son died.  Bedridden, drinking.  She sees a therapist.”  He swallows.  “She’s weak.”

Will that please his father?  He knows Aerys sees the Lannisters as threats.  To hear their matriarch is crumbling should thrill him.  Viserys wishes he had more.  Wishes he didn’t have that to give.  Anything else - but he doesn’t.  Even with Myrcella’s paper-torn eye looking up at him, imploring, he knows he values his father’s good opinion more than anything the Lannisters could offer him.

“I am your son,” Viserys says, forcing himself to drop his hand.  His cheek still throbs, and he hopes he’ll be allowed to leave fast enough to ice it.  He doesn’t like the way the servants look at him when he’s bruised.  “More than Rhaegar.  You’ll see.  I’ll show you.  Anything you want from them, I’ll—  I’ll get it.”

His expectations of Viserys are not as high as those he has of Rhaegar; truth be told, they are very low, almost non-existent, but there’s something that urges Aerys to make his son a better man. It’s not affection as much as it is pride, Targaryen pride. And Viserys, whether he acts like one or not, is attached to hin last name as much as Aerys or Rhaegar. Idiocy on his part automatically reflects on him and on his reputation. When he pushes, it’s because he wants Viserys to understand what he seems to forget so often. His actions are not his own alone, they are Aerys and Rhaegar’s and the whole party’s as well, and Aerys thinks it’s so poor that they would have to rely on someone that poorly enlightened.

But what Viserys says surprises him. It’s not because of the thing itself, but because Aerys did not expect him to have something ready, and something they could benefit from as well.

“She’s a woman,” he replies with a small smirk. “Of course she is. And yet not as weak as we would need her to be if she managed filling your brother’s head with so much bullshit, is she?” Aerys doesn’t know who he’s more bitter at: the Lannister bitch or his own son, for being so unrepairably foolish. “We’ll just have to nudge her in the right direction then.

He lifts his eyes briefly at Viserys plea, only to avert them immediately to look outside. The lawn is a desert, arid: it hasn’t rained in weeks. Everything, out there, is dying. “Perhaps.”

That’s all he can give him. Anything else would be a lie.

“Be my eyes and ears, Viserys. No Targaryen will be a Lannister puppet for as long as I live.”

[adragonviper-blog]

come the reek of bones | rhaenys & aerys [august 10th, evening]

[adragonviper-blog]

It’s rare that Rhaenys is confronted like this - with mean-spirited words and sexist insults. Aerys had always been an uncaring relation; she can count on one hand the number of times she’s talked to the man and everytime she’d pass the phone back to Lemore, hands fighting a shake. He always had an uncaring nature, anger and frustration coating his words, giving them bite.

[olddragons]

He is drunk and ranting and Rhaenys should turn away right now, should turn her back and walk out of the study and lock her bedroom door behind her, but she’s always met angry words with her own.

“I’ve been doing a lot this summer,” she holds her head high, “working for the campaign and alongside politicians.” It’s more than you’ve done, is the unspoken challenge, and I plan on doing more. “Anyone can see what the Lannisters are. They’re transparent.”

The insult against her parents’ marriage stings. Her parents had married for love - hadn’t they? They hadn’t been commanded. Else Oberyn and Doran would’ve let it slip, would’ve mentioned it. Rhaenys wasn’t a fool. She had read the papers. Rhaegar had broke off an engagement with Cersei Lannister for her mother, had married Elia later that year, had her a year later. 

My uncle taught me how to spar with words, Rhaenys thinks. She won’t be cowed by this shadow of a man.

Aerys sighs and turns his glare away from his niece -- really, is that what being a grandfather is? He barely knows the girl standing before him, just like he barely knows the his own daughter, the one that had come back as a woman from America. Would she think of him as a stranger too, the way Daenerys does? Would she think of him as an hindrance the way Aerys thinks of her now? She talks too much, and of things she has no business discussing. He looks at her and sees a pedestal built by someone way more generous and naive than him. Probably Rhaegar. He asks himself if his niece has ever been told 'no' in her whole life.

"You like talking about these things, don't you?" he asks, narrowing his eyes and shaking his head in amusement. "Like a little girl reciting her little poem for Father's Day. It's entertaining to watch you." He pauses then and sits up, leaning heavily on his elbows against the desk. "You look like your mother. Everyone says so, but I see it now. And yet..."

The silence is pregnant, heavy with his own words.

"And yet your mother knew her place."

He shuffles Rhaegar's papers again, trying to look for something familiar that just is not there. He sees signatures, he sees memos, he sees words and letters and bullshit, and nothing he recognizes. He was Prime Minister once: he should know all this. He doesn't and it angers him.

"But you are right. They are transparent. So transparent that your father can't tell his head from his cock." He chuckles and picks up a folder, retrieves his glasses from his breastpocket and pputs them on. They rest on the tip of his nose and he cranes his neck to try and make out the small typefont. "Have you told him all this? Has he listened to you?"

[lordvarysthespider]

We Used To Live In A Golden Age [Closed to Aerys] [August 19th]

[lordvarysthespider]

Naturally, Varys had never been here when he’d been under Aerys’ personal employment. Certainly he might have been Aerys’, but at the time he did not hold quite such personal importance or influence to end up at this doorstep. To be in a Prime Minister’s home really meant something; it meant that you were someone. He comes to reflect if Aerys had ever considered him to be someone then. But ah, he’d been boy with nothing other than his own two hands. There was no noble lineage to come from, our great riches to throw around. However, he had been in Robert’s house, trusted adviser as he was. Whether Robert sincerely believed in him or not, he did consider him invaluable. How many problems had Varys fixed for him? But death, and the entire public’s opinion,  were things he could not fix. 

