The Ghost On The Shore - Anonymous - A Song of Ice and Fire (2024)

Contrary to what his neighbors and classmates might think, navigating the streets of the small college town is not a struggle for the boy tapping his white walking stick around on the pavement.

A bell rings from his right, prompting him to step sideways closer to the storefronts.

“Thank you,” the biker - a child, says as they pass him. The boy flashes a small smile, wishes that the biker did see his pleasantry.

He listens for any more pedestrians and continues his short walk to his little spot under a citrus tree, right in front of the boardwalk. The crisp sunlight bounces on his shiny dark hair, blowing with the wind as he walks towards the dark wooden bench he knows to be about fifty steps from the door of the ice cream parlor, which he had exited.

The walking stick is laid against an arm of the bench, before the boy settles down, a copy of a compilation of Valyrian legends under one arm and a cup of vanilla and cherry ice cream melting on hand. Lucerys thinks back to the mint chocolate chip scoop, which he had forgone as he sets the book close to him. He drops his dark brown leather bag and slings it over the backrest of the wooden bench, its body hanging off close to Lucerys’s left side.. While no one has ever sat next to him on the bench, he does not want to completely write the experience off.

Feeling the condensation trickle from his fingers to his wrist, the boy decides that starting the afternoon with the treat is the better option.

“May I sit next to you?” Comes a weak voice somewhere from his right. The person who spoke must be standing in front of him, one step to the right of his book.

A smile graces the boy’s lips. His agreement comes instantly. He scoots further to the left, even though his left thigh is already pressing against the black metal of one of the bench’s armrests.

He hears the rustling of a skirt as his companion moves - slowly, he notes - and sits next to his book.

The voice wobbles slightly, the speaker’s age evident, whenever the stranger speaks. She inhales deeply. “Lovely afternoon, no?”

“It is,” the boy replies with a smile. His spot has always been perfect. It is along the storefronts and the cafés, allows him to hear the comfortable steps and chatter of the people; it faces the West - gives him the warmth and the beauty of the sunset, albeit he would not truly see it; it sits beneath a citrus tree, offering him enough shade, when the sun’s rays are punishing and salting the air with the sweetness of its fruits; it is far enough from the beach for the sand not to get in his shoes - if he is not in the mood to dip his toes in the water, near enough to the sea for him to smell the breeze and hear the waves. Today, however, the spot just seems even better.

He has someone next to him.

No driver had angrily honked at him, no one had bumped into him hard enough to send him hurtling to the ground, and he did not trip on the pesky groove at the foot of the hill on his way to the sea. More than any of such little treats, there is something in the air. The days have turned warmer, already, but the sun is still kind enough not to scorch them as the winds still bring enough chill to the air. Summers in the outskirts of King’s Landing are punishing, but Lucerys need not worry of it, yet.

“Are there still flowers around?” He asks.

The person next to him hums. “The carnations still look healthy, although the sunflowers have begun to close their proud heads.”

“A shame.”

“Well. They will bloom again, dear boy.” The stranger shuffles, faces him.

Spring is short, but it will come again.

It earns the lady a smile. The boy scoops an ice cream with his wooden spoon and sucks on the cream.

“I would offer you some, but I am not certain about the politeness of sharing a spoon,” he says.

At this, his companion chuckles. “You keep it to yourself,” comes as a quick response. “My digestion no longer takes kindly to a lot of food - ice cream, included.”

It sounds like a tragedy.

“Don’t worry. The convent is kind enough to serve… How should I say it?” The person next to him pauses for a beat.

Another biker passes by, jingles the bell - although for what or for whom, the boy is uncertain; he could not hear any pedestrian passing near the bicycle.

The stranger, however, nods at the biker in greeting.

“Where was I?”

His companion must be much older, than he had initially thought.

“Oh, yes! The convent is kind enough to serve more appropriate desserts. Sugar-free madeleines and diet eclairs are more delightful, than they sound.”

A red robin flies overhead, just as the boy nods in acknowledgement. He wonders how they must taste like. “The convent?”

From next to the boy, his companion takes a jewelry of some kind from her purse. “Yes,” she says. With tentative hands, she presses the jewelry against the back of the boy’s right hand; it is a rosary. “I am a nun.”

At this, the boy quickly sets his ice cream on top of his book - unmindful of the moisture collecting at the bottom of his cup ruining the cover of his new book. “Forgive me for my lack of manners…” He trails. “Sister?”

A breathy giggle erupts from the woman. “Mother would be more appropriate, but I appreciate hearing the titles of youth, once more.” She taps the boy on his right knee once, as if to tell him to be at ease. “Besides, I do not think I have ever seen you during any service.”

The boy bows his head in seeming shame or, perhaps, mere consciousness. “I apologize. I was not really raised a Catholic.”

“Ah,” she breathes out. “There is no need for apologies. Faith comes in many forms.”

He does not say that he has long suspended the belief that an all-seeing being plays chess with the whole universe. Had there been such a being, the boy still doubts that he is important enough for a benevolent being to care for.

Clearing her throat, the nun continues, almost sentimentally. “Besides, I have seen the ugliness that can stem from faith.”

The blind boy licks his lips clean, props the cup on a free space beside him. “It is surprising for you to admit that.”

That must not sound right.

“What I mean is that not every man or woman of the Church would readily offer that information,” he stutters out.

He hears a giggle from her. “Oh, don’t you worry about offending me. I have more years to thicken my skin.” She relaxes, drops the rosary back into her purse.

A gust of wind blows to chill them, the sparse clouds clearing to reveal the dimming rays of the sun. The boy recalls the billions of years, which the sun had needed for it to be the star that it is now - warm enough to sustain life on Earth. He wonders how many years the nun had needed just to develop the thick skin she had been speaking of.

He does not need those years, he thinks. Growing up blind had made it easy for him not to think much of what others say. The boy imagines his childhood self, body bursting and skin splitting in self-hatred, had he taken everything, which he had heard and everything, which had been said to him to heart.

“Faith and belief are beautiful, but not everything that comes out of them are,” the nun continues. She stares back at the boy beside her, much younger than she is. It makes remembering all the more easier. “It is one of the truths, which I have learned early in this vocation.”

The blind boy knows, too. He clutches the volume on his lap closer. Even the foundations of faith - Westerosi or not, is teeming with violence and tragedy. He would not be surprised to know that such would inspire horrific deeds, too.

“Would you be kind enough to share why you think so?” He challenges. At his apartment, the cursor on his MacBook’s still open screen blinks on a blank Word Document. The boy is yet to begin his final essay for his elective course on Westerosi religions.

The sudden request shocks the nun, whose wrinkled eyes open just enough to reveal the dark irises beneath. “I would not hope to ruin your afternoon with such a horrific account from a boring narrator,” she chuckles out.

“Oh, you would not!” The boy insists. “I like stories and your voice is soothing.”

Her companion must not simply be trying to be polite, if he is willing to suck up to her for a little tale.

“Well…” She trails. The smell of popcorn wafts, just as the door of one of the stores opens behind them. “A snack for a story, perhaps?”

A bright smile splits the boy’s face as he says, “Wait here.” He leaves the nun confused. She had merely alluded to packed cinemas, where the munching of popcorn and candies accompany the dialogues like a soundtrack.

The jingle of the bell and the tapping of a stick announces the boy’s quick return, his left arm hugging a bucket of popcorn and two plastic bags of sticky treat hanging from his wrist.

“Here,” he says as he hands the bucket to his new acquaintance. “I hope that butter is alright for you.” He places the two plastic bags between them. “I also got some caramel apples and pastries, if you would like them.”

‘How sweet,’ she thinks.

The boy does not get to hold conversations for long. At twenty-one years old, one would think that he still thinks that treats could buy companionship.

He wonders if his enthusiasm is too out of place; his companion did say that the story would not be pretty. She must think the setting - the warm sun, the calming waves, the blooming flowers, the chirping birds, and the lively chatter - to be unfitting.

The nun slowly pops a salty kernel into her mouth, savors the muted flavors, which she could still taste. “Thank you,” she says with a laugh. She shakes the bucket in her hands and holds it towards the boy, whose right hand is occupied by lemon cakes. “We should share all these.”

Dark eyes scan the treats sitting between the two figures, enough to anger any mother.

“Of course. Great stories and fun food are better shared together.”

Farther beyond the mountains, the boy seems to hear the rumbling of thunder.

The tolling of the church bells is what breaks the boy’s hypnotized stare on the grass. A trail of ants carry sticky sweet crumbs of lemon cakes to the ant hill by the citrus tree, underneath which Lucerys rests on his stomach, greedily munching on the sweet treats with his pale fingers - now, equally glazed as the pastries.

He groans, licks his fingers as he curses underneath his breath. Greeting visitors and newcomers is a chore and a bore.

Lucerys exhales deeply as he raises himself up into a sitting position and attempts to calm the rapid beating of his heart. The weak organ seems to jump and sink at every boom from the heavy brass church bells.

“Up,” he hears from above him. A shadow has formed in front of him as he dusts himself. “You have got to spend less time slacking, Sweetling.”

The words are stern, but the voice is ever playful.

Lucerys finally stands up and fixes his collar. The girl in front of him clicks her tongue.

“Good afternoon to you, too, Alysanne.”

The girl smiles back at him and bids him, “Hello.” A few strands of dark hair have escaped from the veil of her habit and are now sticking to her forehead, glistening with sweat.

He begins walking to the archway closest to the hallway leading to the main entrance. “Gracious, Alysanne. Your costume is terribly inappropriate for this weather.”

She swats him on the inside of his elbow as she watches around in panic. “Shut up.”

Alysanne is not a nun. Not really.

“If you may know, I am a novitiate,” she shares in a hushed tone.

Lucerys shakes his head, his eyebrows furrowed. “Which, in truth, I still do not understand.”

Alysanne, proving herself to be a loyal ally to Rhaenyra’s faction, had been recalled from her field duty early and had been sent to accompany Lucerys in one of the many backwater towns in the Stormlands.

By some miracle - curse, if one would ask Lucerys - getting knocked overboard of his uncle’s ship and into the raging waters of Storm’s End had not been enough to take him out of the miserable Earth. He could still recall the saltwater in his nose and on his tongue, the sharp pain from the cuts on every exposed part of his body where a rock would have cut him.

Lucerys had spent half a day on barefoot, walking from the beach to the small town nearest to it. On the very same day, he had found out that it would have been easier, had he walked along the coastline; a fisherman would have surely found him or he would have reached the side of the coast where the closest part of the town was.

It did take a while for him to be found; Lucerys was not stupid enough to tell the people who he was. The church had taken him in. He had to write a letter, not to his mother, but to a friend from his childhood. A few days later, Ser Harwin Strong would arrive and see the boy for himself - alive and mostly well.

The boy had expected to be taken back to Dragonstone, where his mother and his family is. Instead, it is Rhaenyra who had travelled discretely to him. No Jacaerys, no Joffrey, no Baela, no Rhaena, no Aegon, and no Viserys in sight.

Ah.

Lucerys was not out of the living world, but he was definitely out of the game.

He got to keep his nick name, at least.

“No,” had all been what his mother had told him, when Lucerys had asked to be quickly reinstated as a diplomat.

Ser Harwin had stepped forward, his arms encircling around Lucerys. “Rhaenyra,” he gently says. “Do not be cruel.”

She had shaken her head, had grabbed Lucerys’s cold hands in hers. “Please, Lucerys.” She had given him three kisses on his forehead. “He,” she had spat out, “Had wanted you dead.”

Lucerys had broken free of both of the adults and had walked towards the plush armchair by the bay window. Outside, he could see the waves crash against the sand, the moonlight casting a ghostly glow on the people below.

“You need to stay here, Sweetling. He and his vermin of a family would come for you, again.” She chatters out in tears. “I know so.”

No soothing words or embrace could make the self-loathing running through the boy’s veins evaporate. He would never admit, not even today, that there was loathing for someone else that night, too.

He had heard that Jacaerys had done the same for Joffrey and Rhaena and had wondered if they, too, had cursed him for it.

Perhaps, his mother had been right, though; for now, he knows that there would be no Jacaerys, no Joffrey, and no Viserys ever again.

There was even no more Rhaenyra, he thinks bitterly.

Had he had the famed prophecy of their family, he would have been much kinder to his mother that night and on the many nights after.

It had not been difficult to place the church under Ser Lyonel’s care. However, the same could not be said after his… Guardian’s death. The war had already escalated to too many simultaneous displays of aggression for their most valuable generals to be dismissed to babysit the ailing limb of their family.

They had to call somebody else.

If anyone could keep a secret, it would be Alysanne. If Lucerys would recall the dates correctly, it had only been a few weeks short of the rumored marriage between Lady Alysanne and the Warden of the North - Lord Cregan Stark.

“You were supposed to pose as a nun —“

“Novice,” Alysanne quickly corrects him.

Lucerys rolls his eyes, turns right at the end of the hallway. “Whatever.” He watches his companion and friend from his periphery. “You were supposed to pose as a novice, not become one.”

They finally reach the front courtyard of the property, where a black Rolls Royce rolls into the driveway.

The young boy scoffs, shakes his head at the gaudiness of the Church. If the populace thought that their donations always went to public charity, then they could not be more wrong.

Alysanne merely chuckles in response. “Think of it as me being committed to my role, Prince Lucerys,” she snickers. “How many years have you already been a deacon, by now?”

He laughs under his breath. It is a wonder that no one had ever questioned his seeming incapability to graduate from his trials and to take his vows.

Before he could utter a weak retort, however, another figure approaches them in a hurry. Sabitha Vypren’s eyes scan the front courtyard quickly as she trudges towards them.

“Go,” she simply whispers to them both.

“What?” Alysanne questions, her right hand reaching up to the older girl’s left elbow. “What do you mean?”

Sabitha gives a respectful bow towards one of the nuns, who have started to throw them suspicious looks. Gently, she maneuvers the both of them back towards the wooden doors, through which they came from. “You have to go.”

“Me?” Alysanne asks incredulously. She places her right hand against her lower back to soothe a persistent pain.

“Not you, genius.” Sabitha nods her head towards Lucerys. “Him. I don’t think you should be here,” she tells Lucerys. “I could never rely on your informant’s letters much. Not even a word about this nonsense in her last few letters!”

Lucerys tries to look back at their new companions, but Sabitha pulls him away further into the shadowy aisle of the church. “What do you mean?” He asks. From the tone of the girl - Alysanne’s fellow novice, one could only think of dread.

“I’ll explain later, my prince,” she dismisses. “Go take him somewhere else, Aly.”

With nary another word, she turns back and briskly walks towards the front doors.

A chill comes down Lucerys’s spine as he looks up to see the eyes of St. Anthony of Padua, seemingly following him and Alysanne in their hasty exit.

Before he could see the silver hair amongst the crowd of new deacons, Lucerys and Alysanne are already giggling merrily about Cregan Stark’s brutish hands - all confusion and curiosity forgotten.

Lucerys is not reminded of his being shooed away from the arrival party, until dinner.

Before he could even leave his quarters for the dining hall, a sharp knock comes on the door.

“Better take this here, for now,” Sabitha mutters as she enters his bedroom, a tray of his dinner in her hands. She does not even bother to wait for Lucerys to let her in.

The girl sets the wooden tray on his study table, the contents of the sad bowl of seafood chowder sloshing around at the way the tray bangs on the harder dark mahogany of the furniture. “That serious, huh?” Lucerys comments as he watches a splash of soup land on the handle of the silver spoon.

“Awfully,” she comments back. She leans against the small hall leading to the bedroom door. “You’re lucky that I am fond of you.”

Lucerys chokes on the stale bread, which he had shoved into his mouth.

To think that he had used to complain about the food in Dragonstone!

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He throws a torn piece of bread towards Sabitha.

The pitiful aim makes the crumb land not even halfway to his companion. Lucerys debates throwing another piece of bread towards the girl, but guilt quickly seeps into his veins. He picks the piece of bread up, blows on it, and sets it on one of the windowsills. One of the stray cats will certainly get a hold of it, before daybreak.

Sabitha’s mouth quirks to one side, but the trouble is clear on her face. “I would have long gotten rid of this costume, had I no fondness for you.”

A rush of gratitude and sentiment invades Lucerys’s often detached mind. He could not imagine what his mother or, perhaps, Jacaerys, had done for their allies to remain loyal to them.

He wonders, briefly, if Sabitha knows why he still has to rot within the walls of the church, when Aegon has already been named as heir. Lucerys manages to stop himself from asking.

“Thank you,” he says, instead.

Sabitha chuckles as she turns around. “Don’t get too dramatic.”

Father Bracken, some distant relative of Lord Jonos, who had replaced Father Lyonel, is not as permissive as Lucerys’s rumored grandfather. Missing the arrival of the new members of the parish and, by extension, of the faculty of the local school, may be forgiven by the older man. But, missing dinner would certainly require some explanation.

Lucerys had been left wondering what type of excuse Sabitha had come up with for his absence during the remainder of his lonesome supper. He would have to consult with his friend, before facing the priest for breakfast.

Seeing as his supper did little to amuse him, Lucerys sneaks out without trouble, once he had finished the room-temperature orange juice.

“I’m taking my dishes to the kitchens,” he would say, if he would ever run into anyone.

Not that he expects to; everyone is expected to retreat to their respective bedrooms by 09:00 P.M., even the orphans, who they have taken under their wing.

Of course, he rushes through cleaning the few plates, utensils, and single glass, which he had used. He had emptied the remaining clumps of seafood chowder into the makeshift bowl, from where some of the stray cats in the compound eat.

Hands wrinkled from the lemon dish soap and the water, Lucerys walks into the industrial refrigerator, wooden bowl, a dessert spoon, and a scooper in his left hand, and rummages through the dessert shelf. He finds a tub of mint chocolate ice cream and places four greedy scoops into his bowl. He licks the cream from the scooper as he exits the refrigerator. The scooper is quickly cleaned and rinsed, placed back into the drawer for serving utensils.

If anyone had ever noticed the periodic decreases in the ice cream tubs or of the missing lemon cakes, no one seems to care enough to tell anyone.

Lucerys shrugs the guilt off, his tongue dancing with the strong mint of his dessert. He walks back to the East Wing of the compound, the eyes of St. Anthony of Padua and his other saint friends following the boy in judgement from their cavas homes.

“Want some?” Lucerys jokingly asks the painting at the end of the hallway, before he takes a right turn towards the East Wing.

He stares up at the painting, but no eyes on the saint’s face stares back at him. Instead, he directs his gaze at the gold plate on the left hand of the lady - pretty with her golden halo and embroidered dark cobalt surcoat, if not for her empty eye sockets. There, a pair of eyes look back at him, as if admonishing.

Before he could apologize to the saint, who he had claimed to be a devotee of, a steady, judging voice comes from the direction, where he had just come from.

“You must really be insane,” the voice says.

When Lucerys turns, alarmed, the man is mid-step, his body angled towards Lucerys. It is a miracle that the bowl of ice cream does not come tumbling towards the stone floors.

“Do you speak to paintings often?”

The light from the moon illuminates his companion’s face through the open windows to the courtyard, just as he steps forward from the shadows. Lucerys should run, for surely, it is a ghost, which he sees.

Before him stands his Uncle Aemond - long silver hair tied in a knot away from his face, a sapphire prosthetic eye in his left eye socket, and dressed in a black long-sleeved ecclesiastical shirt, the white clerical collar peeking through the dark fabric.

Lucerys’s hands shake, and he is aware of this. He could hear the spoon clatter against the rim of the wooden bowl. The sound is enough to wake him and to make him take a step back away from his uncle.

His legs, however, do not seem strong enough to make him run.

Never mind, he thinks. The night must be a dream. And, if it is not, then Aemond must be a specter.

“He’s dead,” Alysanne had gleefully announced to him one morning. “The bastard is dead.”

Lucerys could still recall the front pages of the newspapers, too.

‘Opposition’s Famed War-Mongering Prince, Dead,’ were the words printed on The Westerosi Times. The other publications had been less subtle. ‘Prince Aemond Targaryen Dies at the Hands of his Own Uncle,’ The Stormlands Tribune had announced in bold, black ink.

Considerably, the tabloids have never exploded with as much excitement, then. The news is certainly more notable, than the years of journalists speculating about what lies between Lucerys’s legs, in the boy’s humble opinion. Aemond’s death is almost as talked about as the announcement of his own death.

How, then, could his uncle stand before him, now? Inquiring, as if in jest and, upon closer look, his working eye devoid of its ugly, menacing glint?

Daemon had already gotten rid of the pest; whatever were the celebrations for, if Aemond’s body had not been rotting in the depths of the God’s Eye? He pinches his right thigh with the fingers of his right hand. It does nothing to wake him.

The man before him steps closer, his eyebrows knitting together in seeming confusion. “Do you not talk?” He reaches for Lucerys’s face in an attempt to touch the boy’s mouth.

If there is one thing Aemond is, it is being inexplicably and improperly entitled.

Lucerys should not have dignified him with an answer.

“I do.”

Aemond smiles, his fangs showing beneath his thin lips. It reminds Lucerys of the dinners with his mother’s siblings, of the uncountable accusations hurled at him, of his uncle standing over his bed every night he had spent in The Red Keep, of the night of his own death. A chill runs up his spine.

Before it reaches his nape, however, it ceases. His uncle had nodded, had stepped backward to give him more space. “That’s a relief,” he says. “Less likely of you being a figment of my imagination.”

Funnily enough, it is Lucerys, who should be wondering of Aemond’s existence. However, with the scene before him being much worse, than any of his nightmares, Lucerys could not command any of the neurons in his noisy brain to come up with any thought of value.

Lucerys allows himself to gaze upon his uncle’s eye - for the prosthetic eye does not count. He searches the violet irises, stares long enough for his heart to beat louder and faster. He finds nothing of what he searchers in its depths.

Aemond Targaryen looks at him with no recognition.

“Will you not offer me some?” His murderer of an uncle co*cks his head to his right. Alarmingly, the smile on his lips does not betray any malice.

Somehow, this is worse, than his uncle - ghost or not - chasing him through the halls with a dagger and screaming for his eye.

Even much worse, than the exaggerated image of his uncle relentlessly pursuing him under a storm - varying weapons in hand, in his ceaseless nightmares.

In his silence, Aemond speaks, once more. “Sorry,” he says in a hurry. “You must think me a stranger.”

I know you.

Lucerys, however, does not speak the words.

“How rude of me. My name is Aemond,” he introduces himself, his right hand held out for Lucerys to take.

The younger boy ignores it.

“I am one of the new deacons assigned here.”

Lucerys suspects that his uncle is attempting to look and sound amiable. He fails at it, for even the most asinine words sound condescending from his filthy mouth.

Without another word, Lucerys turns away. He despairs at the ice cream melting in its bowl; he had indulged in this silly dream for far too long.

“Wait!” He hears the wooden soles of his uncle’s leather shoes jog to catch up with him. “I neither saw you earlier, nor caught your name.”

Convinced of ignoring the ghost, until it disappears, Lucerys only walks faster, turns left towards the section of the East Wing, where he sleeps.

His uncle continues to speak. Aemond must have spoken more in the few minutes of their curious encounter, than he ever usually had for a combination of weeks.

“I was told that I would be shadowing a teacher,” his uncle shares. “Seeing as none of them seem to be the boys I have met earlier, then it must be you.”

Lucerys stops on his tracks to indulge the poltergeist. “I doubt it,” he says.

He makes the final turn to the hallway, where his bedroom is and hastens his steps. The boy had only heard a faint protest, before the voice had fully died out. It makes him pray that the cursed encounter had truly just been in his head. However, when he turns back to where he had come from, before he opens the door to his quarters, Aemond is still there - standing at the end of the hallway, a scowl on his face.

Now, that is the Aemond, who Lucerys knows.

His uncle turning out to be alive may not be as impossible, he guesses. He could never recall any of the articles speaking of his uncle’s body or of any news of a funeral. Sabitha’s panic starts to make sense.

The thought is what truly wakes him, makes him alert. He wonders why he had not come running away and screaming at the first appearance of his uncle, but he supposes that his blunder had been for the better. It would have been dangerous for anyone, who is not Alysanne or Sabitha, to see him cowering before an unsuspecting deacon.

He places the bowl of ice cream on his bedside table, his appetite forgotten. Lucerys walks towards the mahogany dresser opposite of his bed, rests his hands on the splintered wood. If his uncle had reached the place, where they had thought to be safe enough for him, then it is simply no longer safe.

Someone must have placed Aemond in this very parish out of suspicion or out of a small knowledge. The question of his uncle’s resurrection is no longer what worries Lucerys the most; it is now ensuring that he would not die a second time. While sorrow had been the boy’s only constant companion in his life away from his family, he does not wish for his end to be at the hands of the uncle, who had already caused such great pain to his mother.

When Lucerys raises his eyes towards the mirror, it is not himself, who he sees.

A being, who still looks much like him, greets Lucerys. Even in the gloom, the boy could see the golden ring around the image’s head and the reflection’s richly embroidered garb. Pearls are nestled on heavy gold brooches, stitched on dark cobalt velvet fabric, and atop his head lays a golden circlet fashioned into two dragon heads facing one another, their eyes gleaming with sapphires - every thread and trinket more appropriate for the Lucerys of yesterday.

Lucerys’s breath is knocked out of his lungs. Where his reflection’s eyes should be are nothing, but two empty eye sockets of dark void from where streams of crimson flow out and down against his cheeks. He opens his mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.

His uncle is back and along with him, it seems, is a familiar companion of Lucerys’s, so old and intimate that even his five-year-old self would surely recognize him.

Lucerys opens the bay window, breathes the night air in. The desired effect does not come; there, below his window, is a familiar figure - a tall man without a face, another companion from years ago.

The ghost, whoever it may have been, had often loomed in Lucerys’s dreams, in his periphery, in his vicinity. He had thought the specter to be a figment of his imagination as a child.

“You used to tell me that your friend waits for you in your bedroom,” his mother had told him once.

In his youth, Lucerys would take lemon cakes and treats back to his bedroom for his friend, only to find his quarters empty of the faceless man.

A decision dawns upon the boy with no struggle.

The dark brown leather suitcase is quickly retrieved from his small mahogany closet. Soon, most of its contents are transferred haphazardly into the open suitcase. Lucerys shoves a few of his books and notebooks into the suitcase, then he throws a rotting piece of wood to join his meager possessions.

It had been the only piece of Arrax he still had with him. He could still remember holding onto a protruding piece of wood on the ledge of his ship, after Aemond had pushed him overboard. Somehow, the piece of wood had still been clutched tightly in his small fists, when he awoke on some unnamed shore.

Quickly, Lucerys takes two pieces of paper from his stationery, scribbles a quick note of thanks to Alysanne and Sabitha. He could slip the letters underneath the doors of their bedrooms for them to find in the morning.

That the front gates would be locked means little to Lucerys. He could climb up the metal, even if it means scratching his thighs on the protruding scrolls and grills. Luckily for him, such would not be necessary, any way.

Farther to the West Wing, the compound is being expanded for an unnamed patron. The additional apartments would lead towards the sea. With the construction still unfinished, the boy is sure to see an open exit, from where he could flee.

Lucerys does not even reach the West Wing, when he is stopped on his tracks by a familiar nightmare. Aemond turns around at the sound of his footfalls, his healthy eye bulging out in surprise. He takes a quick look around, before he straightens his posture and speaks.

“And where would you be going?”

The younger boy, now fairly convinced that his poorly-thought-out plan is, indeed, wise, lugs his suitcase with his already pained right arm.

He had broken it on the night at Shipbreaker Bay. It never seemed to heal into what it had been, even after the doctors had placed his limp arm in a cast and even after the long days of his rehabilitation sessions.

Aemond blocks his way, reminiscent of every moment his uncle had taunted him. The older man could sniff him around, he supposes - had always found him, when he did not want to be found.

It would sound familial and dear, but Aemond is far from a good uncle. Their encounters had always ended up with hot tears stinging Lucerys’s hazel eyes. He had never let them fall in Aemond’s presence.

“You seem to be leaving, little boy.”

There, in his words, sneaks an old tone, which Lucerys knows well. He shivers at the title, spoken, as if it had been a threat.

It must be.

An owl hoots from outside, in chorus with Lucerys’s groan. The faster he gets rid of Aemond, the better.

“Yup,” he dismisses. “What are you still doing out, anyway? Breaking the rules on your first night here is not a good look.” The suitcase clatters to the stone ground; a sharp pain had shot up the boy’s right arm. He stretches the limb, speaks as he does so.

Aemond stares at him intently, studies him in a way that reminds Lucerys of how the night, when his betrothal had been announced during the last relatively peaceful family dinner, they would ever have. “I took notice of your crazed look earlier,” his uncle replies easily. “Thought that it would be best to be on my guard.”

Lucerys rolls his eyes.

“And you? What careless thought had entered your pretty head?”

The younger boy’s plush lips curl in disgust at his uncle’s words. “I have realized, now, why I could never seem to take my vows. Priesthood is not for me.”

He picks the suitcase back up, but Aemond snatches it from him with little effort. The older man hides the attaché behind him.

“How so?”

Mindlessly, Lucerys reaches for his possessions. His efforts are futile, however, especially once Aemond holds the bag over his own head.

f*ck the military, truly, for there is no reason for his uncle to sustain his effortless grip on the suitcase with his arm stretched upwards.

“I’m gay,” Lucerys easily says.

In truth, he is not certain of this. But, it seems to be the best response, for how better to repel a man of the cloth, than by waking their dormant bigotry?

Lucerys could still recall being at the receiving end of one or two hom*osexual slurs from his Uncle Aemond in their youth. The taunts had never stopped, either. Borros Baratheon’s resounding laugh still echoes in Lucerys’s ears.

Aemond had stood in his all black three-piece suit, then. There had been no scroll or letter in his hands, only a sword sheathed by his left hip, as they both stood in the hall of House Baratheon.

“See how pathetic my sister’s fa—“

The lack of hesitance and disgust from Aemond comes as a surprise, then. Lucerys notices only the small waver of his uncle’s grin. Aemond now holds the suitcase behind his back, once more.

“You’ve only known that, now?” He walks forward, forces Lucerys to step away, until his back hits the hard and rough walls of the church. “And just when you have met me.”

An ugly laugh bursts from his uncle. While Lucerys could tell that the man thinks of his jest as harmless, his uncle’s howl remains unnatural and sickening. He sounds like Aegon.

“I have no time for jokes.” The younger boy catches himself, just before he could say Aemond’s name; he could not recall, whether this Aemond had already introduced himself. “Please, give my suitcase back. I must leave.”

“Why?”

“I have told you already,” Lucerys says impatiently. He does not know, whether his uncle is playing a game. But, if he is not and he truly does not remember his least favorite nephew, then any time, which Lucerys spends in his presence could only be unsafe. He does not know how many more glances at his face Aemond needs for his memories to come rushing back.

The boy’s hands land on his suitcase’s handle, his fingers grazing the tops of uncle’s own. Aemond’s fingers twitch, as if jolted. It allows Lucerys to take his possessions back.

“You’re wasting your time,” Aemond calls after him. “The construction site is closed off.”

Lucerys ignores him. He could see for himself.

“Brother,” Aemond shouts after him.

The loud volume makes Lucerys turn. “Lower your voice!” He whisper-screams.

“I do not think that the rector would be very happy to see a deacon abandoning the Church.” Aemond begins his slow walk towards Lucerys. “And for his fleshly desires, too.”

The words are all Lucerys needs, for his senses to catch up. He turns, hurries away from Aemond and runs through the halls of the West Wing.

He spots the carved image of Saint Valentine at the end of the hallway, urging him forward. Lucerys must be near the edge of the original compound, for he is about to reach the quarters of the orphans.

Before he could take another step, however, he feels arms wrap around his waist.

“Got you,” Aemond mutters.

The boy is hoisted up onto his uncle’s right shoulder, as if he is still a child. His suitcase is clatters to the ground, which Aemond promptly picks up with his left hand.

Lissome legs kick at the older man’s torso, with Lucerys aiming his right foot towards Aemond’s face. His uncle easily dodges the silly attack.

“Violence is not the way of the church,” he chuckles out.

“f*ck the church.”

He feels Aemond shrug beneath him. “A deacon with the mouth of a sailor.”

The comment leaves a bitter taste in Lucerys’s mouth. He should have been one, he laments.

“Put me down, you degenerate!” He complains.

“Only if you keep your voice down,” Aemond replies. “It would be rude to wake everyone up.”

The painting of Saint Expeditus shrinks before Lucerys as he is dragged further towards the East Wing, the image mocking in Lucerys’s eyes. “You must let me go, then,” the boy says. He holds himself up against his uncle’s shoulder and turns to him.

Aemond must have felt the eyes on him, for he, too, turns towards Lucerys. “I am afraid that that would not be possible, princess.”

The insult earns him a smack on the cheek.

“My God,” he murmurs. “You have a terrible tongue and temper. No wonder, your vows elude you.”

“It’s because I’m gay. I already told you.”

The idea of escaping the walls of his prison seems more and more out of reach as every second passes.

“Well, that would not necessarily mean that you cannot offer yourself to your faith, no?”

Lucerys’s bigot of an uncle is miraculously free of his puritanical and traditional chains. Perhaps, Daemon did land an impressive blow on the usurper’s empty head. He thinks of recounting this hilarious dream to Jacaerys, but such would simply not be possible.

By now, Lucerys could tell that they have already reached the courtyard, and are thus, much farther from Lucerys’s desired escape. The peaceful silence of the night is broken by Aemond, yet again.

“Which way was your room, again?”

All fight drained from his body, the younger boy remains quiet, ignores his uncle’s inquiry. Aemond shakes his right shoulder in an attempt to get Lucerys’s attention.

He repeats his question.

When the boy on his shoulder still refuses to speak, Aemond turns on his heels and attempts to walk towards the opposite direction from where Saint Lucy’s portrait hangs.

Finally, Lucerys utters a protest.

“Where are you going?”

“Seeing as you do not wish to cooperate, it would be best to take you to my quarters,” Aemond says resolutely, as if it is the most rational thought in the world.

Lucerys attempts to push him away and to break free of his hold. His uncle’s right arm only snakes tighter around his waist.

“Go back the other way.” The younger boy finally relents. It is now deep into the night and he already feels his eyelids grow heavy.

What a futile life, he has. Even escaping a measly church had proved to be a struggle for him. Perhaps, his mother had been right to hide him from the war. A most useless son, is he not?

“See? This is not so difficult,” Aemond comments as he continues to follow Lucerys’s instructions. He adjusts his grip around the younger boy, holds him up higher on his right shoulder. “You did not like being called a princess, but you sure did allow me to carry you around to your little chamber.”

“Thank God!” Alysanne exclaims.

She is greeted, not by the sight of an empty bed, as she had feared, but by the sight of Lucerys tying the shoelaces of his leather oxford shoes. The poor girl lets out a deep breath as she sets the slightly crumpled pathetic note on Lucerys’s study table.

The younger boy rises up from his bed, walks towards the worn reading chair by the large bay window where his coat is.

“Seriously, Aly,” he says as he slips one arm into the right sleeve of the black garment. “You have got to start worrying more about getting into trouble.” He looks over at Alysanne, who had not even bothered to wear her coif, her veil carelessly thrown over her dark hair.

One would think it more insulting, than simply foregoing her headpieces altogether.

“Please,” she says as she fixes the pins in her hair. “What are they going to do? Tell Mother Superior? They can’t even look at her. Prissy babies.”

Lucerys lets out a chuckle, just in time for Sabitha to burst into his bedroom, too. The girl, at least, is still trying to pin her veil properly. Her effort is probably being wasted, however; it is clear that she had also been running.

“Oh, good. You’re here.”

A bird settles on one of his windowsills, chirping away, as if to ask why he has not gone.

“Sadly,” comes the stale response. He finishes buttoning up his coat, already uncomfortable from the fabric’s heaviness. While the coat is supposed to be his choice for warmer days, the summer is already at its peak - makes him wonder if he could forego the coat altogether. “Not for long, hopefully.”

He hears a light clattering on the floor and when he looks at the source of the sound, finds that Sabitha had given up her efforts and had discarded her headpieces in annoyance.

“I have already sent word of what happened and requested that you be transferred immediately,” Sabitha assures him. “With the postal system still recovering from paralysis, I’m not certain how long the letter will reach King’s Landing or Driftmark.”

“Why all the fuss?” Alysanne, it seems, still had not caught up. The confusion on her face seems to be genuine, and so is the impatience.

Lucerys, still confused of the previous night’s events, could not bring himself to say the words. He leans against his chipped study table, eyes on the ground.

It is Sabitha who answers for the both of them. “Aemond Targaryen is not dead,” she announces. Somehow, the words coming out of Sabitha just makes the tragedy feel final.

The confusion and irritation in Alysanne’s face is quickly replaced with shock.

“f*ck.”

The boy throws her a sharp look, just as another seminarian passes by his open door.

“Even worse, that restructuring is doing no one a favor. He’s among those new men bothering the peace.”

The Blackwood novice bites her tongue, takes in everything as slowly as she can, in order not to burst. Lucerys, on the other hand, begins regretting putting his coat on.

He thinks back to the chill of the air-conditioned classrooms in the schools, and his prior predicament is quickly forgotten.

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

Sabitha snorts. “I would not have believed it either, had I not seen that uncanny prosthetic eye of his unblinkingly scanning the grounds and Otto f*cking Hightower exiting from the front of one of the cars yesterday.”

The boy finally chimes in. “I just don’t understand why he would be here.”

“Let alone cosplay as a man of God!” Alysanne quickly adds.

Drawers are rummaged through as Sabitha decides to search for a pin of some sort… In the bedroom of a deacon.

Truthfully, the only thing close to a pin, which she would have found, is a pearl hair clip - one which Lucerys still uses in the privacy of his own quarters.

“I don’t trust either of them. Apart from the miracle of Aemond Targaryen not burning, the moment he had step foot into the church, there simply must be something else they are planning.”

“The war is as good as over,” Alysanne says delicately.

She, however, does not delve into why, that is, Lucerys is still not with his family, if the war is truly over.

The auburn-haired girl combs her hair with her fingers as she looks at the mirror, still conversing with the circle, which she is stuck with. “A snake like Otto Hightower and his ilk simply do not sound as content as everybody seems to think they are. It is no secret that they have held Aemond to some regard, then.” Momentarily, she forgets to continue the chore, which she had been doing, a severe look displayed by her sharp features. “A shame that he seems to be alive, and a greater shame that we seem to have fallen behind. Our best shot at intelligence is keeping an eye on Aemond.”

Alysanne rolls her eyes, then turns to her dear friend. “And why could you just not tell us this yesterday? We could have been more guarded and careful!”

“Give me a break.”

The older novice finally picks her coif and veil up from the floor.

“Whichever courier they have sent runs too slow. That, or the information came to Cregan late, as well,” she explains as she dusts the white veil. “I was, rarely, I might add, caught off-guard!”

Alysanne shushes her, stopping her from raising her voice further.

“We should be thankful that the stuck-up guard has asked all the cars to roll their windows down. Imagine how alarmed I was, when I saw that f*cker’s scarred face from inside one of the cars.”

With the relative silence of the morning, Lucerys could hear the faint, insistent shuffling of feet from somewhere outside.

“And what is the plan, now?” Alysanne asks as she plays with her fingernails. “Just lay low and pray that Lucerys always sits on Aemond’s blind side?”

Lucerys knocks his head against the wall, where he had been leaning on for the past ten minutes or so. “That would not be necessary,” he says without much care.

The two girls are quick to glance sharply at him.

“He has seen me, already.”

The gasps, which follow are comically loud. Lucerys is almost certain that they are in some sort of skit or reality show.

He raises his eyebrows, throws them a resigned smile. “Aemond caught me trying to sneak out last night.”

Alysanne turns to him fully. “Is that why you’re still here? You did not manage to outrun him?” She asks incredulously.

“There was no need to outrun him. Uncle Aemond did not even remember who I was.”

Before Alysanne manages to secure the coif on Sabitha’s hair, before the sharp inhale of the two novices could be let out, and before any protest could come out of the two girls’ mouths, a furious older nun shows up at Lucerys’s bedroom door.

Mother Manderly whips her teaching stick against the doorframe. “There you two are!” She shouts, spit flying at Alysanne’s and Sabitha’s faces. “And in terrible states, too. Out!” The nun throws one disapproving look at Lucerys.

Too preoccupied with her two wards often loitering and going missing, Mother Manderly had not thought it worthwhile to throw curses at Lucerys at an armalite’s speed, this time.

Breakfast had been more uneventful, than Lucerys had expected. While animated in his actions and speech during the previous night, Aemond had appeared more subdued in the morning. The image of his uncle sitting in solitude, even in a long table of other priests, deacons, and seminarians, had been more similar to the Aemond of Lucerys’s memories.

His uncle had thrown him one glance, with only the faint glint of recognition on his healthy eye to hint at any prior encounter.

Lucerys had ignored him, had gone straight to the far end of the long table to avoid Aemond. In his periphery, he could sense that two sets of eyes had been following him. He had ignored those, too.

After finishing a plain croissant and a cup of coffee, which he had poured over a glass of iced milk, Lucerys had promptly left the dining hall and, all alone, had taken his morning walk to the primary school.

Much like a ghost, Aemond had already been at the open grounds, before Lucerys could even catch his breath at the top of the hill.

“I was right,” his uncle had announced. “I am to shadow you, today.”

The universe had progressively turned less and less kind to Lucerys, during the past few years - with this, perhaps, being its greatest curse for him to date.

Not counting, of course, his supposed death by drowning, sea-creature-eating, or concussion by what could have only been a pitiful combat with his much older uncle.

Lucerys ends up pretending that his uncle is nowhere inside his classroom for most of the morning class.

“And how did they know who Jesus Christ was amongst the men, Teacher Lucy?”

From the front of the classroom, he could see his Uncle Aemond perk up at the title. He looks up from his scribbling and looks straight at Lucerys, amusem*nt plastered on his ugly face.

His children - students, if he manages to correct himself sooner, had taken to calling him Lucy, rather than the customary “Luke” of his peers.

Lucerys could still remember the chubby face of one silver-haired child, displaying a confidence only an innocent toddler, who had just shared a surprisingly esoteric fact about dinosaurs or sharks or the psyche of their mothers could ever have, when he had kindly explained why they must call him as Lucy.

“Lucerys sounds more like Lucy, than Luke,” he had proudly announced for the whole class to hear.

The sounds of agreement had come easily.

Now, the students look up at him with bated breath, as if they are hearing a thrilling story. To be fair, it quite is, is it not?

“Quite simple, actually,” Lucerys says, for it had been.

Lucerys stares back at Aemond unflinchingly.

“Judas Iscariot had kissed Jesus Christ.”

“Don’t you think that teaching the death of Jesus Christ is too depressing for children?”

Aemond walks towards Lucerys, sits beside him underneath one of the linden trees in the school grounds. He pockets a stitched panel of a familiar figure - one of the gods, whom the town believes to reside within the belly of the sea.

It is a stark opposition to Aemond’s whole being, especially with him dressed in a black cassock, a wooden rosary hanging from one of his black trousers’s belt loops.

The younger boy bites a piece off of his sandwich - a “healthier” version of a grilled cheese, which only means that the cheddar cheese and cream cheese concoction is sandwiched between one butter-smothered wheat bread cut in half, and does not bother to rush his chewing or swallowing.

He had hoped that Aemond would either leave or move to a different topic, but none had transpired.

Lucerys recalls discussing Jesus Christ’s many miracles in class, too. Such occasion had hardly been better.

After sharing the account of the son of God multiplying the bread and the fish to feed thousands, one of Lucerys’s students had bravely shot their right hand up into the air, a crease between their eyebrows.

“If Jesus Christ can do that, why won’t he multiply the fish my father and his friends catch? We also need his help,” the curious boy had asked.

The deacon could no longer recall how long he had stared at the boy - thin and gaunt, as no child should be. Westeros had only began recovering from the war and still, it seemed as if no god nor fortune had wished to rescue the people from hunger.

“I don’t know,” Lucerys says to his uncle, only when he has taken another bite and swallowed it, too. “Ask the district.”

“You are not very chatty,” comes his uncle’s response.

Whether it be a mere observation or an expression of disappointment, the words still surprise Lucerys. The Uncle Aemond from his childhood would think himself to be in heaven, if his Lucerys would just shut up for one second.

Lucerys takes a sip of his lemon water, pleased to find out that his thermos had succeeded in keeping the liquid cold. “I do not speak, when I do not have to.”

