Under the Wisteria
Illustration for the @hotd-bigbang challenge!
Prompt: Bridgerton AU
Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Alys Rivers
Medium: Illustration with gouache and pencils on paper
Written portion under the image is a Lady Whistledown take on this scene.
Word count: 600 words
The illustration shows Aemond and Alys together playing a scene from Anthony and Kate from Bridgerton. This pair is my favourite from the Bridgerton series and I just love the "bee scene" a lot and decided to adapt it for the challenge. I hope that you like it! <3
Dear gentle reader,
Spring has blessed us, blossoms of the new season sway and bloom profusely in the gardens and the ballrooms. The last ball organized by the Queen herself proved fruitful in the matchmaking arts. However, the romantic and quite private wisteria fields, far enough to avoid the poisoned eyes of the mamas, may tell us of something else. It seems that nature has conspired in the unfolding of a beautiful yet scandalous thing.
Aemond Targaryen, the prince himself, has been spotted in the fields of Mayfair in the hours preceding the evening arrangements of the ball. This unapproachable, some may say unkind, young prince was seen in the company of a lady none other than Lady Alys Rivers. And you might ask, what could be so wrong about that? Well, I let you, my dear reader, be the judge of that. The couple was underneath the wisterias and lilacs, without a drop of shame or chaperone, the eyes that spied them could attest that what they saw was not some mere conversation about the weather. No, dear reader, that seems not to be the case.
The silver hair of the prince and his eye patch leave us in no doubt it was indeed the dragon prince himself. This striking figure could not be mistaken for another. As you might know, it was wrongly spread, and not by me, that the prince was to marry Lady Floris Baratheon. One could say the Baratheons themselves were the ones spreading such things. When news of that story reached the ears of the Targaryens, the prince was, and rightly so, furious! He retreated his presence from the next three balls of the season only to appear at the last one, dancing three times with Lady Alys. Prince Aemond Targaryen is not a man of many words, and perhaps tired of the endless sway of young blooms and diamonds, he searched for something more mature. For Lady Alys Rivers is no young debutante at all, she is closer in age to his mother than to himself!
Lady Alys Rivers arrived in town just before the beginning of the season, her origins are unknown even to me, my dear reader. Some say she is a woman of means, alone and independent in this age, a spinster nevertheless. Some speculate she is the only daughter of an old royal and trader from the Highlands, others say she married a rich American man in secret in her youth, robbing him of all his fortune and provoking his death. Others, can you imagine, say she is a witch! Oh, this is something for me yet to uncover, but let us consider for now that perhaps Lady Alys Rivers is just a woman like myself.
But I digress, my dear reader, let us focus on this particular occasion, this romantic scene between the dragon prince and the mysterious lady. Picture the scene, dignified of a romance story, the prince and her facing each other under the wisteria, her hand resting on his chest, just above his heart, under his coat. What is most striking is that the prince did not step back, no, on the contrary, he welcomed it, covering her hand with his own while the lady mimicked the action with his hand on her chest. Such things could not have been choreographed better by the painters or writers of this nation.
It is still too soon for us to know what follows from this, but it seems that, witch or not, Lady Alys Rivers is a dragon tamer, and has bewitched Prince Aemond's heart with her own.
Lady Whistledown
In medieval times, in Merlin, Arthur and the other knights slap each other, sit super close, and whatnot. Probably would slap each other's arses, if they weren't always wearing chainmail.
So, Arthur slaps the knights on the edge of their shoulders. But with Merlin, it's always close to the neck/shoulder joint. Can't quite keep from cupping Merlin's face and confessing his love.
Well, I think.
Obviously all their touches are deliciously unnecessary.
And Arthur always looks inexplicably (pretty explainable, actually) sad when he says stuff like, "we can't be friends," and that one scene when he thinks Merlin has feelings for Morgana, and he says, "she can't be your friend, let alone anything else," but it was contemplative and sad like he wasn't really talking about Morgana...
And obviously, none of this is especially revelatory—but it's sort of a eureka moment that there's all this fodder and the tidbits are titillating.
My goodness, what's wrong with ppl on Twitter. No matter how much logic and hard-core facts you bring into the table somehow I'm still wrong and now racist?!?!?! I don't know if ppl knew this but facts don't care about anyone's feelings. It is the most unbias source of the truth that anybody will ever get.
I never claimed that the truth doesn't hurt. It does. Believe me, it does. Putting my own ego aside and facing reality. Isn't that what growing up all about? Or do we live in a society where ppl like to be LALA land for life? Facing the truth needs to be done. I'm still facing the reality/truth. Putting emotion and ego aside, I know that eventually I'll get threw it. I have to, right?
