green lies, black hearts

XVIII (or: Interlude III)

a/n - another one for y'all <3 slowly but surely getting caught up [also just realized we've hit almost 20k reads over here?? thank you all for supporting this fic! it's been such a long time since I was on wattpad, and though I've had some unpleasant experiences, the good ones greatly outweigh those :) so thank you!!]

- mint

~+~

Shaera

"Your hair is soft," Shaera whispered, smiling as she took silver strands between her fingers and twirled them. Silver like moonlight, spun by his Seven and threaded upon his head by a divine loom. Shaera had always wished for the silver hair of her mother and uncles and aunt. If she had been born with purple eyes and hair as bright as the moon, Shaera knew her mother's life would have been easier. She knew the whispers wouldn't have driven her mother to Dragonstone nine years past. Shaera wished that the hair between her fingers was her own, and not just Aemond's.

Snorting, Aemond brushed the back of his knuckles across Shaera's cheek. "Helaena...she always took care of it for me." He picked up her own curls, and he simply stared for a moment, working his jaw. "She taught me how to ever since Aegon cut his," he said, "and she couldn't play with it anymore."

Shaera raised a brow. "Aegon let Helaena play with his hair? Your brother, Aegon?"

"That very one," he said. "He's always been a prick but...but there was a time a few years past where he wasn't so terrible. Before father's memory started to go."

"Was it..."

"Hmm?"

Shaera bit her lip, lowering her gaze from Aemond's, suddenly interested in readjusting his bandages. She would need to rewrap it before she left.

"Was it bad?" she asked quietly.

(Bad? Aemond almost scoffed. Bad didn't even begin to describe what it was like. What it was like to have a father whose body was there but his mind wasn't. What it was like to be called by your sister's name instead of your own. What it was like to have been afforded some moments of hope that maybe, just maybe, your father might begin to care for you in the way he should.

Aemond envied Helaena in that way.

Viserys adored her. He adored her and her children, and Aemond supposed it was one of the few truly redeeming qualities of his father. But that didn't mean he was absolved. Not at all.)

Shaera swallowed hard at Aemond's silence. At the clench of his jaw. Once. Twice. She began to apologize, drawing her hands away for fear that she had truly upset him. How could she not have? Of course, of course it must have been bad! Foolish, foolish girl. Aemond was the one living in the Red Keep, watching his own father slowly but surely turn into an...into a corpse, rotting away in his bed now. Aemond was the one who had to endure the agony of watching his father lose himself. Bad didn't even begin to describe it and Shaera was a fool to think otherwise.

"Don't," he stopped her. "Don't...don't do that."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have ask-"

"Stop it, Shaera," he hissed. Aemond grabbed her hands and tugged them to his chest, pressing one of her palms to his heart. "You will not...you will not apologize to me."

"I feel as though I should."

"Don't. You've done no wrong." Aemond shifted in his bed, slipping his arm beneath Shaera's head and urging her into his chest.

(Last night, when she had rolled into his chest, he had stiffened. It had been years since he slept next to anyone, and the last one had been Helaena after she had one of her nightmares. That had been different than what Shaera did, and last night, Aemond nearly shoved her away. Nearly scorned her and commanded that she leave his bed. He should have. They were not wed, and this was his bed, not theirs.