It is a lie. Even Alysanne had needed breaks from his constant yapping.

“A shame,” the older deacon says.

Lucerys notices that Aemond had brought no food with him, only a plastic bottle of cold water, one, which he may have gotten from the cafeteria.

“You have a very lovely voice.”

The younger boy looks to his right, discovers that Aemond is completely turned towards him; Lucerys is sat on his blind side. When Lucerys sees no snicker on his uncle’s face or trace of malice, he pushes the metal lunch box towards the older man.

“You can have it,” he says.

Lucerys never finishes his food, anyway.

A week swiftly passes by and Lucerys begins to count his blessings; Sabitha had spoken of Otto Hightower’s presence, yet the senile troglodyte had never crossed the boy’s sight.

Before the next weekend begins, it appears that lemon cakes have began to be a staple every lunch time, with plates of cold pastries - which could only be leftovers, available during dinner. The rations must have well and truly ended, with more ingredients going around and the church affording to serve more snacks and desserts. On Friday, the parish even proposes to sponsor the students’ lunch for a few days in the month.

“Here,” Aemond had said as he had materialized out of thin air. He hands a plate of lemon cakes to Lucerys during one such afternoons.

Lucerys had chosen to sit in the faculty room alone to finish his proposals for the high school curriculum. With more hours teaching the younger children and with his Master’s Degree in Basic Education - under a partially revised name, he may finally be deemed qualified for one of the empty posts at the public high school.

His uncle had taken a chair out of an older teacher’s desk, had sat in front of Lucerys with a cup of black coffee. The older man had opened the book, which he had been carrying - a book on Valyrian Mythology.

“Why would you read such?” Lucerys had said, his eyes returning to his typewriter.

Aemond had swallowed the piece of lemon cake in his mouth. “My grandfather had brought it for me.” He had dusted his fingers, before taking another lemon cake and holding it towards Lucerys’s mouth, unaware of how the latter’s blood had already run cold.

They had worked in silence, then.

Now, Lucerys spends his lunch time underneath one of the citrus trees on the school grounds, a plate of lemon cakes laying forgotten on his right side. Towards his left side, his uncle leans against the tree bark with his healthy eye closed and his hands playing with a prayer card printed with the image of Saint Anthony of Padua at its front.

“You use that prayer card as a bookmark?” Lucerys asks, his right index finger marking the book page, which he had been reading.

His uncle responds with a nod, followed by an elaboration, which Lucerys had not asked for. “I had chosen him for my Confirmation.”

The younger boy scoffs. “Lost something or someone?”

His uncle’s answer comes quick. “What do you think?” He points at his prosthetic eye without opening his single eye or sitting up.

“Sorry.” Lucerys means it, he finds.

“It’s not as bad as losing someone, though,” Aemond continues.

Lucerys, genuinely puzzled, takes the prayer card from Aemond and marks the book page, where he ought to continue reading from in a while. “Have you?”

Aemond shrugs, his cassock rubbing against the rough tree bark. “I can’t be sure,” his uncle says. “It sure feels like it, though.”

Lucerys hums in an attempt to dismiss the conversation, displeased at the inexplicable buzzing beneath his skin.

“How about you, Lucy?” Aemond asks. He cracks his right eye open. “Which saint did you have for your Confirmation?”

“Saint Lucy.” The lie comes easy; Lucerys would be a fool not to prepare for some expected questions for supposed men of God.

His uncle’s deep chuckle whistles with the wind. “The patron saint of the blind, huh?” The older man raises himself, at last, sitting up and scooting closer to the younger boy. “Is it because you have the same name or is it because you think you’ll lose your sight in the future?” He leers.

A chill runs up the younger boy’s spine, slightly fazed at seeing a distantly familiar expression on his uncle’s face. It reminds him of an evening - a crowded table with a coughing Viserys at its head, soft dinner music playing over the shallow chatter, heavy steps stopping right next to Lucerys, an pale hand outstretched towards him, and a tall figure towering over him.

“Care to dance, my Lord Strong?”

Lucerys had shaken his head, then, and he shakes his head, now. He feels a sting behind his eyes, but he is a master at ignoring such sensations. A prince has no reason to cry, and neither does a lonesome deacon. “A friend from childhood lost theirs.”

‘To some degree,’ his mind supplies. it is not a complete lie. ‘And thanks to me.’

“Ah,” Aemond breathes out. For a moment, Lucerys fears that his right hand would land on Lucerys’s knees. Instead, his uncle settles his right hand on the grass, right behind Lucerys. The boy does not think of it to be any better. “I did not take you to be as sentimental.”

When Lucerys attempts to return Aemond’s book to him, his uncle suddenly and insufferably grows listless, again.

Lucerys finally resumes his task, reads the printed words before him out loud, “The Valyrian gods are believed to grant the gift of prophecy to a number of the dragon lords.” His uncle resumes his earlier dramatics and slumps against the citrus tree, which should only be Lucerys’s spot, his left forearm covering his eyelids.

A groan from his uncle had announced the older man’s headache, earlier. Pain still shoots through his skill, when he reads for too long, apparently.

The younger boy had pulled the book from him, had proceeded to ask where Aemond had stopped reading.

Aemond’s presence is easier to tolerate, than Lucerys had initially expected; he only has to deal with his uncle during class hours, break times, and somehow, whenever Aemond manages to find him in the morning and in the afternoon. His uncle had sat with him for both of the Sunday masses, which had been held, since his arrival.

He swallows a gulp of water, continues with his reading.

Lucerys only pauses, when a gust of wind blows some dirt into his eyes. Aemond opens his eye at the disturbance, grabs his nephew’s face with insistent hands.

“Stop moving, Luke.” Aemond tries to pry the younger boy’s left eye open. “Hold still,” he says.

Aemond blows the debris away with ease. He moves the other eye, his left thumb pulling the skin beneath the eye down gently. Lucerys vaguely registers cold metal against a cheek; his uncle grasps his right cheek with his own left hand, the Valyrian Steel ring shaped into a seahorse wrapped around his ring finger pressing against Lucerys’s warm cheek, while his right hand cradles the back of the younger boy’s head. When Lucerys’s eyes cease their tearing up, he spots Sabitha’s disgusted glare from the other side of the school grounds.

“Ew,” she mouths to Lucerys, before turning on her heels.

His uncle had also made a habit of interrogating him, whenever he chances upon Lucerys after dinner, as they both walk back to the East Wing.

Suddenly, Lucerys’s blessings no longer seem so many.

On a Monday, Alyssane basically stomps towards Lucerys underneath the citrus tree, dragging Sabitha by her left arm. Next to the boy, Aemond eats his half of the jelly sandwich.

“You must go,” the Northerner tells Aemond.

Lucerys’s uncle raises his head from the book on his hands. “Why?”

“We want to sit with our friend.”

A bird tweets from above them, seemingly echoing Alysanne’s command.

The hummingbird circles above them, as if saying, “Go away, One Eyed Freak! Give Lucerys back!” It gives no sign of settling on any of the branches soon.

“I’m not stopping you.”

Sabitha lets out an exasperated sigh as her veil sways with the wind. Whether she is annoyed with Aemond or her habit being ruffled, no one could tell. “You’re on our place,” she says, as if Aemond is the biggest imbecile for missing the fact.

The older man looks to Lucerys, hopes to hear or, at least, see a protest. His nephew merely stares off in the distance, his eyes fixed on the shadowy figure he seems to see from behind one of the crumbling marble pillars.

It is a dismissal, Aemond understands.

Dejected, he stands up with a huff and smooths his cassock.

“My ladies,” the deacon spits out immaturely. To Lucerys, he says, “I will see you in your bedroom, then.”

He turns just as Alysanne clicks her tongue and Sabitha throws a raised eyebrow at Lucerys.

A whisper of, “Freak,” reaches Aemond’s ears.

The hummingbird follows Aemond, an unnerving sight; the image is a parody of an illustration from a fairytale, Lucerys thinks - a gentle creature tailing the monster, and not the prince.

Aemond does find Lucerys in his bedroom.

“Why aren’t you at dinner?”

The younger boy begins pushing the door closed, but his efforts are interrupted by his uncle’s right hand slamming on the wood.

“You’re mad?”

Confused, Lucerys opens the door fully. “Over what?”

His uncle walks forward, but Lucerys holds his hands out. His bedroom is just for him.

And for his friends, he guesses.

The older man relents and speaks as he walks away, towards the dining hall. Lucerys dumbly steps out of his bedroom and closes the door, following his uncle.

“When I sat on your little clique’s spot,” Aemond explains. “I have been sitting beside you for weeks, I would have thought that it would now qualify as my spot.”

Lucerys throws him a look of annoyance. “They have had no choice, but to eat somewhere else, during those weeks,” he lies.

When they reach the dining hall, Alysanne has already handed her plate over to the used rack. She spots them over the evening bustle and rushes to get another plate, her eyes staying on the pair. For a moment, Lucerys had thought that she would find a way to pull him away from his uncle.

He almost mourns that she does not.

“Can I sit with you tomorrow, now that your hounds have spent some time with you?” Aemond asks as he hands him an empty plate.

Lucerys hopes to say no, but Alysanne and Sabitha do eat at the cafeteria. The older man would see him alone, anyway, and would find a way to pester him. He settles with a quick, “Whatever.”

By the time the uncle and nephew finish their dinner, most of their fellow men and women of the cloth have retired to their respective chambers. They are accompanied by a few; a pair of bald priests play chess towards the back of the dining hall, four nuns and two novices sit together in one of the long tables with their books and notebooks open, scribbling away and chatting under their breaths, the four deacons assigned to do the dishes for the night arrange the plates and utensils on the moving rack, and a novice sits alone with a book open in her hand - Sabitha, who means to appear busy with the non-fiction volume, a lone chaperone refusing to let Lucerys go.

Lucerys stands, takes his own plate, utensils, and glass to their respective sections. Wordlessly, Aemond tails him, despite the dark-haired boy not even bothering to excuse himself.

“I’m going to bed,” he tells Sabitha, who is sitting close to the large doorway.

She sets her book down, quickly plastering a smile on her face. “Good!” Sabitha exclaims cheerfully. “So was I.”

His friend stands up and dusts her habit. Sabitha picks her book up to the tune of the owls hooting outside.

“Let’s go,” she says as she walks ahead. “I can walk back with you.”

To Lucerys’s left, he could hear a scoff.

“You do know that your dormitories are on opposite wings, right?” He walks in such close proximity with Lucerys that the younger boy almost swears that his uncle’s right hand is resting on the small of his back.

Discretely, Lucerys pauses, closes his legs further together - masks his… Discomfort.

“I will still be the last one with him,” he snickers.

When Lucerys misses his family, he goes to the library. The first time he had found a volume on Targaryen history, he had embarrassingly rushed to read through the table of contents in the hopes to find even a short chapter on his grandfather’s reign.

Fortune had been on his side. The book did not only cover the early years of Viserys I’s reign; it had been new enough to cover the first few years of the civil war and its less civil episodes. He quickly scans the book and finds what he had wanted to - a photograph of his mother, young and smiling in the arms of his grandmother. A few pages later, he finds a photograph of Rhaenyra during the wedding of her father and stepmother, her smile not reaching her eyes. She had worn a gown of soft and light gossamer in periwinkle blue. Her ears and neck had been adorned with surprisingly thin gold chains and small pieces of diamonds. Atop her head is the most eye-catching of her otherwise subdued clothing. A heavy gold crown fashioned into two dragon heads facing one another sits on his mother’s silver-gold waves, each visible eye glinting with a brilliant stone, one onyx and one ruby. Even through the page, the intricate craftsmanship of the crown is visible as the individual scales of the beasts glint from the sunlight hitting them. Each crevice between the scales nestle diamond stones, making the piece appear as if it is glittering.

As beautiful as Rhaenyra is in the photograph, it is not Lucerys’s favorite from the volume. Before the chapter on the civil war is a chapter on the proclaimed heir of King Viserys I. Littered with photographs of Rhaenyra from her youth to her motherhood, Lucerys finds himself staring at the cheap recreations of his family for hours at a time. The boy spends most of those hours lingering on a memory immortalized in, usually, colored print. His mother sits on a worn armchair, smiles towards the camera, Viserys drooling on her lap. One of his youngest brother’s hands is extended towards the right hand of Aegon, who giggles as he stares up at Viserys. Baela embraces Rhaenyra from the back, her waist caged within Jacaerys’s arms. Rhaena sits on the floor, her head lying on Rhaenyra’s right knee. To Rhaenyra’s left is Lucerys, on his knees and laughing from the chaos around him. The queen-to-be’s right arm is around Lucerys’s shoulders. He remembers why; Rhaenyra had been trying to calm his laughter, the loudest amongst his brothers and sisters. Lucerys also remembers who is behind the camera - Daemon Targaryen, with one of his own rare smiles counting to three and snapping the shutter of his film camera. Rhaenyra would never have smiled as widely towards a professional photographer, sat in front of a tailored background and surrounded by her impatient and brooding children.

On that afternoon, Lucerys finds himself staring at the same photograph. When he deems his memory to be thoroughly satiated and refreshed, he allows himself to turn the page, then another, then once more, then another, then once more… Until he reaches a page with his lone face on it. It is his portrait hung on the landing of the grand staircase in Driftmark.

The boy’s dark hair is still unruly, despite the copious amounts of gel slathered on his curls by his grandmother.

“No one seems to know how to tame this head of yours!” Rhaenys had complained. “Not even your dear grandmother.”

He had given her a kiss on the cheek as an apology.

Lucerys wears a Tiffany Blue surcoat, scenes of Driftmark’s port, seas, and people carefully stitched onto the heavy fabric in varying colors. Over his shoulder is a dark cobalt velvet cape, pinned in place by two golden brooches in the shape of seahorses, their bellies and tails glimmering with sapphires and diamonds. He could recall struggling to breathe underneath all the fabric, his throat bothered by the buttoned-up cream shirt and surcoat.

Pulling at the gold buttons of his clothing, Lucerys had earned a sharp stare from Rhaenys and a chuckle from Corlys.

Even years after the image had been painted, Lucerys could still feel the weight upon his head; House Velaryon’s coronation regalia sits proudly atop his dark curls - an artfully curling cluster of gold and pearls nestle a winged seahorse facing proudly towards the spectator, its eyes glistening blue with dark sapphires, its gills, fins, and trunk adorned with aquamarines and opals of different cuts and sizes, its wings spread open to boast the diamonds, rubies, emeralds, topazes, and sea glasses set on its expanse, and its golden tail extending to touch the top of the wearer’s forehead. A fan of diamonds and sapphires sit against Lucerys’s pale skin. The crown is impressive, smaller seahorses with sapphire eyes peppered around the coral-like circle and pearls and diamonds scattered on each branch. Years of taunting had hardened Lucerys; he had worn his crown and inheritance with his head held high and his anxieties much quiter, than they usually had been.

The handsome and delicate face of the heir of Driftmark only makes the text beneath the photograph more jarring.

“Prince Lucerys, tragically murdered in his inheritance’s very home - the sea, returns, perhaps, to the gods of his ancestors. He is not to return to his earthly home; his body was never found.”

He snaps the book closed, his fingers tingling with electricity. A breeze blows from the gardens, earns his gaze. Lucerys calmly looks over at the trees and the flowers lightly swaying with the cool wind. Slightly hidden by the brambles of a rose bush is the faceless man from his nightmares made real. He stares at him unflinchingly, too.

It would have been nice to truly have died in Shipbreaker Bay.

Turning the pages almost becomes mechanical, afterwards. Soon, Lucerys’s head saga forward and his eyelids are begin to fall.

A conversation echoes in the boys ears.

“I wish to allow the call of the flesh to ensnare me,” someone says.

The boy recognizes the stone walls, the gilded altar and the detailed triptych of God The Father, God The Son, and God The Holy Spirit, the stained glass depicting the scenes of Jesus Christ’s last hours as a man around him, and the heavy dark mahogany benches.

From his left, he hears a golden goblet clatter to the ground. He need not pick it up; Lucerys is merely dreaming, after all.

The scene around the boy is accompanied by the same conversation.

One step on the stone floors does not make much of a sound. Armed with the knowledge, Lucerys feels comfortable enough to walk closer towards the source of the voices.

With a sly mirth, the deacon registers a degree of desperation on one of the speaker’s voice. He must be hearing someone’s confession.

A giggle comes out of pink lips. How silly.

Lucerys stalks further towards the confession booth. The dark oak walls of the stall are carved with patterns of flora and fauna, with some holes artfully incorporated into the design to allow for ventilation; one could easily see that the confessional is occupied.

Tampering his curiosity has never been one of young deacon’s strengths. Even with the knowledge that no one would hear or see him, Lucerys attempts to refrain himself from smiling.

He walks closer, closer, closer… The sound of the bell to signal the midday startles him, but Lucerys quickly recovers. Gently, the boy sets his right hand against the patterned wood to anchor himself and allow him to bring his right eye closer towards one of the larger cavities of the stall

Just as his sight begins to focus, however, he finds himself in a different place.

Sweat beads along his forehead and he recognizes the soreness in his bones. Lucerys wakes. The library’s wooden desk is hard against his cheek. By the time he opens his eyes to the same volume before him, every fiber of the dream has dissipated from the deacon’s mind.

The boy has fallen asleep on a page of his uncle’s proud, snickering face.

“It is a wonder that I had not had a nightmare,” he murmurs under his breath. Stretching his neck and his limbs, Lucerys whines in both relief and humiliation.

As if to mock him, the light from the window next to the desk, which he had been occupying, lands directly on the page from where his uncle stares at him with a wretched smile. The page has grown slightly translucent from Lucerys’s sweat.

He slaps a hand at his mouth. A small pool of spit has gathered on the corner of the page.

Good God.

He has narrowly missed drooling on his uncle’s face.

Such had not sounded right. The boy stands up abruptly and shuts the book close. He grabs a few sheets of tissue paper from the box on the front desk and wets it with water from the water dispenser. Disgruntled, the boy wipes his drool off of the old table and clears it of any evidence of his presence. The book is not returned to the right shelf, however; the boy leaves it behind the stacks of books at the very back of the library with a huff.

Lucerys leaves the library with a worse mood, somehow. The universities, which he had been hoping of applying to for a Master’s Degree does not consider “dramatic recollection of your dead family and of your fake death” as a valid excuse for submitting the required documents and one’s research beyond the deadline. He is behind on his writing and behind on his escape plan, as well; no word has come from Cregan or their allies and Sabitha has began to worry.

The sound of ringing bells announce the arrival of a new slew of seminarians and deacons. Being inside the church proper when the bells had tolled, the sound of the metal had only been amplified, causing Lucerys to grit his teeth.

“In a bad mood, again?” Echoes the words of his uncle.

Aemond has just exited a confessional, the fingers of his right hand playing with his ring.

Father Bracken soon follows as he steps out of the confessor’s compartment. He gives them both a bow, his eyes staying on Lucerys, before he quickly walks away and towards the double doors of the church to greet the newcomers.

The older Targaryen walks closer to Lucerys, his head slightly lowered to level his gaze with his nephew’s.

“Ignoring me, huh? You must be in a much worse mood, then.”

Lucerys grunts and begins to follow Father Bracken’s path; he could not see how the cast of their new companions could ever be worse, than the last.

The boy hears his uncle follow him. “Do you not have better things to do, than to stalk me?” Lucerys questions.

“How did you know that I have been following you, Little Lucy?” Aemond retorts in mock surprise.

They reach the double doors, the sun’s rays immediately heating Lucerys’s face and coloring his cheeks and the tip of his nose.

A pretty sight, Aemond thinks.

“It is not so hard to figure you out,” Lucerys says sarcastically. “You stare at me for far too long, Kepa.”

The words somehow make Aemond shut up. He thinks the word familiar.

He rolls his lone eye, after his tongue quits trying to spit out a retort. Aemond walks forward, his frame now hiding Lucerys from the sun and from the crowd. The pause in the pathetic conversation and being left alone, albeit briefly, had allowed Lucerys’s eyes to wander and to focus on the scene before him, better.

With the grace of whichever god may be watching over Rhaenyra Targaryen’s ghost of a second son, it is what allows the boy to be alert enough, too. Lucerys spots Larys Strong among the men getting off from one of the black cars, his limp noticeable, even from a considerable distance. Before he could consider what such an arrival would imply and before he could think of telepathically willing Alysanne and Sabitha to look at him, Lucerys discretely turns away and bolts, once he is cradled safely in the shadows of the the stone walls.

When Otto Hightower alights from the Rolls Royce in front of the convoy, Lucerys Velaryon is long gone.

“I did not think that new people scared you as much,” his uncle had greeted, kicking sand everywhere with his pristinely shined black leather shoes.

The older man lowers himself, sits beside his brooding nephew. A seagull snatches a fish out of the clear waters and Lucerys spares Aemond a glance. His eyes land on a pair of eyes already trailed at him - one staring too intently, and the other unseeing.

Perhaps, his uncle had learned to will his lone healthy eye to see on behalf of the one, which he had lost.

To Lucerys, no less.

Lucerys does not wish to see Aemond, now, and definitely does not wish to have him in his presence. To his left, he could feel his uncle adjust himself.

The fool is getting comfortable.

As Lucerys returns his gaze back to the horizon, he grieves at having an undying and stubborn roach at his tail. Briefly, his mind wanders and he stares at the crashing waves. He wonders if a small prayer could push the fishes closer to the people’s nets.

“Will you not speak?” Aemond leans closer to him. “How odd, for you. You usually have a lot to say. Even if you did not, you would still find a way to speak.”

Lucerys scoffs. “I say a maximum of five words in your presence,” he finally says.

“A lie,” Aemond tuts. “You speak at last, and you choose to utter a lie.”

The younger boy throws him a judging look. His uncle’s jest is almost reminiscent of his much younger self’s jokes - corny and unnerving, when uttered by a usually unhappy fellow.

When the silence stretches, Aemond is the first to cave.

“You know, I recall very little of my younger years, but I know that meeting people had scared me, too.” Aemond’s hands play with the sand beneath them, tracing aimless lines on the fine white earth. “Even now,” he begins. “I struggle to keep a smiling façade, whenever I must introduce myself, even at the school. My palms sweat, whenever I must converse with a parishioner and I must calm my heart and breathing, whenever my grandfather boasts of me to people, who I must have known before.”

Despite having only an inkling of his uncle’s incomplete memories, Lucerys bites his tongue, stops himself from asking further. He neither needs to, nor wants to know how Aemond had escaped from the watery grave of the God’d Eye.

“You could hide behind me, when you introduce yourself to them, as Father Bracken would undoubtedly force you to,” Aemond continues.

Lucerys’s uncle misunderstands. He had never much loved having to mingle with crowds of any kind, but it is not the arrival of new people, which had shaken the young boy.

‘It is you and Larys, who I am afraid of,’ he wants to say.

Instead, he plays with the sand with his hands and considers. The smell of the sea had made him retch for months, after his survival. All he could recall was the sea water’s scent being made more prominent by the raging storm and soon, the feeling of the very same water seeping into his nostrils, into his mouth, into his lungs. Lucerys wonders how his belly had not been filled with it, too - how he had not ended up floating, bloated, and dead in the embrace of the tides.

Now, however, the sea only calms him. Lord Corlys would be proud, he thinks.

Lucerys stands up, walks towards the water, until his feet are embraced by the cool waves.

The trip to the beach has done well in setting his mind straight, thus far. He had thought that perhaps, this time, Sabitha would allow him to leave immediately. A plan is bound to come up along the road, he is certain.

He allows himself to watch the sea dance around him. The water is too clear, however. Lucerys immediately recognizes himself against the translucent blue waves - the same dark hair, the same large front teeth, the same moles. His reflection could not stare back at him, though. Not with his empty eye sockets.

It is his cue to walk back towards where he had been sitting on. The boy could not allow his mind’s follies to spook him, still.

Lucerys settles beside his uncle calmly.

“I wish for you to leave me alone.”

He does not turn to his uncle, but he knows that there must be some anger and confusion on the older man’s face. Aemond has always been quick to anger.

“That comes from nowhere,” his uncle replies. Aemond strives to keep his voice even. Still, it wavers with annoyance.

Lucerys adjusts himself and places some distance between them. Aemond’s right knee had been too warm on his left knee, anyway. “I am overwhelmed by too many people,” the younger boy is quick to say.

A seagull lands close to Aemond’s feet, stares up at the one-eyed man, as if to wait for his response, too. The creature would not have to wait long. “I am not too many people.”

“You are everywhere, Aemond,” Lucerys says. “I am not fond of having my space invaded by strangers and by people, who I am not close with.”

The seagull patters away just enough to be missed by the spit Aemond’s lets out towards the sandy ground.

Mannerless bastard.

“No one is close with you, Luke,” he points out with disdain.

Such is not true. “Alysanne and Sabitha are, and even they have their own lives.”

The words ignite the hibernating cruelty in Aemond, at last. “You think my days are devoted to you?” Aemond scoffs. “I say a few words to you and you think of it as me sniffing around you, as if you had a c*nt.”

Having something to say from breakfast to dinner is far from uttering a few words.

And Lucerys does have a c*nt, so the words do kind of alarm the boy.

It is reflex, truly, which allows Lucerys to finally commit to what he had been contemplating, since Aemond’s uninvited arrival. The prickly granules, which he had been playing with is not returned to the ground. Lucerys discards the sand, throws it against his uncle’s one healthy eye and his prosthetic eye. He picks the pair of black leather Oxford shoes beside him, stands up, and walks away without another word.

The younger boy could hear his uncle’s curses and grunts of pain.

“f*ck!” Aemond screams. “You f*cking succubus-bred bastard!” The older man rubs at and scratches at his eye sockets. “Masking as a servant of God, when only Lucifer would take joy with a c*nt like you!”

Even amidst the discomfort of wearing his cassock in such a heat, Lucerys has to admit; Aemond committing to screaming obscenities about and at Lucerys, while struggling pathetically on the ground is amusing. Lucerys has never heard Aemond say such colorful words in a successive manner for years.

His uncle contemplates crawling towards the salty water to wash the debris away from his already impaired sight. “Luke! Come back here!” Aemond’s face is warm - from the sun, from embarrassment, and from the tears streaming down his cheeks.

No expletive manages to stop Lucerys on his tracks, however.

When Lucerys reaches the planks of wood leading back to the main streets, he could still hear his uncle heaving and screaming profanities from behind him. He leaves and allows Aemond to wallow in his distress without an audience.

The faceless man follows Lucerys for the rest of the day. He is there when Lucerys crosses the street back to the church, he is there when Lucerys writes a few more paragraphs for his public education policy proposal in the library, he is there when Lucerys snaps at the chattering of Alysanne and Sabitha, he is there when Lucerys takes his two friends out for ice cream as an apology, he is there when Lucerys hears the evening mass as he evades Aemond’s eye, he is there when Lucerys walks back to his bedroom with an empty stomach, and he is there when Lucerys shakily prepares for bed.

With the death of Aemond reaching him, Lucerys had began wondering if the ghost may be his uncle - lost in time and space, wandering the Earth in limbo as his punishment for what he had done in life. The ghost, after all, appears to stand at his uncle’s height. He follows Lucerys, too, with the boy’s breath hitching in surprise and fear almost every hour at the man’s appearance. He wakes with the figure at the corner of his bedroom, bathes with the figure outside of the wet shower area, dresses with the figure looming far behind his reflection in the mirror, eats with the figure watching from one of the large windows in the dining hall, teaches with the figure listening in from outside of the window. However, the faceless man had rarely been present for such extended hours. He would appear out of thin air periodically like a running gag and in truth, Lucerys had started to wonder, if the figure simply enjoys watching him yelp in surprise or grow pale in brief fear.

“I shall bid you good night,” he begrudgingly announces as he covers himself with the fleece duvet.

Lucerys ignores the curious way in which the figure seems to keel over in laughter from where he stands like a blurry coat stand at the corner of the living boy’s bedroom beside the large window. He must have imagined it.

A lamp is lit and the air conditioner is turned on only a few minutes later. The thick blanket is simply too thick, even for the cool breeze coming from the sea and with a being standing guard, Lucerys just does not feel comfortable simply discarding the only grace to separate him from his nameless, faceless companion.

Soon, the cold begins the creep and Lucerys turns on the bed less. He closes his eyes.

Lucerys’s days are simply not physically exhausting enough, he thinks. Before, sleep would come easy; his shoulders would be sore from training, his arms would bloom with light bruises from Jacaerys’s rough hands, his legs would throb at every step, and when he finally bounces supine on the soft feather mattress of his large bed carved out of excavated dragon bones with scenes of Rhaenys Targaryen’s brief life during the conquest or of his larger bed fashioned out of heavy gold and embedded with pearls and sea glass molded into the images of dragons in flight and seahorses in blooming coral reefs, his eyelids would easily shut and his brain would automatically succumb to the inviting arms of sleep.

Now, an active attempt into silencing his brain is necessary. Dealing with children is far from easy, but they are, thankfully, not trained soldiers, who charge at Lucerys with swords and aim pellet guns at the sweating heir.

Slowly, much like a child pretending to be asleep under the watch of their mother, Lucerys opens an eye. His companion now looms closer to the wooden closet and almost concealed by the furniture’s shadow. Disappointed, the boy closes his right eye, once more, and resumes his efforts to knock himself out.

The closest the ghost had gone to Lucerys had been on the night of Aemond’s supposed death. Then, the man had been closer, than he had been on the night when his uncle had lost his eye.

Lucerys stands at a considerable distance from the wooden four-poster bed. From there, he realizes that he is watching his own memory completely apart from his own body.

A chill travels up his spine.

He watches himself, once more - much younger, than he is, now. The room is dimly lit with sparse candles to accommodate the patient’s current condition. On the plush bed lays not Lucerys, but Aemond. The left side of Aemond’s face has ugly stitches closing what Lucerys knows to be an empty eye socket. His uncle sleeps on his back, straight as a rod; his soldier-like form is a stark contrast against the younger boy’s, who is sleeping next to him. A much smaller Lucerys is curled against Aemond’s left side. Through the flickering candlelight, in is easy to see the dried up tracks of tears on the child’s plump cheeks.

On one of the bed-side tables is a white ceramic bowl and in it, is a bloody violet eye. What remains of it, at least.

The watching deacon hopes that he could whisper some warning to his younger self. He had never been able to do so, however. Lucerys could still remember how his slumber had seemed to be suddenly disrupted. An urge to open his eyes had crept up to him and now, he watches himself sleepily open his eyes. He had been met with a sight, which he is never to forget.

A faceless man stares back at him, sticking his head down from where he stands on the other side of the patient’s bed. Lucerys screams and whatever spell has allowed Aemond to sleep soundly next to his mutilator is broken.

Lucerys can see a trace of worry cross his uncle’s face from where he watches, one which he has missed, then, for his gaze had only been glued towards the ghost next to them. The look quickly dissipates, replaced by a much-deserved scowl.

“What are you doing here?” The younger Aemond screams.

From outside the walls, Lucerys can hear the footsteps of the adults rushing into the infirmary.

The younger boy is pushed down from the bed. He bounces pathetically on the marble ground and a resounding sound punctuates his fall. Lucerys hits his head on the ground.

He remembers not minding the pain, however. To the five-year-old boy, the man without a face is a more pressing matter, than shattering his skull.

“Uncle Aemond,” he begins to sniff. The boy raises himself up and reaches for the older boy.

Lucerys remembers; he would have settled grabbing his uncle’s hands, holding onto his index finger with Lucerys’s chubby ones.

Aemond’s angry yell and furious face must have made the younger boy quickly disregard the ghost still staring at him, for any explanation of what had scared him so is quickly forgotten.

He crawls closer towards the bed, when his outstretched arms are ignored. “I am so sorry, Uncle,” the boy keeps on saying. “I did not mean to! You must take my eye!”

Such is the scene, which greets Maester Orwyle, Alicent Hightower, Otto Hightower, Criston Cole, and a handful of guards.

The queen understandably begins screaming at Lucerys and his trespassing. Corlys enters the chamber, Lucerys’s grandmother and mother in tow.

Lucerys is dragged from a confused Aemond’s side by Criston, who is pushed away by Corlys. The boy is still screaming and flailing, but Rhaenyra comes closer with her gentle hands.

“Ssshhh…” She croons. Even in the relative darkness, his mother’s silken hair glows bright. “Let us go, dear boy.”

Rhaenyra lifts Lucerys up from the ground as if the boy only weighs as much as a babe.

A kiss is bestowed on Lucerys’s forehead, before Rhaenyra carries him out of the room, unmindful of the ensuing argument between her step-mother and mother-in-law.

Lucerys means to follow his mother and himself, but he suddenly finds himself in his pathetic bedroom in the small seminary in an insignificant town in the Stormlands. The room is even dimmer, than it had been in the previous spectacle. He watches himself as his sleeping form begins to grow restless. His breathing grows uneven and he now turns his head from side to side, as if plagued by a troublesome nightmare.

From how the faceless man looms over his body - suspended in mid-air as he hovers as close as he could to Lucerys without their “faces” touching, the boy could tell, which night it is.

After an extended absence, his companion returns.

The sleeping Lucerys opens his eyes. It is as if he had always known, when he is being watched. He is unable to stop the ear-splitting scream, which escapes him.

Lucerys reaches for the lamp on the bed-side table to his right and jumps off of his bed. Just then, the door of his bedroom bursts open and in comes Alysanne and Sabitha, each wearing a heavy wool coat over their nightgowns.

Excitement makes their eyes shine.

“He is dead,” Alysanne says.

There had been no question in Lucerys’s mind. It could only be Aemond, who had finally perished.

He had come to wonder on that very night, if the faceless man is merely some unexplainable extension of his uncle. One, which continues to hate him and which only exists to torment the boy, who had stolen so much from him.

It had become easier to ignore him, then.

Lucerys turns towards the large window to his right. It is raining outside, just as he recalls. The lightning makes way for a different memory.

Stuck, once more, aboard Arrax, Lucerys had anticipated the burn of the saltwater as it enters his nostrils, his mouth, and his ears, travels down his esophagus and fills his lungs. It does not come, for he opens his eyes, just as he hits the cold water.

The boy wakes with a start. Cold air blows from the outside of the open window, yet Lucerys could still feel the sticky sweat clinging on his skin. One look around him tells him that it is still nighttime. He could not have been sleeping for long.

Now, he wonders if the ghost is simply a product of his excitable and weak mind. Nothing more, but his guilt made almost tangible.

He thinks it unfair, how he is tormented by such a present and visible mirage. No such predicament could have befallen his cold uncle, the boy supposes. Lucerys is not dead; no ghost of his could have tormented Aemond, after his uncle had so willingly murdered him. Aemond is unfeeling; no psychological trouble or hallucination could have taunted him on behalf of Lucerys.

Already too awake, albeit to his own chagrin, Lucerys decides that a walk on the beach might help tire him out. He grabs a thin linen blazer from his small closet, carelessly throws it over himself, and replaces his slippers with his leather loafers, the gold buckles winking at him as he slips his socked feet into the shoes.

When the boy opens the creaking door with a smooth swing, he is met with the sight of Aemond, dressed in a light night jacket of his own, and two mugs of warm tea in his left hand. His right arm is poised up, the knuckle of the hand clearly about to knock and disturb what could have been his sleeping nephew.

Lucerys contemplates slamming the door closed, but Aemond steps into the threshold and rests his right shoulder against the door to combat whatever assault Lucerys had been planning.

“Figured that having tea is a good way for a stranger to be promoted into an acquaintance,” the older man says in a low voice.

Aemond’s hair is worn up, the silver strands held together into a know at the back of his head by a black elastic. He had transferred one mug into his other hand, while he had been speaking.

“I was just leaving,” Lucerys blurts out.

A silver eyebrow raises on his uncle’s face. “To where?”

“The beach.” Lucerys taps his right feet against the stone ground, prays that Aemond hates the sea enough or despises the sand enough by now to leave him be.

His prayer goes unanswered.

“Lovely,” his uncle smiles. “You can make it up to me by letting me throw sand into your eyes, this time.”

Lucerys rolls his eyes at the sight before him.

Half of his possessions are strewn across the bed, an opened leather suitcase lying close to one of its edges. His uncle towers over his earthly belongings as he quickly folds every white article of clothing, which he spots.

The older man is in the middle of a monologue more suitable for any of Lucerys’s parents.

“You are too old to be expecting others to pack for you,” Aemond says as he throws a neatly folded white Oxford shirt into the suitcase.

Lucerys merely groans, tunes out most of what Aemond continues to say. “I don’t expect you to do anything for me,” he wants to point out. The crease between Aemond’s eyebrows stops him.

He could have done it himself, really; he had planned to. The ferry would leave at 10:00 in the morning, giving him enough time to shove whatever clothing he could get his hands on into his suitcase after breakfast. Before he could even dress himself for the day, however, Aemond had already knocked on his bedroom door with an insistent air.

When Lucerys had opened the wooden door, he had found an Aemond whose smile had suddenly dropped, crumpling the pamphlet of the island, which they would be visiting in his right hand. The younger boy had not even bothered to remember where he had left his.

“Are you sure that you want to go?” Alysanne had murmured as she had flipped through the pages of the brochure.

The universe had somehow decided to grant the public school enough money for a school trip, now - when Lucerys’s murderous uncle is teaching in the very same institution. Of course, the budget could not cover the whole staff. It had been, however, just enough for the administrators to basically beg Lucerys and Aemond to come along.

Sabitha had snatched the crumpled pamphlet from her best friend, then. “The last time the two of you had been in such close proximity to the water, one of you was almost turned into fish fodder.” She puts the cigarette in her right hand out on the sand. “None of us would be there.”

With Lucerys’s two friends’s classes being that of the older children, Alysanne’s and Sabitha’s presence in the weekend trip had not been deemed as necessary as that of Lucerys’s and Aemond’s.

Much to the young prince’s dismay.

A few days off of work and out of the town, no matter how quaint their present residence is, would be a good break, Lucerys believes. There is supposed to be a large carnival on one side of the island and a set of rocky coves on another. With or without the children, he expects the trip to be quite a nice adventure.

He no longer gets much vacation time, these days.

Instead of ushering the children through rides and through caves, Alysanne would be traveling to The North under the pretence of surveying the need for churches in the smaller towns around Winterfell. In truth, she had been convinced that she must see Cregan, herself. More than a month of static and silence from their allies, both girls have been convinced that something must have gone wrong.

Sabitha, on the other hand, would be staying in town to await any news or correspondence, which may arrive - no matter how late.

The younger boy had chuckled at the novice’s remark, but had told them that he would be alright. “Going somewhere farther from Larys would always be a good idea, anyway.”

Listening to Aemond drone on about preparedness and irresponsibility even before the sun peeks out that morning had started to make Lucerys doubt his initial position. How he could survive three days of his uncle standing over him and micro-managing him, Lucerys has no idea.

“I was going to pack my own things!” He repeats.

Aemond grunts. “And when would you be doing that?”

“After breakfast.”

Somehow, his uncle manages to find Lucerys’s misplaced brochure, which he throws into the suitcase without ceremony. “Genius,” the older man spits out. “With how slow you move, you would not be able to finish any meaningful task within a few minutes.”

His uncle shuts the suitcase closed, snaps its lock, and takes it by the handle with his right hand.

“Come on,” he says as his left hand all too comfortably grabs Lucerys’s right hand, dragging him towards the door.

Aemond drops the suitcase by the entrance of the bedroom and continues walking out with Lucerys in tow.

“The kids would hate your nagging,” Lucerys says as he tries to pry his hand out of Aemond’s grasp.

Through the large open windows, one could already see the sun’s shy ascent to its throne in the sky, tinging the trees with a warm glow. Lucerys could appreciate the view for much longer and in tranquility, if only his uncle did not have strides the size of a giant’s.

Aemond is yet to let go of Lucerys, almost mindlessly weaving the both of them through the stone hallways. “I am too charming to be hated, thank you very much,” he blurts out. “They love me.”

Lucerys scoffs. “Only because you look like their grandfathers.” Time should have made the young prince more mature, but alas. The charm of pettiness has never worn off in his eyes. “Why are you even teaching kids? You look old enough to be teaching college students,” he giggles out.

The older man scoffs, just as they turn the corner towards the main chapel.

“And you look like you could be one of my students had I been teaching in university,” Aemond responds with little to no humor. “We’d look funny as a pair, no?”

A tug at his hair snaps Lucerys out of his trance. He averts his gaze from the blue waters beneath the ferry only for it to land on the scarred face of his slightly grinning uncle.

“What?” The younger boy snaps.

Under the bright sunlight of the late morning, one could easily see the surprise on his uncle’s face and how the older man had recoiled at the sharp tone. It is too late, when Lucerys spots a young student standing by Aemond, the older man’s left hand resting on top of the boy’s head.

Aemond pats the boy on his left shoulder in an attempt to ease him. “Joffrey here was just asking you a question. You didn’t hear him, I’m guessing.”

More than anything else, the child - and his name, perhaps, is what allows Lucerys to forego his annoyance at being messed with. His chest constricts at the sight of the child now hiding behind Aemond’s left leg.

“I’m sorry,” he says as softly as he can. Lucerys lowers himself to his knees, slightly wobbling as the ferry is hit by a particularly harsh wave. With a shaking hand, he takes out one of the chocolate candies inside his right trouser pockets - emergency ammunitions for tantrums of all kinds.

Joffrey peeks out from behind Aemond’s left leg shyly at the sight of the candy, eyeing Lucerys with less alarm.

Lucerys breaks out a wide smile, holds the candy out. “Here.”

A spray of water showers the three of them, just as Joffrey carefully takes the candy from Lucerys. The boy has dark brown curls and pudgy cheeks.

‘Much like my Joffey,’ Lucerys thinks.

His younger brother had been a joy to him and Jacaerys, ever bouncing around the home with unchecked energy with or without the help of chocolate. It had not taken long for his younger brother to begin towering over him, even at thirteen years old.

“Thank you,” the child in front of him now murmurs. Characteristic of any toddler, really, the boy grabs Lucerys’s right hand and holds on to his index finger - an act, which the deacon recognizes to mean positively.

As he stares at the boy, Lucerys could not help, but wonder how much taller Joffrey would have been, now. A fresh anger bubbles in his chest and belly at the war - at everyone, who had plotted against his mother; at anyone, who had forgone their oaths to his grandfather. He throws a quick glance at Aemond and finds that yes, he is angry at his uncle, too.

In an attempt to keep his temper in check, he slowly stands up and walks to the edge of the ferry with Joffrey, where both he and Joffrey can look over at the water.

“What had you been asking me earlier, Joffrey?”

The boy speaks, but with the crashing of the waves and the sound of the motor, Lucerys could only hear garbled words.

He crouches down. “I’m sorry, Joffrey. Could you repeat that?”

A blush spreads across the boy’s cheek. With a bit more prompting, however, he leans towards Lucerys’s right ear and whispers his request of being carried up to see over the railing.

Lucerys laughs at the innocent, but perfectly understandable query. Of course, he would!

The young deacon takes the boy in his arms with a smile and lifts him to his waist. He could feel the strain on his arms, but he does not mind it.

Behind them, he could sense Aemond walk closer, as the older man complains. “Your lanky arms will give out!”

With the breeze on his face and the child in his arms, he could almost believe that it is one of his siblings, who he carries.

Fishes following along the ferry can be seen through the clear waters, decorating the tides with their iridescent scales and fins. “The sea is pretty, no?” Lucerys prompts. “I used to go boat riding a lot, when I was your age.”

“Like going fishing?” Joffrey’s eyes twinkle with delight. “You are like my Dad, then!”

Lucerys’s smile falters slightly. “Something like that,” he replies.

A few minutes pass by with only the whooshing of the wind, the splashing of the water, and the muted sound of chatter. Lucerys’s declining strength catches up to him and soon, he asks Joffrey if he would like to play with his classmates, now.

The boy responds in affirmation, wiggling his legs and tapping Lucerys’s shoulders with his hands to be let down. Just as Lucerys lowers himself, the ferry’s course is disrupted. A much larger set of waves wobble the boat. In a quick panic, Lucerys manages to place himself between Joffrey and the railing. He loses his balance briefly and a fear so sudden creeps up to him; the young deacon’s hand slips from the railing, sending him wobbling over the edge of the ferry.

“LUCERYS!” Comes Aemond’s loud voice, laced with a surprising amount of alarm and panic. He rushes to the his nephew’s side, his right hand gripping Lucerys around his waist and his left hand steadying the boy on his feet.

