❝ Envy was, after all, colored green. ❞ ― It is both a blessing and a curse, being the Realm's Delight: Malentine Velaryon, Rhaenyra and Laenor's oldest son, knows that very well. He has been raised to be whatever the Iron Throne needs him to be:...
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𝖆egon ━ twelfth moon of 128 AC
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The air was warm, heavy with the expectations and hopes for a spring that already tasted like summer, and Aegon couldn't do much but bask in that soft breeze that swept through the inner garden of the keep: it helped him in drying up the tears that streaked down his face. Mind you, esteemed readers, he didn't cry of his own volition! No, young Aegon - though he was, by birth and monicker, the Elder - was prone to flights of frustration, and when he could not ruin everyone's day, wine and tears were his only escape. Alas, that was the curse of the second born of a whole new generation: to live in the shadow, and to always come after.
If only he would look up and away from his silver goblet, he could see that the sky was clear and filled with stars, shining like crystals scattered on the velvet blue heavens above. He paid no mind to the white walls of Highgarden, nor its balustrades or its columns; he couldn't care less that the jasmines planted around the cloister were diffusing their sweet scent everywhere, nor that he could still hear the sound of laughter and joy, of the lutes and the vielles, coming from the great banquet hall he'd stormed out of a couple of minutes before.
Of all the places that the royal progress had touched and visited, Highgarden was by far the best one, for the Tyrells had proven themselves worthy hosts, so kind and considerate that it didn't feel wrong in the slightest to take advantage of their hospitality. They had gone above and beyond to make the royal party extend their stay at least until the day of the Maiden, and Seven above!, the King and the Queen had been more than delighted to make their wishes come true.
Aegon would have enjoyed the music, the wine and the girls of the Reach far more hadn't he been forced to travel all across the Seven Kingdoms to be paraded around like a pig at a country fair. If his mother's ability to annoy and belittle him hadn't been out of control before all of that, now it certainly was, for the progress had reached its last destination before returning to King's Landing, leaving the Greens nothing but a handful of days to garner the last of their subjects' favor prior to their comeback to the silly power games at the Red Keep.