[olddragons]

Out of reflex or respect, he stands when Aerys arrives abruptly. His eyes are set on Aerys, seeing how he measured up to his old self. Had the years been kind to him? He would suppose they had been, considering everything he’d gone through. Varys like to think that he looks good for his age as well, and all those late nights and stressful days hadn’t taken too much of a toll. Funny that he feels shallow now, when he’d never cared to think about the matter. Aerys, nonetheless, seems to look like he could still command authority. There were some things that time couldn’t take away. Varys, too, remembers a better time. But could he pinpoint exactly when that was? Or was there to distinguish when he felt better or when the country was better? He remembers what it was like at the end of Aerys’ reign, how the public had turned against him. But as bad as that all was, it was better than this; better than terrorist bombings and a Prime Minister being assassinated. “I remember a better time too,” he says, and he means it. Varys doesn’t know if Arryn or Robert were the wrong choices and if Aerys was the right one; as much of a prophet as he needed to be, in this he didn’t know. His personal biases tugged him in all directions there. Upon the next question, he reaches into his pockets and extracts a USB key. “Everything up until yesterday is there. Records of who’s he’s called and who has called him, text messages, call recordings, the like.” All in an easy to access format, naturally. Varys has done all the legwork already for him. As he always had, he supposed.

Aerys looks down on the thing, and it's so small; how ironic that such a small, insignificant thing could hold all that England should never be witness to. His son's exploit are shameful, and he trembles with rage to think fo what could be in the small device. He is ashamed that anyone could know what a creature his wife raised him; he thought she'd taught her better than that, but she failed. Viserys is a weak link and a loose cannon, and dangerous for himself as much as he is for his plans. 

The little thing weighs nothing, and still it weighs like a small planet in his hand. Aerys knows it's the weight of what's inside and what it might hide, but mostly what it might mean for Rhaegar's campaign. As if his older son's stupidity wasn't bad enough, his younger one runs them all to the ground with his big mouth and too small brain.

(Aerys knows some dogs have skulls too small, and eventually they go mad. That's why he had to put down his last dog. He'd bit him, after years of loyalty. He looks at Varys and wonders if this is just history repeating himself.)

"Where are you now?" he inquires, thrusting the hand holding the little device in his pocket, willing to forget everything. "In terms of position." Loyalty, it almost slips. "How's the child coping without the father?"

Aerys is talking about England, and Robert's corpse buried in the cold ground. He looks at England now, and he can almost hear them cheering for him, calling the Targaryen name loudly and victoriously. The prodigal son returning. It gives him chills.

[olddragons]

the town is colder now, i think it's sick of us // flashback - 1989 // closed; aerys and anya

[anya-waynwood]

Somehow when Aerys Targaryen bestows her proper title upon her, it manages to sound like the most degrading of insults.  Anya almost regrets requesting her title in the first place, but she squares her feet and stands her ground.  She will not have four centuries of Waynwoods disrespected because one sour, small-minded politician deigns to speak to her with disdain.  She is the Countess of Cardigan in her own right, and though she may be just shy of her twenty-ninth birthday, she is no fool.

[olddragons]

“I abandoned nothing,” Anya says, looking her prime minister in the eye, well aware of his balding, blond shadow, the most reputable Lord Lannister, Duke of Westminster.  His family legacy is twice as long as her own and ten times as storied.  Though in title she stands only a step below him, Countess to his Duke, in esteem, in assets, in history, she is much lesser.  His ancestors were building castles when her own were still craftsmen.  They did not come into wealth or nobility until after protestantism graced England.  They made their money with the dismantling of the monasteries, and their title came soon after.

“The House of Lords was a body meant to govern, but it does so no longer.  How shall I serve the good people of Ceredigion if I cannot truly legislate.  I came to Westminster to represent my people, to serve them best I can. Creating laws.  Influencing policy.  That is the most suitable position for me.  I find it no more difficult than you do, I’m sure.”

The woman spews politics at him, notions that he's learned in the cradle, mastered in playgrounds and practiced in Westminster long before Lady Waynwood could walk and talk. She is too young to know the ways of it, and she fills her mouth with pretty idealistic words because that's what the world of women is. So he smiles at her, thoroughly amused at how convinced she is that the good people of Ceredigion care the slightest about their representatives. No one cares about Parliament any longer, however they do seem to make a great deal of noise whenever they have to pay a penny they didn't have to pay the month before.

Aerys loves England. He loves his country as his, not the people in it. He loves England for what it can give to him and what it already gave him: reputation, a position of immense power and people who will kiss and worship the ground he walks on. And as much as he hates Westminster and a good percentage of the people crowding its halls, he does see it as his battlefield, and it empowers him to walk amongst enemies, knowing no matter what they will be silent by the time the session is over. He is Prime Minister, a step above them all, and even if they hate him -- he hopes they do, it would mean they fear him and know he is more powerful than the rest of them, -- he feels the satisfaction of walking over that threshold proud of his name and of the millions of people who brought him where he is now.

If Anya Waynwood despises him, it won't bother his sleep: no, it makes the present all the more enjoyable, to know she has nothing but little notions and girlish dreams to stand against someone she cannot absolutely oppose. Aerys has always loved the weak, for no other reason that no make them weaker.

"Jon Arryn will not let you influence anything but the colour of the curtains in your kitchen, Lady Waynwood," Aerys replies, glancing at Tywin: the Lannister does not smile -- he never does, -- he looks down instead and that angers Aerys. If Tywin Lannister is so scared to taint is precious golden hands, he needs to be reminded who he is working for. "Your love of country is admirable, but rather useless. Westminster is not a place for women, even the most stubborn of them."