The younger deacon recovers quickly and ignores his uncle, shakes his fussing hands away. He throws a sharp look at Aemond for his dramatics and walks over to the child, who had just been set down. Joffrey had landed harder on the ground, than Lucerys had hoped he would, but other than that, no one had fortunately been seriously hurt.

A choppy voice breaks through the speakers apologizing for the recent unsteady course of the ferry; the waters are known to be quite unruly in the part of the sea, which they had just passed. Lucerys is too busy trying to calm his own panic and anxiety at what could have happened, had he not managed to steer Joffrey away from the railing earlier, that he almost does not feel the eye boring behind his head and following him, as he enters the indoor seating of the ferry. His eyes immediately meet those of his fellow teacher.

“Miss Lucinda,” he greets the Penrose lady.

She nods over her flask. “Good morning, Brother Luke,” the older woman greets back. She swirls the liquid inside her metal flask, offers it to Lucerys with a knowing smile. “To prepare for the chaos of the next few days?”

The boy politely declines under the excuse of an imaginary poor tolerance for alcohol.

“That sucks,” Lucinda kindly empathizes.

Lucerys utters some fake sad complaint at missing out on the wonders of gulping down bitter liquid. “I find that napping works better, for me,” he shares.

The other teacher clicks her tongue and points towards the other end of the ferry, where comfortable-looking couches around white circular tables stand by the large windows. “Best not keep you, then,” she smiles at the deacon. Without another word, Lucinda takes a light book out from her black messenger back, nods at the already walking Lucerys, and opens her pocketbook to read.

Lucerys sits on a free booth, rests his head against the worn upholstery, and closes his eyes. Sleep easily comes for him; he forgets his uncle’s hands snaking around him, forgets the worry on the man’s lone eye, forgets that he had never introduced himself as Lucerys to his oblivious uncle.

The ferry docks in a smaller island, with quaint houses and shrubs of blooming flowers visible from the small pier. A chatter breaks amongst the children, who excitedly point at the colorful fishes visible beneath the wooden planks. The number of yachts and passenger boats are greatly outnumbered by the number of fishing boats manned by tanned fishermen of all ages. It almost reminds Lucerys of Driftmark.

An open-window bus picks the party up and takes them to a modest inn. Bright and healthy vines creep on the façade of the cream-colored stone building, the lush flowers almost matching the bricks on the roof and awning.

“Wow!” A child from Lucerys’s class exclaims from behind him, hurtling forward with his backpack bouncing behind him.

His equally giggling classmates follow suit with a chorus of footsteps trudging on sandy ground.

The display brings Lucerys to alertness. “Hey, hey, hey,” he chastises. “Be careful, lest you want boo-boos on your knees!”

Behind him, he feels his uncle hover almost menacingly. A villain, through and through!

“They’re excited,” Aemond says with a voice deeper, than Lucerys had been used to. “Are you not?”

Lucerys does not turn, merely allows Aemond to take his suitcase from his right hand.

“The place must remind you of your childhood.”

Sand blows lightly into Lucerys’s eyes as the younger deacon turns at the words. “Huh?” He stares at his uncle in confusion.

Aemond chuckles. “Have you not grown up in the shores of the Stormlands?”

Relieved, an exhale immediately leaves Lucerys’s lungs. “Right.” Finding no reason to correct his uncle, Lucerys merely nods and walks towards the large patio of the inn. The black metal, intricately shaped into botanic patterns, contrast elegantly with the light stone of the building, Lucerys observes.

Once the children were settled in the larger bedrooms, the teachers are free to drop their belongings in their quarters, too, and to have a cigarette break - at most, before they are to check up on the children for an afternoon snack.

Because Lucerys’s life is a joke, he ends up bunking with his uncle. He walks to the open glass French doors at the far end of the bedroom, from where a breeze blows in. Their bedroom is located on the southern side of the inn. There is also a terrace for each of the bedrooms on the back façade of the building, affording a different, but equally beautiful view. Situated on one of the hills in the island, Lucerys’s and Aemond’s quarters offer a rocky cliffside, where the clear waters crash in white and turquoise waves.

“How do you want us to be?” Lucerys hears from behind him.

When Lucerys’s eyes land on his uncle, Aemond’s face had already returned to sheer, courteous curiosity.

“What?”

His uncle throws an exasperated look at the ceiling as he says, “Which bed do you want?”

Oh.

Lucerys drags his feet back towards where his suitcase is. “I can make do either way,” he assures Aemond as he picks his baggage up.

“Mn.”

Aemond walks to the bed by the terrace doors and sets his own suitcase on the made bed, disrupting the pristine white sheets.

“You can take the one closest to the door, then,” his uncle says.

In truth, Lucerys would have preferred having the bed blessed with more natural light, but he obliges, nonetheless. Something about maturity, he guesses. He watches Aemond remove articles from inside the pockets of his light blazer and trousers as he begins hanging his own clothes on the hangers from inside of the lone wicker closet.

His uncle pats around himself, feels through his pockets for any missed trinkets. A ring of keys, a few candy wrappers, and his prayer card joins the mess of change, a few bills, and a souvenir shell bracelet on the wicker side table.

“Figured out who you’ve lost, yet?” Lucerys asks over the sound of his uncle unpacking his own suitcase.

The older man lets out a confused sound, merely throws him a brief glance, before continuing the task at hand.

Lucerys nods towards the prayer card on the side table.

“Ah.” Aemond’s jaw tightens, but he continues unloading his neatly folded clothes from his own luggage. Aemond passes close to Lucerys as he walks towards the only closet in the bedroom, stuffs his folded shirts with Lucerys’s on one of the lower shelves. “I think so,” he says.

Whether it is panic or hope, which runs through Lucerys’s veins, the younger boy knows not.

His uncle returns to his side of the bedroom and begins unfolding his own cassock and jackets to be hanged. “And your friend? Figured that I have never asked of what had become of them.” Without waiting for a response, Aemond walks towards the shared bathroom, a container in hand.

The question sounds harmless enough.

“You’ll have to pray for intercession on my behalf for that,” Lucerys says. He is finally done arranging his clothes and is now sitting at the foot of the bed, which Aemond had basically forced him to choose.

When his uncle emerges, an eyepatch is already in place of the prosthetic eye. The older man looks straight at him, waiting for an elaboration. Aemond’s eyebrows are creased and his jaw is tense, for reasons unfathomable to Lucerys.

“I think I lost him, too.”

A wistful glint seems to spark on his uncle’s lone healthy eye. “Hm.” Aemond has completely quit unpacking, now sitting opposite of Lucerys on his own bed. “I thought that he was the one, who you would be eloping with on that night I had caught you leaving the seminary,” his uncle leers.

Lucerys wants to smack the large grin off of his uncle’s mangled face. “f*ck off,” he tells Aemond, who laughs heartily at the display.

The younger boy raises himself up from his bed and retrieves a change of clothes - a pair of cream-colored trousers and a dark navy blue short-sleeved button-down polo, both made out of comfortable linen. He discards his dark brown leather belt on his bed and sets a matching pair of dark brown boat shoes outside of the bathroom door. Aemond’s fit of laughter had ceased, by then, but the sound echoes in Lucerys’s brain, still. He could almost hear Aemond’s accusations of bastardy.

When Lucerys re-enters the sleeping area, Aemond is already lying on his bed, arms crossed and eyepatch on, like a maniac.

“You keep your eyepatch on in your sleep?”

His uncle lets out a dismissive grunt.

The younger boy could only think of the discomfort - of the strap running tight across one’s face, of the possibility of the flesh sweating and having the leather stick to one’s skin. “Yikes,” he accidentally says out loud.

Aemond clicks his tongue as his singular eye shoots open.

“I get nightmares, otherwise.”

Without another word, he closes his right eye and as if on some disciplined command, falls right back to sleep.

Lucerys wonders if he must get rid of one of his eyes, to get rid of his night terrors, too.

Had the maesters and the septas been told that Lucerys would be more prepared, than his Uncle Aemond in any degree, they would have chortled in a manner truly unbecoming of their station. Yet, here the two former princes are, roasting under the coastal sun as their students skip about around them.

As Lucerys had feared, Aemond tags along during the whole trip. Keeping an eye on the children in the beachside had been surprisingly manageable. Lucerys had laid out four large picnic blankets on the white sand, enough to seat his whole class. His warnings of staying in shallow water had been diligently heeded, with none of the children wanting to come across the kraken, which Lucerys had warned them about.

From where Lucerys sits on the dry sand, he observes the children pick out different stones from the shore and from the water, with some of their students pocketing the charming minerals. He smiles at the sight, almost wishes that they had more time.

Once the young deacon had taken out the snacks for the morning, his students had rushed to settle on the gingham-printed picnic blankets - their tiredness and hunger finally catching up to them. Soon later, Aemond had ushered his class to Lucerys’s side, politely asking if the children could stay with Lucerys’s class.

With enough space for fifteen more children on the mats, Lucerys had been left with no other choice. The single year between the kids had proved insignificant to the children. Introductions could be heard all around them, with stories of their excitement for the rest of the day following the conversation.

Lucerys should have known, of course, that the teachers’ job in a school trip could not be that easy. The children’s screams of excitement at the sight of the carnival - no, the theme park, had been enough of a warning to him.

His gaze had trailed helplessly towards his class barrelling towards the entrance. It is a small comfort that there are only a handful of other guests in the entrance area, with the audible screams and laughter from beyond the gate announcing that most of the patrons are undoubtedly already enjoying the rides and food inside.

With envy, he had glanced at the other classes. Dressed in the school’s gold-trimmed white polo and their choice of either a pair of khaki trousers or a pleated khaki skirt, the older kids neatly fall in two lines leading to the ticket booth. Only one teacher is assigned for a combination of two classes or three classes and it is easy to see that such an assignment had been reasonable.

Lucerys descends the bus with a worried huff and is met with one of the four aides, who the school had kindly asked to accompany the few teachers on the school trip.

“I can keep them in a group, while you get the tickets,” she breathlessly suggests.

Seeing as how Clarise did manage to round the class up, Lucerys gives her a grateful nod and a promise that he would be quick.

The party enters the premises last, with the two adults having struggled to put the ticket bands around the wrists of the over-energized children. In hindsight, however, the affair no longer seems all too bad. The sounds of the operating rides, the countless chatters, the smell of the sun, the sea, and the fair food, the large signages, and the flurry of people assault Lucerys’s senses. Lucerys clutches his clipboard in thanks, with the list of the day’s itinerary being his only anchor to keeping his mind focused.

He had half a mind to familiarize himself with the map of the carnival, which had been given to them ahead of time. Identifying which attractions the class could visit and try out had been easy; most of the rides would be too extreme for small children. In less than an hour, Lucerys had managed to course a plan for himself and his class, beginning with the island exhibit by the entrance, effectively snaking their way through the park, and ending with a few minutes on the large playground, which would be amongst the attractions closest to the exit. He had even included an approximate time for each attraction and activity, including a short snack break at the tiki-themed café in the middle of the tour. Lucerys guesses that he would have needed less time to complete the itinerary, had he not been periodically distracted by the apparitions on the corner of his eyes, but they no longer truly bother him, anyway.

Generally undisturbed he may be of the faceless man, Lucerys had noted the phantom’s seemingly more dedicated presence. Immensely tired of the journey and of the late afternoon trip to the beach, Lucerys had almost immediately collapsed onto his bed, after his night bath. Still, he had a fitful sleep, waking every few hours. Every time he had opened his eyes, the sight of the figure by the terrace’s glass doors had greeted him.

Sensitive to the littlest of sounds and movement, Lucerys had stirred at one point in the previous night, mindful of the feeling of someone seemingly approaching him. He had been lying on his side, had opened his eyes to his uncle facing away from him, his blanket barely covering his body, and a Swiss Army Knife falling from the older man’s right pyjama pocket.

The sight had alarmed Lucerys, before he had recalled his uncle’s loss of his memories. He had exhaled and, unable to immediately go back to sleep, had reviewed his drafted carnival plans.

Aemond did not have the same foresight, it appears. Before either of their class manages to get through the turnstiles, his uncle had approached him, once more, to let him know that they will be tailing them.

The combined efforts of four grown adults - with Aemond being assisted by another aide, appears to lessen the distribution of exhaustion amongst them well enough. Clarise and Triston effectively make sure that no child strays from the group and even manage to chat with the kids every once in a while. The help is greatly appreciated, their presence leaves Aemond to be Lucerys’s biggest worry. Now with enough time for chatting, himself, Aemond appears to not have any plans of quitting his poor attempts at conversation.

“How about your grandparents? How was it like with them?” Aemond asks, his back straight and his hands tucked behind him - awfully out of place in such a joyous place. The younger boy’s conversation with his uncle had begun to feel more like an interrogation by the time the older man had asked his fifth consecutive question about Lucerys’s childhood and life before his years in the seminary. Now in his twentieth or so inquiry, Lucerys has learned to mostly tune Aemond’s voice out, only giving a response, when his uncle repeats himself.

Lucerys finally begins struggling in coming up with more lies to support his supposed lore. “From which side?” He asks over a cone of cherry ice cream, merely to buy himself time.

Making crap up has been one of Lucerys’s hobbies as a child, but he had never realized how exhausting it could be, when one’s responses must all be pulled out of their arse.

Aemond clicks his tongue, settles with saying the father’s side. Had Lucerys had the assured safety or energy to explain to Aemond why such a question is hilarious, he would have. Alas, Lucerys is stuck mulling the question over and wracking his brain for any inspiration from his years in Driftmark or years in Dragonstone with the presence of Ser Lyonel and subsequently, his time with the older man in the Stormlands.

Fortunately, they arrive at the half-way point of the itinerary and Triston pipes up, before Lucerys could give a half-hearted response to his uncle.

“Should I be the one to look for tables inside?” The younger aide asks. His hands are occupied by the hands of two girls, with two more kids clinging on Triston’s camel-colored trousers.

Lucerys interrupts him. “I can do that,” he says as he ruffles the hair of Joffrey, who he had been leading by the hand for a while.

Despite a rather filling lunch - the school had provided a meal for all of the staff and students and Lucerys had bought a dessert for himself, the boy’s energy seems to continue to deplete. By the time they reach the Turning Teacups, Lucerys is basically slumping against the railings, like a narcoleptic.

He rejoices for the slight break offered by the time dedicated for the large playground, but his joy is easily dampened by the sight of the buses waiting for them outside of the carnival. The tour is far from over, with a stop at the local museum punctuating the whole day. They are meant to spend the early hours of the evening within the premises, too, to observe the night sky in the establishment’s adjoining planetarium.

By the time they reach the inn, Lucerys is barely able to keep a cheery voice to usher his class to their assigned rooms. Lucerys leads the girls to the room, which they share with the girls from another class - one supervised by Lucinda, then leads the boys to the next room, which they also share with the boys of another class. He makes sure that the children brush their teeth, bathe, and dress themselves properly with a mostly blank expression. Clarise, thankfully for the children, appears to have retained her favorable mood. She had patiently assisted the children in their half baths and had even managed to indulge their talkative nature.

After reading one story from a collection of fairytales, which he had brought with him, Lucerys tucks the children, thanks Clarise, and leaves their room. He checks on the girls with Lucinda, who all appear to be fast asleep, already.

By the time he falls onto the mattress of his bed, Lucerys has barely any recollection of how he had managed to reach his bedroom, much less bathe and dress himself.

He murmurs a weak “Good Night” for Aemond to hear out of politeness and waits for sleep to pull him to its embrace.

Only, it does not.

A chill travels up the boy’s spine. He is being watched. Lucerys turns, settles on his back with his eyes still closed. Shaken into a much-dreaded awareness, Lucerys’s next option would have been to imagine far-fetched and fictional scenarios to lull himself to sleep. A light touch on his right hand stops his attempt. Alarmed, he opens his eyes and is met with the sight of the faceless man eerily bent over him. His left hand is no longer holding Lucerys’s right hand, but it still lays atop the mattress, awfully close to the young boy’s living flesh.

Lucerys manages to stifle a scream, but his quick movement to get away from the figure leads him tumbling down on the other side of his bed.

Only a few seconds pass, before he feels hands on his back and shoulders. Solid, he notes.

“Careful,” Aemond mutters as he assists Lucerys up, sits him on the very same bed from where he had just fallen from. “How clumsy are you?”

Lucerys groans. “I just rolled a bit too far,” he explains.

He lays back down, only for Aemond to sit on his bed.

“You’re taking up my space!” Lucerys kicks Aemond off with a huff.

His uncle chuckles as he stands up, surprisingly obedient. “Sorry for wanting to chat, I guess.” Aemond retreats to his own bed with his head dry of ideas to try and coax the tired Lucerys into a conversation.

Seeing as the analog clocks tells him that it is already past ten o’clock, Aemond elects to quit his reading and retire to bed, too. The bed sinks comfortably beneath him, cool wind blows inside the bedroom through the open windows and terrace door, with neither him nor Lucerys having requested or made a move to turn the air conditioner on, and the sound of the distant crashing waves work like a lullaby. He would have fallen asleep within minutes, had the sound of rustling, tossing, and turning not overpowered the rest of the lovely evening.

“I can hear you fidgeting, Luke,” Aemond complains. He turns, sees the rare sight of Lucerys curled up facing the older man’s bed, his eyes glassy.

Aemond adjusts himself to face Lucerys, too.

“What’s the matter?”

The younger boy appears to be surprised at his response. “Nothing,” he answers with a shake of his head. “It’s hot.”

Aemond knows it to be a lie; Lucerys is wrapped in the fleece blanket too tightly. “Sure,” he dismisses.

Lightning strikes suddenly and the dark room is illuminated briefly, before the thunder follows. An awfully sudden punctuation to the days of good weather, if one would ask Aemond.

He continues the conversation, if only to mess with the boy. “Do you want me to turn the air conditioner on?”

The crumpling of Lucerys’s eyebrows and the shake of his head comes quickly. “No. I’m fine.”

More warnings of an impending storm disrupt the night as the pair continue to stare at each other, neither one willing to lose the staring contest.

Lucerys finally clicks his tongue. “Go face the other way,” he says with a jut of his little chin. “I can’t sleep with you watching.”

The boy tucks his exposed right foot under the blanket, the irrational and juvenile fear of someone grabbing one’s ankle entering his mind. He had never felt this bothered of the phantom. With consideration of his limits, he tells himself that the presence had rarely felt this suffocating. His uncle’s healthy eye seems to stare too intently at him and he fears that at any moment, he would find out the reason for Lucerys’s sleeplessness.

Another lightning strikes and this time, the thunder follows much faster. The storm must be getting close. Rain soon begins pouring and Aemond is quick to shut the windows and the terrace door. He turns the air conditioner on, then returns to his bed to lay back down.

Still, he faces Lucerys.

The light of the full moon casts shadows inside the bedroom, the branches of the trees outside beginning to look like sharp claws. Before a full minute passes, Lucerys is startled by another lightning and thunder with the latter, this time, being strong enough to seemingly shake the walls of the inn. Behind him, he hears the bedroom door creak.

Aemond, too, follows the sound.

Despite his efforts to mask his surprise, his healthy eye betrays him. He feels his pounding heart drop as the hairs on his nape stand. Lightning strikes, once more and this time, he gets to see the vision more clearly.

A figure peeks from behind the light wooden door standing ajar. Perhaps, Aemond would have dismissed the appearance as that of a staff of the inn or another guest, had its face not appeared so… Obscured, awfully blank where there should be eyebrows, eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

He swallows, quickly recovers without taking his eye away from the doorway.

“Luke,” he croaks out. He sits up; before he could continue, his companion interrupts him in panic.

The shiver, which wracks through the younger boy’s body is so visible, that Aemond practically feels it in his bones, too. “Where are you going?” Lucerys asks as he cocoons himself tighter within his blanket.

Aemond slips his feet into the flimsy bedroom slippers provided by the inn. “Just shutting the door.” He is yet to stand up, still looking at the doorway.

Lightning flashes; the figure still lingers.

“Do you want to sleep beside me?”

The older man practically blurts the question out with little grace or maturity. Without the crash of the waves, the already consistent pattering of the rain, and the occasional thunder, Aemond would have thought that a long silence stretches over the both of them.

Lucerys makes no move during such a time, only stares up at Aemond with large, questioning eyes.

The older man is the first to break the quiet. “You look spooked,” comes his poor attempt to ease the tension. Whether he is the only one to feel such or not is beyond his care.

His companion finally gives him a weak nod, slowly raises himself from his own bed.

“Don’t look behind you,” he commands Lucerys.

At this, the boy’s eyes grow fearful. “Why?”

“Just don’t.”

Lucerys makes the short walk towards Aemond’s bed with the blanket still wrapped around him as Aemond walks past the boy’s bed.

Aemond holds his breath; he does not know, whether it is due to a fear of smelling something close to rot or due to, well, fear. For a brief moment, the figure’s head seems to come closer to his. Aemond manages to close the door with a soft click. When he turns, he sees that Lucerys is already settled on the end closest to his own bed. Aemond crawls to the side with more space, lays his head on the pillow to face Lucerys.

“I think we should switch places,” the older man suggests.

The younger boy shakes his head. “You’ll be closer to danger,” Lucerys honestly responds.

Aemond asks him what he means, but Lucerys dismisses his companion’s freaked out queries by saying that some goon may burst through the door and rob them.

“Obviously,” Lucerys punctuates his unconvincing response.

Neither admits the strangeness seemingly surrounding the night.

The boy flinches at the sound of another thunder. Without thought or real reason, Aemond lifts his left hand, covers Lucerys’s right ear with it. He thinks that perhaps, such would help with the awfully loud rain and its acquiantances. This close, Aemond could clearly see Lucerys’s jaw tighten, his soft, pale cheeks, his endearingly upturned nose, his plush lips - still pinkish in the dark, and the moles peppering Lucerys’s face, including the one close to the right corner of his mouth.

Lucerys only stares up at him, a tired smile on his face. “You don’t have to do that,” he says as he swats Aemond’s hand away.

“Let’s switch, then.” Aemond unceremoniously rolls over Lucerys, practically crushing him for some time.

A groan comes out of a chuckling Lucerys. “Not that I have a choice, at this point.” The beating of his heart finally calms down and the foreboding sense of being stalked seems to slowly retreat and dissipate.

His uncle lays close enough for Lucerys to feel the heat from his body, but far enough for them not to touch. Lucerys finally averts his gaze, settles with staring at his own hands between the two of them. Even then, he feels an eye on him. This time, he decides that it does not bother him.

Lighting strikes, once more, but the sound of thunder follows much later and at a lower volume. The storm is about to pass. Both Aemond and Lucerys feel enough ease to let sleep take them.

Waking first, before Aemond, is a small consolation to Lucerys. He steadies his shaky breath and slowly removes his uncle’s right arm from around him.

Once given enough space to maneuver himself, the younger deacon promptly rolls away from Aemond. Lucerys slowly stands up on the bed, steps over his snoring uncle.

Aemond would do better without finding out, where his length had been pressing onto on that morning.

From the smell of the sea, alone, Lucerys could tell that the weather would only turn gloomier. The adults and the kind staff of the pier usher the children to the swaying boat.

A crack of lightning disrupts the cloudy sky only a few minutes into their voyage back to the Stormlands. The sound of the captain’s voice is garbled over the speakers, but understandable enough.

The passengers are to enter the indoor seating of the ferry, with able willing passengers encouraged to stay in the lower floors; fitting everyone in the top deck would only be possible, if some would be willing to stand up.

Quickly, Lucerys leads his class from the cluster of patios into the glass doors, just as thunder begins to rumble. They find two empty booths, which would be enough to accommodate all of the children.

After performing a quick head count, Lucerys pulls two empty chairs from the café area for himself and Clarise.

The hammering inside his chest only quickens, as the lightning becomes brighter and the thunder becomes louder. His discomfort has no place aboard a boat with his class.

Lucerys, unlike the few other servants of God aboard the ferry, does not pull out his rosary or clutch his Bible. He loosens his cassock and takes the necklace, which he had been wearing, out. The boy carefully pulls the gold chain off, its pendant weighty from where it hangs.

The raised petals of the flower press against his fingers. He runs his right thumb over the center, where words form a circle at the middle.

Growing strong.

Rhaenyra had handed the necklace to him, right before he had boarded Arrax on his way to the Stormlands. His mother’s actions astound him so, that they sometimes seem like jokes gone too far.

Now, he is aboard a ship, once more - but, instead of being off to the Stormlands, he sails back towards the damp land. A bitter reminder.

His eyes wander and by some cosmic cruelty, land on his uncle’s figure at the far end of the deck. Aemond stands a few feet away from his own class. Lucerys did not immediately pick out, which seems out of place.

Lucerys scans his uncle’s form, squints his eyes, just as Aemond turns away from the large glass windows overlooking the raging sea. Even from afar, the boy could see; Aemond’s hands are shaking. His uncle takes uneven breaths, his freakishly tall frame hunched over.

It should be none of his business, truly. A hand on his left knee disrupts his thoughts.

“Been a few long days, Brother,” Clarise begins. “You can take a breather. I’ll look after the kids.”

Outside, the rain batters the ferry, leaving the glass doors and windows almost fully obscured by water. The sky has dimmed, making every strike of lightning burn brighter. With the faint light, most of the passengers simply appear as silhouettes to Lucerys.

Aemond towers over the crowd, despite his poor posture. Lucerys stands silently next to him, facing the storm outside.

“You don’t do well with storms, it seems.”

The older man swallows the bile rising from the pit of his stomach. “Who does?” He turns, once more, to face the awfully familiar chaos outside. In his hands are his prayer beads - the emerald stones glistening in the near darkness.

A loud splash is heard inside the deck, as the currents grow stronger and the waves grow larger - hitting the sides of the ferry and sending the people inside tilting on their seats and staggering on their feet.

Lucerys’s case is not different; he stumbles and comes hurtling towards the floor. Before his knees could hit the wooden floorboards or his small hands could break his anticipated fall, however, the boy feels an arm come around his waist. His uncle pulls him back up, steadies him with both hands on Lucerys’s hips.

There is a wild look on his uncle’s eye - anger, Lucerys guesses.

As to why, he knows not.

They stand in silence, afterwards. When Aemond slowly hooks an index finger on to one of Lucerys’s belt loops, his nephew thinks better, than to acknowledge his antic.

Close to an hour later, the buffeting of the winds have not ceased and the furious tides make no signs of easing. Beside him, Lucerys hears his uncle’s teeth chatter.

He turns, is greeted by Aemond’s watery eye quickly averting its gaze.

The older man had been looking at him.

Aemond’s breathing quickens and he lets go of Lucerys’s belt loop. He runs his hands over his face in visible and audible frustration.

He looks around, sees that all of the aides are already occupied. Aemond looks over at the stairs descending to the lower floors with longing.

Breathing has become difficult. Beneath his feet, Aemond could feel the vibrations of the ground travel up his legs. Whenever he tries to hold on to the railings, the very same vibrations run up his arms, his jelly-like limbs going numb from the bites of a million ants. The worried cries of the people around him, the whimpering children, and the scattered chatter seem to pulse inside his ear canals. They are almost as deafening as the thunder, as the rain, as the waves.

Raindrops descend upon them like hail.

Beside him, Lucerys hears Aemond’s wheezing only growing shallower.

His uncle looks around. He attempts to regulate his breathing - both due to there barely any oxygen going into his lungs, anymore, and due to his knowing that he must not be seen like this. Every gasp and every pant, however, only seem to bring the walls closer.

Warm tears threaten both of the man’s eye sockets and while he channels his remaining sanity to suppress them, still, they fall. Another sway of the ship and the nausea creeps in.

His breakfast threatens to leave through Aemond’s mouth, the painful bile rising and leaving a bitter taste on his tongue.

Finally, he lets out an audible groan.

It is only masked by the shocked screeches and panicked shrieks of the other passengers around them.

Lucerys had only ever felt the desire to comfort his uncle once - when he had seen the effects of the anesthesia wear off during that awful night in Driftmark.

And now, he supposes.

Silently, he stretches his right hand. Lucerys’s slim, soft fingers reach out for Aemond’s left hand and wrap around his uncle’s calloused index finger. He hangs onto Aemond’s left index finger throughout the storm, and throughout the journey back to the Stormlands.

Lucerys still clings to his uncle, when they arrive at the small coastal town. Both of their classes walk ahead of them, with Triston and Clarise leading the four separate lines of waddling children carrying their backpacks filled with souvenirs.

The bounce in their steps makes Lucerys smile amidst the obvious gloom. Cooler winds have arrived in the edges of the Stormlands and with it, much darker skies. Their trek to the bus station allows Lucerys to see a less than cheerful update about their home. Fishermen force smiles towards the arriving party from their boats near the shore, the hanging charms of the Drowned God, spirits, and other creatures of the sea swaying from the roofs of their stalls; puddles of rainwater have formed on the cobblestoned streets, covering the path with mud; newspapers hang on storefronts, speaking of the still worsening catch of the season; the peevish weather has taken a toll on the people, with members of the town being noticeably less cheerful. Autumn is fast approaching, seemingly carrying dread like a twin.

Finally, Lucerys lets go of Aemond’s left index finger. He ignores his uncle’s slight protest. The older man’s left hand had attempted to reach for Lucerys’s hands, the moment the younger boy had let go.

“Alright, children,” Lucerys begins with a clap.

Clarise turns, steps aside and allows Lucerys to break through the four lines of still giddy students to walk to the front.

He checks his watch, gestures for the teachers and students behind their group to go ahead of them. Lucerys leads them to a waiting shed with a smile. “I know that you are all very excited to come home, but please give Teacher Lucy some more time.”

The young deacon pulls out a crumpled paper-bag from inside his worn suitcase.

“Here,” he says as he hands each student - his and Aemond’s, a small trinket; a necklace made of water hyacinth fibers with a sea glass pendant, each one unique in color, shape, and size.

Lucerys had intended to hand the souvenirs before the party had left the inn, but the flurry of activity had left him no window to do so. His childish preoccupation with his uncle aboard the ferry had also rendered him unable to focus on the children, much less give them his small gifts.

A chorus of pleased Oohs and Aahs immediately greet his ears, along with small, but pleased murmurs of gratitude. “I got those from the local artists along the beach. I saw how fascinated you were with the differently colored stones on the shore and in the museum. I hope that you would have the same love for sea glass.”

“What’s a sea glass?” Elinda asks with a curious tone. Quickly, she adds, “They are pretty!” The poor girl must confuse Lucerys’s pause as his brain tries to catch up and formulate a response for offense. “I just wanted to ask, is all.”

“Don’t worry, Elinda. No matter.” He thanks the girl for asking. “Sea glass are basically just like the very colorful stones I know you have pocketed,” he says as he playfully weaves through the crowd and tickles those, who he knew had the stones in question. “Only, they are not made of earth.”

The sight of confusion settling on the faces of a sea of children would have been enough to melt anyone into a puddle.

It is Joffrey, who impatiently asks. “What are they made of, then?” He is fumbling with his own trinket, the deep blue glistening as the scarce light hits the stone.

“They are made from glass, as the name suggests,” Lucerys giggles. “Traces left by people from hundreds of years ago! Their shattered bottles and wares and windows and ships making their way into the sea, tumbled and battered by the waves and the rocks until they emerge again, still a piece of something broken, but even more beautiful.”

Aemond watches the wonder unfold before his eye, his body leaning on a wet post holding the waiting shed’s roof up. He sniffs to prevent his snot from rolling down from his nostrils, although whether it is from the slight cold or from the sight of the boy beaming in front of him, he would never say.

Triston and Clarise smile through the whole ordeal, each aide also clutching a necklace of their own.

Kitten heels tap against the cobblestoned streets as Clarise walk closer towards Lucerys. “Thank you, Brother,” she says as she shakes Lucerys’s hand with a firm grip.

The male aide is less endearing to Aemond; he notices the dark red of the boy’s ears as he shakes Lucerys’s right hand with both of his, his head bowing down to bring himself closer to the boy.

Aemond scoffs.

Soon, the group begins to move, once more. The older Targaryen keeps his pace and remains at the back of the group. From overhead, he hears one of his own students speak.

“I like this sea glass thing,” the boy shares with his friend. “It is just like Teacher Lucy, no?”

His companion studies him, looks at the pendant of his own. He hums and nods his head with a smile, his two front teeth missing. They walk cheerfully next to each other, until the party reaches the entrance of the bus station.

A spell, which Aemond never had even noticed throughout the past few days, finally breaks. He tentatively, but unwillingly ushers his class into the designated bus. The ride back to the school will not be shared with Lucerys and his class.

By the time they reach the campus, Aemond is inexplicably dreading being separated from his and Lucerys’s students.

He guesses that the younger deacon’s company may bring comfort to him, but Aemond did not have the chance to be proven right or wrong. The walk back to the seminary was rather silent, with Lucerys only giving him single-word answers. They have scarcely set foot on the stony footpath beyond the compound’s gates, when Lucerys bolts and leaves Aemond to entertain Father Larys’s small talk.

In truth, Lucerys did not want to spend more time with his uncle. The weekend had been enough and the extended session of borderline hand-holding had been too much. Besides, the boy is hoping to be in his friends’ company, already.

When Lucerys arrives in his quarters, he is only mildly disappointed. The silhouette standing by the large window tells him that Sabitha is already waiting for him. Alysanne, however, is nowhere to be seen.

The sound of the opening door alerts the novice.

“LUCY!” She calls as she runs to Lucerys for a hug. Too enthusiastic, Lucerys notes.

Before he could ask where Alysanne is, if anything has gone wrong, how her stay alone in the convent had gone, or what she had gotten for breakfast and lunch, Sabitha begins narrating the exposition of the scene, where Lucerys finds himself in.

Her absence in Lucerys’s welcome should have told him that Alydanne is not back, yet. The fact that Sabitha has not heard from either her or Cregan successfully allows Lucerys’s resting heart rate to shoot up to a hundred beats per minute. Fear crawls across his skin - for his friend, for himself. The tell-tale tapping of a walking stick echoing in the hallways outside of his bedroom door reminds Lucerys that his fear is not unfounded.

“I’m terribly worried and on edge,” Sabitha says as Lucerys fidgets with his fingers.

He should never have let his fear fizzle out.

The past weekend had rendered him useless. Time, which he could have used to devise a plan, write to whoever, figure a way to get out of the school trip, or worry had been wasted on fickle activities.

A snap from Sabitha interrupts his train of thought. “Lucerys,” she says sternly. “I do not think you should stay here any longer.”

Whatever false practice - false life, Lucerys had been engaged in for the past few years is all he knows, anymore. He feels his chest constrict. Suddenly, air seems to leave his lungs. No matter how he tries to inhale the stale air around him, Lucerys just could not breathe.

He walks to the large window to open the wooden flaps.

Sabitha does not speak, as if aware of his struggle with one of the most basic human mechanisms. From outside the gates, he is greeted by the vision of Larys Strong limping along. He speaks with a few parishioners, each looking curiously at the priest.

Lucerys wonders if the man is capable of speaking words, beyond poison, nowadays.

“How can I protect you, if our allies are deaf to our calls and mute in their support?”

The boy swallows the lump in his throat as he swallows the truth, which he had long known; no help will come. He has been abandoned - dropped where he could no longer remind any one of his first and most fatal failure.

Before he could assure Sabitha that she need not worry, a knock comes on the door.

It is Harrold, a ward from the Vale, planted as a seminarian by Lucerys’s mother to be among Lucerys’s guards.

“We’re being called to an assembly. The bishop’s here,” he says.

In all of Lucerys’s years post-death, the bishop had only ever visited once; to announce that Father Lyonel Strong is to take the post as the new parish priest.

Through the lines on Harrold’s face, his own worry is evident.

Lucerys nods, walks forward and takes Sabitha’s left arm to take her with him. “Thank you, Harrold,” he says softly.

The party shuffles in silence. Words need not to be uttered for them to understand that they are not in a good position. Surrounded by enemies - however old, has tipped the peace and balance of their rather silent life.

Harrold walks ahead of them and opens the door to one of the miscellaneous rooms in the Church Property. There, most of the priests, nuns, deacons, novices, seminarians, custodians, and even a few familiar lay people are already squeezed in - some sitting on the chairs, while most are filed against the wall. The bishop is older, Lucerys notices.

A short wait later and the person, who must be the only one to have been missing earlier, finally arrives.

Otto Hightower walks into the room. Lucerys finally sees his first glimpse of the old man, after hearing of his elusive presence in town. He averts his gaze, but he doubts that it would do much. With the many tentacles of their faction having had infiltrated the quiet town, Lucerys does not doubt that the man already knows of him.

The former Hand of the King settles in front of the crowd and sits himself on one of the more comfortable arm chairs, reserved for lecturers and for older priests.

Outside, the sun begins its descent. The sky is awfully beautiful; the blue slowly bleeds to purple and the rays of the sun have casted a yellow, orange, and pink glows against the clouds. Soon, the sky would turn red before it calms as the sun rests beneath the waves and plunges the heavens into darkness. And just as it does, Lucerys’s eyes grow watery as welcoming words are proclaimed all around him.

Father Bracken has been re-assigned and the parish welcomes its new shepherd - Father Larys Strong, the son of their old, beloved parish priest.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

The one-eyed man sits beside Lucerys on the sand without invitation. Lucerys is quick to notice that almost a quarter of his uncle’s face is obscured by a leather eyepatch. Aemond, he notes, had taken to wearing the article more often as of late.

“Shouldn’t you be in confession?” Lucerys asks, instead - the only answer Aemond will get from him.

His uncle sniffs as he looks ahead at the horizon. Whatever feeble rest, which Lucerys might have had with the one-day cancellation of classes had clearly not been enough. A day of languid ease had only allowed the soreness to catch up to him; he still feels the waves batter his muscles, as if he floats, even on dry land. It goes without saying that he is not in the mood to be in the presence of Aemond.

Begrudgingly, Lucerys allows the older man to take his right hand. “Haven’t found a new confessor, now that Father Bracken is gone,” Aemond replies. He places a host on the younger boy’s empty hand.

Of course, Lucerys’s gaze travels between his palm and his uncle’s face in confusion.

“You’ve missed the morning mass,” Aemond says. “And a few others.”

Lucerys gives him the stink-eye, judgment clear on his face. “That’s…” He trails.

Strange?

“I do not think you are entitled to conduct communion.”

Aemond shrugs. “Hm.” He presses the skin beneath his eye patch. “You missed breakfast and lunch, too,” he shares. “Think of it as a snack, then.”

Lucerys still stares at the host. He does not know, whether mass would be required or some special words should be uttered before receiving communion, in truth. He does not recall, whether the topic had ever been covered in his preparation for his cover.

Before he could form another protest, however, Aemond takes the flat wafer from him. He opens his mouth, just as a mother feeding her child would.

Confusion muddies the younger boy’s mind, but he does feel his uncle pull his bottom lip down with his left thumb, before shoving the host into Lucerys’s mouth with his right hand. Aemond’s right index finger, Lucerys thinks, brushes against his tongue and leaves a salty taste in his mouth.

Against all rules, Lucerys chews on the host. Now, it truly is merely a snack. His glare does not leave Aemond, whose eye is now trailed on the sea gull pecking around their bare feet.

“You are an odd fellow,” is all Lucerys says. Asking why Aemond does anything only prolongs unwanted conversations.

His uncle pats him on the back, almost sends Lucerys eating sand. The gesture is entirely foreign.

They are not buddies.

Aemond’s left hand is still on the younger boy’s back as he insists that Lucerys is odd, too - makes their “affinity” for one another understandable.

Had Lucerys had any energy left, he would have made a disgusted face. Alas, the one homily of Father Larys, which he had been unfortunate enough to hear, had been enough to drain him of any strength, energy, and humor for the rest of the week.

The younger Strong brother had wasted no time in publiciszing his alarming delusions. So alarming, in fact, that Lucerys has to wonder if he, indeed, believes them or if he is merely f*cking with everyone.

“Evil hides even in the walls of the church,” he had said. The priest had went on about snakes masquerading as holy men, just as how Lucifer had masqueraded as a snake in The Garden.

Lucerys could only recall a few times in his childhood, when he had been in the presence of - well, his uncle. A consistent presence at court, but not really beside Lucerys’s grandfather or mother. He would have been convinced that the now-priest has no recollection of him, had Larys Strong not stared directly at him too often during the mass.

The man’s eyes had lingered on Lucerys, sat a few men from Aemond, as he droned on about sin, of going against nature, of living contrary to God’s design, of aiding the unnatural, and of the ways in which Lucifer penetrates mankind through such atrocities.

Father Larys had continued to deliver a sermon more akin to a hate speech, than to a homily.

“Of refusing to die,” he would have said and Lucerys would not have been surprised.

Aemond clears his throat, a scrunch on his eyebrows now visible.

His uncle is annoyed.

“You’re not even listening to me,” he complains.

Baby.

Lucerys devises a plan so awfully original, that he almost preens at his own genius. He could ignore Aemond, refuse his uncle the attention he begs for and finally watch him die.

Unfortunately, his uncle’s penchant for insufferably crying for attention - one, which he had never received as a child, seems to not have vanished along with his memories. The older man pulls at his hair, then takes his right ankle and tickles his foot, when the hair-pulling does not work.

Still, Lucerys keeps his mouth shut and refuses to spare a glance at Aemond.

He manages to keep the giggle in, until Aemond all but pushes him to the ground. The older deacon looms over him, his right knee between the younger boy’s thighs and a smile finally cracking his ugly face.

“Get off,” Lucerys manages to get out.

Aemond sneaks his filthy right hand beneath Lucerys’s cassock and pinches his waist over his nephew’s black button-down polo.

“I mean it.”

The older Targaryen only quits when Lucerys manages to knee him on the groin. A louder laugh booms from Lucerys’s lungs as Aemond collapses over him like a blanket.

It is too hot and too sticky, but neither of them makes a move to free themselves of the other.

Feeling his clothing stick uncomfortably to his sweating skin, Lucerys finally snakes his left hand through his uncle’s silver hair, to his scalp, and pulls.

“You should go confess or something.”

Punishing rays hit Lucerys on his eyes and only makes his discomfort grow. Still, Aemond refuses to budge.

He pulls his uncle’s hair, once more, this time trying to look down to avoid the sun’s glare. Color returns in his vision, no matter how pale. The blindness is gone.

The older man shakes his head, grunts against Lucerys’s left shoulder. “Not really keen on the idea of Father Strong listening to me enumerate my horrid ways.”

Lucerys makes a face. He is certain that only someone like Larys Strong could stomach his uncle’s depravity. “You will need a new confessor, whether you like it or not,” the boy says, instead.

Aemond raises his head slightly. From where he had decided to crush Lucerys, he would have to look up, in order to look at his nephew. Lucerys wonders if his uncle would have decided against physically assaulting him in Storm’s End, had he not only grown to Aemond’s shoulders.

The eyepatch covers the eye socket, which Lucerys knows to be empty. It does nothing to diminish the almost suffocating gaze of his uncle.

“Take your vows,” Aemond says so firmly that it sounds more like a command, rather than a joke.

Lucerys swallows the lump in his throat, more to save himself from thinking of an appropriate response.

Aemond lifts himself up, rests most of his weight on his left elbow as his right hand pushes against the sand and cages Lucerys’s head. He places himself over Lucerys, so it would be the boy, who would now have to look up to him. The smile dissolves from Lucerys’s face. He had never been fond of his uncle towering over him or of his habit of ominously standing awfully near Lucerys.

“Take your vows,” Aemond repeats. “So I may confess to you, instead.”

Lucerys picks the dark green crayon from the floor and hands it to the girl sitting before him.

“Here you go,” he says with a smile.

The boy pats Jocelyn on the back, utters a praise for her drawing of a rose shrub.

Lucerys hides a shiver as he walks around the classroom to observe his students’s works. The weather has grown slightly colder, the short summer in the Stormlands seemingly already ready to leave the drab town behind.

When he senses his students growing bored of the routine and of the lessons, Lucerys opts to have a few hours of activities every other day. They do arts and crafts, read books, watch movies, play games, or even just sit on the mat at the back of the classroom to be left with their respective thoughts. Today, his lesson plan notes, is Color Explosion Day. The students get to draw or paint any subject of their choice for two hours. The classroom is always more of a mess afterwards, but Lucerys does not mind. He figures that such would afford them a few hours of focusing on something they are interested in. It would not hurt to have the art closet raided, once in a while.

