Bronze Beauty | Daemon Targaryen

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Aemond scowled as he watched his brother stare lustily at a nearby serving girl who scurried away once she caught the older prince's eye. His older brother hadn't stopped drinking since arriving at Driftmark and deemed it boring.

Unfortunately, Aunt Diana was too busy consoling her grieving son and grandchildren to mollycoddle the ever-childish Aegon.

Rolling his eyes, Aemond turned to search the crowd, catching a familiar girlish frame with golden silver hair standing near the balcony's edge, staring out at the beach. The young prince set off in Jocelyn's direction without thinking of the consequences should his mother catch him consorting with the enemy.

Once close enough, he reached down and jerked gently at her braided curls twice before walking towards the tent where Helaena and Dahlia were no doubt muttering in riddles and going through Heleana's menagerie of insects. His younger cousin had inherited her mother's patience for the weird and confusing, often spending her time in King's Landing with a usually solitary Helaena, listening to his sister's whispers with reverence and not shrinking from Helaena's insane interests.

Soft footfalls alerted Aemond to Jocelyn's pursuit, and he weaved through the crowd, not looking back until he was safely in the shade of the tent, hidden from his mother's assessing gaze and judgemental eyes. Aemond loved his mother but couldn't spend more than half an hour with her before she ranted about duty and responsibilities.

She would ramble about how his cousins and nephews were a threat to him and Aegon and how despite giving birth to five trueborn children, Rhaenyra would consider them a threat and execute them all as soon as she was crowned.

When he was smaller, before Jocelyn was born and Rhaenyra's familiar support grew enough to withstand his mother's influence, Aemond used to believe his Mother's stories. And would cry every night from nightmares of Syrax eating him or Uncle Aelyx executing him and Aegon at his wife's behest.

But then, he was forced to spend time with his fellow princelings and princesses, and he concluded that they weren't the beast his mother hissed them to be, but just children.

Rambunctious and spoiled children, but what could be expected of royalty?

That didn't mean he didn't hate them at times, resenting how the younger boys followed Aegon's words like they were written by the Seven themselves. Especially when Aegon tried to ruin their innocence with his cruelty and japes, but every time Aemond felt himself falling off the cliff into madness and jealousy, one of the little cretins always did something annoyingly cute to pull him off the ledge.

Not that Jocelyn was a cretin, she was perfect in every way. At least, according to Aemond, she was. But, if you asked his mother, Jocelyn Lannister was a spoiled brat who took after her whore of a mother too much.

Aemond had heard whispers that his mother and Rhaenyra had been childhood companions, spending their time playing with Aunt Alycia and Uncle Aelyx; whatever love had once been there seemed to have been shredded by time and old rivalries.

Despite his belief in Jocelyn's promises that Rhaenyra wouldn't sully her reign with kinslaying, Aemond could never get close to the woman, his father's favoured child. She had never been rude or spurned him or his siblings, but a chasm had always kept them apart. It was easier to deal with his niece and nephews because they were his age but with her perfect beauty and powerful presence, Rhaenyra seemed untouchable.

"Hand turns loom; spool of green, spool of black; dragons of flash weaving dragons of thread," Helaena muttered from her spot kneeling upon the green and gold pillows their mother had arranged for her as she rolled her hand as a giant spider tried and failed to escape her grasp.