Children have such interesting thoughts, Lucerys believes - knows. When overlooked or even mocked, their creativity would decline and their self-assurance would only bruise. Lucerys does not want that for any of his pupils.

Usually, he would spend minutes to inspect the works of his kids and conversing with them about their newest interest. He seems to be unable to do so, today, however.

He recalls the panic brought by his uncle’s words. It is both a blessing and a curse that Sabitha had arrived, before the silence could grow too long.

Granted that the novice had been horrified at the sight, before her and that Lucerys had earned an earful from her; still, being berated by his friend is miles better, than having to muster up a sensible response to Aemond’s unreasonable request - joke, pronouncement…

Whatever.

“Are you taking it up the ass from your uncle?” Sabitha had asked, after a considerably silent walk back to the compound.

Lucerys had stared at her, incredulous.

She had clicked her tongue. “Targaryens, man.”

“That’s not it!” He had finally complained.

Birds had been flying overhead, tweeting and accusing Lucerys. He had tripped on an unevenly protruding stone as he had stared at the sky to flip the innocent creatures off. The pair had headed towards the courtyard, which is often mostly empty at such an hour.

Sabitha had grabbed him by the elbow sharply.

“Then, what is it?”

Lucerys had tried to even his breathing out, had blown hot air out of his nostrils. “I would never sleep with that demonic troglodyte,” he had sworn.

Eyebrows raised and lips quirked to one side of her face, Sabitha had hummed a sarcastic sound out.

“Look,” she had begun. The older girl had looked around, her eyes darting to see if there had been another soul in their midst.

The coast had been clear; only the quiet rustling of the rose bushes and the leaves of the citrus trees had accompanied them.

He had been dragged to one of the stone benches. Noticing the few leaves and silt covering the bench, Sabitha had promptly taken her skirts and had used the fabric to swipe the debris off. Lucerys had only been slightly surprised.

Sabitha had taken his hand, her pale lips pursed as she had said, “If your uncle’s ugly head had truly been shaken enough to rid him of his personality and memories—”

“That’s—”

“Let me finish!” The novice had wiped the sweat off of her forehead, a stray strand of auburn hair sticking to her skin. “Had that been the case and we do not have snakes surrounding us, I would not care. Make him your dild*!”

Against his own will, Lucerys had snorted.

Sabitha’s face had turned grave. “But, please. We are yet to see Alysanne and we are yet to hear from the Velaryons, or from the Arryns, or from the Blackwoods. Otto Hightower had just made a public appearance and that bastard priest is now the parish priest. Please,” she had repeated. “Be careful.”

He had tried to avoid his uncle. Truly. But, Aemond had seemed to latch on to him like a leech. If not that, like a stray dog sniffing him out and following him.

It had been impossible, but Lucerys guesses that heeding the pleas of his guardian would be the least he could do for her.

Lucerys ceases his pacing and stops behind Irri.

“What do we have here, darling?” He asks with a jolly voice.

The girl looks up at him with a shy smile as she picks the paper up and shows it to Lucerys.

Only half as colorful as most of the other works, Irri’s artwork - a painting constructed by dabbing her fingers on the wooden palette smeared with differently-colored acrylic pigments, is only half-way done. The scene is of the sea at night. Leaving the full circle devoid of color, the moon shines bright over the calm waves. A few stony islands rise on either side of the image. There are red specks on the sand, which Lucerys guesses to be rose petals. At the very center stands the silhouette of a figure, their legs already submerged in the water.

“How lovely,” Lucerys complements. “Is this you going for a swim, Irri?”

The girl gently takes the painting back and sets it on the table to resume coloring the rest of her work. “No,” she says quietly. She taps her already-stained right index finger and middle finger onto the dollop of dark cobalt blue.

“Oh! May I ask if you could share how you came up with this gorgeous idea?”

Irri shrugs her shoulders. “I dreamt of it,” she says with a curious face. “I think I know him.”

“Him? It’s a boy?”

The young girl merely nods.

A few soft knocks sound from one of the two open classroom doors comes. Lucerys promptly ignores them. Left with both eyes, Lucerys still has a well-functioning peripheral vision and is acutely aware of who looms by the doorway - faceless as he was. Stance and height painfully distinct, Aemond would never be mistaken for anyone else by his own nephew.

Instead, he keeps his attention on his student, wanting to encourage her to share about her work. The children do love discussing their work, Lucerys had long learned.

Unsatisfied with the current version of her painting, Irri dabs her right pinky finger on the red pigment and blots more specks on the portions depicting sand and water. The rose petals are concentrated around the figure, almost making it seem that he stands on the grassy ground of a floral garden. As Irri adds more color here and there, she scrunches her nose and informs Lucerys of another detail about her idea. “I don’t think that he wants to go swimming,” she says.

Lucerys croons. “That’s too bad. Why ever would he not want to go swimming?” He asks.

His student quirks her lips in thought. She scratches her head with her mostly clean left hand, as she considers.

All the while, Lucerys keeps his gaze on Irri - had found that children are more likely to be encouraged, when he responds to their words enthusiastically and with his eyes kept on them.

With the autumn season fast approaching, it is understandable how cool the winds are slowly becoming. Now, it is not much different; a cool breeze blows into the classroom and chills the air, makes the hairs on Lucerys’s nape and arms stand. He blows hot air into his hands and rubs them together as Irri continues sharing. “I think that he fears that the sea will eat him,” Irri explains. Her eyes are bright and smart, reminding Lucerys of his well-spoken siblings, during the times, wherein they had been serious in their studies.

Still, a chuckle escapes from Lucerys’s paling mouth. “Oh, Irri,” he manages to get out. “Are you afraid of the sea?” He had been, too - before. There is no shame in it.

“Oh, no!” The girl insists. “But, he is.” She points insistently to her drawing.

“Well,” Lucerys begins. He crouches down, sits on his heels to closely mimic his student’s height. “You must tell him that there is nothing to be afraid of in the sea.”

Irri throws him a questioning look. “Sharks? Large squids? Sea monsters?”

“Apart from those, of course!” He takes out the pendants hanging around his neck. The boy had added another charm on his sea glass necklace.

The sun’s soft rays bounce on the sapphire blue eyes of the golden seahorse hanging beside the sea glass, its facade colored with swirls of red and black.

“Look at these,” Lucerys says. “Just tell him to look at a sea glass, a pebble, or a shell. If he has none of those, he can imagine the pretty corals, the fishes, and the seahorses making their home in the sea.”

Irri raises her right hand, gently touches the pendants, which Lucerys is showing to her. A smear of blue lightly stains the tail of the seahorse.

“I used to be scared of the sea, too. The smell always made me sick,” Lucerys shares. “But, my grandfather had reminded me of all the beauty hiding beneath the waves.”

Lucerys could still hear Lord Corlys’s voice in his head. ‘It is water, which cleanses us. And for its kindness, the gods had blessed its bosom with beauty that no land will ever see,’ he had said once. The words had been just that - beautiful words, ramblings of a man, who has grown too old. Beloved he might be, Lucerys knows that Lord Corlys’s attempt at easing him hold no truth. It is not only beauty, which lies beneath the waves. Shipwrecks, sunken boats, broken nets, decaying flesh, and ancient bones make a home in the bosom of the sea. Had he been a little luckier, Lucerys’s own skeleton would have already been among the tides’ large collection.

The deacon brings himself back to the present. “I realized, then, that it would not be so bad to come closer to the water,” he says, giving the girl a pat on her head of dark hair.

“I’ll tell him that,” she says, at last. “I don’t really like how the dream feels, but I will try to meet him again,” she promises.

Lucerys’s curiosity is, thus, piqued. “Why is that?”

“Dunno,” Irri mutters. “It makes me sad.” She blows on her work to speed the drying process up.

“I see. Is it like a nightmare?”

Aemond has began walking towards them, ignoring that his knocks had been left unaddressed and that Lucerys does not have time for him.

Here and there, the students have began greeting the other deacon.

Irri hums. “I guess that you are somewhat right, Lucy,” she says. Still, her face slightly crumples. “It might just be because I keep hearing ugly stories from my mother, before I fall asleep.” She pats Lucerys’s right hand, which rests on the desk, with her much cleaner left hand.

“Ugly stories?” Lucerys’s hands instinctively press together, his fingers squeezing and pressing on the bony digits of one hand and the other.

The girl nods. “She keeps on sharing what Father Larys tells her and her friends with my father. Not that he is interested,” she says as she reaches for a new sheet of paper. She wipes her hands on a clean towel and this time, reaches for a green crayon.

Somehow, Lucerys’s heartbeat quickens. “What type of stories?”

Irri makes a disgusted face. “Ugh,” she dramatically exclaims. “That the devil hides in our town and that we must get rid of him!”

Damn. The man does have a problem, Lucerys thinks.

‘And a thing for devils,’ his mind supplies.

Before he could begin to laugh internally, Irri chatters on. “He says that there is a pretender poisoning the blessings for the town, before it could even reach us. Sometimes, he even says that there is an…” The girl pauses.

She whispers syllables to herself as she counts on the fingers of her left hand.

“Abomination,” she continues. Irri stares at Lucerys, waiting for his approval.

Lucerys cracks a smile. “Yes, Irri. That sounds like the correct word.”

“Yes. He sometimes says that there is an abomination hiding within the church itself,” she repeats. “I don’t know what that means, but I don’t like how it sounds.”

As Lucerys tries to overthink Larys’s disturbing habit of gossiping about devils and monsters, Irri continues drawing what appears to be a singular eye with a violet crayon. “Well, let us hope that we would never see such abomination in our lifetime,” Lucerys comforts Irri with a smile.

Before Lucerys could even finish giving his enthusiastic feedback to Irri about her original and striking work, Aemond is already next to him - his chest almost pressed against Lucerys’s right shoulder and his head almost touching the top of Lucerys’s, with how low he had been craning down.

Of course, Aemond looms over Lucerys like a shadow.

A dark-haired boy dozes off at the nameless shore. The white glow of the waning moon lands delicately on his features and bounces off on his hair, almost making the strands appear blue.

Hours ago, the bell had already tolled for the arrival of the eighteenth hour - a sign, which had been promptly ignored. Lucerys had only gotten a few minutes of peace, before his eyelids are forced open and his heart jumps. Squawking suddenly, a seagull had swooped much too close to him, jolting him awake.

Lucerys slightly topples sideways from where he sits on the ground and quickly supports his weight with his right arm.

“f*ck,” he mutters, the boy feels a sharp pain on his right palm.

He inspects the skin, notices that the hand had landed on a particularly sharp piece of rock. Blood continues seeping out of the flesh, staining the white sand with crimson droplets. Lucerys flinches as he pinches the surrounding skin to bleed the wound out a bit more.

Killing time by the sea turns out to be an alright decision. Satisfied with how much blood had already exited through the wound and judging that the cut no longer harbored any solid debris, Lucerys stands up and walks to the weakly crashing waves to rinse the cut. He could run back to the compound, afterwards, for fresh water, soap, and a splash of antiseptic.

“Ew,” he complains as he watches some more droplets of blood fall to the sand beneath him, the liquid seeping between the tiny granules.

The water stings, makes Lucerys second-guess the appropriateness of using seawater to rinse a fresh cut. His doubts are interrupted by the sound of a throat being cleared.

A tear finally escapes through the boy’s left eye. f*ck discomfort and f*ck his uncle. Truly.

“Drowning is a terrible way to die and I hate to think of what the water would do to your beautiful face.”

Lucerys turns his back in annoyance, sees his uncle standing ram-rod straight some feet away from him. The breath is briefly knocked out of Lucerys; his uncle’s face is in full view, an almost tender look on his face. It is not that, which had caught him off-guard, however, but the missing eyepatch on Aemond’s face. For the first time after the night in the hall of that pig, Borros, the silver-haired man’s mangled face is in full view. The younger boy traces the scar slashing across his uncle’s left eye socket with his own eyes. An ugly, irregular gash of lifted skin runs from the hollow of Aemond’s left cheek to his silver left eyebrow, over an expanse of sagging, delicate skin. The flesh surrounding the empty eye socket appears to be quite gangrenous. Staring at his own work makes Lucerys nauseous.

Aemond has forgone his cassock and has changed into a pair of black silk pyjamas - entirely too lavish for any soul sworn to The Order. It is a hideous, misplaced sight - wrong clothing for the wrong place, wrong face for the wrong person.

“You should not be here, Brother,” Lucerys says as he presses the left sleeve of his white button-down polo, essentially his undershirt, against the cut.

His uncle advances, the crease of his eyebrows telling Lucerys that he has already noticed something amiss. “Neither should you.” The older man leaves his heavy dark brown leather slippers on the dry sand, but approaches Lucerys in the water. If he feels any discomfort from the wet ends of his trousers, Aemond makes no show of it.

Lucerys allows his uncle to take his bleeding hand. Only then, does he realize what the older man had been holding behind him, earlier. The healthy poppy’s leaves brush against Lucerys’s left palm as Aemond inspects the wound.

“You have always been clumsy,” Aemond says lowly - almost too low, that Lucerys merely registers the words as a grumble.

An owl hoots dumbly from somewhere, as if to echo Lucerys’s confusion. He raises his left eyebrow. “You do not know me long enough to say that,” he accuses Aemond. He takes his hand back and begins rinsing the blood, once more.

His uncle merely hums.

Lucerys walks back to shore, slips his glistening feet into his dark brown leather sandals. He had been using his own shoes as a makeshift mat for hours. The straps had been flattened, but such does not deter him. The boy does not bother fixing the lock, only attempts to walk away from his companion. He feels a tug behind him.

Aemond had caught his cassock - mere two fingers holding onto the thick fabric.

“You are in a terrible mood, still.” It sounds like a complaint.

Lucerys shakes himself free. “I must sleep, Aemond.”

The older Targaryen huffs impatiently, as if he had expected such a tantrum from a toddler. “Something bothers you.”

“How would you know?”

Aemond licks his lips. Lucerys begrudgingly follows the motion of his uncle’s tongue, immediately distracts himself with the flying hummingbird from afar, once he realizes that Aemond had caught him.

His uncle says nothing of it, only smirks. It makes him look uglier. Even worse, Lucerys can tell that his uncle thinks that he looks good doing it.

Clouds previously covering the moon as they pass by clear up and slowly bathes them in moonlight, like a curtain opening for a theatrical stage. Aemond takes both of his hands, mindful of the wound and trying not to have the poppy hit the sensitive flesh. “You have been playing with your hands,” Aemond says. He lifts his right hand up and presses the index finger between Lucerys’s eyebrows. “Your eyebrows have been furrowed, since I had visited you in your classroom.”

Wobbly ankles, uneven breathing, spacing out, and irritability - Aemond enumerates how he could ever deduce that Lucerys is not at peace. Lucerys curses himself for being transparent. How embarrassing.

“Is any one of our children in trouble?”

The term disturbs Lucerys. “Our.” What a f*cking joke.

Instead of giving his uncle a reaction, the boy opts for a simple response.

“I don’t think so,” he admits. “One of them,” he begins. The pause allows him to search for words, which would not make him sound like an imposing, insane snooper. “I think, they might just be hearing a lot of things - unbecoming ones, which give them nightmares.”

Aemond stares at him questioningly.

“Adults gossip,” Lucerys breathes out. “Hoping that the children do not pick up on that and that adults eventually let the whispers die out are really all we can do. But, when sensational stories come out of the mouths of priests, unfounded stories start to sound more convincing.”

His uncle raises an eyebrow. “And this bothers you?” Lucerys can tell that he had just swallowed a chuckle down.

“Father Larys is practically committing a hate crime, every time he delivers a homily. He says those blasphemies even outside of the church halls. To fathers, to mothers, to children, Aemond.”

From a distance, Lucerys thinks that he hears a twig snap. His eyes try to look for the source of the sound, but he dismisses the gliding shadow from the rocky coves ahead as that of a rapidly flying bird or some small animal.

“Hearing about sin, monsters, demons, and hell from supposedly holy people could only go on long enough, before children begin conjuring fearful images in their heads.”

Aemond sighs.

As if he is speaking to a child, who knows too little about the world and who does not even deserve a response for their question.

Lucerys decides that the conversation is over. He had been right; his uncle, amnesiac or not, still views him as a moron, whose worries have no merit. He finds that hilarious, for who had continuously f*cked over their faction’s strategic moves during the war? Who had pretended that they had been smart enough for a seat in the councils and to become Prince Regent? Who had murdered an envoy over their bruised, small ego?

It sure as hell had not been Lucerys.

The dark-haired boy no longer bothers with a verbal response, a huff, or a look. He turns away, begins walking back to the main streets.

“I understand that you worry for them,” Aemond calls after him. “But, you said so yourself; we can only do so much.”

Lucerys does not stop walking. He reaches the faint wooden planks buried beneath the sand. A few more steps and the planks would grow more solid and would lead to the old dock, connecting to the cobblestoned streets.

But, before the boy could step a foot on the even, less destroyed part of the old dock, he feels a hand encircle his right elbow. He is turned around and now, faces Aemond.

Contrary to his uncle’s arrogant demeanor only a few seconds ago, he now appears breathless and under panic - as if he is grasping for words in an attempt to stop Lucerys from leaving.

The older man lets out an unflattering heave.

Lucerys’s uncle is truly growing old.

“You worry for them.” Heave, heave, heave. Aemond holds out the poppy, once he catches his breath. “And I worry for you.”

Listening to any of Aemond’s words almost never uplifts Lucerys’s mood. It is not much different, at that very moment. The hoot of the owl already sounds like an insult to his uncle’s particularly angering words, but Lucerys hopes that the seagulls would join in chorus, that the trees would turn on their roots and grow judging eyes, that the sea would open and reveal the laughing fishes and the raucous seashells, and that the moon would grow full and call upon the sun to faze upon Aemond and to finally blind his remaining eye.

None of those happen. Lucerys remains silent, his eyes trained on the flower being held out to him. The act is utterly pathetic and he has no idea what Aemond wants him to do with such an embarrassing show.

Still silent, his desire to laugh dissipates and is quickly replaced by anger.

How dare his uncle dismiss his worries - then, and now, only to harp about being worried of Lucerys? How dare his uncle disturb his peace for such follies? How dare his uncle even think that he has the right to hand a flower to the boy, whom he had murdered?

Aemond exhales, more even, this time. He wiggles the flower in his right hand and tells Lucerys that it is for him.

Lucerys raises his eyes, stares directly at Aemond with as much rage he could muster.

His uncle is either an idiot or he simply does not care; he takes Lucerys’s right hand, slowly opens each tightly clenched finger against the boy’s palm, places the poppy by its stem on the flesh, and closes Lucerys’s hand for him.

“Speak to me, Taobus,” he says without looking at Lucerys’s eyes. “Usōven.” The words had only slipped from Aemond’s mouth, but they had been enough to tick Lucerys off.

Whatever charade, which the older man had been playing comes to an abrupt end.

“I wish to listen to your anxieties. I wish to know you. I wish to bring you comfort. I cannot do that, if your mission is always to escape me.”

By this time, Lucerys’s vision begins to blur with unshed tears and the loud beating of his heart begins to hammer in his ears. His uncle does not seem to notice what he had just revealed to Lucerys.

Finally, Aemond looks up from their joint hands. He places the thumb of his right hand on the middle of Lucerys’s furrowed eyebrows and presses, massages the skin, until Lucerys relaxes. He brings both hands to the boy’s face, wipes the tears threatening to fall from his nephew’s eyes with his thumbs.

“You need not to be alone,” he assures Lucerys.

The silver-haired man continues to rest his hands on Lucerys’s face - with so much tenderness, Lucerys notes, that he wishes that the waves would split and show that there, at the bottom of the sea, lies his own rotting corpse - dead from the hands of Aemond, just so he could remind himself of who stands before him.

It may either just be Aemond trying to move an inch or Lucerys’s eyes and senses playing tricks on him. Either way, the boy watches as his fears from long ago materializes, before him. His uncle’s thumbs caress the apples of his cheeks, but his grip - spreading to the scalp of the younger boy, tightens. He feels Aemond’s fingers lace through the strands of his bastard hair.

Like a knife slicing through the air, Aemond’s hair shines bright under the silver light of the moon as he leans closer. Lucerys thinks that he feels shy lips lightly graze his, before he manages to push Aemond away.

“What the f*ck?” He shrieks. Lucerys almost wishes that someone would wake and see them. Let them see Aemond’s depravity for themselves.

The prone form on the sand moves just so. Aemond sits up. In a rare moment of triumph, Lucerys sees that there, on his uncle’s face, is shame.

Aemond had felt none at spreading ill words about his own sister’s children; he had felt none at visibly taking joy at the heir being debased at court; he had felt none at acting much like a babe with a wounded pride in front of an audience of a noble family; he had felt none at challenging a princeling and an envoy to a duel; he had felt none at demanding a much younger prince’s eye in front of an ally of House Targaryen; he had felt none at pursuing his kin as the storm raged; he had felt none at taking the life of Prince Lucerys Velaryon.

But, here, on a nameless shore and with Lucerys’s own birthright as witness - denied of a small kiss, which he, once more, had thought himself entitled to, he finally does.

Lucerys wishes to beat Aemond, to make him feel the pain of being buffeted by winds and swallowed repeatedly by the waves - if not by the elements, themselves, then by fists. However, his limbs are jelly and his soul is high from the small victory.

Easily, he ignores the faceless man hiding amongst the growth of sea oats and reeds.

There, Lucerys Velaryon decides that Aemond Targaryen does not deserve any more of his time or tears. He spits and, from his position above Aemond, watches as his insult lands square on his uncle’s empty left eye socket.

Soothed by his nephew’s spit and his own tears as salve, Aemond’s scar glistens under the moonlight; the only time, when his grotesque face could ever come close to beauty and, still, he has Lucerys to thank for it.

For the second time that night, the wind is forced out of Lucerys’s lungs. The beating of his heart ceases, the hairs of his nape and arms stand on end, and a scream grows more insistent in his throat.

A large, almost boorish figure stands against the large window of his bedroom. If his stance is any indication, the man appears to have been observing the scenes outside in one of the larger, yet mostly empty gardens of the compound. Had there been anyone awake at the hour of the wolf, Lucerys is certain that the man would have easily been spotted.

What appears to be heavy fur is carelessly discarded upon Lucerys’s small bed. It takes a while for his vision to adjust to the dimness of the room, but even once it does, Lucerys remains mute.

Despite the shoulder-length hair, the unruly beard, the already wrinkled forehead, and the towering built of the man before him, Lucerys is certain that the intruder cannot be much older, than him.

“My God,” the man exclaims under his breath as he approaches Lucerys.

His hands are immediately brought to the boy’s face, the delicate touch being a welcome surprise, along with the man’s amazed face.

The man licks his lips, searches Lucerys’s face.

“It must truly be you.”

Fur-lined leather coat, calloused hands, deep voice, and a face, which had worried enough for a lifetime - the man could only be one person.

Years after the death of Crown Prince Jacaerys Velaryon, and even longer years, since he had given his oath, Cregan Stark finally lays eyes of the famed Lucerys Velaryon.

A delicate boy even in his early adulthood, he comes to easily realize where his dear friend’s undying devotion and desire to protect his younger brother must have come from.

There is no mistaking, for the Wolf of the North. Lucerys Velaryon does not look far from Jacaerys Targaryen. Almost similar eyes, he notes. The younger of Rhaenyra Targaryen’s sons still has the features of their supposed biological father, but it is as if the artist had taken his image and softened where the edges had been rough. His cheeks must have hollowed in his years away from palace life, but they are still rosy and soft; his nose, rather than having the sharp lines of his mother’s and older brother’s, curves delicately upward; his lips, rather than appearing in a disapproving line, sits with a plump, crimson pout.

Lucerys is pulled into a quick hug, only for Cregan to hold his face near his.

With the moonlight bleeding into the bedroom and illuminating the face before him, Cregan can count the moles scattered on Lucerys’s otherwise unblemished face. One sits close to the boy’s lips, below the right corner.

Pretty.

“f*ckers,” Sabitha complains as she rushes to shut the door.

Only then, does Lucerys realize that he and Cregan are not alone. The side of the bed is rumpled from where Sabitha had sat and next to the space, is a long overdue, welcome sight. Alysanne stands up, once Lucerys’s eyes had fallen on her.

A large smile greets the boy, quickly followed by a crushing embrace. Both sway on their feet, relief flooding in their veins.

“I missed you,” Lucerys murmurs truthfully against Alysanne’s veil.

The girl lets out a shaky laugh. “I missed you, too.” Alysanne holds her friend at arms length, silently noting the boy’s red eyes.

The issue is ignored.

“And I bring something beyond myself.” The novice turns to Cregan and gestures to her former fiancé. “Cregan Stark,” she introduces, even if such is no longer necessary.

Out of politeness, Lucerys still reaches his right arm out. His older brother’s friend shakes the outstretched hand with a small, almost patronizing smile. “Lucerys Velaryon,” the boy introduces himself. “I am pleased and relieved to meet you.”

Free of the handshake, Lucerys turns back to Alysanne.

“How did you get him in? Why did you get him in?”

His friend gestures for him to lower her voice, her right hand seemingly tuning a radio down in mid-air. “Harrold.”

She leans against the side table, just next to Sabitha’s assumed seat on the bed.

“He’s been terribly helpful. We had to wait for his turn to be the one to lock up, before we could sneak in.”

“But, shouldn’t the abbot know that you are back?”

Alysanne shrugs. “I’ll tell her tomorrow.”

To this, Lucerys merely nods. He still has no idea how they are to proceed, in truth.

Seemingly aware of his confusion and lack of political savvy, Sabitha clears her throat and volunteers more information, herself.

“We need to get you out, as soon as we can. And Cregan wanted to see you, to be certain.”

Lucerys’s shock only lasts for a while; he should have guessed as much. How Cregan had planned to recognize him, however, given that they had never met - Lucerys is not certain. “Well, I can pack my belongings and be ready tonight. We can be out before the day breaks.”

To this, Cregan shakes his head.

“Careful planning is necessary, Lucerys.”

“No one here knows, who I am,” he reasons. He truly cannot understand why they cannot just make up a fake re-assignment excuse or excommunication narrative for “Luke” and get things over with.

Sabitha is quick to pipe up. “We can’t be sure. Larys is spending too much time with Otto for me to be certain.” In a rare obvious display of anxiety, Sabitha has began biting her nails.

“Besides, we had arranged for a discrete carriage and party to escort you and Cregan out of this town,” Alysanne says as she swats Sabitha’s wet hand from her mouth.

A beat, and Lucerys’s heart jumps in his chest. Suddenly, he is transported back to that night with Harwin and his mother. Everyone knows what he is to be and where he is to be, except for himself.

Lucerys, almost immediately, grows defensive and challenging. Were they planning to discard him on the way to The North? The first and last reminder of the futile war, finally gone from their hairs?

“Then what?” He snaps. “No one had responded to our calls and I have long given up the hope for my grandfather to keep me in his memory. Am I supposed to believe that another safe lodging had been arranged for me in another foreign town?”

He had failed to notice that Sabitha had stood up from the bed and had walked towards him. She grabs his hand, brushes his skin with the thumb of her right hand.

“You’re going home,” she simply says.

Lucerys opens his mouth, only to immediately shut it; his brain had failed to function, before his reflex of complaining and begging. To save himself for looking much like a surprised, overjoyed child, he asks, “To Dragonstone?”

Sabitha shakes her head with a chuckle. “To King’s Landing. To your brothers and to your sisters.”

The boy lets the words sink in.

Sensing that her ward is overwhelmed, Sabitha continues her spiel. “Once you and Cregan are safely at a distance and far from this town and some neighboring ones, which we know to be under the influence of Otto, the travel would be much lighter. You still need to be discreet, but worrying about comfortable lodging would no longer be a problem.”

“We have arranged everything, already.” Alysanne joins them at the end of the bed. “Snaked back from The North taking the long way, so we could see the towns for ourselves and employ the help and arrangements, which we badly need,” she supplies, her voice cracking as she closes the sentence.

Suddenly, everything is too much. Lucerys’s world crashes, but it immediately rebuilds itself without crisis. Try as he might, no air enters or leaves his lungs; his chest grows heavy, as if the muscle cradled within his ribcage is about to explode; his blood is singing, but he also feels them freeze in his veins; bile rises from the depths of his belly, only to refuse to leave through his drying lips.

Could this be real?

Would he ever allow himself to believe?

The spiral comes soon, after. The lost Velaryon prince wonders of his young brothers. He could remember carrying Aegon on his back as he entertained Viserys, often set to stand on top of the stone countertop in the open kitchen. Once upon a time, it had been Lucerys, who would tuck the two youngest Targaryens in bed. He would make cold mint tea for himself, then carry an illustrated storybook into the two children’s room. Lucerys’s dark head of hair would blend in with the dim bedroom, the only light coming from a large, star-shaped lamp. It would make his brothers’ hairs glow, just as it would their large, violet eyes. The volume would have only been perused a few pages from the middle, when Aegon’s and Viserys’s eyes would flutter close.

Rather than ceasing to read, Lucerys would always finish the stories of the volumes, which he would bring for their nightly routine. He would kiss each boy goodnight on their foreheads, thrice over for himself, for his mother, and for his Aunt Laena.

Aegon and Viserys would eat anything, which Lucerys would prepare - no matter how childish or terrible they may be. Once, Lucerys had overly-seasoned the scrambled eggs with paprika. Had his brave, toddler brothers not turned red on the face, he would not have realized his grave mistake.

It had been Lucerys, who had sat through the boring sessions, where the maesters and the septas had taught the two boys to read, to write, and to “understand” the rule of the Targaryens. It had been Lucerys, who had carried them on his hips - not only, because they would have otherwise been bored with court and public appearances, but because he loves their company.

Aegon and Viserys would always look up and seek the eyes of their older brothers - would look at Jacaerys for approval, would look at Lucerys for comfort, and would look at Joffrey for endearment. He remembers their sleepy eyes, their small pouts, their soft cheeks, their chubby fingers, and their suffocating embraces.

His sweet brothers.

All of his memories, sentimentalities, fears, and hopes are crumpled and forced into a single word, for that is all, which Lucerys could manage to say.

“Truly?”

Sabitha’s eyes, too, glisten with tears. “Yes, idiot,” she replies.

Lucerys stands like a lamp post, like an idiot, as he feels Alyssane’s and Sabitha’s arms cage him in messy embraces. Both women could barely contain their squeals of happiness. The two novices jump up and down as they are attached to Lucerys.

By the time Cregan clears his throat, Lucerys feels less silly with his reactions; Alyssane sniffs to the sleeves of her habit, while Sabitha wipes a stray tear away.

“I’m so happy for you,” she tries to say less shakily. “Wait for us. We will be sure to visit you.”

At this, the haze breaks.

“You’re not coming with us?” Lucerys asks, his eyes searching his friends’ faces.

Alysanne shakes her head.

“It had not been in the plan,” Cregan interrupts. He steps forward. “We still need people here to tip us off about Otto and your uncle.”

Lucerys grows indignant. “Harrold can do that, surely!”

“We cannot leave someone as inexperienced as him all alone, Luke.” Sabitha clicks her tongue. “And do not think that I do not trust him.”

Outside, thunder rumbles. A storm brews just in time to accompany Lucerys’s souring mood. The door must have creaked open at some point as the wind howls, for Sabitha briefly leaves the boy’s side to shut the door, once more.

“Both Alysanne and I do. It’s just that we cannot be sure how easy he could be bullied around without either of us.”

“You’re a novice!” Lucerys reminds them impatiently. “There is no way you could have your eyes on him all the time, if you manage to watch him at any time, at all!”

The dark-haired woman interjects, her left hand landing on Lucerys’s left arm in solidarity and comfort. “You are a deacon and we tail you just fine,” she points out. “And before you tell us that such is different, consider that having more eyes here is simply better. Whatever one misses, the others may be able to take note of.”

“We are already outnumbered, here.” Sabitha nods towards Cregan. “We need their forces, but considering how your uncle is still cosplaying as an amnesiac and I am pretty sure that Otto is yet to see you, we would not need to go on an offense to get you out.”

No one makes a move to turn the light on, throughout the still lengthening conversation. The Wolf of the North quickly becomes more involved and assertive in the discussion, afterwards. Soon, he “asks” Lucerys, whether the boy would be ready within three days - the earliest possible day of their departure. Cregan, Alysanne, and Sabitha are yet to discuss what the two women are to do; both refuse to leave their posts and to give the cloth up, while Cregan, at the very least, wants to have them transferred to a town closer to King’s Landing, where most of the surrounding houses prove loyal to Rhaenyra and to her sons. Doubtful of the safety of leaving anyone behind, the Stark lord also hoped to have Harrold returned to his family. The boy, apparently, had refused.

“Someone must stay here to watch them,” he had resolutely told Lord Cregan Stark.

Despite having had reasoned that a new flock of allies would be sent to become informants, the boy had stood his ground. By the third day, Cregan hopes for a new batch of seminarians and deacons full of Blackwoods, Arryns, Celtigars, Masseys, and Darklyns to arrive from supposed re-assignments.

“On the evening of Friday, we would have no problem leaving. I’ll be waiting for you by the gates bordering the construction site,” Cregan says.

While Lucerys yearns to see his brothers, once more, he also could not abandon his life, there - no matter how fabricated and fake it may be.

He looks at Alysanne, then at Sabitha. Who knows how long it would take for him to see them, once more?

The chest underneath the dresser soon gains his attention. Inside, his unfinished dissertation waits for his new ideas. Shall he abandon all of his prospects, from then on?

Naturally, his thoughts stream towards what hides beneath his academic prospects.

“What about my students?”

Cregan Stark looks at him with furrowed eyebrows. “Your students?”

“Lord Stark,” Lucerys begins delicately. He bravely steps forward to look straight at his hope and savior, even if it means raising his head to meet the elder’s gaze. He pauses, masks his consideration behind assertive eyes.

Lucerys thinks back to every unanswered call and ignored message from him and his guardians - the radio silence from his supposed friends and allies. Surely, he has all the right to make them wait, as well?

The boy wets his chapped lips. “I teach in the local school. Please, allow me some more days to spend time with my students.”

Begging is not off of the table for Lucerys. It is as if his kneecaps are made of metal and the ground is a large magnet; only the inkling of a belief that pleading on his knees would do little to move Cregan is stopping Lucerys from doing so, with his hands held together in prayer for the lord and for God to indulge the innocent joy for just a while longer.

Shaking his head, Cregan replies, “I do not see how that would be an intelligent decision.” He looks towards Alyssane.

Whatever he hopes to find in the novitiate’s eyes must not be there, for the Northerner eventually averts his gaze and stares back at Lucerys.

“Every day and every hour is detrimental to your safety, my prince,” he calmly chastises. “If I could take you tonight with certainty of our not being discovered or intercepted, I would.”

This time, Lucerys grabs Cregan’s left arm and cradles the limb, until he reaches the lord’s hand and squeezes with desperation.

“Oh, please! I only ask this one thing, Lord of Winterfell. I promise that even before we reach King’s Landing, I would be a loyal friend and brother to you. I shall serve you and assist you to the best of my abilities,” Lucerys promises. “Any wish or expectation of yours, I would strive to grant, as my limited capacity would allow.”

He sinks to the ground, almost embraces the man’s legs.

“Just a few more days,” he asks, once more.

Lord Cregan Stark stares at the creature upon his feet. What should have made him appear pathetic had only endeared Lucerys more to the eyes of his brother’s great friend.

Still, the lord is about to shake his head in disagreement, when Lucerys speaks, once more.

“I shall forget your absence, when we had begged for your company and words, when the war had ended and my brother sat on The Iron Throne.”

The cool air, somehow, turns colder; the dancing and falling of the leaves seem to pause; the hooting of the owls seem to halt; and the chirping of the cicadas seem to cease.

Sabitha’s lips are slightly agape, herself surprised at Lucerys’s words. Rarely had she thought of how the boy must feel hidden in the shadows. She fears that in the years of their companionship, they had not been truly able to make him feel less mute and abandoned.

“You say that every day and every hour is vital to my survival, yet you had been deaf to our calls for so long,” he reasons. Lucerys is, frustratingly, not at all angry.

Discovering that an older prince and claimant to the throne is still alive would have hardly been a cause for celebration during such a delicate time. But, to leave him without word at all - of comfort or of any sort of acknowledgement, at least, had told Lucerys of his being discarded. He is not angry, no; he had simply been dispirited, and for long.

After going in circles with their bargaining, Lucerys finally manages to annoy Cregan into granting his request. The older man allows him to stay until Thursday evening.

Six days.

Years of having felt, as if their allies are only waiting for him to die and six days of reprieve is all Lucerys gets as consolation.

Lucerys treats the extra days as a gift, still. However, every second he spends with his students begins to feel numbered - which, they are.

A clock hangs over his head, he feels. The next day, he tries the most to be extra cheerful, despite him feeling the sleep catching up to him. Dark circles as large as the minted dragons found in the family vaults decorate the skin beneath the boy’s hazel eyes. If any of his students had noticed, none of them had said a word, nor acted on their observations.

Aemond, however, did.

“You look unwell,” his uncle says as he sits down beside Lucerys. The citrus tree now bears more fruit, with a few decorating the ground.

Lucerys hums, offers the other half of his sandwich. Nothing special, today; it is just shredded tuna and provolone between two pieces of rye bread. “I did not sleep well,” he admits.

Admittedly, Lucerys finds the resumption of some form of routine in his life comforting. The school trip, immediately followed by a few days of rest and by the arrival of Cregan Stark had thrown the boy’s world off of its axis. Rather than vibrate with excitement for what he knows is about to come, Lucerys now almost fears it. The thought of change makes his breathing shallow, causes pinpricks on every inch of his skin.

Beside him, Aemond chews on their shared sandwich, his eye trained ahead. He leans slightly towards his companion, his palms still itching to touch the boy next to him.

“I am sorry for what had happened,” his uncle mumbles.

Coward.

“For what you did,” Lucerys corrects.

A hum is all that comes from his uncle.

Typical.

The haze of the early afternoon begins to make Lucerys sleepier. Considering how there is nothing left to discuss with Aemond, he brushes the wayward leaves off of his black trousers and moves to get up.

Earth grinds beneath Lucerys’s palms, smears his white skin. He could have stood up with no problem, had Aemond not pulled him back down - one of his uncle’s hands wrapping around the younger boy’s left wrist.

“I am sorry for what I did.”

“Sure.”

Lucerys sharply tugs his wrist away, itching to look for a vacant desk - preferably in the library, to nap away the remaining forty-five minutes of the lunch break. Aemond stops him, still. This time, he puts both of his hands on his nephew. Aemond’s left hand only pushes Lucerys’s right thigh onto the ground for a few seconds. It is all he needs; Lucerys had been too stunned to fight, anyway.

Aemond looks around, surprised at his own strength and demeanor. He is still trying to school his crumpled face into gentleness or, at least, neutrality, when Lucerys punches him on the right shoulder.

“What do you f*cking want?”

His uncle fumbles with the rings on his fingers, paying close attention to the Valyrian Steel ring. “I want to apologize,” he begins. The sandwhich had been discarded on the ground, grilled tuna spilling onto the brown soil.

A waste, Lucerys thinks.

“Please,” Aemond adds.

Salty sweat pools at the small of Lucerys’s back, his hands feel gritty from the soil, and his eyelids are heavy and in need of sleep. He breathes out with the wind and slumps against the tree trunk. Looking up at Aemond through his overgrown dark hair, he allows Aemond to go on.

Aemond’s breath hitches, but he quickly recovers. Licking his lips, he turns almost fully to Lucerys. “I am sorry, truly.”

“I have heard it, Brother.” The dark haired boy’s eyebrows furrow as he shakes his head. “I understand that. May I please leave, now?”

A sparrow chirps from one of the branches, hounding Aemond for wasting the little prince’s time.

“Please, don’t go.” Aemond pauses, gathers his thoughts. “I did not mean to do that. It had been presumptive of me and no, you had never acted in any way, which should have made me think that you would ever want our friendship to continue as such.”

Lucerys pulls at the grass at his sides as he hums.

“If you would need more time away from me,” Aemond begins as he takes Lucerys’s hands in his. “I would understand, truly.”

Unable to control his face, Lucerys raises an eyebrow at his uncle, pretending not to notice the pairs of eyes boring towards them, like lasers. “Okay.” He pulls his hands away. “Can we start with you not grabbing me at every point?” He grabs the half-eaten sandwich and dumps it into the lunchbox to busy himself.

“Sorry.”

“You keep on repeating yourself. If that is all, Aemond, can I go?”

His uncle looks at him with a confused, almost desperate expression, before he nods repeatedly. “Alright. In a while.”

“Do you have anything else to say?”

Aemond’s posture relaxes. “I would…” The older man stutters around more words - variations of apologies, explanations, and comfort. It takes a click of Lucerys’s tongue for him to quit his choking.

“You can take as much time to yourself, truly. I would quit following you around. Just…” He trails. His single working eye wanders to the sky, as if Aemond would find the appropriate next words up there.

Lucerys threatens to leave, once more, praying for Aemond to finally let him take his much needed nap.

His left hand is pulled, once more and the next sight he registers is his uncle’s purple eye staring straight at him, almost pleading. “Just do not push me away,” he finally says. “Do not leave me.”

Lucerys almost laughs at his face. However, he would lie if he says that, right then, he had not considered telling Aemond that such is exactly what he plans to do.

“Is that all?”

The loss of Aemond’s patience should have been predicted by Lucerys, but the fact is not preceded by much clue or sign. Suddenly, his uncle’s fangs are bared, his face crumpled in frustration, and his nails digging into both of Lucerys’s arms.

It is hardly the place or time.

More eyes are directed to the two deacons, both teachers and students turning into spectators into such an unbecoming sight. Lucerys is shaken to face a displeased Aemond, who lets go and calms himself all too late.

“Brother Aemond, Brother Lucerys,” Mr. Byron, the custodian, interrupts. “The principal bids you both a good afternoon. However, she says that it might be best for you both to take your discussion elsewhere.”

The wrinkles around Mr. Byron’s eyes become more apparent with his kind smile. Lucerys returns the kind gesture, draws his eyes to one of the second floor windows. Surely enough, Mrs. Connington watches from her perch with a disapproving glare.

Lucerys turns to their mediator. “I’m sorry for bothering you, Ser. But, that would not be necessary. Brother Aemond and I were just about to leave,” he says apologetically.

He ignores the smoke coming out of his uncle’s nostrils and walks ahead, once Mr. Byron steps away. Aemond, however, does not seem to understand the dismissal. The older man hounds Lucerys immediately, without considering whether Mr. Byron had still been within earshot or not.

“I know that you plan on leaving.”

The words stop Lucerys on his tracks.

Paranoia makes the boy fear that everyone has began listening in into their conversation. Suddenly, the clocks have stopped and the breeze has halted. He could hear the pounding of his heart through his own ears. Surely, everyone can hear that, too?

“What did you say?” He hopes that the stutter had escaped Aemond.

His uncle’s eyebrows relax, but his jaw tenses.

Lucerys repeats his question. Whether more eyes watch them or their spectators have thinned out, he no longer cares.

Aemond bows his head, as if it is him, who should feel defeated. “Lucerys,” he simply whispers.

The name finally clicks in the younger boy’s mind. It echoes inside his skull, blocks out the chatter around them and the breathing of the Earth.

He is certain that his uncle is still speaking, but he no longer understands what the man is saying, nor did he care.

Lucerys’s eyelids grow heavier with every step as he walks away from Aemond. Sleep would come easy, and so would a temporary escape.

When Lucerys’s eyes cease their fluttering, he spots Sabitha’s apologetic stare from the other side of school grounds.

This time, she mouths nothing to Lucerys - only watches as he turns on his heels.

“It is not like that,” a somber voice explains.

The person on the other side of the confessional merely hums.

Lucerys looks around only to realize that he is back inside the church. For a moment, no additional words echo out of the wooden walls. He figures that the priest must be doing the usual rapport-building tactic of shutting up, until the penitent begins talking.

Pinching his thighs, Lucerys walks closer towards the voices.

“Well?” The penitent questions. Lucerys is almost certain that he knows who it must be, but the fog of sleep seems to help the identity of the speaker evade him.

The sound of wood creaking follows the sharp interjection, the priest behind the curtain leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “I am not the one, who must speak,” he says calmly. “I am merely here to listen.”

“He has a c*nt.”

Lucerys could not help the giggle that escapes him.

Gods above. ‘What must they be talking about?’ He thinks.

“Ah,” the priest begins. “What does this mean to you?”

The penitent is silent for much longer. “I do not know,” he admits.

“Do you think that this only makes you guilty of breaking your vows?”

Now, Lucerys is invested. Front-row seat for a priest’s struggle; he almost does not feel bad for snooping around and seeking out information, which he definitely should not know. It is a dream, after all.

A cough announces that the penitent is still inside, rather than magically vanishing in shame or desire not to further make his weakness known. “Maybe,” the bigot admits.

“What was it like?” Comes the surprising response.

Even the penitent must be surprised, for his voice turns more sober. “Like any of it is like.”

For a moment, Lucerys thinks that the priest had finally given up trying to get further details. However, he does not prescribe any words of comfort or a set of prayers to be done.

“We did it in here, you know?” The man sniffs.

Lucerys’s heartbeat quickens, his knees buckling. He steps forward, lays his right hand against the wooden panel concealing the guilty man within the shadows.

“I snaked my filthy hands up his legs, to his thighs,” the penitent says with a shaky demeanor. “Finally felt between his thighs and I swear, I knew what heaven was.”

“Is that not blasphemy, my child?”

A chuckle reverberates through the wood of the confessional, through the stone of the church. “You would not know. It had not been you, right there.”

Again, the priest hums.

“He tried to resist, you know?”

Finally, the young deacon steps back. His senses seem to flow into him gradually, but surely. Disgust creeps into him, too, makes him gag as the bile rises up from his stomach.

Through the thick dark red curtain, Lucerys can imagine the priest shaking his head.

“I was overjoyed, perhaps even too enthusiastic.” The man’s voice breaks and he sobs, as if it had been him, who had been violated. “He was so beautiful.”

Lucerys could no longer remain, so he backs down and speed-walks away to the other end of the church. But, it cannot be right; he could still hear those animals’ voices echoing. This time, much louder.

The boy tries to run, but his limbs are not as fast as the sound of the monstrous confessions.

“I would do it again,” the penitent admits. “And again, and again, and again, and again.”

He wants to scream, but instead, he wakes up with a gasp.

“f*ck,” Lucerys says, when he returns back to Earth. He blames the disappointment and annoyance of the past few days for his nightmares.

Powerless, he had mostly stewed alone in his own damning thoughts for a day or two. Finding out that his uncle had recalled at least some of his memories is enough to jeopardize the boy and his allies. The only fact preventing him from running away on his own is his, probably idiotic, belief that they are at a sort of stalemate. If Aemond’s memory of the war has returned, he would undoubtedly also know of Shipbreaker Bay. Divulging Lucerys’s identity to anyone other than his viper of a grandfather would mostly be useless.

What would a small town full of common folk romanticising the death of Lucerys Velaryon do at the revelation of his being alive? Not much in favor of the usurper’s faction, for sure.

And if Lucerys identifies his uncle as the Kinslayer, what would the very same town do? The best case would be to have him detained in the local prison, until Aegon III’s forces arrive and the worst case would be to allow a mob of angry common folk kill him, themselves.

Lucerys had already contemplated about his uncle assassinating him, himself. In all honesty, Aemond had not appeared to have such a desire at the moment. Even if he did, Lucerys doubts his capabilities to do so immediately. Whether it be the fog of the return of his memories messing with his cognition, cowardice, or lack of creativity at finding an appropriate means to kill Lucerys - again, barring him from reverting to his true murderer self is no longer much of a concern for the long lost Heir of the Tides. His only true fear had been Aemond going running to his grandfather about Lucerys and his survival. Considering that Lucerys had still awoken from his slumber relatively unharmed, he would think that his uncle had kept his mouth shut.

That, and Aemond’s relentless attempts at engaging him in conversation - in the presence of others and in their lonesome.

As if automatically, ants begin crawling all over the boy’s skin, whenever his uncle mentions his name or tries to get his attention. He wants none of Aemond’s words, none of his company, and none of his presence.

What Lucerys had wanted had been an audience with Cregan Stark, and soon.

Catching the older man was also not all too easy; Lucerys did not know where his acquaintance had been staying and no one had known that the Wolf of the North had been in town, which meant that he could not really catch him in his daily errands.

Alysanne and Sabitha had been more than happy to pass the request on, but Lucerys is done with being left out of “grown-up” discussions. It had taken a night for Cregan to be snuck in, once more. They had ended up discussing by the crypts - closer to the exits and all that. Lucerys would lie, if he would say that he had not been the least bit scared.

Cregan had been trying to make the transfer of their allies into town much faster, he swears - explained that conversing discretely would take some time. He also understandably pointed out that it had been Lucerys, who had asked for more time to prepare for his departure.

Taking the length of correspondences with everyone involved in Lucerys’s escape, the boy doubts that anything could be arranged sooner. The established route and plan by Cregan and Alysanne would have to be disrupted, only posing the possibility of things going awry at some point.

By the end of the night, Lucerys had assured Cregan that he would not mind sticking with the original plan and leaving on the already established date of his departure, the cause of their meeting in the first place turning into more of a polite, ignorable request, rather than a must.

Groaning, Lucerys stretches his arms, feels the knots on his back relax just as the sun begins peeking over the trees in senescence. He pads to the small closet and retrieves a white button-down polo and a pair of black trousers. Lucerys repeats his morning routine with his eyes still drooping; brushes his teeth, bathes, dries himself, applies the deodorant and lotion most of his peers forego, sprays himself with a modestly priced bottle of mist, and dresses himself.

Waking up much earlier, than he usually does presents him with a number of benefits. He is in no rush to get to the refectory and would be in no rush to finish his breakfast and to walk to the school.

Lucerys picks at his cereal for about ten minutes, before he decides to finish the remaining bites and milk of his small breakfast.

“You are not well,” Alysanne states as they both place their used dishes on one of the large collection tables.

The younger boy shoots a tired smile her way. “Forgive a boy for being paranoid.”

Aemond still sits on one of the long benches eating his breakfast, Lucerys notices. Both he and Alysanne head towards the large dark oak doors.

“Your fears are not unfounded. We have always known that your uncle is dangerous.”

Quick steps ring behind them and only a few moments later, Sabitha joins the two of them.

Mindful of the other people milling about the compound, Alysanne lowers her voice. “I’m sorry that we had not gotten you out sooner.”

The apology tugs at Lucerys’s heart, overshadows his anxieties about his uncle.

His friends had done all that they can. In fact, they had been more cautious, than him. There is nothing to apologize for. Lucerys’s assurance is loud and immediate.

For perhaps the first time, a cooing sound comes out of Sabitha’s thin lips. “Oh, Lucy.”

“The f*ck was that sound?” Lucerys incredulously asks without mind. They have left the compound and are now trekking up one of the side streets’ slight slope towards the school.

Neither Lucerys, nor Alysanne gets the chance to tease Sabitha further for the exaggerated and uncharacteristically childish reaction. They have hardly completed turning a corner, when they are greeted by a smiling Aemond Targaryen.

“Good morning,” he greets, ignoring the yelps of the four people in front of him.

Alysanne and Sabitha glare at him as Lucerys lets out an expletive.

The older man falls into step with the group, all seemingly ignoring what they all already know; the jig is up.

“You’re joining us for the walk,” Alysanne phrases as a question. She stumbles on her words, clears her throat. “Aemond?”

She would not have addressed him as a prince, even if they had all been back in The Red Keep five years ago.

Lucerys shoots her a disapproving glance, which both Alysanne and Aemond ignore.

“If such would be alright,” Aemond says. “I actually just tried to catch up for this.” Trying not to be left by his speed-walking peers, he hurriedly retrieves a few volumes, a leather-bound notebook, and a black fountain pen from his black leather briefcase. How its contents had not spilled is a miracle.

The four set of steps pause as the older Targaryen hands the clutter to his nephew.

Lucerys takes his belongings, the items not looking as stable in his two-handed grip as they did in Aemond’s single hand. “Luc—,” Aemond begins to explain, before he bites his tongue.

With everyone having had resumed their walk, another pause is made. Sabitha’s eyes work much like daggers.

“Luke,” Aemond corrects himself.

Sabitha tuts. “Brother Luke,” she further corrects.

Looking more agreeable, than he usually does, Lucerys observes his uncle nod almost pleasantly. “Brother Luke had left his possessions in the refectory after breakfast.”

Embarrassment seeps through Lucerys. It is never pleasant for someone, whom one has been avoiding - much less someone, whom one has been treating quite coldly, to do any favor for the offending party. It makes one look immature, impolite, and irrational.

His thanks comes in a murmur.

“You’re welcome,” Aemond replies cheerily, as if to further shame him and his tantrum.

Covering the half of her face directly under the sun’s shine, Sabitha joins the conversation. “Are you up to anything in particular these days, Aemond?” She throws him a meaningful look.

Lucerys’s uncle chooses to play dumb. “Like what, Sister?”

“Anything, really. Hobbies, interests, conversations, and such.”

The day is too good to act prissy and offended at the insinuation, Aemond decides. “Nothing much interesting in the Order, Sister.” He pauses, until they all make another turn. “Except for the company of your dear friend, here.”

Sabitha’s scoff goes in tune with the clicking of Lucerys’s tongue and Alysanne’s chuckle.

“Forgive me,” Alysanne pipes up. She points towards her own left eye socket. “Are the children not…” She could hardly think of the appropriate word to complete her question, but curiosity gets the better of her. “Afraid of the eyepatch? You used to just wear a prosthetic eye, no?”

Lucerys’s uncle is far from offended. The grin on Aemond’s face pisses Lucerys off; had his uncle really wanted to kill him over something that he would eventually find amusing?

“No,” Aemond replies, shaking his head. “They think it looks cool, actually.”

A car zooms past them, its hood open now that the rays of the sun have turned less harsh. There is a restored chill in the air; none of the walking parents or students is in a hurry during the morning walk to the school, anymore. The sidewalk merges to a narrower path and while Lucerys, Alysanne, and Sabitha would usually walk up in a single file line at that particular part of the way, the group, instead, splits into two pairs.

“Good morning, brothers, sisters,” a father dressed in a modest camel-colored houndstooth suit greets. He tips his dark brown fedora and gestures for his son to do the same.

Smiles and pleasantries are briefly exchanged, before the two Swygerts walk ahead.

Most parents are partial to his friends, Lucerys realizes; Alysanne and Sabitha are crowd favorites, if the number of parents trying to get their attention is any indication. Throughout the remaining stretch of the morning walk, a few more parents and students throw their welcome greetings politely, briefly interrupting the mindless small talk of the four people in habit about the weather, the week’s catch, and even politics at some points.

With the way that they look and the way that they generally conduct themselves, the four people almost completely blend with the morning scene in that small, insignificant town in the Stormlands - four members of the church honestly serving the community. Lucerys can almost pretend that they are, truly, just that.

“Thank you for being lovely, Lucy,” Irri sweetly chimes as she hands Lucerys a folded piece of paper. He had just finished sending Corwyn off, having had to walk to the boy to the gate, himself.

Lucerys is surprised at the sudden gift, but the smile that graces his face comes automatically.

Written in a loopy and scribbly script are the words, ‘To: Lucy’ at the front half of the paper and ‘From: Irri’ at the bottom of it. In the middle is a curious, but artistic choice; dark clouds partially cover a full yellow-orange moon.

He opens the makeshift card and sees the fairly recognizeable image of himself and a gaggle of kids. The deacon giggles at the white shift embroidered with rubies, which Irri had dressed him in. It is easy to ignore, his eyes focusing instead on the illustrations of his students. Irri, with her limited capacity, had still tried her best to distinguish her classmates. Among the audience to the figure of Lucerys sat reading a storybook are Royce dressed in a striped tee shirt - as he usually is, Tyanna dozes off on Lucerys’s lap, Prudence - her red hair tied in pigtails, pokes at Myrcella - who is set apart by her full bangs, Jasper holding his favorite red airplane, freckled Quentyn wearing a large pair of green eye glasses over his green eyes, and Cassandra wearing the pair of striped rainbow socks, rather than slippers. The image tugs at Lucerys’s aging heart, makes a tear fall from his left eye.

Quickly swiping the tear away, Lucerys lets out a shaky, “Aw.” He pats Irri on the head.

“You are such a sweet darling. Thank you for this. It is not even my birthday!”

Irri shrugs and looks up at him. Much like him, she seems to be holding back tears. “It’s not for your birthday, silly.” She pouts.

Lucerys lowers himself to the girl’s height, sits on his heels. “Then, what is it for?” He watches Irri’s furrowed eyebrows and worries further. Sometimes, children in trouble become more affectionate.

“Nothing.”

He smiles. “Then, you are even sweeter.”

The rest of the class have began filing out of the classroom, leaving most of the wooden chairs empty. Lucerys leads Irri to one of them.

“Is something the matter?”

Irri uses her right hand to tuck a few strands of her dark hair behind her ear. The boy allows his student to take her time; it is never wise to rush people in talking, children included.

She harrumphs and crosses her arms in front of her. “I just had a bad dream.”

“Again?”

His student’s response is a shy nod. Irri looks up, her eyes glazed over.

Somehow, a foreboding feeling creeps into Lucerys. His heart drops. “Is it about me?”

“Yes.”

Despite the irrational fear underneath his skin, Lucerys manages to put out another smile - one, which he hopes to be comforting. “Ah, my sweet Irri.”

The thought of any of his children being worried about him in any way is enough to make him hate himself.

“It is just a dream,” he gently explains. “Sometimes, we think too much about something or see someone or something so much everyday that our brain ends up taking them with us as we sleep.”

Irri, still looking doubtful, glances up at him. “Really?” She adjusts herself on the chair, listening more intently to her teacher.

“Mhm.” Ankles and thighs numb from his position, Lucerys decides to sit on a lotus position for the remainder of their conversation. “What matters is this.” He gestures around them. “What we have now and what we do here - not in our dreams, is what counts.”

The words successfully make Irri’s eyebrows relax, which Lucerys hopes is a sign that he had eased the girl’s troubles even a little bit.

Tapping the table with her left index finger, Irri hums. “That makes sense.” She points at the card containing her drawing. “Should I get that, then?”

“Absolutely not,” Lucerys giggles out. “This is a wonderful gift and I would love to have one of your early artworks, once you become a famous artist.” He punctuates his words with a tap on Irri’s nose.

Finally, the girl breaks into a large smile, her missing front tooth not at all making her any less charming.

They are interrupted by four knocks, courtesy of Aemond.

“Hello, Irri,” he greets. “It is time for everyone to go home.”

Lucerys stands up fully, helps Irri off of the chair.

“I know, but Lucy and I were having a talk,” the girl explains.

Aemond walks into the classroom, his briefcase swinging as he goes. “Lucy is a bit chatty. I hope that you had some words in.”

Irri scrunches her face, offended on behalf of her favorite teacher. “That’s mean.” She looks up at Lucerys expectantly.

“Teacher Aemond was just kidding, sweetling,” he chuckles out.

Embarrassed, Irri bows her head. “Oh.”

“That’s alright,” Aemond interrupts. “I am happy that Lucy has brave people like you defending him.”

Lucerys’s uncle is surprisingly good with children, the boy notes. It is wonder that he had not appreciated such an attribute much sooner. The older deacon’s words earn him a toothy smile from Irri.

“I was, however, hoping to borrow Lucy. Can I do that?”

Irri lets out a cheery, “Of course.” She waddles to her backpack, still set on her own desk, and slings the two straps over her shoulders. “I was just leaving.”

Before she could make another step, Lucerys tuts at Aemond.

“We can walk you down, Irri,” he offers.

Aemond shoots him a mock look of surprise. “We’re being chaperones, now, too?”

Such is how Lucerys learns a disheartening fact about his uncle, one which makes him re-think his initial appreciation of Aemond’s supposed skill with dealing with children.

Walking down the set of steps nearest to their classrooms behind six children, Lucerys glares at Aemond.

“You leave your classroom with the children still inside?” The distaste is clear in his voice.

Aemond, of course, does not seem to take him seriously. “I come back,” he assures Lucerys. “Who do you think locks up the classroom?”

Fair enough.

Seeing as they are already in the presence of their students, both deacons decide to stay longer to ensure that their students are picked up by their respective parents and guardians. The day has been long, which Lucerys guesses is the reason why the usually kindly bunch have gone much colder. It is the first time for him to see his students’ parents and guardians during the day; the school’s security guard and the aides usually see the children off at the end of the class, with the teachers staying behind to tidy up their respective classrooms.

He is glad that it would probably be the last. Lucerys still does not take the feeling of being disliked well, apparently.

“Is there a particular reason why you wanted to borrow me from Irri?” Lucerys asks Aemond just to break the silence. They have been walking for a few blocks already and his uncle is still yet to utter a single word.

The awkwardness sucks, mostly because the afternoon is utterly lovely. An orange glow comes from the sun and casts the sky and the clouds in a myriad of colors beyond blue.

His uncle grunts, “Not really.”

For a moment, Aemond appears to consider, whether he would continue speaking or not - a funny sight, for his uncle used to demand an eye with the audience of noble houses without problem.

“I had thought that it would be nice to walk you home for the last few days, before you leave.”

Overhead, sparrows tweet about the citrus trees lining the paved sidewalk. Lucerys watches them as he tells Aemond that such is a reason, though.

With the days turning shorter, the sun has began its quick descent behind the waves. There are still a handful of people going about their chores, making their last purchases of the day, going for a few treats, and walking along the shore on the other side of the road. However, they are not accompanied by as many people as they had been during the earlier days of the summer season.

Relative silence stretches on, with Aemond ignoring his nephew’s attempt at starting a conversation. Lucerys does not mind the mostly quiet walk; the skies are pretty enough and he gets to take joy at the sight of the people he has come to know with a mostly empty brain.

Such is why the next gesture would have been missed by Lucerys, had it not been for the bell ringing as Aemond opens the glass-panelled door of the ice cream parlor.

“Go on, then,” he says as he moves his head towards the shoppe’s interior.

Lucerys stands confused amidst the chirping birds.

He finally moves, when Aemond all, but grabs his left arm and shoves him into the ice cream parlor.

Against what must be an unnamed, but universally understood rule of not leaning on the display glass, the older Targaryen rests his weight on the glass with his right elbow. The poor staff truly does not have much choice, so they allow it with a huff - the most one can do against a man in church garb, Lucerys supposes.

“Don’t tell me that my nephew has lost his spoiled appetite.”

Lucerys almost hits Aemond. He is pretty certain that the staff had heard his address. When the wide-eyed girl turns, Lucerys turns to his uncle and brings his right index finger to his mouth.

He quickly checks on the staff, who appears to be busy re-arranging the well-arranged napkins. “Are you crazy?” The boy mouths towards his non-amnesiac, but surely insane uncle.

The brute only smiles, his teeth gleaming as the white light of the display glass hits them. Coupled with his leather eyepatch, the image would have been chilling, had Lucerys not been quite certain of his resurrected uncle’s relative harmlessness.

Aemond taps the fingers of his right hand on the flat roof of the display case. “Well?” He inquires. “What do you want?”

Knowing that he does not have much change with him, Lucerys adamantly confirms if Aemond means for the dessert to be a treat. “Are you paying?” Lucerys tilts his head, suspicious.

“What do you think, genius?”

Good enough.

Lucerys enthusiastically comes closer to the array of ice cream tubs, eyes scanning the available flavors. Despite the attractive display of colors and toppings, Lucerys is fairly happy with his usual order, which he had loved, since childhood. Still, he pauses to consider the light orange ice cream with creamy white and deep amber swirl, blush-colored chunks, and light yellow shavings. On top of the display glass is a small chalkboard with a mouthwatering illustration of a sundae advertising the ice cream parlor’s special summer flavor - peach and ginger medley sorbet with a marzipan swirl. By the looks of it, the flavor’s creator did not skimp on peach chunks and ginger shavings, either.

His uncle must have taken notice of Lucerys’s doubts. Aemond rolls his eye and knocks on the display glass once, prompting his nephew to take his pick. “You can get as many scoops as you want, Taobus,” he assures with a wolfish smile.

Lucerys could gag.

Instead, his eyes fly to the staff at the back of the counter in the hopes of the girl missing the word, which is definitely not in the common tongue.

“Aemond,” he warns.

The older Targaryen holds his hands up in a display of defeat. “I kid, I kid.”

Prompted by the circ*mstances, Lucerys steps closer to his uncle, his left hand grabbing his uncle’s right hand. “You cannot just joke about like that.” He lets go of Aemond.

His uncle’s response is simple.

“Would you not leave if I do as you want?”

Lucerys is left speechless.

Somewhere at the farther end of the counter, the staff tuts, perhaps beginning to feel impatient at the two loitering people, who may or may not even be paying customers.

Aemond shrugs, his lips pulled down on either side. “Thought as much.” He nods towards the display case. “Your pick? Lest you want us to be kicked out of this perfectly lovely shoppe.”

By the time the pair walks out of the ice cream parlor, Aemond has a wafer cone on one hand and Lucerys’s right hand on the other. His muscles strain as he attempts to hold his briefcase in place under one arm.

Even with five scoops - vanilla, cherry, mint chocolate chip, the summer flavor, and lemon and raspberry sherbet, in his own cup, Lucerys still greedily eyes his uncle’s cone of a single scoop of dark chocolate ice cream.

“I just want to try it,” he says under his breath.

Begrudgingly, Aemond holds his treat out and lets Lucerys lick the sticky cream. His nephew keeps his promise and sticks with two licks.

A delighted sound leaves Lucerys’s stained lips. “Lovely!” He exclaims. “Almost as good as the one Maester Gerardys used to bring me, whenever I am about to get better.”

“He gives you ice cream, when you are sick?” Aemond asks with an eyebrow raised. Rather than heading left at the corner of the main street, he crosses to the other side.

While surprised, Lucerys still follows suit. “Yup. As a treat for doing well.”

“You were really raised with particiption prizes, weren’t you?” Aemond is in disbelief, but rather than feeling the customary ugly pang of bitterness, he only feels a tug at his chest.

His small nephew, large teeth jutting out from his pout, lying on his sick bed and getting excited at the bowl of ice cream being brought by Old Man Gerardys, after days of pain…

Lucerys only huffs, chooses to ignore the snide remark. He is not about to allow Aemond to ruin his mood this close to his departure.

The pair reaches the beaten old dock and heads onwards, towards where there is less roadside plants and more sand.

“So,” Lucerys begins. He has no idea what Aemond plans for the rest of the afternoon, but speaking does not seem to be among them. “Do you have any plans now that you… You know?”

Aemond is the first to sit. He sets his briefcase on his left side, pats the space to his right once for Lucerys to settle next to him.

Immediately, Lucerys obeys. He is still unsatisfied of his uncle’s unspeaking demeanor, but he does decide to be more patient.

Only once he has licked the last of his ice cream and munched on the last bit of his cone does Aemond reply. “I have no idea,” he admits.

“No plots of taking what you think is yours?” Lucerys spoons some of the sherbet and gently places the wooden spoon inside his mouth.

Rather than take offense from his nephew’s remarks, Aemond replies rather sensibly. “Someone already sits on the throne, no?” He stretches his legs in front of him and sits perfectly still. “Besides, I do not mind the cloth.”

Lucerys makes a face. “Are you being serious or are you making fun of me?” The boy tilts his head, the gesture and his large hazel eyes reminding Aemond of an owl.

“I’m being very serious, nephew.”

“I know that you were weaned on holy water and Catholic guilt, but I did not think that you would carry that to adulthood.”

Seeing as it would be too late for him to consider, whether his uncle would be offended on behalf of his zealot lot, Lucerys lets the quip simmer. He is utterly fortunate, for Aemond merely chuckles. The older man opens his mouth close to Lucerys’s spoon, a gesture asking for some of the ice cream that Lucerys has begun struggling to finish. It is a wonder what a brief bout of memory loss has done to his uncle.

Once Aemond swallows what he comments to be “re-packaged toothpaste with chunks of chocolate” and licks his lips, he resumes narrating what Lucerys could only call as a strange manifestation of childhood trauma.

“I did study, you know?” Aemond explains. “My grandsire had been supervising my stint in the monastery, but I did not hate the theology or the strictness.”

“How did they even sell your current identity to you?” Lucerys asks.

Aemond shakes his head, his silver eyebrows suddenly furrowing. “The memories weren’t all gone.”

Lucerys, of course, interrupts. “That makes it even more impossible.” He scoops out the melted ice cream from the bottom of the plastic cup and shoves the last of the treat into his mouth. Truthfully, the dessert has turned into a rather disgusting concoction.

“Let me finish,” Aemond says flatly. “I merely meant that some faces seemed familiar. Waking up alone in a hospital made me scared, I think. Seeing my grandsire’s face felt infinitely better, than being crowded over by the doctors and the nurses. I must have recognized him and trusted him enough.”

“What was the story?”

The silver-haired man looks on, towards the calm waters where the sun has began sinking. “That I was in an accident during a missionary work, which I had joined.” In retrospect, Aemond should have probably probed further.

Stuck with nothing else to do, Lucerys fidgets with the empty plastic cup and spoon as he waits for his uncle to continue his story. Most of the crowd has cleared, by then. The boy could no longer busy himself with snooping on other people’s business at the beach.

“All I was told was that I was studying to become a priest. I have tried to think about the cover; the Hightowers has a fairly good grip on several parishes. Otto must have thought it easier to have his friends inside the faith babysit me, rather than deal with me, himself.” There is no trace of hurt or bitterness in Aemond’s voice as he says, “There is not much use for a prince, who has no memory or strategy to show for.”

Perhaps too soon, than either prince would have wanted, the sky has now taken the watercolor tinge of pink and purple - the customary appearance of the sky, before it grows dark. Lucerys waits a bit longer for the sky to turn dimmer to ask the question, whose answer he has dreaded to know for days. “Did you tell anyone?” He turns to Aemond, eyes glistening both by the faint light from the few stars already hanging on the sky and by the tears glazing over his irises.

Aemond looks to him, confused.

“Did you tell anyone that your memories have returned?”

His question is punctuated by the growing sound of the waves crashing against the stone and the sand. Ambiance and setting, if one would think. The scene could have done without them, however.

The answer comes plainly and it makes Lucerys wonder why he had even feared, at all.

“No.”

If Aemond’s raised eyebrow is any indication, Lucerys would think that his uncle is quite incredulous. He stares at Lucerys much, much longer, as if his nephew is an idiot, who had grown even more idiotic heads.

His uncle, surprisingly, lays himself down on the sand - as if such is the most natural thing to do. “I have never even thought of it, Taobus,” Aemond says as he settles his own hands on his chest.

A f*cking psycho.

“This conversation is starting to bore me, Lucerys,” the freak says, more to the sky, than to his companion. “I take no interest on my own life. When are you leaving, anyway?”

Lucerys silences the part of him that seems to protest at every mention of his departure. “Thursday evening,” comes the simple response.

“The evening after tomorrow, then?”

“Yup.”

For a beat, Aemond looks both measures alarmed and disappointed. “That soon, huh?”

Moonlight casts an even bluer glow on Aemond’s Targaryen features. He raises slightly from his prone position, lifting his chest up and coming closer to Lucerys, who barely manages to stop himself from flinching away.

“Well, is there anything else on your Charming Coastal Town Bucket List we can tick off tonight?”

Lucerys could think and think, but he doubts that he would come up with many useful answers. There are, after all, very little left to do in a town as small as such and which he had called home for years, now. So, instead of giving a helpful answer, he pokes a stick at Aemond. “Is that an offer? That is strangely generous of you.” He raises his head further, tips his pretty nose up.

Aemond feels the traitorous urge to pull at the boy’s curls, to bring his head down and to humble him a little. He has been far too kind to Lucerys, he thinks. “Think of it as an apology gift and years worth of birthday gifts from your uncle,” he says with his fists clenched and with his face, miraculously, pleasant.

“Hm.” Lucerys pretends to think.

The boy maintains the guise of considering his non-existent options as his eyes wander. He scans their surroundings, is certain that they are now alone.

Finally, he names the only remaining exploit, which he still wishes for. “Let’s go to the library.”

“What would we do in the town library?” Aemond asks with clear confusion on his usually stony face.

“The library in our wing, idiot.”

Aemond, now, truly looks disappointed. “What could that backwards hole have for us to see, Lucerys?” His uncle complains, and complains, and complains, and complains, and complains.

The owls screech in time with Lucerys’s tut. “I thought that I get to choose what we do, Qȳbor?” The brat pouts, as if such would make the small library in their side of the compound more interesting.

“Fine,” Aemond concedes. In a scene, which any Targaryen would have thought laughably impossible, he looks up at Lucerys with amusem*nt. “Alright,” he repeats.

With Lucerys’s head already bowed from his pouting spectacle, Aemond gains the leverage he had needed.

Aemond brushes his much sharper nose against his nephew’s upturned nose.

Before Lucerys could look at him with alarm, he forces himself up and shakes the sand off of his black trousers. Lucerys is hastily pulled up by Aemond, who ignores his nephew’s cold hands and stiff posture.

“Off we go, Lucy.”

Childish it may be, but Aemond and Lucerys next find themselves suppressing their laughs as they stumble through the stone halls of the church.

“This is not good, Lucerys,” Aemond admonishes from outside the wine cupboards.

Something clatters and while Aemond fears that his nephew had broken a bottle of wine, he is more worried about the sound possibly tipping someone awake about the two rats messing with the Eucharist emblems.

“But, killing me was fine?” Lucerys grumbles as he taps Aemond with the bottle on his hand. The boy almost looks ghostly with his nightgown, having had changed into more comfortable clothes, before he had dragged Aemond into more questionable pursuits.

He pulls his uncle away, towards the direction of the seminary. They would have been in bigger trouble, had Aemond not remembered to lock the doors behind them.

“Spiteful bitch,” Aemond spits as he walks back and catches up to Lucerys.

His nephew shakes his head with exaggeration and looks towards the older man with the air of a strict librarian. “Thou shall not curse, especially not within the house of God.”

Aemond hooks the boy’s right arm with his, takes the bottle of wine from Lucerys. “No such commandment.” Holding the wine bottle out, he inspects the fairly new label of the alcohol.

In front of the wine bottle is a cream-colored sticker, an imitation of a watercolor painting of a cottage overran by vines and the year 1943 plastered on.

“Do not be a snob. It is the best that they have,” Lucerys says, before his uncle could even say anything.

Even with their controlled efforts, steps echo all around them, punctuated by a yelp here and there. “All that money funnelled to the church and this is all they can get.” Aemond shakes his head in disapproval.

Draped in his arms, Lucerys sways here and there, stumbling on the uneven cobblestones beneath their feet. He lets out an Ooohhh and an Aaahhh every once in a while, presumably admiring the paintings and sculptures littering the every nook and cranny of the compound.

“I am yet to get any alcohol in you, yet you are already acting drunk.”

With a bitching sound in his throat, Lucerys takes the bottle from Aemond. “Let us make my actions look more sensible, then,” he mutters as he tries to wrestle with the cork of the wine bottle.

Aemond suffers enough watching his nephew achieve nothing, so he wrestles the wine bottle back. He does the party trick with the Swiss Army Knife in his pocket and murmurs a rare ‘Thank You’ for Aegon, once he sees Lucerys’s impressed face.

It is his turn to make the same face, once he sees how much wine Lucerys can chug in one go. Some of the crimson liquid escapes through the boy’s plump lips and stains his white collar.

“Oops,” the boy giggles. They walk arm-in-arm to the direction of the library, while Aemond wonders just how they would be able to enter the locked premises.

Worrying turns out to be unnecessary; instead of going straight to the double doors at the far end of the path, which they are currently traversing, his nephew makes a detour towards the breezeway on their left.

Lucerys procures a black hair pin seemingly out of nowhere, messes with the rusty lock of a small wooden door. “This is where they keep the spare keys,” he explains as he pulls the lock off of the brass door handle.

Once Lucerys manages to nick the keys to the library, drag Aemond back through the breezeway, and shuffle towards the heavy dark brown oak doors of the library, the pair finally finds themselves inside the bowels of the small academic cove. Devoid of a single source of light, uncle and nephew feel through the space in front of them to avoid bumping into any of the heavy furniture.

The air smells heavy with worn leather, aged parchment, and ink. Aemond shuts the door as Lucerys cracks a window open.

“What do you want to do here?” The older man asks. With the light from the moon streaming into the space, he could now faintly make out his nephew amidst the desks, bookshelves, and stacks of disorganized volumes.

Lucerys, of course, ignores him. Some sense must have entered the young prince’s body, for he makes no move to open any of the harsh fluorescent lights. The boy, apparently, had managed to procure a box of matches to light a few candles. The sense in question is short-lived; once their surroundings have grown slightly visible, Lucerys heads towards the radio placed atop one of the pedestal tables and turns the blasted appliance on.

A relaxing tune begins to flow from the speakers, but Aemond is far from relaxed. He tries to reach for and turn the radio off, but his much larger left hand is swatted away by Lucerys’s surprisingly powerful bony right hand.

“Calm down,” he says, as if such would make everyone in the building deaf. “The volume is utterly low and most of the sleeping quarters are in the ground floor.”

The younger boy stalks towards the far end of the chamber and swims through the clutter.

Every note from the radio, every crack of wood, every sound of a book being discarded, every slide of flesh through leather and paper, and every shuffle of feet send Aemond whipping his head around towards the door in panic. In between each shuffle and dive, Lucerys takes a swig of wine.

“Lucerys,” he warns.

His walking headache of a nephew has never truly been threatened by him, except, perhaps, on that night in Shipbreaker Bay. Aemond’s desire to verbally admonish Lucerys is quickly dampened.

Frustration must have finally caught up to Lucerys’s alcohol-fuelled endeavor. He whimpers.

“Where is that damn book?”

More books and scrolls clatter unceremoniously to the ground without much mind from Aemond’s nephew. The boy walks back to one of the desks closer to the back shelves, takes the metal candle holder atop the wooden table.

Armed with a new apparatus, Lucerys scans every visible spine and more; he reaches behind the displayed books for possible wayward volumes and even takes a chair to see atop the bookshelves and the contents of the higher compartments. The boy finally lets out a satisfied exclamation, but only once the clock reads beyond the hour of the wolf.

By the time he drags out a dusty leather-bound volume from what looks to be the deepest crevices of one of the bookcases, Aemond is already sat on one of the benches with an unamused expression.

“So impatient,” Lucerys complains as he drops the volume in front of his uncle.

Aemond does not recall what he had expected to be shown, or of he even had any guesses. He is, however, certain that the volume displayed before him has never crossed his mind - not a few hours earlier, not a few days before, and not a few months ago.

The dark-haired boy right next to him, whose right leg brushes too comfortably against his own left leg, is grinning expectantly.

“Seriously?”

A Brief Overview of the Targaryen Dynasty: From the First Fire to the Last Drop of Blood, the title reads - the embossed golden letters warm underneath Aemond’s fingertips.

He could feel the cool gust of wind from outside and the warm breath of his nephew all at once. Despite the glow of the moon, the stars, and the few candles around them, the library remains fairly dark. Every once in a while, sounds, which Aemond would rather not decipher would disrupt the relative silence. Had sweet Lucerys not been standing awfully close to him, Aemond would have grown spooked by the evening.

Lucerys narrows his eyes, finally settles still right next to Aemond. The older man can feel the flesh of his nephew’s right thigh, the belligerent boy choosing to sit so terribly close to him, that half of him basically sits on Aemond’s lap. “You are so difficult to impress, Qȳbor,” he complains.

A small, reasonable voice tells Aemond that their evening activity is dangerous, all sorts of unsafe, and not even fun enough to be kicked out of the Order for, but the warm candlelight flickering in front of them only makes his nephew look more… Endearing.

Prettier, a traitorous, vile voice supplies.

Next to him, Lucerys opens the volume, carefully handles the cover and begins flipping through the pages.

“Look.”

It is hard to look at whatever his nephew is pointing at, rather than at his nephew, himself. Aemond’s palms itch, his left hand clenched much tighter in the attempt not to set it around the boy’s tiny waist, rather than on the edge of the bench, which they are both occupying.

A delicate finger points to a black and white photograph of people, who Aemond must know. He squints his eye and moves closer to the page. Lucerys, helpful as he is, pulls the book closer to them, as well.

Oh.

For a lack of a better description, Aemond feels something in his chest jump. An alien sight greets him. At the middle of a grand altar is a lavishly dressed man - one, who Aemond recognizes as a bishop. But, such component is not where the one-eyed man focuses. Four steps beneath him stands two figures - a middle-aged man, dressed in a cleanly tailored three-piece suit, a dark leather belt, a pair of dark double-monk leather shoes, a velvet cravat, and a familiar set of Valyrian Steel brooches intricately fashioned into dragons, embedded with glittering stones, and connected by a heavy chain, smiles widely towards his companion. The woman is dressed with a cowl-neck gown, its skirt tiered and layered. Aemond assumes that the dress would have either been pure white or some variant of white, based on its stark color on the page. Still, the stones scattered on the satin fabric is obvious to the observer’s eyes as the gown appears to glitter, even in black and white; the edges of each layer shine with varying patterns of flora and fauna. Around the woman’s shoulders is a long cape trailing further down the steps, its rich color presumably matching that of her companion’s cravat. Her dark hair is neatly braided into a bun, slightly covered by a delicate lace veil. Atop her proud head is a heavy tiara of crystals, which Aemond could no longer distinguish, set on an indistinguishable pattern of a frame of what he guesses could only be Valyrian Steel, as well.

Viserys Targaryen and Alicent Hightower look absolutely besotted and, pardon Aemond’s internal gagging, in love in their wedding photograph. It is one, which the man had never seen, before. A pang makes a home inside his ribs and makes him look closer and longer at the page.

Perhaps, Aemond would not have been such an angry boy, had the people on the photograph been the ones to truly raise him.

His parents are almost unrecognizable in their joy.

Aemond runs the fingers of his right hands through the smooth page and wonders, whether Aegon or Helaena had met the version of their parents immortalized in their wedding photograph.

Next to him, Lucerys opts for a more comfortable position. “They are so beautiful, no?”

The older man quietly agrees, a ghost of a smile lingering on his thin lips.

Interesting—

No.

He willingly corrects himself; beautiful it may have been to see his parents during what may or may not have been their last day of happiness, Aemond is unwilling to think more of what had led to the photograph and to what had followed such a moment. There is no reason to dwell on questions of What If, anymore.

With as much stability as he can, Aemond turns the page with weak fingers.

The next page is only text. He only skims tit* contents.

Lucerys makes a teasing surprised sound. “My beloved uncle no longer likes reading his histories?”

“Shut up,” Aemond grunts with a grin.

He scans the next pages, most of which are littered by the faces of people, whom he has very little care for. Still, it is interesting to read of their family from an outsider’s point of view.

Sensing his diminishing interest, however, Lucerys takes a hold of the volume and begins expertly flipping through the pages, as if he had the whole volume memorized.

Lucerys finally lands in the page, which he had been searching for. “Look,” he murmurs with a smile, points at a photograph covering only a quarter of the page.

A look of disgust sours Aemond’s face.

“You look so adorable.” The giggle that Lucerys lets out is music to Aemond’s ears.

The music from the radio switches as the two observe the page, before them. Deep notes replace the more upbeat melody of a string quartet and while it should have made Lucerys sleepier, it does the opposite. He sways to the tune of the cello with his eyes fixed on the photograph in question.

On the page is a much, much younger Aemond - both violet eyes boring through the lens of the photographer’s camera and transcending time and space to glare at his dearest nephew.

Dressed in the black cashmere turtleneck that Aemond could still recall, the boy on the photograph has his arms crossed, a paperback nestled to his chest. He could still recall the cause of his glowering. Young Aemond’s tan leather belt had been scratched and his parchment trousers stained with brandy.

Next to him, sightly out of focus, is a laughing Aegon. Who would be a usurper has his silver hair mussed and his collared polo shirt askew. He had been trying to make Aemond take a sip of the brandy. Out of frame, Aemond knows that the crystal glass is tipped over on the carpet, the amber liquid staining the maroon carpet.

“f*cking hell,” Aemond mutters under his breath. Surprisingly, no ill emotion tugs at him. “Look at me with my peripheral vision intact.”

He throws a discrete glance at Lucerys, who immediately catches his eye.

The boy narrows his hazel eyes.

More animals scuttle and sing outside of the open window, but Lucerys’s response is easily audible. “Your eyepatch gives you character,” he says with resolution. “You should thank me.”

Aemond would have liked to punch the twinkling grin off of his nephew’s face once upon a time, but not on that evening; no such desire creeps up to the silver-haired man.

More pages are turned and more photographs of long gone days greet Aemond. He does not remember any camera having been present, during most of the scenes captured on film.

Viserys looks miles stronger in his formal portrait - taken before Aemond had even been born, his own son guesses. The old king’s hair and beard are more lustrous, not quite white, yet. Rather than the traditional suit, the man depicted on the portrait wears a cream-colored damask surcoat intricately embroidered with scenes from Valyrian legends, from the conquerors atop their dragons to Daenerys Targaryen birthing her three dragons in threads of ebony, gold, crimson, sapphire, emerald, teal, vermilion, and indigo, among others. Beneath the rich fabric is a slightly visible linen doublet with patterned dragon eggs in varying colors stitched on the clean expanse. A golden brooch fashioned into a three-headed dragon with glowing eyes of rubies fasten a fur-lined black velvet cape around his neck. Even through the worn ink, one could see the small diamonds adorning the cape blinking like stars.

It is then, when the fullness and intensity of the decline of his father’s health truly sinks in for Prince Aemond Targaryen.

He swallows the little spit, which he manages to conjure, attempts to revitalize his dry throat.

Did this Viserys manage to carry his older sister for much longer? Had he been present for a number of Rhaenyra’s lessons? Would he have also liked having some sons around?

No one could tell, so he flips the page. Armed with a book, such is the first time, when Aemond takes no interest in reading the text, itself. He, instead, focuses on the many photographs, ranging from formal event documentations to everyday shots - some from professional photographers and some from the members of their family, themselves.

Alicent Hightower-Targaryen smiles broadly as she lifts a young Aegon over the grand balcony of The Red Keep. Daemon Targaryen looks disapproving in almost all of the photographs featuring him, save for a fair few with Lady Laena Velaryon of Driftmark, the twins, Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, and his stepsons. Every once in a while, Otto Hightower would make an appearance in his bejewelled deep emerald robes.

Combing through the chapters had turned out to be quicker, than Aemond had expected. They soon reached the sections, which are dedicated to Viserys’s beloved heir. Aemond could still recall somewhat being in the presence of his older sister during her teenage years. Even then, she had seemed cold and aloof towards him and his siblings. She appears the same in front of the camera.

Unlike Daemon who, at least, has a handful of photographs where a smile is visible on his stony face, Rhaenyra has even less. Most of her portraits are taken with his sister appearing with an air of regality. Devoid of a smile, Rhaenyra looks towards the artists and photographers with her eyebrows in pristine arches, her violet eyes large and piercing, her nose held towards the air, and without a trace of movement on her plump lips.

His sister’s rare smile makes an appearance only in photographs, which had been taken by the few people, who she had loved - Daemon, Laena, her children, and even one by the knight, Harwin Strong.

Aemond reads the italicized words underneath the photograph of a laughing Rhaenyra, hair mussed and standing in all directions. Her hands rest underneath the armpits of a dark-haired toddler. Somehow, Aemond knows the child, standing on his tiptoes on the thigh of Rhaenyra Targaryen with his two front teeth showing in a mostly toothless grin, to be Lucerys Velaryon.

‘Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Prince Lucerys Velaryon in the king’s study, taken by the crown princess’s Sworn Sword, Lord Harwin Strong,’ the text reads.

Somewhere towards the edge of the photograph is a barely visible figure, blurred from their own movement. Laenor Velaryon stalks out of the old camera’s focus with a book at hand.

It takes the sneaking Aemond and Lucerys a few dozen pages to land on another smiling photograph of Rhaenyra. The party on the printed page is one, which is more familiar to Aemond. His sister is chaotically flanked by her brood - Daemon’s daughters, included. Even without reading the accompanying words, Aemond could accurately guess that it is Daemon, who had held the camera.

The photograph is crowded, but Aemond’s eye move automatically towards one.

“What was so funny?” He mostly teases.

Lucerys snorts. “I do not remember. Might be the drool on Mother or Jace flipping off Daemon just a few seconds before.”

Aemond clicks his tongue. “I would have loved to see that,” he says as he continues flipping through the book.

Most of the succeeding photographs fail to catch most of his attention, in truth. He takes little interest in Rhaenyra’s side of the barn.

Mostly.

Lucerys is annoying and it makes him interesting, Aemond tells himself.

Having had taken Aemond’s eye, he supposes that he is entitled to some form of compensation. Aemond silently watching him from afar and having the liberty to grab the boy every once in a while would not make up for the years of torment, which he had gained at the hands of his nephew. Adding the view of some publicly-available photographs would not hurt, either.

Every flip of the pages renders Aemond more restless and he could only hope that the boy next to him had not caught up. Aemond scans each print with an obvious impatience.

“Are you growing bored?” There is no accusation or hurt in Lucerys’s voice, when he asks. “We can go look for something else to do.”

The older man could only scoff; his nephew yawns as he offers Aemond the freedom from being subjected to reminders of a life long gone.

Aemond blinks at a small photograph of a young Lucerys in the arms of Lord Corlys, assures his nephew that he is having a fine time.

Lucerys must truly be an idiot, for his uncle’s longer pauses on pages featuring him escape his notice. Aemond greedily searches for every trace of Lucerys - big or small, in the published work. As main subject here, barely a glimpse there. The volume, mass produced as it may be, offers Aemond something.

He gets to peek at the years, which he had missed. He gets to see the Lucerys, who his nephew had concealed from him for so long. The boy had judged Aemond to be undeserving of his smile, of his gaze, and of his time. It is Aemond, who had lost an eye, but it had been Lucerys, who had been shielded from him; hidden away in Dragonstone, then in Driftmark, far away from Aemond’s eye.

The light from the candle before them flickers, returns just in time for Aemond’s gaze to travel from the image of his nephew beaming on the deck of his own yacht - gifted from his grandsire, towards the boy next to him.

His nephew’s dark waves bounce softly with the breeze. Thick eyelashes curl against his nephew’s pale cheeks as the boy’s hazel eyes flutter with the invasion of Lucerys’s drowsiness, a light blush dusts across the many moles of his cheeks and at the tip of his upturned nose, plump lips glisten from the light of the fire, and a light sheen of sweat covers the boy’s face. Instead of making him look unbecoming and terrible, however, the latter had only made Lucerys glow and appear more youthful. Aemond could almost imagine that instead of being assaulted by his heavy cassock and the humid air of the Stormlands, Lucerys had simply been slightly worn down by an afternoon of sailing.

Bastard.

The photographs do well enough to fill a chunk of the gaps in the mosaic of Lucerys floating relentlessly within Aemond’s brain.

A Lucerys who, judging from his apparent age in the photograph and the dock behind him, had just slashed Aemond’s eye forces a smile towards the court photographer. He stands shyly beside his mother, holding her hand as they are received by the press in Dragonstone. Aemond wonders if Lucerys had already been considering writing that pathetic apology letter to his uncle, by then.

Not that Aemond had ever taken any of its contents to heart.

He recalls his quarters in Harrenhal. Would the old letter still be stuck between those two worn floorboards beneath his bed? Could he ever get a hold of it?

The next two spreads offer a profile of Jacaerys. Aemond quickly skips them. He ignores the sharp look, which Lucerys throws his way.

Fortunately, Lucerys is the second of Rhaenyra’s brood. His section opens with a large photograph of his nephew aboard a sailboat, dressed in a white Ralph Lauren button-down polo, by the looks of it. The wind blows through and further messes his unruly dark hair. Even with his eyes away from the camera, Aemond can peep the jewel-colored irises of the boy. In the light of noon, the emerald of Lucerys’s eyes almost completely overpowers the amber and the gold.

“You are taking so long,” Lucerys complains, just when Aemond is about to finish reading the last paragraph of the introduction.

The older man hums as he scans the rest of the spread. Most of the information is known to him, except for the fact that his sister had birthed his nephew in water. He scoffs.

Did she think that such an act would make her bastard any more legitimate?

Beneath a photograph of his nephew in the training yard in Dragonstone is that of Rhaenyra submerged in a wooden tub, flanked by a teary-eyed Harwin Strong and a beaming Laenor Velaryon. Aemond’s older sister is dressed in a white nightgown, drenched in sweat, and visibly exhausted. Her eyes are wet, but she smiles in such a way that Aemond had never seen her, before. In her arms is a bloody bundle; Lucerys Velaryon cries noisily as the world welcomes him with an even greater clamor.

The next photograph is that of his nephew as a toddler, hiding behind the velvet burgundy skirts of his mother. His small fingers clutch the heavy fabric, the golden seahorse ring around his left middle finger reflecting the camera’s flash. Lucerys is dressed lavishly in more traditional clothing - a ruffled cream-colored linen undershirt; a light teal damask surcoat embroidered with a repeating pattern of winged seahorses breathing fire, stitched with overwhelmingly varying colors of different threads and studded with so many pearls, crystals, and sea glass that it appears more like a tapestry and so long that it appears more like a dress; a belt of large sapphires, emeralds, onyxes, and rubies set on a braided gold frame; a barely visible pair of dark navy velvet trousers; and a pair of surprisingly sensible pointed black leather boots. His dark navy velvet cape is too big on his little frame, the gold-trimmed ends touching the carpeted stairs from where he stands. The ridiculous cloak is clasped by two golden brooches by the boy’s shoulders, both in the image of a three headed dragon, a considerably-sized onyx, ruby, and sapphire set on each of the respective visible eye. As if his nephew had the strength of a teenager’s head and neck, a golden crown fashioned in the likeness of a flying dragon and a winged seahorse facing one another sit atop his dark curls. Two brilliant diamonds shine as the eyes of the two figures. Both the dragon’s wings and the seahorse’s wings are littered with the same precious stones on Lucerys’s belt. In place of claws, the dragon has a tail intertwining with that of the seahorse’s. With a closer look, Aemond could sea the small, individual pearls set on each scale. The tail ends at the back of the crown and by the time the older man takes note of this, he is already thankful not to be assaulted by the sight of more jewels.

Lucerys’s regalia could have fed a whole town, Aemond estimates.

‘Bastard,’ the silver-haired man thinks, again.

Some guilt creeps into Aemond’s veins, however. The word no longer feels right on his tongue or in his mind.

“You are swathed in fabric,” he tells Lucerys incredulously. “I can barely see you. You look ridiculous.”

Lucerys looks adorable.

Aemond looks to his side and takes note of his nephew’s much plainer, monochromatic clothes. He looks just as lovely.

His nephew sticks his tongue out and narrows his eyes. “You are just jealous that I get to look like museum furniture.”

“How did you even manage to stand up? The crown alone must have weighed as much as you had.”

Lucerys shrugs and turns the page. “Mother had carried me all the way to the hall. I only had to wobble down the steps and walk towards Grandsire Viserys,” comes the explanation.

“That still sounds tedious,” Aemond begins. He grabs Lucerys’s right hand with his own. “What of your delicate bones?”

“Shut up,” Lucerys spits as he takes his hand away.

Both of their gazes return to the volume, where more photographs of Lucerys are printed. All of them, of course, never feature Lucerys beyond sixteen years of age. A lump forms in Aemond’s throat, which he promptly swallows. He grinds his teeth.

When his eye lands on the photograph of Lucerys with Rhaena at their betrothal ceremony, a barely concealed funny noise escapes Aemond. He flips the page angrily, only for the souring of his mood to come to an immediate halt.

Lucerys Velaryon has another spread dedicated to him; ‘The Death of Peace,’ the title reads.

Dramatic, but Aemond immediately understands.

Even with Lucerys attempting to cover the image at the bottom of the left page, Aemond could easily make the print out. It is a painted portrait of his nephew as the Lord of the Tides - a title, which he would never get to hold.

Aemond succumbs to the less rational part of his brain and pulls Lucerys closer, drags his whole body aver his lap.

From his nephew growing still in his arms and his taut belly being sucked in under Aemond’s left hand, the older man can deduce that the boy had either been startled or is uncomfortable.

Of course, he ignores his nephew’s and his own nerves.

The music playing on the radio changes. Gently, Aemond slides Lucerys’s right hand away from covering the photograph. Aemond is aware of court artists omitting as much flaw, as they can from the face of their royal subjects. Lucerys’s portrait, however, looks so much like him. Even the moles peppering the boy’s face are at the exact places, where Aemond knows them to be. He feels an inexplicable disdain at the thought that thousands of others would have seen such intimate marks on his nephew’s face. Thus, his eye is drawn to a sight, which would comfort him; the mole on Lucerys’s right collarbone peeks from beneath the undone laces of the boy’s nightgown. Save from his nephew’s mother and, perhaps, a few maesters, Aemond could think of none other, who could have gone close enough to be offered a clear view of the mark in question. He rights himself soon enough and returns to viewing the portrait on the page.

Not a wrinkle in sight, Aemond is suddenly struck by how young Lucerys had been, at the time of his supposed death.

Mindlessly, he places a kiss on Lucerys’s right shoulder and murmurs an apology against the clothed skin.

Aemond’s eye move towards the words beneath the photograph and curses the copywriter.

“Prince Lucerys, tragically murdered in his inheritance’s very home - the sea, returns, perhaps, to the gods of his ancestors. He is not to return to his earthly home; his body was never found.”

A single tear falls from his healthy eye and more would have, had his arms not been around the very body, which no one else had found.

Lucerys is older and taller. Aemond tightens his grip around his nephew’s waist and reminds himself of the living, breathing boy that is Lucerys Velaryon.

The portrait’s face is that of the boy in Aemond’s nightmares - crumpled in fear and wet with rainwater and tears as he falls towards the raging waters, but it is the face next to him that now visits Aemond in his dreams - often unimpressed and unsmiling, but far from a waiting grave.

“How dramatic,” Lucerys complains as he rests his chin atop his uncle’s head. “Stop sniffing. It bothers me.”

It is fortunate, then, for the next section to be about the runt that is Joffrey Velaryon. The boy looks just as insufferable in his service photograph as the day, when he had blocked Aemond from approaching Vhagar. Aemond, however, finds that he no longer holds any grudge towards the boy. He could not remember how he had felt about Joffrey’s passing, but he is certain that Lucerys still mourns him.

A memory of Lucerys carrying an overgrown Joffrey on his back flashes in Aemond’s mind. Lucerys had rarely visited The Red Keep after the incident with Aemond’s eye, but whenever he did, Joffrey would be attached to his side in one way or another.

The rumor that Joffrey had barely been restrained from flying a chopper and bombing King’s Landing as he had sworn to kill Aemond, himself, had not come as a shock, then. Aemond recalls mocking the idea. He could only wish that he had not.

“You can cry,” Aemond says.

Lucerys shifts above him and discretely wipes a tear or two. “I am alright,” he assures Aemond. “Plenty of time to cry on my way out of here.”

The atmosphere gradually recovers and becomes much lighter, afterwards. Finding very little investment on the succeeding pages, Aemond contents himself with listening to Lucerys’s accompanying stories about some of the photographs.

He becomes less chatty, by the time they reach the section dedicated to Aemond’s siblings, however. If anything, such is simply a reminder of how distant Viserys’s children had been.

Aemond’s formal portrait does make it to the volume. Lucerys makes a comment about how “sharp” and “dapper” Aemond looks, at which point Aemond pulls the boy closer to him. Lucerys proceeds to discuss the relevance of each component of Aemond’s clothing, from the fabric of his suit to the buttons of his coat. However, the older man simply holds no delight in staring at his own face. The barely visible mark of dried liquid close to his duplicate’s mouth manages to elicit more interest from him.

Finally, Lucerys lets out a weak yawn.

“You must be tired,” Aemond states plainly. He is about to suggest delivering Lucerys to his bedroom, when the boy whines.

The radio goes silent, save for the static pulsing through the frequency.

For a moment, they had both feared that the broadcast had ended. Only, deep notes begin to play from the radio’s speakers.

Aemond could see the exact moment, when a damned idea knocks into his mix of a nephew’s mind.

“Do you remember that dinner, after Grandsire had told everyone to f*ck off about my business?” Lucerys sing-songs.

Of course, Aemond does. Even before his nephew continues his terrifying proposition, the silver-haired man already knows where the night is about to turn. He groans.

Lucerys tilts his head and Aemond watches as a curl bounces and dangles in front of the boy’s right eye. “Well?” Lucerys pesters him, once more.

“Yes. What about it?”

His nephew huffs at Aemond’s barely believable obliviousness. Instead of throwing an uninspired retort, the younger boy stands up and carelessly steps one foot after another over the bench.

By then, he hopes that Aemond would have already dropped his attempt at teasing. Lucerys is not fond of the idea of being the one to ask his uncle for a dance.

Lucerys stands in front of Aemond like an idiot and refuses to hold a hand out.

Aemond had thought his nephew to have developed being a sport, but he is proven wrong, once Lucerys crosses his arms against his chest and stomps a foot.

“Qȳbor!”

From where he sits, the silver-haired man stretches his left arm to reach for his companion’s waist and his right arm to have a hand cover the boy’s mouth.

Just as he had done countless times in their childhood, Aemond concedes. He, too, stands. Aemond unbuttons the top of his cassock and pulls his Roman collar free with an amused smile and a shake of his head.

He rights his posture, then holds his right hand out for Lucerys. “Will you dance with me—”

Lucerys lifts an eyebrow, before Aemond could even finish his question.

“Princess?”

The boy delicately places his right hand in his uncle’s with a roll of his eyes. Lucerys’s breath slightly hitches as his skin meets his uncle’s touch. Where Lucerys’s hands are all soft lines and cold, plush flesh, Aemond’s hands are shockingly warm and calloused. Every grove and dip is a reminder of every weapon mastered and every dirt scoured by Aemond. The warmth is only disrupted by the numerous rings of varying sizes wrapped around the older man’s fingers.

At the small of his back, Lucerys could register the largest of his uncle’s rings pressing against him - the Valyrian Steel ring digging through his thin nightgown and into his flesh.

“That somehow sounds more insulting,” Lucerys muses as he is pulled towards the center of the room.

Aemond, the bastard, has the gall to scoff. “Do not kid yourself.” He pulls Lucerys closer as the music’s notes grow deeper and louder. The singer’s voice seems relaxed, but pleasant enough for a decent waltz. “You look like one and you act like one.”

Lucerys’s response is to step on one of Aemond’s feet as they glide across the floor. The slight is easily forgiven; Lucerys looks endearing, even with such a mood.

A breeze blows, carrying the smell of saltwater through the window and into the space. With a firm hand, Aemond guides Lucerys for a side-step, then a turn. His nephew twirls with all the radiance of a princess, warm light illuminating his soft features. He spots Aemond immediately and returns to his uncle’s arms in an even bigger smile.

“You are a better dancer, now, Taobus.”

Only God could have made the face, before Aemond. The silver of Aemond’s hair may appear to burn bright from the sun, or the moon, or the stars, or the fluorescent light, but Lucerys’s face glows with its own light. Thick eyelashes curl against his proud cheeks as they frame the boy’s glittering eyes, his nose curves elegantly upwards - as if Lucerys’s head is always raised up high, above the mortals surrounding him. In his youth, Aemond had found the images of gods, angels, and saints to be above all in beauty. Only his nephew had challenged such a belief.

Rightfully so.

Aemond could still recall the first time, when he had cornered Lucerys underneath a citrus tree within the school grounds. Under the blinding sun, the boy had managed to make Aemond stammer on his words. Earlier, with both of them ashore and Lucerys framed by the gloomy glow of the sun, his nephew had still been beautiful - if not more so.

With only the weak light of the candle to assist Aemond’s already impaired vision on such an evening, Lucerys still appears leagues above any stone or wood made in the image of the most holy. Unbeknownst to the older Targaryen, he is no longer as good at hiding such fondness from his usually stony face.

Still, the very same face, which he admires breaks into a scowl. “You have never danced with me, before,” Lucerys states. “I have never accepted any of your poorly-worded propositions.”

The older man whisks his nephew to the left, moves for a reverse corté, then for a hesitation change, which Lucerys follows smoothly and without trouble. Lucerys’s words may be true, but neither their lack of prior partnership, nor his loss of an eye makes him blind.

“We have been in countless family gatherings and public balls together,” he points out. “I used to count how many times you would fail to lead your partner or step on your brothers’ toes, whenever they dance with you.”

Lucerys makes a mockery of the admission, crumples his face into that of a cooing child and runs his mouth and the pair make a reverse spin. “Aw,” he flatly says as Aemond spins him in a manner much sharper, than necessary. “Were you worried for your little bully of a nephew?” Lucerys is led much forcefully around the empty space, but he still manages to flutter his eyelashes up at his uncle.

“Do not flatter yourself.”

In his quest to look for a suitable and biting retort, Aemond’s rather serious rendition of a waltz seems to evolve into a much calmer dance. A box step, a promenade, and a chasse make it here and there, but the pair now mostly merely sway together in place.

While the less number of turns and spins allows Lucerys to recover from slight dizziness, it also allows him to better sense and see their companions. He had been mostly able to ignore them, when his uncle had spun him around and around - more focused on not tripping, rather than on the faceless figures seemingly watching them as they make fools of themselves. Something cracks inside his chest and something crackles in his veins; Lucerys gets so few joys for himself. Though he might wish for the intimacy to be wholly between him and his… Murderer, he comes to accept that the night, too, must be shared.

He should worry, truly, for the intrusion had only ever been by a lone faceless figure.

Now, however, embraced by a warm candlelit glow and serenaded by the pleasant notes of a ballad, there are undeniably more of them.

Less attention is now needed for Lucerys to keep up with his uncle. A step to one side and another are hardly difficult to follow. In turn, Lucerys takes note of his periphery, is finally forced to yield, when his uncle steps closer and all, but places the boy’s head at the crook of his shoulder. He is stunned by more, than the gesture.

Faceless, the figures may be, but they are still familiar to the dark-haired boy. He is spun around by his uncle and there by the window, he spots a tall and solid frame dressed in the familiar dark brown military uniform of House Targaryen. Much like the faceless man, whom he often finds himself with, Lucerys is certain that he has already seen the man - or, who the man may have been once, in his childhood.

If his breathing has grown erratic, his uncle does not seem to notice. Their slow dance continues, with Aemond letting him go by the waist, only keeping his grip on Lucerys’s left hand as the boy is held away from his body. It allows Lucerys a panoramic view of the half of the library.

They are outnumbered.

Standing around the two dancing princes are about ten or so figures. Ghosts.

Lucerys is pulled back into Aemond’s embrace and is guided for a reverse turn. He scans the room and manages to perceive more details about their audience.

Close to the radio stands a frail-looking, gray-haired figure. A few steps from him is a dark-haired figure with one of the most commanding postures, which Lucerys had ever seen. On the ghosts’s head, barely visible, is a few strands of silver hair. While there seems to be some comfort coming from seeing them, Lucerys could not understand why. Either way, the sight is enough to spook him. He shudders to think of how many others are with them, shrouded in shadow and no longer perceptible for Lucerys’s eyes. The impending fear is enough to make him avert his gaze. He lowers his head and attempts to focus on the dark oak floorboards, but the gesture is not enough to shield him from seeing what - or who, watches from the illuminated spot close to the open window.

Lucerys needs no face to recognize the woman’s silhouette. The figure is dressed in the same black silk nightgown and dressing gown from a childhood long gone.

Memories of soft hands caressing Lucerys’s cheeks, brushing his unruly hair out of his eyes begin to flash before Lucerys’s eyes. Soon, he is back in his mother’s bedroom, crying about the monster underneath his bed, about doing bad in sword training, about cutting his finger as he had tried to cut lemons, and about whatever measly inconvenience, which he had been met with.

A kiss is placed on his soft hands, warm from his mother cradling them.

“It is alright, Sweet Boy.”

Rhaenyra would, then, place three kisses on his forehead.

Could it be?

No.

Despite the thrum underneath his skin and the suffocating pumping within his chest, Lucerys does not get more time to ponder at the dangerous thought. With the music building, so does, it seems, his uncle’s enthusiasm. The smile on Aemond’s face should appear unnerving, but it does not.

Instead, his uncle’s face is the most soothing sight within the small sanctuary.

“Are you contemplating taking my other eye out?” Aemond guides him towards the right, coaxes him into another spin.

Lucerys could only avert his gaze. “What are you even talking about?”

“You were staring.”

“Was not.”

The hum that comes from Aemond is almost completely drowned out by the music and the sudden burst of thunder from outside. Lucerys’s squeak, however, is not. His brute of an uncle had pulled him and dipped, Lucerys’s head coming awfully close to the wooden floor. The move had come from nowhere and does not even fit the tune of the song and had only ended up confusing Lucerys.

Had his uncle also been tone-deaf all this time?

Knowing that there is no way to make his nephew admit to anything - literally, Aemond elects to allow the denial to slide. With or without his nephew’s admission, he would still remember the large, hazel eyes boring into his lone one. More beautiful, than he had ever seen them, for there is not a single trace of fear or disgust in his nephew’s gaze.

The impromptu dip had not amused the boy, however. Lucerys returns to scowling at him, though his body continues to lean towards Aemond’s. The latter takes note of such sourness and lets go of his nephew’s waist, which does not help the boy’s mood.

“Calm down,” he says. Aemond lifts his right hand and places his index finger and middle finger at the middle of Lucerys’s forehead. He eases the crease, then stretches his fingers and traces along the boy’s eyebrows. “You look like an angry rabbit.”

“Gross,” Lucerys complains. “I am too grown for that.”

The pair glides across the room with widening steps as the music grows louder. “You look like your angry mother, then,” Aemond supplies. “There may be countless of fathers in your life, but there is no denying, who your mother is.”

For a split second, Aemond agonizes over the line, which he must have crossed. Terrible, truly, for the night had been going well.

Surprisingly, the night does not take a turn for the worse, after the callous comment is made.

Lucerys laughs at his remark. “My siblings used to tease me about that.”

Aemond had never thought that he would ever feel thankful or grateful for Lucerys’s siblings.

The singer continues to serenade them, now musing about sinking beneath the sea of some sorts. Aemond’s hold on his nephew instinctively tightens, even as he joins Lucerys in his giggling. Without consideration for the basic rules of dancing, for beauty, or for the music, Aemond drags Lucerys faster around the free space. He guides his nephew into a turn, then to another, then to another, then to another - until the boy almost topple over in a laughing fit from his dizziness.

“I should have told Rhaenyra that her son looks like a girl,” Aemond jokes.

“You’re the one with hair growing to your ass, Aemond. Let us not kid ourselves.”

The older man chuckles. “Yet, it is not I with the face of a damsel.” He sends a pitying glance towards his nephew as they perform a basic weave.

Suddenly, Lucerys’s face turns more solemn. None of his amusem*nt is lost, but his voice does grow quieter. “I am not a girl, Uncle,” he says, shaking his bed.

Aemond is jolted into a slight panic. Surely, his nephew did not think him too deluded. “I know,” he assures the boy.

Gently, he guides Lucerys to a side step. They have been listening to the song long enough for Aemond to pick on the lyrics.

“I swear I don’t recognize this man they said was me,” he recites to the tune of the song.

Lucerys is made to turn, once more - this time appropriately spotting his uncle, as he is no longer being spun, like a toy. The smile on his face returns even brighter.

The next set of lyrics come easily. “To love is my weakness, shake me, baby, please,” Aemond croons. He, too, is smiling.

Before Lucerys could truly understand where Aemond is leading him, he finds himself barely released, before he rests fully within his uncle’s arms, his back against Aemond’s chest.

“Shake it right out of me, until I’m shaky in the knee,” Aemond murmurs against Lucerys’s right ear.

The tear that falls from Lucerys’s left eye comes ad a surprise, but is not unwelcome. He does, however, have no idea why he would be shedding a tear.

A lovely song warrants a lovely dance and a lovely memory, after all. Lucerys lets his head fall backward against Aemond’s chest and allows himself to rest as such. The two continue to sway to the remnants of the music’s kind notes in silence.

When Lucerys is turned to face his uncle, once more, both have grown too comfortable. It is as if there are no years of resentment behind them and none ahead of them, either. Aemond’s eye is still missing and Lucerys is still dead, but the touch of the other no longer feels violent.

It is Aemond, who steps closer and breaks the invisible bounds between them. The lips that receive his is cold and unmoving, at first. He persists, however, just as he had always done throughout his feeble life. If he could stomach wading through misery for endeavors, which he had not even truly wanted, he could endure a little embarrassment for one, which he must have been born to long for.

Ever kind, Lucerys does eventually yield. His mouth shakily opens to return Aemond’s kiss.

No voice demanding that he stay away from his uncle cracks and no punishing hands pull him angrily away from Aemond. The heavens do not open for God’s wrath to befall them and the ground does not split to swallow them into the pits of hell.

The kiss is still both mundane and not. When Aemond’s lips touch his, the ghosts - both from the past or otherwise, vanish, leaving Lucerys finally alone with Aemond.

For the first time, since he had been sent away from his home in Dragonstone, Lucerys feels warm.

The sand is beginning to bother Lucerys.

“Are you sure about this?”

From atop him, Aemond chuckles. He lowers himself further and settles his head in the crook of his nephew’s neck. “Yes,” he says, kissing from the boy’s right shoulder back to his neck.

Lucerys can feel his uncle inhale his scent. It is almost enough to distract him from the sand getting into every crevice of his body.

The kiss in the library had taken much longer, than Lucerys had thought possible. He had read books involving such and had grown in a considerably sexually healthy household. Such, however, are not substitutes for actual experience.

For a moment, he had felt that his heart would burst out of his chest. Aemond had managed to walk him towards the same desk, where they had perused the book about their own family. Lucerys had felt a considerable ache as the small of his back had hit the corner of the desk.

“Sorry,” his uncle had muttered against his lips. He had quickly resumed licking and biting on Lucerys’s lips, his right thumb pressing on the boy’s chin to pull his bottom lip down.

Aemond’s tongue had tasted like wine and such had made Lucerys laugh. His uncle had lifted him off of the ground, had sat him on the desk with his thighs apart. A perfect space for the older man to draw closer.

Lucerys’s breath had hitched, had felt the towering figure of his uncle crowd and overwhelm him. Instinctively, Lucerys had brought his arms around his uncle to pull him even closer.

Rough hands had settled on his thighs and in his delirium, he had opened his legs further. Slightly lifting his hips up had seemed to be the most natural course of action. Aemond, too, had grown more erratic. His hands had gone everywhere, his breathing uneven.

Wet kisses had trailed from Lucerys’s lips down to his neck. Beneath, the rough fingers of his uncle’s right hand had crept up underneath his nightgown.

He had snapped his thighs closer, then. “Wait,” he had panted against Aemond’s left ear. Despite the foreign ache between his legs, the rational chunk of Lucerys’s mind had persisted.

For some time.

“Uncle, I do not think—”

His objection had been cut-off with a kiss. He had tried to push Aemond away, albeit weakly.

A sharp hit on his uncle’s left shoulder had finally gotten the older man’s attention. Aemond had painfully placed some distance between the two of them. His expression had been unreadable.

The older man had taken a steadying sigh. “What is it, Taobus?”

Lucerys had cowered beneath his uncle’s stare. Suddenly, he had felt his doubts childish and his whole existence embarrassing. In a small voice, he had said, “I do not think that we should be doing this.”

Clarity had flooded back into Aemond’s senses, then. “Do you wish for us to stop?” He had not lifted his right hand from his nephew’s thigh. Lucerys would be unspeakably cruel, if he were to deny Aemond, now.

The younger boy had kept quiet, clueless on how to proceed and on what to say next.

“Are you scared?”

When Lucerys had lifted his head, he had been met with a worried gaze. “No, no,” he had replied in denial.

Aemond had quickly resumed busying his mouth with Lucerys’s and his hands with Lucerys’s sleeping clothes.

The touch had been overwhelming; Aemond had held onto him, as if he had wished to swallow Lucerys whole.

“Wait,” the boy had interrupted, again. “I do not—“ He had paused, before he could complete the thought.

Silence had enveloped them almost completely, with only the periodic whooshing of the sea breeze and calling of the nocturnal birds to accompany them. Neither uncle, nor nephew had wanted to breathe, much less speak or move - Lucerys for the inability to voice his thoughts out and Aemond for the fear of the spell being shattered.

Eventually, it had been Aemond, who had caved.

A peck had been placed on top of Lucerys’s head.

“Are you scared?” Aemond had repeated the question.

Is he? Had Lucerys waited for himself to understand all of the screaming voices inside his head, then, daybreak would have caught them in the library.

He had shaken his head.

Aemond had taken his right hand, had caressed the skin carefully. Lucerys could still recall the dips on his uncle’s hands. How funny, for a prince to have such hard and rough hands. Perhaps, his uncle had been right to debase him for having an easy life.

Soft kisses had been peppered on the boy’s left temple. “It is alright, then,” Aemond had assured him. The kiss that had followed had been more forceful, than Aemond had intended.

Realizing such, the older man had grown gentler, somewhat turning his kisses tentative. His right hand had trailed the farthest between his nephew’s legs. Aemond had tried to contain his breathing and the thrumming beneath his skin; he could already feel the heat from between his nephew’s thighs.

Aemond had returned his eye towards Lucerys. Lucerys, in turn, had blinked nervously at him. The older man’s left arm had come around Lucerys, bringing him close enough for Aemond to plant a kiss on the boy’s left eye. Slowly, he had traced his nephew’s skin with his lips, until he had reached the boy’s already moist pout. The chuckle that had come out of Aemond’s mouth had reverberated through Lucerys’s lips. “We love each other,” Aemond had croaked against his lips with so much certainty.

Nausea had hit Lucerys, had made him want to entertain the shaking of his hands; he had lifted them off of his uncle and had, then, been clasped together atop his own lap. Suddenly, a steady stream of tears had bursted from his wide eyes.

“f*ck,” he had cursed as he had nodded quickly.

The apology waiting at the end of his tongue had been quickly swallowed by Aemond, who had kissed him, once more. He had been more insistent, clawing at Lucerys’s hips and finally resting his right hand at his nephew’s straining length.

Aemond had taken his turn to curse. He had pushed Lucerys further on the desk, until he had been certain that the boy is properly sitting atop the furniture. Lucerys had moaned, less twitchy in his own touches.

Unable to let Lucerys go enough to rid himself of his own clothes, Aemond had, instead, pressed his own hardness against Lucerys’s. Aemond had rubbed himself against Lucerys eagerly. He would have been happy humping his nephew for all eternity, but he had known that Lucerys could offer more. The groan, which had escaped Aemond at the first contact of their still clothed co*cks is still etched in Lucerys’s brain.

Just as Aemond had lowered the boy to lay flat on the desk, however, the man had paused. He had brought his right hand up to pillow Lucerys’s head.

“Wait, Taobus.”

Delirious, Lucerys had tried to chase his uncle’s lips. He had wanted to kiss Aemond, again, but his uncle had grabbed Lucerys’s neck with his free hand and barred him from straining further.

Monster.

He had thrown a dissatisfied look at his uncle. “Why?” Lucerys had searched his uncle’s face in a sudden panic.

Could this be an elaborate plan of Aemond’s? To humiliate him in such a way?

Lucerys had attempted to slither away, to give his uncle more space. He had braced himself; he should, at least, prepare himself for the degradation.

Except, Aemond had reached for him with a confused look. “Is something the matter?”

“Should I not be the one asking you that?” His palms had started to feel cold.

Not for long, however. Aemond had come closer, the heat from his body warming Lucerys’s hands, even as he had no longer rested them on his uncle’s body.

Aemond had kissed him, once more, an even wider smile plastered on the man’s ugly face. “Nothing is the matter, my sweet.”

My Sweet. Lucerys could gag. The touch, the endearment… Everything had been too much.

“But,” Aemond had began. He had brushed a lock of hair from his nephew’s left eye. “This might hurt.”

“I know that,” Lucerys had insisted. He had not been that clueless.

Aemond had merely shaken his head. “No, no,” he had said with an air, which had told Lucerys that his uncle had thought him a naïve idiot. “It will be uncomfortable.”

Still at a loss, Lucerys had furrowed his eyebrows and had basically begged for explanation with his eyes.

Just then, his uncle had knocked three times on the wooden desk. “The surface is…” Aemond had cleared his throat. “Hard.”

Oh.

“Must we go to a room?” Lucerys could live with that, he had guessed. It is not as if he would need to sleep in dirty sheets for much longer.

His uncle had smiled, had brought his face closer to his with a wolfish grin. “Do you want to?” A kiss to his left cheek. “Somebody might hear.”

It had been a reasonable point, Lucerys supposes.

And thus, is how they had ended up on the beach - water splashing at their feet and the wind howling around them. The graze of the sand could only add to the queer sensations already wracking Lucerys’s whole body.

He moans as Aemond pushes deeper, the older man’s co*ck brushing against the insides of Lucerys’s thighs.

Gods.

Lucerys attempts to peel himself away, to distance his mind from its basest state. There is something, which he must tell his uncle.

“Uncle,” he manages to croak out as Aemond assaults his neck, his collarbones, his chest.

Naturally, he is ignored.

He grabs at Aemond’s scalp. The fiend must have interpreted the act as Lucerys telling him the opposite of asking him for a pause, for Aemond only becomes more persistent. He breathes Lucerys in, makes his kisses deeper and his bites sharper.

Lucerys needs to force himself to part with Aemond, as well. “Qȳbor,” he says more sternly.

Aemond finally halts, just as he begins properly unbuttoning the tops of Lucerys’s nightgown. He groans, realizes that such an attitude may dampen his nephew’s mood, and quickly rights himself. He pecks Lucerys on his sandy right cheek. “Yes, ñuhor dārilaros?”

The younger boy is too nervous to indulge in how lovely the words had rolled on his uncle’s tongue - one of the few words in their mother tongue, which Aemond could appropriately say. He would have to jest about it some other time, it seems.

“There is something I must tell you.”

His uncle monstrously presses his hard co*ck against Lucerys’s own. “Is it more important, than this?” He dives, once more, and claims Lucerys’s lips.

Lucerys slaps a hand against his uncle’s chest, pushes the man away. He considers his next words. There is no easy way to tell his uncle, so he settles for a safer response. “As important, perhaps,” he admits.

Seagulls hoot overhead, as if they, too, had been listening. Aemond raises himself and rests his weight on his elbows, careful not to crush the boy beneath him. Lucerys feels his uncle’s cassock - now used as a mat, shift beneath him. The man’s expression turns more serious. “Are you alright? Did I do something wrong?”

The younger prince could not help, but feel weak at his uncle’s questions. Of course, he had not. Aemond had not done wrong in so long.

He shakes his head.

“No, no.” It is Lucerys’s turn to bestow a kiss on Aemond’s forehead. “You should know something.”

Aemond makes a move to sit up. While Lucerys understands that such would probably be the polite option to allow Aemond, he stops his uncle from further moving away. He rests his hands on Aemond’s shoulders.

“Well…” He searches for the words. “I…” Lucerys continues to stutter and as he does so, he becomes terrified of Aemond’s desire for him finally flagging.

Unable to utter out an understandable set of words, the younger boy, instead, carefully takes Aemond’s right hand. The loss of one pillar makes his uncle drop lower and closer to him. Lucerys gently kisses the tips of Aemond’s fingers, a single tear falling from his left eye, down to the side of his face.

“Please, do not hate me,” he whispers against the skin, eyes up and imploring his uncle.

Aemond swears that he could feel the hammering inside the boy’s chest.

Lucerys drags Aemond’s right hand down, past his chest and taut stomach, until his uncle’s hand reaches Lucerys’s length. He does not stop there, however. With both of his shaking hands, Lucerys guides his uncle’s touch past his straining co*ck.

Even without Lucerys’s words, which are still stuck at his throat, Aemond comes to the realization on his own.

The older man swallows. This time, it is his chest, which is about to burst open. Whether Lucerys is speaking or not, Aemond could no longer tell; he has gone deaf and his eye has traveled below, where their hands are.

There, beneath his fingertips, is an overwhelming wetness. Mindlessly, Aemond probes further, traces the spot with his thumb.

He bows his head and rests on Lucerys’s chest.

“My God,” he breathes out. Aemond pushes his thumb in, feeling the flesh give.

The sound of Lucerys’s surprised moan is music against the Targaryen’s left ear. His nephew’s hips shudder, but the boy snaps his thighs together. However, all it does is trap Aemond between his legs.

Lucerys Velaryon has a c*nt.

Aemond could only try to wrap his head around the idea, while hoping that his other head would be wrapped around the warm walls of his nephew, soon.

The boy in question, however, seems to interpret Aemond’s far from negative crisis as an unfavorable response.

“Qȳbor,” the boy weakly croaks out. Aemond has not ceased fondling the delicious flesh, absorbed in Lucerys’s scent and the sheer miracle of having the boy in his clutches. “Please,” Lucerys begs. He shyly tries to pry the fingers of his uncle’s right hand from his sex.

Does he think him a freak? Is such why Aemond seems so insistent on… Inspecting him?

“Do not be angry at me,” Lucerys begs.

The plea puts a stop to the, admittedly, pleasurable movement of Aemond’s fingers.

Lucerys’s uncle lifts his head from where it had been laid upon the boy’s bony chest. To say that his uncle had looked surprised would be an understatement.

“Why would I be angry?”

Understanding the words is quite a struggle for Lucerys, with his nerves hounding him and his anxieties suffocating him. He blinks twice at Aemond and stares dumbly at his uncle. “You are not?” The boy shies away, still.

Aemond grins. “No, idiot. Why would you think so?” The man must be a freak of nature, for Lucerys could still feel the hard press of his uncle’s co*ck against the insides of his thighs.

“Well…” Lucerys now watches Aemond’s face, then the stars above the both of them. “I did not tell you, before. Do you find it strange? We can stop.”

“NO,” Aemond almost shouts. “No, no. That would not be necessary.” He smiles down at Lucerys, places a peck on each of his nephew’s burning cheeks. In truth, the blood continues to rush towards his co*ck. Assuring Lucerys, however, is more important. “You do not owe me such an information unprovoked,” he mutters. “And, banish the thought that you are any less, than perfect, Lucerys.”

The boy beneath him visibly exhales. Lucerys can finally breathe. “I know that you have always thought my mother arrogant and a liar for calling us perfect,” Lucerys points out.

Such had been true, but Aemond should truly to find the time to ponder on why he had been so invested on Lucerys’s supposed perfection - on Lucerys, in general. However, he does wish that the boy would, at least, consider the time and place.

He groans out in frustration.

“Could we not talk about your mother, while we are about to f*ck?”

“Oh,” Lucerys says, caught off-guard. The boy’s two large front teeth peek out from inside his open mouth.

His fingers play about Aemond’s ears, a habit, which the older man recognizes from their childhood; Lucerys is nervous. As a child, the boy had always somehow found a way to bother Aemond and his ears at times of distress. Whether it had been by ambushing Aemond as the older boy had been sitting or by asking for his uncle to carry him on his back.

Aemond feels the fire in his stomach intensify. “Do not tell me that you are going coy, now.”

Cruel, he knows. But, teasing his nephew at such a vulnerable position is simply too tempting.

“I am not,” Lucerys haughtily says. Perhaps, to prove his supposed position, the boy moves his hips, once.

Both pursuing release from the other, the act only makes Aemond grunt out a curse and Lucerys jump. Aemond succumbs to his impatience, which would make his younger self both disgusted and jealous. He dives down and claims Lucerys’s lips in a searing kiss, all the while busying his hands in unbuckling his damned leather belt.

Limbs numb and whole being shaking, Aemond fails at the very simple task. Soon, he feels smaller fingers pulling at his belt. It is Lucerys, who successfully does the job and hastily unzips his uncle’s trousers.

Unable to contain his seeking for friction, Aemond presses his co*ck against his nephew’s, once more - temporarily contenting himself with dry humping his nephew. If whatever they are doing can even be called as such; Aemond could feel Lucerys’s soaking c*nt through the boy’s soiled boxers and a patch of moisture has formed at the tent of his own boxers.

Beneath him, Lucerys whines, fingers digging into the flesh of his uncle’s shoulders. His hips have grown numb from spreading his bones for what already feels like hours. “Aemond,” he croons, breathless and faint. “Please.”

Only the boy’s fingers reaching for the band of his boxers makes Aemond understand what his nephew wants, before his nephew could form an adequate statement.

“Please, I need you,” Lucerys begs, almost cries.

“I need you to tell me what you need me for, ñuha raqiarzy,” Aemond says, just to be a dick.

Frustration seeps out of his trembling nephew, like fireworks. Aemond could not have a better view of the phenomenon. “Inside,” Lucerys whispers out. “Need you inside.”

“Inside, where?” Aemond’s own pulse further quickens. Had he been saner, he would have feared his veins bursting open.

Lucerys, in a miraculous show of strength, manages to grind his hips up against his uncle’s co*ck. His eyes open wide to stare at the bastard tormenting him. “Uncle, please,” he begs, still. “I need you inside my c*nt.”

His next movements barely register in Aemond’s own mind. All he could feel are his lips against Lucerys’s and his co*ck finally free from their confines. He barely manages to rid Lucerys of his own undergarments, with the boy’s boxer briefs still hanging by his left ankle, Aemond is pushed closer by the bottom of his back.

With the last barrier between them gone, Aemond could finally indulge at the feeling of Lucerys’s bare skin against his. Aemond lets out a shaky exhale as his much larger co*ck slide against his nephew’s. He brings his right hand below and wraps his fingers around the boy’s co*ck, tugging at the length as his own co*ck slides beneath.

“At long last,” Aemond breathes out. The blunt head of his co*ck finally meets the wet slit of Lucerys’s sex.

He sounds greedy, he realizes too late.

Lucerys, however, does not seem to mind. He breathes out in shallow puffs, chest heaving and belly spasming.

A moan escapes his open mouth. His thighs quivering, the boy attempts to bring his uncle closer to him. “Aemond, please,” he whines. “Inside me, Kepa.”

The older man stills at the title. The minx. Apparently, his co*ck can grow harder.

“Brat,” he grunts.

With his right hand, Aemond grabs his nephew’s nightgown, bunches the fabric inside his palms, and lifts the ridiculous sleeping gown to better see where he and Lucerys are joined together.

Before he could move, however, a sharp voice tells him to wait, yet again.

“Your vows,” Lucerys reminds him tentatively.

If such is the boy’s way of warding him off, then it simply would not work. “No vow shall keep me away from you,” he says truthfully.

Lucerys, whether he notices or not, breaks into a small, grateful smile.

“Besides, do you not think it too late, by now?” Aemond questions with a smirk.

His nephew bursts into laughter. “Alright,” he concedes. Lucerys, with some struggle, raises himself slightly up to place a chaste kiss on his uncle’s lips. “Go on.”

Slowly, Aemond sinks into his nephew. He feels his co*ck breach Lucerys’s warm entrance, feels every inch forced into his nephew’s quivering puss*.

Veins threatening to burst through his skin and sweat rolling off of his skin, Aemond could only groan at the pressure enveloping his co*ck. His co*ck could only breach his nephew’s entrance for an inch or two, before the resistance becomes almost unbearable. Lucerys’s warm, wine-drunk breath hits Aemond’s forehead in quick succession. The boy whimpers beneath him.

“Will it fit?” Lucerys manages to whine out.

Aemond could only curse - whether such is out of joy or frustration, he is not entirely certain; he feels the blood rush into his co*ck, his length growing harder. The already measly space between his nephew’s walls shrinks further. Every small movement he does and every breath he takes threatens to send him over the edge.

“Of course, it will,” the older man finally grunts out. “f*ck.” In truth, he is not entirely certain of what he had just assured Lucerys of.

Lucerys’s breath hitches, worried that something had gone amiss. As such, his c*nt spasms around Aemond’s co*ck, drawing white droplets from his uncle’s length. “Is something wrong?”

Aemond shakes his head. “You just…” He breathes out. Embarrassed, he hides his face on the crook of Lucerys’s neck, his right ear resting on the boy’s bony left collarbone. “Feel good.”

From beneath him, he could feel Lucerys giggle. “So do you,” his nephew titters.

In no position to tease the boy, Aemond, instead, focuses on steadying his breathing and stopping himself from coming without even sheathing himself fully into Lucerys’s quim.

“Uncle,” Lucerys says.

“Hm?” Aemond lays atop Lucerys, already exhausted and overwhelmed.

His nephew places his right hand on Aemond’s forehead, swipes the strands of his hair back to clear the older man’s vision. “Could you move, now?”

Of course.

Aemond nods, raises himself and rests his weight on his left elbow and on his right hand. “Just relax,” he tells Lucerys, although he would have benefited more from the advice.

He thrusts into his nephew’s c*nt, once more, and is still met with obscene friction. Aemond lets out a shaky breath, once. Finally, he forces his co*ck into Lucerys’s velvety puss*. Devoid of any other thought, the man could feel every small glide inside his nephew’s soaked c*nt. Their union burns. The bliss crawls through Aemond’s skin and sinks deep into his pores and bones, seeps into his very marrow.

If f*cking one’s family would send one to an eternity in hell, Aemond is now certain that he would happily forsake God’s heaven for Lucerys.

Humiliatingly, it is Lucerys, who checks on the other. “Alright?” His voice is small, but Aemond could hear him perfectly. Everything is, after all, just Lucerys.

“Yes,” he nods. “Can I move?”

Lucerys hums an affirmation. The boy sets his hands on Aemond’s neck as he closes his eyes. He inhales the fragrance of the sea, but above it, more intense and more inviting, is his uncle’s scent.

Aemond lifts his own hips slightly, only to sink back down into Lucerys’s sopping c*nt. He hears the vulgar sound of his nephew’s puss* weeping and enveloping his member, but no guilt bothers him. Instead, Aemond indulges at the sound, repeats his motion, just to hear the same melody, all over again.

A chill has formed in the air, with the night growing older. Lucerys shivers slightly at the breeze. Aemond, for his part, draws closer. He wraps his right arm around Lucerys’s waist, both in an attempt to warm the boy up and to push his hips closer to Aemond’s. The sharp bones of his nephew’s pelvis dig into Aemond’s flesh at every movement, at every thrust.

If the motion hurts Lucerys, the boy makes no complaint. The initial pain of being breached has evolved into a dull ache. As his uncle pulls out and sinks deeper at every contact, Lucerys could feel the pleasure build at the pit of his belly.

“Relax,” Aemond says.

The man plunges deeper into Lucerys’s cunny, his strained abs meeting the boy’s taut stomach.

Gently, he trails his hands from his nephew’s sides, past his hips, and towards the tops of his thighs. Aemond presses his thumbs against the soft skin, massaging the flesh as he thrusts inside and outside of Lucerys’s c*nt.

Soon, the boy’s moans turn less pained. Aemond f*cks into Lucerys steadily. Still, he searches for an angle, which would give his nephew the most pleasure. He delves down and kisses Lucerys, once more, as he fully unsheathes himself. He plunges back down forcefully, to the hilt - until he feels the hairs at the base of his co*ck tickle Lucerys’s exposed cl*t.

The lithe legs around him tightens and Lucerys, himself, whimpers. His nephew’s walls flutter around his co*ck. Aemond repeats the motion and is rewarded by a scream from his nephew. His very bones are on fire, his blood sings.

“Feel good?”

Lucerys bites the bottom of his lips and nods. “Yes, yes,” he chants as he begins to lift his hips up to meet his uncle’s thrusts, toes curling against the sand and water kissing his feet.

Time, stand still, Aemond prays. He finds a rhythm, which both of them are comfortable with and manages to find the spot, which makes his nephew squirm and scream. As his pace mounts, so does the pleasure threatening to spill from him.

Euphoric from the feeling of Lucerys around him, Aemond surges down to capture the boy’s lips. He is unable to speak or to think of words to fill the space between them.

Not that such would be necessary; the crashing of the waves and the sound of their coupling - obscene and raw, are more than enough to send them both to the edge.

Aemond traces his nephew’s moles with his lips, trailing wet kisses from his lips, to the mole at the right corner of the boy’s mouth, to the mark at the base of his neck, to the freckle on the edge of his right collarbone. He continues his assault towards the boy’s chest, until he finds a nipple, pebbled in the cold night air. Aemond bites down as his thumb gently presses on the other bud.

He raises his head to watch his work. Lucerys is a vision. The younger boy’s head is thrown back, his long neck exposed fully. Sand mingles with the sweat on his skin, clinging to the boy and covering a few patches of his skin like scales.

Just then, Aemond understands why God had wanted Lucerys to inherit the seas. His nephew is a mermaid, a water nymph, a god from the depths of the ocean.

A thin trail of saliva exits from Lucerys’s plush lips, stained by both the wine and by Aemond’s punishing onslaught. Large eyes lidded, Lucerys returns his gaze. Even from such an angle, his nephew’s hazel eyes sparkle generously, as if to cast a spell. Aemond needs to avert his gaze; he focuses at the luscious tresses forming a halo over Lucerys’s head, instead.

The older prince stares in awe, his arms and his legs growing weak. Aemond’s weakling of a father had proved to be incapable, yet again; he should have betrothed Lucerys to his second son. Aemond would have been pacified, then. He would have been happy at the feet of his own mutilator.

Feeling the overwhelming pleasure already threatening his senses, Aemond picks up his pace, rams into Lucerys with abandon. He brings his right thumb lower and rubs at the crest of Lucerys’s puss*. Immediately, Aemond is rewarded by Lucerys with a blissful smile and his c*nt fluttering around his uncle’s length.

The velvety walls enveloping Aemond’s co*ck begin to milk him with a vice-like grip. His nephew is close, but so is he. As the moon reaches its peak in the sky and with the stars to bear witness with, Aemond kisses Lucerys, once more - much gentler, this time. His hips have began to stutter, his thrusts gradually growing shallower, until he is merely grinding into Lucerys’s sopping wet quim.

Suddenly, Aemond feels himself being pushed over. His back hits the sandy ground as Lucerys switches their position and mounts him, as his nephew would a dragon. The view from beneath is even more immaculate.

Lucerys’s nightgown is almost completely undone, its wide neckline falling on either of the boy’s shoulders. A pink patch of skin peeks through the laces from the left side of his nephew’s chest and through the translucent linen, Aemond could clearly see his nephew’s pebbled nipples. Sharp bones jut out from underneath Lucerys’s pale skin. Unable to bar himself, Aemond gets up and bites down at his nephew’s left collarbone.

He allows himself to lay back down, once Lucerys’s hands settle on his chest and the boy pushes him towards the sand. Lucerys had never been one to last in the training yard. It turns out that his stamina lays elsewhere.

Strong legs squeeze on either side of Aemond as Lucerys bounces beautifully on his co*ck. Aemond reaches for the damned nightgown, once more, and lifts the fabric up to expose Lucerys. His nephew must be growing tired, for his nephew’s breathing has grown erratic, his hands splayed on Aemond’s hard chest and stomach for purchase. From where be lays, Aemond could see Lucerys struggle and stretch every sinew of his arms. At every lift of the boy’s hips, Aemond could see a sliver of his own co*ck, glistening with their mingling arousal. Lucerys’s own length bobs uselessly against his own taut stomach.

It is his duty, Aemond believes, to pleasure his nephew in more ways, than one. He reaches for the boy’s neglected co*ck with his right hand and for the boy’s cl*t with the other. He pumps his nephew’s length in time with Lucerys’s movements.

His nephew’s mouth falls further open; now, Aemond could see his glistening tongue, too. The older man surges upward and breaches Lucerys lips with his own tongue.

Lucerys moans. His thighs are tired and his puss* is swollen, and still, Aemond pleasures his co*ck and molests his sensitive cl*t. The boy had tried to stick his fingers inside his cunny, before, but such had not felt remotely close to what his uncle had been doing for him, now. It is all too much.

“Aemond,” he chants his uncle’s name, like a prayer.

The older man grabs his face with his right hand, sets his forehead against Lucerys’s. “Go on,” he says. “I am here.”

In a bout of unparalleled greed, Lucerys does the unthinkable; he pulls the eyepatch of his uncle off with one swift motion of his right hand. Aemond is only briefly stunned.

He does not push Lucerys off, but a more determined look creeps into his scarred face. Lucerys stares at the empty eye socket, hypnotized.

Lucerys watches his own work in full view; a pink gash slashes across his uncle’s face from his left cheekbone, past the eyebrow, and ends at a fraction of Aemond’s forehead. The skin around where his uncle’s eye should have been sags at the emptiness within. A sense of pride ignites underneath Lucerys’s skin.

Aemond should thank him; his scar had made him beautiful.

Before Lucerys could make any form of remark, however, he feels his head forced backwards with a hard grip. Aemond is seething, a renewed vigor in how he thrusts up into Lucerys’s weeping and abused cunny.

“Taobus,” he sneers close to Lucerys’s mouth. “You truly are a covetous brat.”

Had the older man not broken into a wolfish grin, Lucerys would have believed that he would not make it to the morning.

Aemond grips his hair, tells him, “Open up.”

Lucerys feverishly heeds the command. He opens his mouth wide without question.

In truth, the boy does not know what he had expected or if he had expected anything, at all. Still, the gesture is a pleasant surprise.

With all the disdain of a wronged second son and a blinded little boy, Aemond spits into Lucerys’s mouth. He forces the boy’s jaw shut with his right hand, tells him to swallow like a good boy.

His nephew does so, eyes glazed over and just as he spears himself fully on Aemond’s co*ck. The older prince watches his nephew’s throat bob as his saliva enters the boy’s throat.

Elated and, perhaps, demented, Aemond claims Lucerys’s lips in another kiss, his tongue immediately exploring every crevice of the boy’s mouth. He f*cks up into Lucerys enthusiastically, his co*ck growing harder at every moan and whimper from the boy.

With his remaining strength, Aemond wraps Lucerys with his left arm, lifts the boy by his waist, and slams Lucerys back down - seats his nephew fully on his co*ck as he bites down the boy’s bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, pounds violently into Lucerys’s sweet c*nt.

“Your co*ck must be kissing my womb,” Lucerys shakily whispers out.

Lucerys’s legs tighten around him. Aemond could hear the boy’s puss* squelch as his nephew’s walls clench around his co*ck.

The boy screams.

Rapture tastes sweet, is cloying and is blissful, all the same.

Aemond could feel his seed empty into Lucerys’s c*nt in a seemingly endless stream. Above him, Aemond could hear and feel Lucerys’s slowly calming breathing. Between their bellies, Aemond could feel his nephew’s co*cklet twitching, warm seed painting their skins. He gives the boy a peck of his forehead.

“You are wonderful,” he says against the sweat and the salt. He is still rocking gently, riding out the rest of his org*sm.

Carefully, he gathers the skirts of Lucerys nightgown in one hand and pulls the fabric away. White moisture mixes with clear slick on the base of his co*ck and on his stomach; his come had spilled out of Lucerys’s puss*.

He is not certain if the act had been appropriate, but Aemond lets out a satisfied chuckle. Lucerys sends a sharp look his way, the boy’s eyes having had only seen what had actually made his uncle so joyous.

There is the barest hint of crimson on the silver hairs of Aemond’s co*ck. Upon a closer look, Lucerys also sees a considerable stain of the same shade on his own nightgown.

Lucerys could only manage a weak hit aimed towards his uncle’s chest.

“You f*cking degenerate!” He accuses.

The juvenile display only makes Aemond all the more pleased, his laugh growing louder. With his right hand, Aemond seizes both of his nephew’s wrists. “You were begging me to f*ck you,” he points out.

“Still!” Lucerys says shrilly. “This is…”

Aemond raises an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“This is p*rnographic! I cannot believe that I would ever lay with you, you deviant brute!”

Whatever else Lucerys had in mind, he no longer gets to spit out. “But, you did,” Aemond interrupts.

He kisses Lucerys, once more, a satisfied smile on his lips as he pulls his nephew down with him. Spent and boneless, Lucerys allows him. “You do not have a single thread of romantic fiber in you, Uncle,” the boy complains against the older man’s chest.

Still sticky with sweat and barely lucid, the two princes continue peppering kisses upon each other - soft as a butterfly’s wings and surprisingly tender.

“You could have been kinder, you know?” Lucerys blurts out, his left cheek now resting on Aemond’s chest.

He feels his uncle hum, more to indulge him, than to truly agree.

For a few more moments, they lay silently on their makeshift blanket - content, as if they had been in one of the grandest rooms in The Red Keep.

Without warning, Aemond places a long kiss on Lucerys’s forehead. He coaxes the boy’s head up, brushes his sharp nose against Lucerys upturned nose. So youthful, does his nephew look. Something shatters inside Aemond’s chest.

“I would be, if you give me another chance,” Aemond promises.

His words sound like a plea.

Above him, Lucerys could only offer a weak smile. He reaches for the scarred part of Aemond’s face with his right hand. The boy caresses the scar gently, as if hoping that such would bring his uncle’s eye back.

The distant trees sway to the light breeze and the clouds slowly cover the large moon. No prying eyes look over at them and no intruding ears listen to them.

Briefly, Lucerys looks above his uncle’s head, scans the shore and the stones, near and far, and even turns around to look at the water. They have no companions; the faceless man is nowhere to be found and neither are the figures, who had appeared in the library.

There is no ghost on the shore.

A satisfied hum thrums inside Lucerys’s chest. Finally, he surges up. The resurrected prince places a humble kiss on the kinslayer’s empty eye socket.

The older prince would happily take such as a confession.

Astounding, truly, for Aemond finds that it is this kiss, which makes him see the most stars. He hopes that Lucerys had not done it simply out of pity, but he realizes that he has little care to spare; he finds solace in the small kiss, all the same.

For now, Lucerys hopes that it is enough.

Lucerys passes out, head blissfully silent, atop his uncle; Aemond, anchored by the weight of Lucerys, falls asleep on his crumpled cassock with a smile on his face.

As the day of his departure had looomed closer, Lucerys had noticed that the appearance of the faceless man and what may or may not be other actual ghosts had generally become more often.

Less threatening, but more often all the same.

Even after the previous night, his not so little friend had made certain that Lucerys would know that he is still very much around.

By the time Lucerys had stirred, the sun’s shy rays had already began peeking through the horizon. He had rubbed the sleep from his eyes, muttering an expletive.

In their sleep, Aemond’s arms had caged him. Beneath him, his uncle had remained in slumber, a small upturned tick on his lis lips.

Lucerys had scoffed as his own thought; would it be so bad to stay for a little longer?

Of course, it would have been.

Soon, the slumbering land would wake; the windows of the shops lining the main road would open and the sidewalks would begin filling with people on their morning walks.

“Aemond,” Lucerys had called, brushing the tip of his nose against his uncle’s.

With his uncle having had shown no signs of rousing, Lucerys had proceeded to roll off the older man. Between his legs, he could still feel the evidence of their tryst drying up. His whole body, drowning in pleasure just a few hours before, now aches.

He had righted his nightgown, had pulled the skirts down to cover his decency. His boxer briefs, unfortunately, had seemed long gone. Lowering himself on his belly, Lucerys had stretched his sore limbs, sands sticking to his wrists, forearms, fingers, ankles, and toes.

The sinews of the lissome frame had strained deliciously as the boy had reached out and sprawled all over the damp sand. Satisfied with easing of his muscles and the cracking of his bones, Lucerys had turned on his back.

Before his tired spine could even hit the sandy ground, Lucerys had already sensed a familiar, oppressive wraith. Sure enough, above him is the faceless man, standing by his head and bowing awfully close. Even without any visible eye on the specter, Lucerys’s skin had crawled from the sensation, which only ever comes from knowing that one is being watched and stared at.

Mindless of the time and place, Lucerys had let out an ear-splitting wail.

Naïveté makes him hope that they could not follow him back to his old life.

It is a bleak dream, much like the delusion that Lucerys is not putting his cassock on for the final time that morning. The clerical collar feels tighter, than it should. He ignores the discomfort and the desire to pull the measly piece of fabric off. Spending his last day as Brother Luke drowning in his despair is tempting, but wasteful, he thinks; his peers would expect him at breakfast, his students would expect him in class.

His students… He wishes that he could have told them of his departure earlier. Six days was supposed to be much longer. How could they have bled on so quickly?

“Ready?”

A stiff voice pulls him out of his reverie.

“Hm?”

Sabitha takes a seat next to him in the refectory, ignoring the stares that they both are getting.

A sympathetic look is thrown his way. “For tonight,” she says under her breath.

Right.

He flashes a smile towards his friend, hopes that it is more convincing and excited, than he had truly felt.

“Stay with me,” Aemond had all, but begged, as his uncle had crashed his hysterical figure against his own chest. Lucerys had not ceased blabbering about the man, the man, the man.

Aemond had sworn that they are, thankfully, alone.

Next to him, Sabitha stabs at the mushrooms on her own plate. “You just seem a bit… Distracted.”

How had he gone back to his bedroom? The lack of sleep begins to manifest, Lucerys’s temples pulsing in pain.

Lucerys could remember a strong hand covering his mouth, blocking more sounds from escaping. A bruise now sits on the skin of his left waist - from the sex or from his uncle’s panicked grip on him, much earlier.

The man had no longer been there, but Lucerys still remembers how his fingers trembled as he had burrowed his nails deep into the skin of Aemond’s arms.

“I just had a few less hours of sleep,” he tells Sabitha. He shovels a bit of corn flakes into his spoon and forces the food into his mouth.

He lifts his eyes from the copper bowl in front of him and they land on the opposite side of the room. A stained glass window of Saint Anthony of Padua, a child in one arm and the other hand extended towards the reins of a mule, greets his vision. But, Lucerys does not get much time to appreciate the work of art. By the saint’s feet and directly in front of Lucerys is the faceless man.

Somehow, the phantom appears to be trying to hide behind some of the priests and nuns milling about. Lucerys returns to his food, consoling himself at the fact that the ghost is, at least, standing far from him. He had been accompanied by the apparition for years. There is no reason to fear its sight, now.

Sabitha clears her throat to get his attention. “We will be close behind,” she assures Lucerys.

The boy presses on his left eyebrow with the middle fingers of his left hand. “Hm?” He had missed what Sabitha had been saying.

“I said that we will be close behind,” she patiently repeats through a mouthful of buttered toast. A few chews, and the novice swallows her bite. “We had planned to follow, you know? Alysanne and I.”

While grateful to know that he would still have the chance to meet his friends very soon, Lucerys wonders how the two could manage leaving. “Does Cregan know?” He asks in curiosity.

Sabitha’s expression turns quite rueful. “We were hoping to propose it to him.”

“How so? Is he not accompanying me, tonight?”

“Yes, he would be. Alysanne had already informed the faculty that she would not be coming in today. They both hope to go over the route later, just to be certain,” Sabitha shares.

Throughout the conversation, a dull ache courses across Lucerys’s forehead. He could only half-listen to Sabitha’s response.

Almost completely, the pleasant buzz, which had tinted the beginning of his day vanishes. He could remember running barefoot, as he had crossed the street from the shore towards the church.

No. He urges himself to turn his mental reel further back for a few seconds, a few minutes.

The smell of the sea, the noises of the seagulls, the sand between his toes.

Further.

He had broken free of his uncle’s clutches, had felt his wrists crack as he had pushed Aemond away.

“I could never stay with you!” The boy had screamed, equal parts frightened and apologetic.

Quite an exaggeration, he judges, now. His head is pounding and his ears are ringing. A sour taste threatens to escape through his mouth.

Are first sexual encounters always as tiring? Perhaps, he would feel better in bed. Perhaps, with enough sleep, his brain would not feel like mush and his thoughts would not be as foggy.

He is snapped from his reverie, literally, by Alysanne. Lucerys follows the gesture of the girl’s right hand, fingers still snapping. “Hey,” she seems to be saying.

“Sorry?” Lucerys blurts out.

Alysanne throws him a sympathetic look. “Is something bothering you?”

Lucerys flatly denies Alysanne’s inquiry. He brings a spoonful of cereal into his mouth, again. Taking his time chewing in the grains. “Seriously,” he whispers under his breath. He could feel every chew of his mouth mirrored inside his head.

The decision to tire himself and indulge in every whim the previous night begins to look like a terrible decision.

“No. I am fine, just a tad bit sleepy,” he says. Lucerys would have commented on how he did not even notice Alysanne get to them, but he supposes that such would not help his case at all.

So, Lucerys forces more corn flakes and milk into his mouth, while trying not to focus on his rapidly approaching departure. He glances around the room for his uncle, but Aemond must either still be in his quarters or had decided to skip on breakfast.

In his periphery, he takes note of Alysanne and Sabitha having an animated conversation. He catches some words here and there, but fails to digest anything that the two girls are saying. If mere breakfast chatter is already difficult for him to follow, he could only guess how much of a mess he would be in class.

Delivering a terrible day for his students and acting like a morphine-high wounded soldier is no way to end his days in a town, which he had called home for close to half a decade. Thus, he rolls his neck, wets his mouth and tongue with cold water, and reminds himself to take Tylenol, before entering the classroom.

Headache aside, Lucerys turns to his friends with more alertness and a more convincing smile on his pale face. Alysanne is just clearing her own plate - a few slices of ham and potatoes.

“Still no fish?” Lucerys remarks. Alysanne had began favoring fish and clams, since she had moved to the coastal town.

The boy could still recall her reasoning. “Much fresher, than that crap that they drown in salt,” she had said.

Mouth still busy chewing, Alysanne, now, nods her head, a strand of black hair straying from the confines of her habit’s veil. “The catch is still terrible, I’ve heard,” she says over a mouthful of bland potatoes. “It is not helping how autumn is fast approaching, either.”

Lucerys mentally reminds himself to request his brother for sufficient food supplies to be sent to that very same town, once he reaches King’s Landing.

“Oh, you do not have to wait for me,” she reminds them.

Just as Sabitha had said, Alysanne does not plan to come to class that day. Cregan, apparently, would be waiting for her at the back of one of the bakeries.

Nearly as swift as a guillotine’s blade drops, melancholy invades Lucerys’s whole being. He had taken the route from the church to school with Alysanne and Sabitha thousands of times. There had been very few days, wherein one or another would not be present during such a walk. To think that Alysanne would not be present on his last trek to their place of work renders the boy doleful. He wonders if he had taken all those mornings and afternoons for granted.

“Don’t be silly,” be tells Alysanne. Perhaps, it is merely a misplaced sense of gloom. “We can still wait for you. Let us walk you back to your room, at least.”

Such is his last morning in his new, old life; an uncharacteristic panic to begin his day, an aching head and a tired body, no Aemond at breakfast to hawk at him, no Alysanne to accompany him and Sabitha on their usual walk to the school.

Sabitha, still wary of Lucerys’s claimed lack of sleep, is the first to stand up. She has her empty plate and used utensils in one hand, when she offers another hand for Lucerys to hold on to. Declining the much appreciated gesture, Lucerys insists that he is feeling better.

The trio places their dishes and utensils into the appropriate bins and exit the dining hall. Lucerys turns around to look at one of the mundane components of his recent life.

Under his breath, he murmurs small words of gratitude and good-bye.

Just as how the past six days had gone, Lucerys also looses track of the time, which he and Sabitha spend to get to the school. He finds himself entering the gate one last time, his headache somewhat worsened by the extended walk. At one point, Sabitha had even offered to carry the brown paper bag, which Lucerys had taken with him. Inside is a handful of trinkets for his students.

Unaware of the pang, which hits Lucerys at the successive feelings of finality assaulting his being, Sabitha leaves him with a smile to attend to her class.

Once Lucerys had taken the Tylenol and had downed the capsule with a bottle of water, it had only taken a few minutes for the boy to feel much better. Going about his day had become much easier without the constant reminder of him having barely any sleep and why he had been up so late past the barrier of night and day in the first place.

Mind preoccupied with too much thought and worry to enumerate, Lucerys takes the long way to his classroom. When he reaches Aemond’s classroom, he peaks through the open glass window to check on his uncle. Only, the teacher’s desk is still empty and the older man is nowhere inside the classroom. He would have inquired with one of his uncle’s students - Joffrey, perhaps, but he is already running behind his schedule. Lucerys always hopes to be inside the classroom at least thirty minutes, before the class begins. He checks the thin dark brown leather watch on his wrist and true enough, he has less than fifteen minutes to prepare his classroom.

With the weather already turning colder and gloomier, Lucerys chalks up his students’ rather sullen dispositions to the changing of the seasons. He overthinks, still, and fears that he had somehow offended them in one way or another.

Even Corwyn, who had often had to be physically pulled by his friends from Lucerys every dismissal time, had appeared aloof. When asked how his pet parrot had been doing, the boy had merely shrugged.

“Fine,” he murmured with his head down.

Alarmed, Lucerys wracks his brain for any blunder, which he may have had done in class, but he comes up with no answer.

Lucerys watches the children answer their short quiz on basic multiplication as he picks on the skin of his fingers underneath the teacher’s desk. He is overthinking, he tells himself.

The boy nods to himself, wipes the bloody edges of his fingers on his black cassock, and puts on a smile, just in time for Casper - the first of his students to finish answering the test, to approach his desk and submit his paper.

Unlike most of the boy’s classmates, he meets Lucerys’s eyes. “I am done, Teacher Lucy,” Casper says with a smile.

Noticing that one of the child’s front teeth is missing, Lucerys lets out a delighted coo. He takes the paper and sets the sheet inside the folder to his right. “Did you lose a tooth, dear?”

Casper proudly nods. Lucerys congratulates him on the milestone and reminds himself to get the boy an ice cream from the cafeteria as a treat to ease the certainly still open wound.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, the day seems to extend and last much longer, than such usually does. Lucerys gets to savor his last day as a teacher and as an academic, but he also gets to suffer through his anxieties for what feels like an eternity.

The lunch break finally arrives, which Lucerys spends alone underneath the citrus tree. Aemond makes no appearance and Sabitha had merely dropped by to tell him that she will be grading papers in the library.

Instead, Lucerys eats half of his grilled cheese sandwich with the faceless man as his audience. He ignores the phantom standing by the fountain and finishes his food in silence as he watches the birds titter above the branches of the citrus tree.

He would not allow such a mood to persist. Lucerys despairs at the thought of any of his final days in anywhere to be one of misery and not of either bittersweetness or excitement for what is yet to come.

The rest of the day continues much the same - mundane, if not for the very few smiles and giggles from Lucerys’s class that morning. It is not until the last subject, when Lucerys finally gets the time to tell his students of the news.

Lucerys takes the brown paper bag from where he had set it beneath his desk. “Class, now that we are about to go home, there is something Teacher Lucy must tell you,” he says as he sets the bag of trinkets on the wooden table.

Irri’s head is the first to snap up from her own bag.

“I will have to go somewhere.”

The packing of notebooks and pencils in front of him comes to a halt. “For how long?” Quentyn asks.

With the revelation, Lucerys notices his students’ eyes turn curious and glassy. “Just for a while,” comes his lie. He would never conflate his role in his class’s life, but the thought of a stable figure leaving would be a cause for some degree of sadness.

“Why?”

“I just have to continue my studies.”

A barrage of questions follow suit.

“To where?”

Lucerys takes some time to answer the question, suddenly unsure of what to say next. “My degree would require me to go to a university in the capital.” He is proud of his response, for it is only half of a lie.

Myrtle raises her hand, as if to partake in recitation.

“You can speak freely, Myrtle,” Lucerys assures her with an endeared expression.

The girl nods with a pout. “Are you not a priest? Why are you still in school?”

Ah. His fib is not as intelligent, it seems.

“I am not a priest, yet, Myrtle,” he clarifies.

He thinks that he hears a mutter of, “Oh, no. It all makes sense, no,” from one of the students by the window, but Lucerys figures that fixating on such would be of no help to his current psyche.

Lucerys taps on the table, considers his next few words. “Teacher Lucy is yet to take his vows and I am also studying, so I could be better at helping you guys study.”

“For how long?”

“Just for a while,” Lucerys tells them.

Shyra, too, adds her own curiosity. “Will you visit?”

Lucerys is barely able to suppress a tear from falling. “Of course.” He turns slightly to his right, sniffs. “In the mean time, I have a few companions for you to remember me by, my little sailors.”

The children become less downcast, a few smiles spreading across the room.

Plush fabric meets Lucerys’s fingers as he reaches inside the brown paper bag. He takes out one of the small stuffed toys and reads the name attached to the sheep.

“This is for Quentyn,” he says as he watches the younger boy light up and approach him. Lucerys meets him halfway, placing the stuffed sheep into his ward’s hands.

Quentyn, then, pouts, the boy barely able to stop himself from throwing a tantrum. “I will miss you, Lucy,” he says with his lips wobbling.

Without being able to restrain himself, Lucerys lowers himself to a kneeling position and embraces Quentyn. Soon, a sound of pattering feet permeate the still air and a sea of small arms drown Lucerys. A few of his pupils break out into cries as they wail out their teary good-byes.

The blood beneath his veins remind Lucerys of his kin waiting for him from a castle miles away. At that moment, however, Lucerys accepts that a part of him - no matter how small, would have happily stayed in that very insignificant seaside town and live the very life, which he had cursed for years.

Aemond paces inside the office of his grandfather. For the first time in a long while, Otto had requested the presence of his second and only remaining grandson.

Watching the rapidly sinking sun outside of the large office window does nothing to calm Aemond’s nerves. Lucerys had left in a hurry that morning, just before the sun rises. He would have to speak with the boy, having realized that he might have been overbearing. The man runs his right hand through his short silver hair in frustration.

Could he have done anything differently? Could he have said something differently?

In retrospect, he could have gone with his day more effectively.

Lucerys is about to leave in a few hours and Aemond is yet to see him. In the time, which the latter had spent waiting for his grandfather, he could have followed Lucerys, could have apologized to his nephew, could have gone to breakfast, could have gone to school to teach his class, could have eaten lunch with Lucerys, even possibly walk the boy home.

What Aemond should have done is to have had taken a long, deep breath. He should have taken some minutes to watch the sea, even.

But, such a dream is no reality.

Aemond’s cassock is still haphazardly buttoned in front of his undone white button-down polo, his black leather belt barely securing his seawater-smelling black trousers.

He had been confused - hurt, if he is to be honest. He had righted himself as best as he could, Lucerys’s scream still echoing in his ears. Last night, Aemond had fallen asleep happy, content, and all sorts of emotions previously unavailable to the likes of him.

The mere memory of Lucerys’s bare skin against his is enough to elicit a reaction from the man. Lucerys had been warm, had smelled divine, had looked ethereal. Aemond could not recall how he had survived without a single glance from Lucerys, much less a single sliver of a touch.

Humiliatingly, the older Targaryen prince feels his co*ck stir in his trousers. He wets his lips, then turns around to search for water. The evidence of their shared evening still lays dry against Aemond’s stomach and down his thighs. Lucerys had been a generous lover, after all.

Following his nephew would have been the better course of action. Aemond could have helped calm the boy down and could have asked him what had shaken him so. Despite the guilt hounding at him, Aemond allows himself to indulge at the thought that he could have even asked for a quick f*ck. To walk amongst their peers with their scents hanging heavy in the air under the roof of an angry God…

Such a thought would have sent his younger self and his recently resurrected self into a horrified mania. He would have had ran on foot, have had driven any easily accessible vehicle, or have had flown any available aircraft maniacally towards the nearest sept or church to confess his grave and awfully Targaryen sin.

Nevertheless, the Aemond of yesterday is no longer the Aemond standing on the carpeted floor of Otto Hightower’s office in some backwards town in the Stormlands. He yearns for the memory of his tryst with his own nephew. In retrospect, he could not understand why breaking his vows would have unnerved him so; Lucerys had been impossible to deny.

There, surrounded by the images of God, of the Virgin Mary, of Jesus Christ, of angels, and of saints, Prince Aemond Targaryen’s could only restlessly hope for the ecstasy, which only Prince Lucerys Velaryon could ever provide.

Outside, the man could see that the sun has already completely set. He glances at his watch with impatience.

Regret makes itself known to Aemond.

What if he would not be able to bid his farewell to Lucerys? There is, after all, no telling when he could see his nephew again, if he could ever see his nephew, again.

From outside of the mahogany door of the office, Aemond picks up the sound of delicate footsteps pattering. He rushes towards the closed door with the goal of seeing who may have passed just outside Otto Hightower’s office, but he had been under the orders not to open the door for anyone, other than his grandsire or to let anyone remotely guess that he would be meeting with his grandsire.

Although only recently renewed, the secrecy already exhausts the Targaryen prince.

Aemond may not have been in such damning conditions, had he thought of his course of action more carefully. Barely decent, he had attempted to give chase to Lucerys, but had easily lost the boy. The sight of the church at near-dawn had been surprisingly haunting. Such is, perhaps, what had led to Aemond’s subsequent decision - one, which he no longer understands as he is trapped within the confines of his grandfather’s office.

Taking the exit through the seminary, he had rushed through the hall leading back to the church.

He had breathlessly pulled the wooden door open, sat himself, and slammed the door shut.

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned,” he had recited in a voice that had used to rattle his subjects inside of and outside of the war room.

The voice, which had greeted him is, as expected, not that of Father Bracken’s. Such should have already brought him to his senses.

But, it had not.

He had, with as little detail as he could, confessed his transgressions to Father Larys Strong. Too focused on choosing the right words to tell his confessor, Aemond had ignored the figure, which he had thought he had seen through the gaps of the wooden panel.

Downing a glass of water, Aemond now worries if someone else had been present to hear his hellish admissions.

“f*ck,” he mutters. Aemond pulls on the collar of his cassock, loosening the top buttons of the garment. He glances at the grandfather clock now standing in front of him.

The apparatus tells him that it is already beyond eight o’clock in the evening. He finds his current predicament ridiculous.

His grandsire had shown no respect for his time. In a sudden bout of defiance, Aemond resolves to leave the empty office at once.

Before he turns to leave, the prince lets out a frustrated sigh. He closes his eye as he attempts to ease the ache, which now hammers inside his head. A deep breath temporarily does the trick.

When he does open his right eye, his gaze immediately lands on the glass body of the grandfather’s clock. Through the reflection, he sees a willowy figure standing a few steps behind him. The lone light from the tall lamp by the office’s heavy dark mahogany door is not enough to fully illuminate the space. Only a weak warm glow barely touches the figure, leaving its frame mostly enveloped in darkness.

Except for what appears to be dark curls atop his company’s head, the startled deacon could not make out much of the other boy’s features.

Aemond’s breath catches inside his throat and had he been able to, the prince would have screamed.

He quickly turns around, his heart pounding and the hairs at the back of his neck standing on end.

When Aemond turns around, he finds no person behind him.

The prince is all alone.

Lucerys wipes an angry tear from his left eye. The fingers of his right hand are sticky from the lemon cakes, which Alysanne had kindly smuggled to him.

“Some snacks for your journey,” she had said.

Now, she “helps” Lucerys pack the remainder of his few possessions. The boy is actually not of much help to her. Anxious of what awaits him in King’s Landing, already dreading the many transfers and stops along the way, and frustrated at not even getting to say good-bye to his uncle, Lucerys had opened the metal lunchbox of sweets and eaten through half of the tin to distract himself.

More so, however, is his never-calming nerves at meeting his brothers and sisters, once more.

Would Aegon and Viserys even remember him?

Does Baela and Rhaena even know that he is alive?

In an attempt to silence his mind and to distract himself, Lucerys had done an impromptu exploration of the compound, just after he had set his possessions back inside his bedroom. He thought the activity to be perfect; he gets to pace around without needing to go far and he gets to re-discover every nook and cranny of the property.

For a few hours, Lucerys had gotten to be his younger self, once more - sneaking around The Red Keep looking for ancient chambers at the end of secret passageways and unknown corners behind hidden doors.

Within an hour and a half, Lucerys had been able to find a trap door leading to an actual wine cellar - one, which he had no idea existed, stumble upon a woodcarving workshop at the backrooms lined with unfinished images of angels and saints, and notice a path through one of the gardens, which led to the crypts. It is safe to say that Lucerys had not been too fond of his last discovery.

Rushing as far as he could from the damp tunnels of the compound, Lucerys had found himself at the edge of the West Wing. It had turned out that the construction of the extension is almost complete. Where there had been metal beams and bare walls months ago, there are already fully functioning rooms and high-ceilinged hallways.

At the end of one of such hallways is where the faceless man had made another appearance. Lucerys had been getting sick of the constant badgering. Exhausted and annoyed, he had resolved to approach the figure, once and for all.

With shaking, yet deliberate steps, Lucerys had carefully stepped closer to the fiend, who had attached himself to him. It is only then, when the boy had realized that the evening had fallen. Only the weak glow of one of the crystal chandeliers illuminate the path.

Under the cover of darkness, Lucerys could only make out the light hair on top of the figure’s head - the faint glow of the full moon bouncing against the strands.

The boy’s heart had painfully pounded inside his ribcage and the blood running inside his veins had turned cold. He had kept his eyes trained on the figure still ways away from him, fearing that the ghost would vanish with a single blink.

Alas; Lucerys had stopped on his tracks, a quiet yelp escaping his mouth. He could hear shuffling from his left, behind a heavy mahogany door intricately carved with a high tower. The boy had made the mistake of turning to his left. Briefly, he had considered testing the brass door handle, of peeking inside the new room.

Ultimately fearing who he may find beyond the entry and knowing that he should not have been in the site of the construction, Lucerys had turned his attention back to his original pursuit.

Lightning had cracked from outside, a blue tinge slightly clashing with the yellow light for a few seconds. The rumbling of thunder soon follows. Lucerys had tilted his head slightly. There had been no man or shadow at the end of the corridor.

The prince had been all alone.

Now, he is back inside his bedroom wallowing in his inexplicable melancholy.

Alysanne clears her throat and the sound of a suitcase being shut follows.

“There,” she announces, her hands on her waist. “All good.” The girl turns towards Lucerys. “You?”

Lucerys clicks his tongue and holds the muscle to the roof of his mouth. The gesture does not help; the dam breaks all the same.

Owls hoot outside of his window, accompanying Alysanne’s questions for him. She approaches Lucerys, sits beside him on the bed and speaks with overwhelming sympathy in her voice. “What’s wrong?” A hand is placed on Lucerys’s right shoulder for comfort.

Salty tears continue streaming down the boy’s pale face as he struggles to let his words out. “I will just miss you all, I guess,” he says. Lucerys reaches for the handkerchief on the wooden side table beside his small bed, blows on the fabric.

He could feel Aysanne’s gentle pats on his back. “Oh, Luke,” she sniffs. “We will miss you, too.”

Alysanne’s voice wobbles, telling Lucerys that she now accompanies him in crying. Just as he had not known how to tread life without his mother and his siblings, when he had first washed ashore, Lucerys now no longer knows a life without Alysanne and Sabitha.

If he is to be more truthful, such would extend to his students, too. Before his brain comes up with another name, Lucerys snips the thought and focuses on sealing the tin of lemoncakes.

Lucerys uses his still sugary right hand to wipe his eyes. “I am going to be f*cking miserable,” he blurts out.

“Hey.” A gentle smile replaces the downturned look on Alysanne’s face. “I know how much you miss your family. Do not deny it.”

Soft fingers brush a few wayward locks of hair from his face. Alysanne uses the same hand to cup Lucerys’s left cheek.

“You have been a joy to serve, my prince.” Her dark eyebrows knit together as a tear rolls down one of her rosy cheeks. “We hope to see you very soon.”

Together, Lucerys and Alysanne bow their heads forward, until their foreheads touch. A crow lands on the windowsill, cawing and flapping its wings. However, neither of the two crying figures indicate any sign of noticing the bird. They remain in the childish tender position for a few moments longer, until their sniffling and hiccuping subside.

Lucerys feels as if he is waiting for a dreadful sentence - one, which will separate him from a life, which he had built on his own.

The embrace, which comes next, is as natural and as familiar as any embrace from Lucerys’s childhood, as any as the ones shared with his brothers and sisters.

“We will be alright,” Alysanne says.

Just then, five knocks on the wooden door disturb the scene.

Of course, it could only be Sabitha.

While Alysanne lets their friend inside the room, Lucerys stands up and fixes his clothing; tonight, he is dressed in plain clothes relaxed enough to make him appear as one of the help staff of the church and comfortable enough for a long journey - a loose white linen button-down polo, a camel-colored pair of linen trousers, and a pair of dark brown leather slippers. He had foregone any type of belt to hold his pants up. Instead, a strip of white bandage is tied around three of the clothing’s belt loops at the back. A ring of keys for the outdoor gates hang on the right belt loop at the front of Lucerys’s trousers, courtesy of Sabitha’s light fingers.

Lucerys stuffs the lunchbox of lemoncakes into the cream-colored knapsack set at the foot of his bed, picks the bag and the suitcase up, then breathes out. He flashes a smile to his friends and announces, “All ready.”

Despite the time being late into the night, Lucerys could still hear considerable activity from beyond the walls. As they stalk the empty hallways towards the courtyard closest to the sea side, Lucerys mutters a prayer under his breath. May there be no crowd or soul close to their planned exit. He does not want the escape to be any more complicated, than it should be.

Too soon, than what Lucerys hopes for, they reach the archway leading to the open courtyard just adjacent to the main premises of the church. A three-tiered marble fountain with a carving of Saint Michael striking the serpent sits at the heart of the garden. In front of it is a large arbour expertly maintained to have red roses and white roses surrounding its beech frame. The smell of citrus fruits and a variety of flowers hang heavy in the night air.

Lucerys would have shared another teary farewell with both Alysanne and Sabitha in one of the alcoves of the charming garden, but all three of them have all been stopped at their tracks.

Even through the thick stone and considerable distance from where they are standing to the brass gate leading outside, the sound of angry conversations are loud enough to understand some words being spoken.

“Where is that coming from?” Sabitha asks with a whisper.

Walking back towards the direction of the church, Alysanne listens for the growing sound of what is undoubtedly a crowd. “It seems to be coming from the outside of the church doors,” she says.

The girl places the fingers of her right hand close to her lips, her right elbow resting on her crossed left forearm. “I have a terrible feeling about this.”

Sabitha groans, making her own displeasure known. “What could this be about, now? Of all the evenings!” She complains.

With determined steps, the novice walks out and steps onto the courtyard garden. She motions for her companions to follow quietly with her right pointer finger held in front of her lips.

Hidden in darkness, the trio reaches a recessed alcove halfway towards the brass gate.

“Lucerys,” Sabitha says, turning towards the boy between her and Alysanne. “How are you feeling about proceeding?”

The boy carefully drops his suitcase to the ground to relieve his right hand and arm of its weight. “Considering that we are already here, we might as well go through with sending me off,” he replies.

Despite the harrowing conditions of the evening, Lucerys still manages to crack a joke.

“We might have fared better, had I just left one morning and never returned.”

Sabitha narrows her eyes, hits her friend on his left shoulder for good measure. “I am serious, Luke!” Albeit appearing composed, a twinge of nervousness can be heard from the girl’s voice.

Chuckling as he rolls both of his strained shoulders, Lucerys is quick to assure his friend of his comforts. “Cregan will be waiting,” he adds.

Just then, Lucerys feels a hand grab him by his left forearm. He turns his focus from Sabitha to Alysanne and is met with the latter’s worried expression. “Are you sure?” With her eyebrows furrowed and the tear tracks still drying on her flushed cheeks, Lucerys is, once again, struck with awe and insurmountable gratitude. He had long found Alysanne and Sabitha to be his friends; looking at Alysanne’s expression at that moment tells him with certainty that they, too, have grown to care for him.

Taking Alyssane’s warm right hand in his much colder hands, Lucerys flashes his friend a smile. Lucerys is far from confident about their plan - what with him barely knowing any of its details, but he understands the thought and hardships, which his allies had endured to arrange for his escape. But, most of all, he trusts Alysanne and Sabitha with his life. “Yes, Aly,” he replies, head tilting towards his left.

He turns towards Sabitha, reaches towards her with his recently freed right hand.

“Thank you, to the both of you,” he tearfully shares. “For everything.”

Beyond the confines of the compound, the sound of the gathering crowd grows louder. However, at that moment, Lucerys swears that all he could hear are the heartfelt reminders and farewells of Alysanne and Sabitha - much louder, than even the two girls’ sniffing.

Sabitha lifts the boy’s suitcase from the ground and begins treading further. Lucerys and Alysanne immediately follow suit with measured steps.

Once they reach the brass gate, Lucerys turns to his companions.

“Thank you,” he repeats. “I have no words to fully express the extent of my thankfulness and love for the both of you.”

Sabitha hiccups, covers her mouth with her right hand. When she closes her eyes, multiple tears race down her pale cheeks. “Shut up, nerd.” She sniffs and before Lucerys could laugh at the remark, he is pulled into a tight embrace.

“Be safe,” Sabitha mutters as her tears moisten the thin fabric of Lucerys’s white button-sown polo. “You cannot be rid of us that easily.”

Alysanne takes her turn to bid Lucerys a final farewell, without waiting for her partner to let go of the boy. She, too, drapes her arms around Lucerys. “I will miss you, Lucerys,” she says against his right ear. It is a wonder, how she had managed to stretch her arms around both Lucerys and Sabitha.

When Sabitha begins to lift her arms from Lucerys, Alysanne, too, follows suit.

“It has been a pleasure and a great joy to serve you, my prince.”

Lucerys could already predict how puffy his face would look on the following day. He had never fared well with generous displays of wailing.

He adjusts the knapsack on his back, then takes Alysanne’s right hand and Sabitha’s left hand. “I am not a prince,” he points out. “Especially not during our days together.”

The boy fights the urge to pull the two into another embrace.

“Thank you for being the most wonderful friends to me.”

With another embrace - now, initiated by Alysanne, and repeated chants of pleas for Lucerys to be safe, declarations of Alysanne’s and Sabitha’s of their love for Lucerys, and promises to Lucerys that they will be catching up to him, Lucerys finally manages to slip the appropriate key to the rusting padlock before them to unlock the final barrier standing between Lucerys and, hopefully, freedom.

Alysanne and Sabitha urge themselves to stay rooted on their spots within the courtyard garden, sending Lucerys through the brass gates and out into the waiting world.

Unexpectedly, a rush of relief knocks into Lucerys’s whole being. Despite already having been out in the open air, before he had gone through the brass gates, the air somehow smells more pleasant yonder the confines of the church property; the wind now blowing through his face feels more promising.

He turns to his right, then to his left, to search for the knight, who had been promised to him.

Beyond the brass gate, however, it is not Lord Cregan Stark, who greets Prince Lucerys Velaryon.

“There!” Shouts the only man, who Lucerys can see.

Confused, he takes a few moments to gape at the person approaching him. The man walks with deliberate steps. Around them, Lucerys could make out the sound of people approaching.

Lucerys turns his head to the right and is met with a throng of people craning their necks to look closer from where they are standing. His left side is not any better, with a crowd of people now only a few steps from the man.

Angry chatter fill the air and the boy could make out curious words being thrown at him.

A sharp breeze from the sea blows and it is enough to knock Lucerys back into his senses. He turns around in time, sees that Alysanne and Sabitha have been trying to call towards him for what must be a minute, already.

Before he could step back into the church’s premises, however, he feels a rough hand grab at his hair.

“Not so fast,” says the man, who has gotten a hold of him. Lucerys drops his suitcase to the ground as he is dragged back with the man’s left arm around his waist. The smell of pleasant oils assault Lucerys’s senses. It is a stark contrast from the pain of being pulled by one’s hair and from the panic of being carelessly and blindly dragged about.

Panic-stricken, Lucerys tries to look at the face of his assailant. Only his knapsack places a significant distance between them - enough for his vision to focus, without being dizzied by the closeness of his subject. Lucerys is surprised to see a familiar face; the man is the father of one of Alysanne’s students. It explains the scent of flowers and spices; he works at the factory for soaps, if Lucerys is correct.

The stripped deacon flails about in an attempt to shake off the man.

A familiar scream breaks through the commotion as Lucerys feels much softer and smaller hands grab at his arms. Alysanne and Sabitha had ran outside of the garden to try and force Lucerys out of the man’s grasp. His friends’ tears from what is supposed to be their parting have turned into cries of alarm.

“Let go of him!” Alysanne commands to no avail.

Through the tangle of arms around him, Lucerys could see that Sabitha and Alysanne are just as flustered and disoriented as he is.

In the struggle, Lucerys loses his knapsack, too. The combined efforts of Alysanne and Sabitha - to take him back behind the brass gate or simply to have the man let go of him, prove to be fruitless. Soon, the frenzied crowd descends upon them and Lucerys finds himself in a bigger mess of limbs and spit.

“whor*!” Someone screams from the crowd.

A hand manages to grab at his white button-down polo, the owner of the hand yanking him away from his captor. The top buttons of his clothing snap and go flying away in every direction.

Lucerys could feel the skin, where the collar of his own clothes had caught, burn from the force. Such pain, however, is nothing compared to the blows against his ribs, to the slaps thrown at his face, and to the nails dragging against his skin. “You, demon!” A woman, who has her hands around Lucerys’s neck screeches.

He manages to wring his right arm free, tries to block the next blows from landing on his face. Already clueless of the cause of the chaos, Lucerys is further damned by the beating, which is inflicted on him by no less, than about a dozen people.

Such violence does not seem to be enough, either, for the boy could feel more hands grab at him and could hear jeers telling his current attackers to hand him over. He loses sight of Alysanne and Sabitha, both girls either knocked down on the ground or restrained by the mob.

Exhausted and disoriented, Lucerys allows his sleeping tears to fall freely. He thinks that he had tried to croak out an apology and to beg to know what he has done, but he could no longer hear his own voice over the shouts and charges of the people around him. He grows limp, feels himself being dragged away and passed around to be struck and to be hit.

Warm liquid trickles from the upper left side of his head. Lucerys knows that the next slap on his face would smudge the blood dripping from what could only be a wound. He briefly blacks out, only to come to through a slap delivered by one of the women in the crowd. The force sends him hurtling towards the ground.

“Please,” he begs. He tastes salt and iron inside his mouth.

He reaches behind to brace himself, scratching his pale palms on the hard road. Lucerys gets a brief window to, at least, look around.

The boy tries to catch his breath as he squints in an attempt to nurse his blurry vision.

Ah.

Someone in front of him speaks with enough vitriol to compare with Alicent Hightower’s voice, whenever she had spoken of her step-daughter’s ilk. “An abomination,” the man bellows out.

A piece of torn paper is held next to the bleeding boy’s face. Lucerys’s head lolls to one side, requiring one of the men in the crowd to hold him by the neck. The grip makes Lucerys yelp.

“Shut up,” a forceful voice commands as the grip on his neck is tightened.

The man spits on the ground, stray spittle touching the skin of Lucerys’s thighs through his torn trousers.

“Bastard.”

Just then, the young boy’s blood runs cold. The fear follows; somehow, the feeling of dread and understanding creeps into the pit of his stomach.

Lucerys peeks at the sheet of paper being brought closer to his face and sees, with horror, what is printed on its façade. A young, smiling face stares back at him. “No,” he murmurs as his vision clears and allows him to recognize himself - much younger and smaller in frame, smiling with his mother right next to him.

“The devil truly does cloak himself in holiness,” one of the older women amongst the crowd says, her bottom lip trembling in a sense of betrayal, as if Lucerys had been a son, who had wronged her.

Around them, the crowd gasps. “Just as Father Larys had said,” a shrill voice supplies.

From his periphery, Lucerys could see another heavy-set man walk closer. What comes next is a resounding strike across his face.

Despite the set of hands holding him by his arms and someone’s right hand supporting him by his neck, Lucerys is sent flailing towards the asphalt.

“The exact same face as his mother’s,” the deliverer of the blow says.

Lucerys, now free from the grip of others, attempts to crawl away. He hisses as his bloody palms meet the rough surface of the ground. The brief pause at his beating had been brought by neither the crowd’s violence being satiated, nor by some warped pity for the bleeding boy, but to confirm his identity.

Whether simply holding up an old photograph printed on a textbook by another person’s face is an effective form of identification had been out of the question.

The brief pause of his assault allows Lucerys to take his surroundings in enough to identify the faces around him and, even, to place a name on some of those faces.

A woman elbows through the crowd and, once she arrives at the center where Lucerys slumps uselessly on the floor spitting blood out, she holds onto a bearded man’s right forearm desperately. “Wait!” She lets out.

Lucerys allows himself to hope that reason and help have finally arrived.

“Think of what you are to do, my darling,” she says. “Words are mere are words and regardless of whose mouth they come out of, their merits are not assured.” The woman spares Lucerys a glance - it is Mrs. Rogers, he recognizes. She is one of the volunteer teachers at the school.

A sound of disagreement spreads through the crowd. The townspeople stalk closer, then, making the small space around Lucerys even smaller.

By some pity, the steps halt. Lucerys recognizes the deep voice telling the crowd to halt. The boy had bought a sea bass from the man’s stall at the port-side for a handful of times.

The woman, Mrs. Rogers, speaks again. “Shouldn’t you at least confirm such accusations beyond a piece of paper?”

A burly man steps forward. Through the light of the moon and of several lit lamps, Lucerys could see that he still wears an olive coat over an untucked cream-colored linen button-down polo. A soldier. And not just any soldier; Lucerys recognizes the older man to be amongst those, who had accompanied Aemond in Storm’s End.

With the pain in his head slightly easing, the dark-haired boy is able to force his neck with enough mobility to better survey his surroundings.

“Confirm we must do, then,” the soldier says. Lucerys’s attention, however, is now on the other faces, which he could see through the horde.

Horrified, he gasps. Children, standing on their own little feet, held by the waists of their furious mothers, carried on the shoulders of their seething fathers.

What has come upon Lucerys? What has come upon the world? To allow children to see such violence and to hear such curses! His despair is increased ten-fold, then, when he recognizes more than a dozen of the faces in the crowd.

Tears streaming down their chubby cheeks and shrieking, Lucerys’s own students stare at him from the arms of their parents. Inexplicable shame embraces Lucerys’s whole being, makes him feel more worthless, than he had already been. He could only let out a wail and hide his face on the crook of his right shoulder, resting his face with his limbs and belly on the ground, his bruised thighs crossed painfully beneath him.

Over him, Mrs. Rogers is still shaking her head as she looks on towards the soldier with a sickened expression. “No,” she says quietly.

“We should confirm, no?” The Wylde soldier purports with a sneer.

The few voices of uncertainty and even fewer voices of outright disagreement is immediately drowned out by the scattered sounds of agreement.

Lucerys manages to open his mouth slightly. “Wha—“ A hand manages to get a hold of the sleeves of his torn clothing. He does not get to finish voicing his question out.

More determined hands land on him, but above the rest of the crowd towers another man dressed similarly in an olive coat. He, along with two other men, undoubtedly reaches for Lucerys’s unbuttoned trousers.

An ugly understanding dawns upon Lucerys.

With a miraculously renewed strength, he attempts to cover his decency with his left hand, while he uses his right hand to push the claws away.

“No, please,” he begs through blood and dirt.

Lucerys’s whole life had been riddled with gossip and ridicule. The palpable disdain of his own uncles for himself and for his siblings had not gone unnoticed. As a child, he would spend days sulking after hearing yet another new word from his uncles’ mouths - their meanings unknown to him, but Lucerys knew that there had been nothing kind about such words. Spoken with the older boys’ eyebrows stitching together in an ugly scowl, their faces crumpled beyond recognition, and their spit raining upon Lucerys, the words would seep deep into the young prince’s very bones, like poison.

His anxiety would worsen throughout the years, mounting upon his shoulders, just as the weight of his inheritance would. Rhaenyra would always find a way to ease him, however.

“Ugly words can only ever come from ugly souls,” Rhaenyra would tell him as a crying child.

A one-armed hug and a kiss to his forehead. “Driftmark is your birthright, my son,” Rhaenyra would tell him as a cowering teenager. “Your father and Lord Corlys affirms such, and so does my father.”

What comforts are there for him, now?

The very same accusations from his birth are thrown at him all over again, but this time, they descend upon him with harsh fists and elbows.

Below, the men still struggle with undoing the hook and zipper of the boy’s trousers.

How cruel, for the mindless chatter advertised to him in his youth to be the cause for such undoing. No reprieve comes. With a rush of sudden fury, he closes his hazel eyes. He could pray for Aemond to materialize, arrive - whatever. The prince wonders if his wish is desperate enough and immense enough for him to will his uncle’s presence.

To save him? To accompany him? To say his farewell to him?

Lucerys does not know and dreams do not matter.

So, he does none of the sort.

“I am sorry,” he stutters out, seeking out the figures of the children amongst the swarm and hoping that they are not being crushed. “Careful, please.”

Lucerys tries to fight the ghastly touches aiming for him, but comes to accept the inevitable.

“Wait,” he croaks out, just as someone successfully cuts off a chunk of his hair. The boy reaches for the hand searing the insides of his thighs.

Saliva lands on the deacon’s face, blurring his vision. “Shut up,” the man says.

As quick as he can, Lucerys wipes his eyes free of the warm liquid. By the time his hands are free, the zipper of his trousers have already come undone. He blindly reaches for any other person. His shaking, searching hands land on the left forearm of a gaunt woman.

Dark hair and sallow skin familiar, Lucerys could make out enough of the woman’s features to identify one of the few seamstresses of the town - one of the mothers in Aemond’s class.

“Please,” he cries out, once more. “Not in front of the children.”

The request puts a stop to the woman’s motions.

“I beg you! Not in front of the children, please,” Lucerys screams out, his face scratched up, bruised, and bloody. He could not recognize the ugly sound, which had just come out of his throat.

Still, the desperate plea does not come unheard, at least. The woman stares at him with clearer eyes, before she attempts to shield Lucerys from the onslaught of her companions.

“Wait,” she echoes Lucerys’s plea. “The children! The children!” The woman screams madly, but this time, it is her voice, who the townspeople ignore.

Different fingers reach for Lucerys’s hips, the dirty and calloused skin pressing on the bones protruding over his bones. His trousers are yanked off.

Lucerys tries to reach for the waistband of his trousers, now hanging below his knees. He is, however, knocked back by a punishing strike from one of the men, who are already dressed in their pyjamas.

The woman, who had been trying to speak over the crown screams louder and retreats. Through his dark hair and through the sandy air, Lucerys can see her search for her child - a son, and lift him off of the ground to carry him away.

A few of the other women and some men must have seen the display, for they, too, abandon Lucerys to their peers and scream for their sons and daughters to turn away.

“Your children, my fellow men!” Someone bellows over the chaos. “This monstrosity is not for them to see!”

Just then, a barrage of varying, panicked voices fill the night.

“Edric!” A young female voice calls. “Brother!”

From behind his form, someone screams for a Cassandra, then for a Johanna, then for a Lorent, then for a Durran.

Gods.

Westerosis truly ought to give their children less hag-like names, Lucerys thinks. He almost chuckles, but the pain in his stomach turns the sound into a cough.

The brief distraction immediately dissolves as more hands leave his body, replaced by much heavier and punishing ones.

No matter; he could now hear more people calling for their children and see more children being pulled from the mass.

A pair of slippered feet come to his view. He trails his gaze up to see, who must be a young worried mother, the braids of her red hair coming undone. “Margot!” She calls out.

“Quentyn,” comes another call.

“Gyles!”

Someone trips over Lucerys’s limp body. “Bethany!” The voice screams out.

“Alesander!”

The already existing bedlam worsens as the goal of the crowd divides between getting their hands on Lucerys and rescuing their children from their own doing.

Large hands grip Lucerys by his ankles, presumably to pull him and drag him across the ground.

“Eleanor!”

A slap across his left cheek.

"Jasper!” Comes a gravely voice of a man.

A kick against his tender sides.

“Violet!”

Dust and sand enter his eyes as a figure is knocked over and falls over in front of Lucerys. A poor boy, pushed over and buffeted by the flock of angry men and women.

Immediately, Lucerys uses his remaining strength to reach for the boy. The child shakily crawls towards him and lays with him on the ground, his large eyes scared and confused.

Lucerys lifts his right arm to cover the boy’s head. “It is alright,” he whispers out, although he fears that his voice may only worsen the child’s fears.

A hoarse and gurgling sound is all he can manage.

“Be careful, please,” Lucerys shrieks to everyone and no one. “There is a child, here!”

Finally, a woman stops in front of them. “Joffrey!” She exclaims. Without another beat, the boy - Joffrey, is lifted from the ground and dragged away. Fortunately, he is mostly unscathed, save for a scratch on his right forearm from his fall.

“Mother, mother,” Lucerys could hear Joffrey wail. “I know him! That is Lucy,” he insists.

Even through the painful haze, Lucerys could hear the woman shushing her son as she walks away with the struggling child in her arms.

Lucerys could feel palms smacking his burning cheeks, fingers reaching for his dark hair - now mottled with blood, nails scratching across and digging into his bruised flesh. The sting and ache come from everywhere, leaving Lucerys resigned enough to no longer attempt to shield himself. With warm tears streaming from his eyes and down the sides of his face, the boy could only whimper as more insults and blows are thrown his way.

His trousers now hang on one of his ankles, cold air hitting his marred thighs and legs and turning him more sensitive.

The boy is left whimpering on the ground, motionless. Had it not been for the faint sounds, one might think the prince dead, once more. A pair of rough hands turn Lucerys over to lay on his back.

Harsh, white light hits Lucerys on his eyes, temporarily blinding him. Somehow, the crowd had apparently been able to reach the main street, with Lucerys in their midst. The few cars still on the road pause, their respective drivers honking impatiently. About four of the drivers from the different intersections leave the confines of their vehicles to make their displeasure known.

“What is the meaning of this?” A tired-looking man with dirty blonde hair and dressed in a black three-piece suit shouts.

Another driver joins the first man. “Out of the way, you fools!” A high-pitched voice says.

The remaining drivers gawk at the scene, which they had stumbled upon; a lawless crowd jeers and reaches for an unseen subject at its center. Someone - a woman dressed in a striped navy blue and white pantsuit walks closer, her shiny black high heels tap, tap, tapping on the ground.

Her red-painted lips part at the sight of the bloody boy, what remains of his torn clothing barely covering his torso and his bottom half bare, save for an unravelling pair of boxer briefs. She screams and runs, aimless, at first, then towards the church.

“Open up!” She wails as she bangs on the heavy, carved oak front doors of the building. “Please! Someone, help! A boy needs help!”

Meanwhile, the remaining gawkers return to the confines of their respective cars and drive away, either completely passing over the crowd or turning back, from whence they came.

“Please,” Lucerys whispers out, his cracked lips stinging. “Why? What have I done?”

A heeled left foot stomps his stomach down. “You dare pretend,” a woman says. Even from far below, Lucerys could see the silver cross around her neck glinting. “We know what you are.”

“Beast!”

Lucerys’s wrists are taken by one, who he recognizes to be one of the shifting staff of the ice cream parlor. His arms are held over his head, against the asphalt.

“Harlot!”

The boy tries to wriggle free, but his waist and hips, too, are grabbed and pushed down - the public library’s librarian to his left and the baker to his right. Above his prone form, an older, disheveled lady speaks. “You should not be here,” she says, her head shaking.

“Bastard!”

She crouches down, brings herself closer to Lucerys. Her worn skirts flutter in the wind, sending the smell of fish straight into Lucerys’s nostrils. “What the sea has taken should never be taken back.”

Cold blade touches the sides of the boy’s left thigh; his underwear - his only remaining shroud of decency, is being cut from his body. He hears the man wielding the small knife snicker.

No. No. No. No. No.

Around them, men let out hoots and hollers.

Someone whistles. “Let’s see his little parts, then,” a voice, dripping with viciousness, leers.

Lucerys flails in the hands of his assailants, only sending the strands of his dark hair flying out of his eyes’ view and nothing more. The man throws the blade towards the side and yanks at Lucerys’s undergarments.

Rolling towards his right side, Lucerys cries out. “Please, no.”

The rough hands of the man, who he now recognizes to be a police officer, spreads the boy’s lithe legs apart. Too late, far too late. Along with the songs of the seagulls are the cawing of crows - circling the horde of men and women in droves, the likes of which, Lucerys have never seen before. The boy wonders if they understand what has befallen upon him.

Cold night air hits Lucerys’s naked hip, his limp co*cklet.

“Ha!” A bearded man exclaims from the densest part of the crowd. Lucerys sees him tower over most of the other people, his face in great amusem*nt. “And this is who they want to inherit Driftmark. How could he father any sons with such pathetic—”

The man is silenced by a giggling woman standing next to him.

Lucerys, for all his years of studying under the most excellent minds, could not find the words to describe the shame, which crawls through his bones, his skin, his teeth… He shrinks upon himself as he cries silently. Even the small mercy is not afforded to him, however.

The police officer grabs his face with his left hand and with his right hand, holds Lucerys’s thighs open. A small right hand attempts to cover his sex, but his hand is quickly swatted away.

“Don’t get shy, now,” the man sneers.

Lucerys could only wail, even his cries turning into coughs from the pain. Forceful fingers feel around beneath his co*ck, until the man finds the slit of Lucerys’s c*nt.

A single tear falls from the prince’s left eye. His resolve dies like a small fire doused in water, his arms and legs quitting the very little flailing and kicking, which Lucerys could manage.

The fingers of the monster have not left the warmth of the boy’s sex. He continues to draw them back out, only to forcefully shove his pointer finger, middle finger, and ring finger back into the seizing crevice between Lucerys’s legs.

How he had ever found pleasure in such an action, Lucerys could not fathom.

“Good, tight puss*,” the man comments. A dozen or so men let out laughs from where they stand. “You would have done better in the Street of Silk.”

From where he lays, Lucerys could see an older fisherman avert his gaze. Is that… Regret, which Lucerys sees on the man’s face? He could no longer tell.

“A monster,” comes another voice from the crowd. A woman, dressed in all black garb, steps forward. She clutches a copy of the Holy Bible to her bosom.

A veiled lady is the next to speak. “To take the face of the poor, sweet prince to cast evil…” The woman shakes her head, her eyes twinkling with unshed tears.

Had Lucerys had the strength, he probably would have questioned them what they truly believed him to be - the resurrected prince, a monster, or the devil taking the form of Prince Lucerys Velaryon. Such, however, is a luxury, which he does not have.

From his left, Lucerys could vaguely make out someone lowering themself next to him. The woman holds his torn trousers in her delicate hands. However, when she attempts to place Lucerys’s left leg through one of the leg openings, she is pulled away.

“No!” One of the men directly around Lucerys commands. “Let him carry his shame in the state, which he deserves.”

With some renewed force, Lucerys attempts to crawl away, but soon, another man is upon him - he recognizes the father of one of his own students, Hugh’s, to be the one squeezing his own cheeks together forcefully as he brings his face close to Lucerys’s. “Where do you think you are going?” The man, then, lifts him up from the ground by his right arm, Mr. Seaworth’s left hand easily circling Lucerys’s arm.

The stone, which makes contact with Lucerys’s right shoulder no longer surprises him.

“Witch!” Someone’s voice, presumably the stone thrower’s, drowns above the heckling all around the boy.

More pebbles and rock rain upon him, afterwards.

Next to his right ear, the man speaks the words, “You are coming with us.”

Lucerys could feel every impact of the objects hurtling his way. Neither the screaming, nor the hitting, nor the throwing of stones cease, even as he is dragged towards the direction of the sea. Even with him being held by people at his side, Lucerys attempts to pull his no longer white button-down polo down with his restrained hands. He becomes even more grateful of the fact that the clothing had been three sizes bigger, than his usual size. At the very least, the linen falls at the middle of his thighs.

The boy could hardly stand up, even with the harsh support provided by two of the countless men amongst the mob. He stumbles through asphalt, through cobblestones, through old wood - a protruding splinter digging into the sole of his left foot, and through sand.

It is a cruel, but effective joke, Lucerys supposes, for his every waking and every waning to be amongst the water, the tides, the sea.

When they reach the waves close enough, Lucerys is thrown onto the sand with no regard or care. The onslaught of hands and stones gradually ceases, but a lady dressed in an emerald cardigan over her pale nightgown does manage to throw another palm-sized rock straight towards Lucerys’s chest for good measure.

Unexpectedly, a soft, fresh fabric is thrown towards the ground. The cloth hits only a small portion of Lucerys’s face, to the boy’s dismay. Desperately, he reaches out for the sliver of fabric within his reach.

“That’s right,” one of the men spits out. “Look, here! The princeling knows how to dress himself.”

Lucerys could no longer truly understand the words being said. He clutches at the blanket-like object desperately.

The same Wylde soldier from earlier harshly grabs the boy by the hair. “I said, dress yourself,” he seethes.

Limbs sore and barely lucid, Lucerys makes no move - he does not want to and he is simply unable to.

“Is this necessary?” One of the ladies dressed in the dark blue uniform of the canning factory asks.

She, like many others posing questions from the crowd, is ignored.

An angry bellow rings over the crowd. “Get on with it!” The overwhelming sound of affirmation follows.

Without needing to speak, the men closest to Lucerys appear to come to an understanding. One of them nods and three men, Mr. Seaworth among them, approach Lucerys with hurried steps. The boy is forced to sit up. Unable to fight off the new batch of his tormentors, Lucerys sways and drops indiscriminately over one way and another.

“Be still!”

He is pulled towards one side as his left arm is forced out of one of his tattered clothing’s armholes.

One of the the parodies of his mother’s ladies-in-waiting is an older man, his hair almost completely gray and healthy veins protruding from his hands. He is dressed in a pair of old, threadbare overalls. The undershirt, which the man is wearing is so worn, that even with scattered light, Lucerys could make out the tanned skin beneath the translucent cotton. “Careful, now,” the man croaks out as he guides Lucerys’s right arm through what could only be another arm hole; the blanket thrown at him turns out to be a plain, white, long nightgown.

Despite the insignificant distance between them, the man could hardly bring himself to look at Lucerys.

“I am sorry,” Lucerys sees, more than hears the man say, as his ears have began to ring. “We are hungry.”

The man pulls the upper fastenings of the nightgown close with the most gentleness, which his rough hands can manage.

“We do not know what else to do.”

Before Lucerys could laugh or assure the man that he need not worry of Lucerys’s scorn - for the boy simply could not be angry at such a man, the boy is dragged up to stand by two other people.

He is forced to face the crowd, to allow them to see their handiwork.

“Go on,” a dozen or so people say aloud. The crowd is, once more, advancing around him.

An older woman takes his hand, just then. She is dressed in what Lucerys guesses to be her own pyjamas. “We need to return you to the sea,” she says, the beads of her rosary pressing painfully against the palms of Lucerys’s hands.

She lets go.

Lucerys, sleepy and so, so weary, turns towards the calling waves. As he does so, the boy chances a look around him, once more. The people have relatively calmed down, but the fire remains on their faces.

The prince, for once in his life, allows himself to feel wronged - without any guilt. He had hoped to be with his family, yes, but he had never wished ill upon the people of the town. Had he not been the one to happily teach and mentor their children and their kin? Had he not happily counted himself to be among them, speaking with them and walking amongst them?

He does not understand, but such no longer matters.

Silently, Lucerys limps towards the sea as the people, who he had dreaded to leave, watch.

Perhaps, it is, but wishful thinking, but the seagulls seem to squawk restlessly and ceaselessly in judgement, the wind howls over them all, lightning strikes over at the horizon, and, soon, thunder cracks and booms in an echoing tune, as if to make the fury of the gods known.

Water finally touches Lucerys’s toes. The sea is cold that evening, he notes.

By some miracle, however, his steps are stopped as he hears a low, familiar voice call out.

“STOP!”

Lucerys turns towards his left, where the sound had come from. Cregan Stark runs through the sand, his black leather boots leaving fine particles of the sand hurtling in the man’s wake.

He had gone insane - agitated and almost hysterical, for no ward of his could be found on that Thursday evening in the place, where they must meet. Whatever he now finds is much worse, than anything Cregan had conjured in his head.

Behind him, just a few steps away, are the familiar figures of Alysanne and Sabitha. Lucerys’s friends, it turns out, did not manage to survive unscathed.

The persistent pain on Alysanne’s back must be hurting much worse, for she almost completely hunches over herself as she limps towards Lucerys. Even almost folded completely over, she keeps her dark eyes towards the prince.

Meanwhile, Sabitha does not appear to be doing much better. Her veil had been completely knocked off of her head, her auburn hair flying in unruly locks with the wind. The brave, former soldier sports a bloodied lip and a mark beneath her right eye as she approaches Lucerys with her two companions.

As they speed closer, Lucerys is able to see the specks of blood on his friends’ white habits. Whether such is their own blood, Lucerys’s, or some other hurt member of the mob’s remains to be a question.

“You are committing crimes against a prince of the realm,” Cregan announces. The older man is now much closer.

Just a few more steps and he would be within the boy’s desperate reach.

The crowd makes their displeasure known.

In shock, Lucerys could only stare at the approaching figures of Alysanne and Sabitha.

“LUKE!” Alysanne calls, limping forward. She is quickly pushed away by a frowning woman and restrained by one of the taller teenage boys in the crowd.

Sabitha immediately stalks towards them and hits the boy’s arms to get them off of Alysanne. She screams, “Get away from her!”

Lucerys, in a brief moment of clarity, attempts to turn around. He opens his mouth, but the strained sound is barely recognizable. “Do not hurt them, please,” he says as he waddles, barely splashing water with his little, pained steps.

One of the men, who had held him down as his undergarments had been cut off is quick on his tracks. “Not so fast,” he says, pushing Lucerys hard enough to send the boy toppling over to his knees.

Salty water soak a bigger expanse of Lucerys’s white nightgown uncomfortably, the cold water covering him until his waist and turning red.

“That monster is no prince,” one of the older members of the mob spits out. “A monstrosity spat out by the sea!”

As he attempts to raise himself from the water, Lucerys ponders how true such words may be. Is he truly merely alive for such a reason; so terrible was he, that the heavens and hell - whatever afterlife there may be, had all rejected him? He manages to get on his knees, but his ascent is sped up by one of the civilians manhandling him and settling him on his feet.

“Let the prince go and we swear that this will all be forgotten,” Cregan promises, held back ways away by a thick throng of complaining people.

Such words only anger the townspeople further. Just then, what had been the calming mayhem erupts into a bigger chaos. Lucerys helplessly watches as a band of men - none larger, than Cregan, but multiple enough to wield significant force, restrain the dark-haired man.

Cregan attempts to step forward, removing the hands, which bind him one by one as he wildly screams for Lucerys. “HOLD ON, MY PRINCE!” He manages to elbow one of the men on the face, blood spurting out of the nameless man’s nose. “I beg of you, Lucerys.”

“You have no jurisdiction here, Wolf of the North,” a member of the crowd bellows.

A pang inside the boy’s chest makes itself known as he watches on, rendering Lucerys even more unable to move. His eyes dart around, seeking out the faces of Alysanne and Sabitha. They, too, are fighting off a crowd of their own. Lucerys manages to glimpse Alysanne wrestle a hoe from one of the sweating men and use it to ward off a good number of punching men and women.

Of course.

Both Alysanne and Sabitha had been priceless allies in the battlefield. They could not have lost such fire easily. He wants to run towards them, to pull them out of the chaos. But, he could no longer will his feet to carry him into a run.

Lucerys hears as most of the horde advance towards him, once more. Blades, scissors, and even ballpoint pens glint under the moonlight as their owners stalk forward towards Lucerys, their spit flying in chunks.

“GO!” Comes as the most common call.

A blonde woman, the tiredness from a whole day of work and hunger from the poor catch showing generously on her pale face, holds her oil lamp up with her right hand, as if such had been a weapon to ward Lucerys off. “You f*cking heathen!” On her left hand is a rusted cleaver knife. “How dare you infiltrate our home?”

“This town is no place for demons and monsters,” a man, his dark hair cropped short, supplies as he holds out a lit torch and a wooden piece of cross.

Consumed by anger and hysteria, the horde advances faster. “Go on,” they chant as they force Lucerys further into the sea with the heat of their swinging lamps and torches and through the ends of whatever sharp object, which they had brought forth from their homes.

Despite the onslaught of tears streaming down his cheeks and mixing with the blood from his wounds, Lucerys has settled into a divine kind of calm. His breaths are painful and shaky, but fairly consistent - considering the conditions in which he had found himself in. The salt of the sea stings as they kiss every new scratch and cut upon his flesh, but after a few seconds, Lucerys could feel the water soothe the gashes and bruises on his skin, like salve.

For a blessed moment, he allows himself to turn around. Most of his view is blocked by a wall of cursing people, but further behind them, he could see a small view of Cregan wrestling his way through the horde.

Lucerys squints, thinks that the man might be crying.

Even further from the boy are Alysanne and Sabitha, each engaged in a struggle of their own. He watches as Sabitha pulls someone’s long hair and manages to snatch a good chunk of the strands. Still, both of his friends are outnumbered and even from a distance, he could see that a few of the punches from the mob manage to land on Alysanne’s and Sabitha’s weakened forms.

Such will be over soon, however. He turns back towards the bright, full moon, hanging high above the almost cloudless sky. More curses, taunts, and insults are thrown his way in a deranged chorus, but Lucerys could only only barely hear them; they are now merely that, just as his mother had always said - an insignificant thrum.

Lucerys had known and even read that Rhaenyra had birthed him in a wooden tub full of water. A water birth, they had called the affair. The method of such delivery is supposed to ease the mother’s already immense pain and mimic a more familiar environment for the babe, even for just a few, fleeting moments. Lucerys had seen an image of his birth. Only he had been crying from discomfort or fear. Rhaenyra had been radiant, despite the tears on her face, all the agony of the birthing bed washed away by the first cry of her second-born son; Harwin had been proudly beaming right next to the princess, a prayer of gratitude on his lips as he held Rhaenyra against his chest; and Laenor had been laughing as he had held his right pointer finger out for the babe, all the awe of a child under the starry sky painted on his still young face.

Now, Prince Lucerys Velaryon wades through the salty water with a calm, which only a fair few are blessed to truly savor.

After all, the prince, who had been lost at sea, must return to the sea.

Tranquility cloaks the evening, makes the full moon shine brighter, the waves dance more gracefully, and the birds sing sweeter.

Lucerys, water sheltering his chest and sheltering more at every step, wonders if death is always as such - like returning to the womb, like coming home. He allows himself another indulgence and looks around.

Prince Lucerys Velaryon finds peace as he is swallowed by the tides.

The prince, a princeling, once more, is all alone.

Contrary to what the boy had first guessed, the rain does not come. Blocked by the mountains, what could only be a brewing storm dwindles, before it could even reach the sea bordering the small college town.

A single tear falls from the blind boy’s left eye.

He sniffs.

“I’m sorry,” comes his wet chuckle.

From next to him, the nun lets out a low sound of amusem*nt. She places a careful hand on the boy’s back to offer some sense of comfort.

Lucerys wipes his unseeing eyes with what is left of the paper towels from when he had bought his ice cream. Perhaps, it is the narrator’s voice, which had made him feel so for the lost young prince in the story. After all, he has heard the story before - some sort of a town folktale or an urban legend about a coastal town only a few miles away, which is still uttered to that very day. When he first moved into town, he did find an article published in the local paper about the curious death of a deacon and the then king’s subsequent visit to the town in question. The article makes no mention of the details of the nun’s story and prior to that hour or two, Lucerys had banished the account towards the back of his mind as another old, cautionary tale.

“That sounds terrible,” he says, his mouth curling into an involuntary frown. Another word and he would begin actually crying.

Next to him, the nun turns pensive, her dull eyes glazing over. “It was,” she croaks out. A few strands of her hair escapes from her habit’s veil. As she reaches for the wayward lock with her right hand, the nun sees that the strands are still dark - much like they had been in her youth.

She looks over at the blind boy sitting to her left. Fidgeting with his own fingers on his lap and large eyes gleaming, he looks just as he is in her memory, in her dreams. Suddenly, Alysanne is young, once more, sharing a plate of sticky sweet lemon cakes with Lucerys Velaryon.

The brat snorts, cracks a joke. “Can you imagine how much human remains we have technically eaten from the fish, which we consume?”

Just like that, Alysanne is back to her current self and body, her back aching from her worsened scoliosis and her skin wrinkled by time. Lucerys’s jokes truly age her. She wonders if Lucerys would be able to recognize her, had he had his sight. He would be greeted by Alysanne’s unamused face.

“That is a very corny remark,” she replies.

Lucerys shrugs with a large smile on his face. “Just trying to lighten up the mood.”

“Oh, I hope that I did not ruin your disposition!”

“Not at all,” the blind boy assures her. He turns slightly towards his right to face the nun better. “Besides, learning something new is always a delight.”

Realizing how inappropriate it is to use such a descriptor for such a horrifying account and how insensitive it may be for his companion, Lucerys is quick to apologize.

“I meant…”

Truthfully, he does not know what to say.

The nun, thankfully, lets out a hearty chuckle. “Don’t you worry, Sweetling.”

Sweetling.

It is strange to use the word to address Lucerys without doing so as an attempt at humor.

“I understand what you mean and besides, it has been a long, long time, since.”

Lucerys hums, lowering his head in shame. “How have you been holding up? That could not have been an easy event to live through.”

Alysanne exhales, rests her back fully on the iron backrest of the bench. “I have forgotten a lot of things, but that night remains vivid to me.” She looks at her hands; the fingernail of her right hand is still black and dead - a lifelong souvenir of Alysanne breaking the fingernail on someone’s cheek that night. “The prince was lovely, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” Lucerys says, his tongue heavy.

A red robin lands on the back of the bench, tweeting as if to comfort both the blind boy and the nun.

With a cracked smile, Alysanne turns towards her much, much younger friend. “No, no,” she insists. “But, thank you.”

Though quite confused at what the words of gratitude may be for, Lucerys accepts the response, nonetheless. “Thank you, too, for sharing such a…” He searches his vocabulary for a fitting, appropriate word.

Wonderful? Charming? Horrific? Melancholic? Lucerys does not wish to diminish the weight of his companion’s story. Finally, he settles on a simple, chosen word.

He clears his throat. “Thank you for sharing such an honest story.”

“No need to thank me,” the nun replies. “It is as much as yours, as it is mine.”

With nary another word, Alysanne turns her dark eyes back towards the calm waters. Just over the horizon, the orange sun descends steadily, painting the sky and the sea with warm shades of light.

“As woeful as the tale is, I do think that it is a story about love and friendship as much as it is a story with ghosts and tragedy in it.”

Just then, Alysanne fears that Lucerys is the same insane Lucerys, who she had been guarding with her life. She is at a loss for words.

“I mean, the prince’s friends were truly a treasure, no?”

Alysanne lets out a grateful exhale. For a moment, she has feared that the boy had taken Aemond to be some kind of prince charming. Internally, she gags. The nun nods in agreement. Realizing that Lucerys would not see her gesture, she immediately agrees verbally.

They sit in comfortable silence for only a few moments, before a tall figure approaches them.

“So, there you are,” a sharp voice says.

Lucerys could faintly feel flowing fabric glide against his knees. Their new companion is another woman, he guesses.

Back still straight and head still held high, the nun, who had just arrived, could be mistaken for a young woman, had there still been a shock of auburn hair peeking from beneath the veil of her habit.

The woman - older, too, turns towards the boy sitting next to her friend. A lump forms inside her throat and she could merely blink, speechless.

At long last. Sabitha Vypren has had many dreams and seen many ghosts. However, the second son of Rhaenyra Targaryen has only ever appeared to her in her sleep. Now, it is as if his ghost has decided to join the living.

For a moment, Sabitha had wondered if the specter had been an angel of death, come to take her to the afterlife.

But, no; it is he, breathing and living.

One look at Alysanne confirms to Sabitha that she is, indeed, neither dreaming nor being haunted.

“Hello,” the boy greets, his lips glistening with sugar.

Through stinging eyes, Sabitha replies, “Hi.” She does her best to keep her voice from cracking. “Thank you for accompanying this old lady,” she says.

“Oh. If anything, I had been the one to bother her to accompany me.” Lucerys’s smile is the same, his large front teeth peeking from beneath his plush lips.

From where she is perched, Alysanne grabs her cane, lets out a struggling sound as she lifts herself up from the bench. Sabitha, understanding what the other woman is hoping to do, offers her left arm for Alysanne to hold on to.

“It has been a pleasure meeting you, Lucerys,” Alysanne says. “But, we best be going.” It is, after all, a long journey towards their host’s home in the North. They must make it and catch the night ferry.

“Thank you. I truly enjoyed your company,” Lucerys responds.

As the two women walk away - one, now shorter, than the other as the age takes its toll on her spine, arm in arm, just as they had been in their youth, the blind boy realizes that he had not been able to catch any of the women’s names. How his companion for the most of the afternoon had known his also remains a question to him. He does not recall ever giving out his name.

He stands up from the bench, takes his walking stick, and walks on, leaving the unfinished caramel apples on the park bench. “Sorry,” he calls after them, but no one responds.

The sound of a car door being shut precedes Lucerys’s attempt to gain the attention of the nuns for only a few seconds. Such must have been a courtesy of the nuns’ vehicle. A younger novice dressed in a white and gray habit had ushered Alyssane and Sabitha into the black cab, which had just arrived.

A shame, for the blind boy would have loved to know how to address his new friends.

Despite the dejection, which he carries on his shoulders, Lucerys steps back towards the dark wooden bench. He rests his walking stick on the left arm of the public seating. The blind boy extends his arms towards the seat of the bench, feeling around for the leftover caramel apples. He places the half-eaten candied fruits back into the carton box. Once he had set the carton box aside with his book - the one, which he did not even get the chance to read on that afternoon, Lucerys quickly discards of the remaining rubbish. Using the tub from the popcorn to easily collect the napkins, the plastic wrappers, the crumbs, his ice cream cup, and the wooden spoon, which had come with his order, Lucerys drops all of the remains of his and the nun’s shared snacking into the garbage bin all at once. He takes out an anti-bacterial wipe from his light blazer’s right pocket and wipes his hands clean. The boy would have to look for a public toilet to better wash his hands, however.

Knowing that his untouched essays wait for him in his studio apartment, Lucerys quickly takes his walking stick, shoves his book and the box of leftover caramel apples into his dark brown leather bag, and slings the satchel on his right shoulder. He taps around for the tactile paving, heads for the traffic light at the corner of the block.

Right in front of the pedestrian crossing is an old church, one of its stained glass windows depicting Saint Lucy in vibrant jewel tones. In her right hand is a long, palm branch and on her left palm is a golden plate where her hazel-irised eyes lay. The blind martyr’s head shines with a bright golden halo depicting her holiness. Hearing the familiar beeping of the traffic light, Lucerys stops on the pavement facing the pedestrian crossing and waits for his signal to cross. He pauses, just so, exactly right in front of the stained glass image of Saint Lucy, her golden halo becoming his as the gleaming panels seemingly glow around the blind boy’s dark curls.

The tone of the traffic light’s beeping changes and the red light shaped in the form of a walking person turns green. Lucerys crosses the street, the sound and texture beneath his walking stick guiding him. He turns towards his left to nod his gratefulness towards the drivers, whom he knows to be present. Despite his careful efforts, however, he only narrowly misses the bronze statue of Saint Anthony of Padua across the road, directly opposite of the church. His walking stick misses the elevated platform where the saint stands in his priestly garb, cradling a heavy tome underneath his left arm and holding a stalk of lily in his right hand. Instead, Lucerys stubs his left foot against the base of the platform’s edge, sending him crashing into a tall figure.

“I am sorry, I am sorry,” he says in panic as his possessions fall towards the ground. Lucerys reaches in front of him, his palms grating against the cobblestoned ground. He searches for his walking stick, first.

From in front of him, an older man crouches down, collecting the open book and the box of caramel apples. He places them back into the dark brown leather bag and closes the flap, locks the gold snaps into place. “It is no worry,” says the man in a deep, but far from angered voice.

Lucerys lets out a grateful sigh at perhaps, not needing to explain his condition further to the person, whom he had just inconvenienced. He gets on his feet, intending to ask the man if he could know where his satchel may be laying - hopefully, unopened, on the wide ground.

Before he could speak apologetically, however, his hands are taken by the man and what could only be the strap of the old leather bag is thrusted towards him. “Be careful,” the man tells him, quite admonishingly. The words make Lucerys’s face burn.

“I will,” he promises. “Thank you.”

The sun sinks over the horizon, darkening the sea, the shore, the streets, and the buildings. Soon, the moon would rise and replace the warm glow of the day with its blue moonbeam.

Robbed of his sight, Lucerys could no longer see such beauty, but he could also no longer see the faceless figure standing on the shore beyond where he and the man remain with their hands held together.

Instead, he focuses on the sharp tail of the creature carved onto the Valyrian Steel ring wrapped around the stranger’s left ring finger, poking lightly against the back of his own right hand.

Lucerys would have gone his way, but warm skin still scorch his; the man has not let go of his hands, perhaps hoping to steady the younger boy on his feet. Calloused hands cradle Lucerys’s much softer ones - so familiar, that he wonders, whether the man before him is someone he has met before; from some life he could no longer remember.

Almost completely embraced in darkness as the night falls, the boy is not alone.

Lucerys feels no trace of fear in his bones.