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#mistress of the west
theconjurervfx · 6 months
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onewingedangels · 1 year
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@horizonedits #hfwchallenge23 day 1 - colors
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yocalio · 2 years
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HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST
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lillifaba · 2 years
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This is the only Wicked movie casting I will accept
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marietheran · 1 year
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No, you don't get it: the most tragic thing to ever happen in any of Lucy Maud Montgomery's books is that Anne would have been around 90 by the time The Lord of the Rings was published - and she would have loved it so...
And she absolutely did live to read it (look, I get to make the rules; it's canon from now on) but imagine her having access to it as a teen! Then, she definitely wasn't there to read The Silmarillion and these books were just written for her, you know...
(sad noises)
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amayanocturna · 2 years
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Gods of War
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littleeliza-lotte · 2 years
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Phantom of the Opera observations
11/08/22
(Not in order as I’m writing as I remember)
Holly Anne Hull - Christine Daaé
Killian Donnelly - Phantom
Matt Blaker - Raoul de Chagny
Act one
- The wardrobe Mistress (Michelle Cornelius) is my favorite, right before little lotte you can see through the curtain and she was putting on some of The perfume in the dressing room, then she came on stage during the ballet for Il muto and she smiled and waved to the Audience
- Matt and Holly are so sweet!
- Matt does a really cute twirl during AIAOY
- I think Holly said “wee” when she was spun around but I’m not sure
- Andre just continuously saying Ballet even after it’s started
- Meg has a pink shaw now during Notes, Like a light pink one, I have no idea if that’s how it was before or if it’s ever been like that but it’s pink now
- Holly was truly terrified during stranger than you dreamt it, she was tightly curled up and anytime the phantom moved she flinched, when he came even closer she bunched up again
- There was a look on Holly’s face when Raoul said I love you, like she wasn’t really sure what to think about that
Act two
- Raoul looked like he was just gonna let the lasso finish the job when Christine and Erik kissed he looked so distraught
- Megs shaw was cream again and please someone tell me if it has always been pink and I’m just forgetting
- Holly during PONR is a masterpiece, you can tell she is rather nervous yet is still doing her best to continue
- When The phantom began singing Aiaoy Holly’s face darkened and she looked extremely nervous like she realized he’d been listening that night
- Raoul’s “I’m with you” is just 🥺
- Christine didn’t say “I can’t” after Twisted every way and just ran away
- Last year I kinda saw Holly as a two hands Christine, but after this I can definitely see she’s team Raoul
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connortheconceded · 10 months
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Cassidy and Ezekiel meet with old army colleague for a job to hunt down another lycan thats been causing trouble.
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boozerman · 2 years
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Michelle Cornelius as the Wardrobe Mistress
From The London Production of Phantom of the Opera
(X)
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christinered · 1 month
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I Loved Working With Rock Royalty!!! (and their egos....lol...Boys are stupid)
They Call Me~Red
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yocalio · 2 years
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HORIZON FORBIDDEN WEST
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kimboo-york · 1 year
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2/16/2023 - Thursday & general updatery
I’m busy these days, so maybe you’ve noticed fewer updates here on Keely’s Way. I think I will probably start sending out the email newsletter only once a week, in order to keep from sending dupes to people when I’ve skipped an update day. Busy with what, you ask? My Task Mistress productivity coaching business is starting to get some traction, so while I have no income yet from it I’m getting…
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exitpursuedbyavulcan · 6 months
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What is Broken I (Aemond Targaryen x Pregnant Wife!Reader)
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The war, the "Dance of the Dragons," as they have come to call it, is over. And yet, you are not celebrating. You have just learned that your husband, Prince Aemond, spent the last months of the war with another woman in his bed. Not only that, but his mistress is pregnant. Just like you...
Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x fem!reader (third person, no use of Y/N), side Aemond Targaryen x Alys Rivers
Warnings: Angst, pregnancy and related symptoms, infidelity, some pushing and hitting
Author's Note: It's finally here! Sorry y'all, this month a) I found out my dog has terminal cancer, b) I got covid, and c) my laptop randomly went kaput in the middle of an episode of the West Wing. But it's finally here! As it says on the taglist, this will be a three-part series.
Taglist is done via reblogs
What is Broken
It was a lovely night in King’s Landing.
There was not a cloud to be seen for miles, and the stars were bright and twinkling. The waters of Blackwater Bay were calm and reflected the full moon as clearly as a freshly polished mirror. Even the wind seemed in a pleasant mood, carrying the sweet scent of spring on its back as it drifted lazily through the windows of the Red Keep.
Every bit of it grated on her heart like a whetstone across dull steel.
The worst night of one’s life should not be so lovely, she thought. It should be terrible. With storms and an angry sea, and perhaps even a raging fire somewhere in the distance.
If the night had been so, she would not have seen it when, only a few moments ago, a massive winged form landed in the fields just outside the city with a lowing wail, the last person she wanted to see strapped to its back. Thankfully, Aemond was far enough away that she could not make him out against the mass of his mount.
The people would cheer him in the streets as he rode toward the castle. The victorious Prince, returning after long months at war, having not only ended the war itself but avenged the deaths of his eldest sister, brother, and his little nieces and nephews.
Daemon Targaryen and his dragon had perished above the God’s Eye, the waters below boiling when their bodies fell into its depths.
With the Rogue Prince gone, the war was swiftly over. Rhaenyra was killed, her last remaining son taken as King Aegon’s ward, and the royal host returned to King’s Landing victorious. Even Cregan Stark had agreed to halt his advance South, redirecting to Harrenhal for peace talks.
Harrenhal. A cursed place, now to be the site of great diplomacy.
Even thinking about the horrible castle was enough to turn her stomach.
A letter detailing exactly what had occurred within those melted stone halls during the war, written by the late Prince Daemon himself, sat on her vanity. A final act of retribution against his soon-to-be killer.
She knew that her husband was only returning home because of the letter.
My dear Princess, Despite the conflict between our sides of the family, I have always thought you a rather sweet girl. Therefore, it is with the deepest regret that I must now shoulder the burden of informing you of your beloved husband’s improper conduct during this awful conflict…
A pang of nausea shot through her stomach as she remembered the words.
A mistress… some Strong bastard… called Alys, my spies tell me… every night, without fail… from the very first week… another bastard babe in the whore’s witchly womb…
There was a pounding from within her, soft thumps and kicks as the life inside her own womb became unsettled by its mother’s roiling emotions. She laid a hand over her belly, whispering soothing words she did not believe to try and calm it – and herself.
Once, she would never have believed Daemon’s stories. But then word came that, after the final battle, Aemond returned to Harrenhal for less than an hour before he again mounted Vhagar and flew for King’s Landing. It was not like Aemond to make such swift decisions. Nor did it strike her as the action of an innocent man.
When she called for Ser Willis Fell, her heart had been filled with hope that the new Lord Commander of the Kingsguard would dispel her worries. That she had only allowed herself to consider the possibility of Aemond’s infidelity because her mind was addled by her delicate condition.
“My princess, I cannot, in good conscience, tell you a lie…”
She had screamed then. And cried. And possibly thrown things at the Kingsguard, but she couldn’t entirely remember.
All she could remember was how Aemond kissed her on the day he left for Harrenhal. Deeply and passionately. Until she could feel his love for her as clearly as her own heartbeat. Then he knelt before her and placed a single, tender kiss to her belly, to where they had only just learned that their babe grew.
Less than a moon’s turn later, he had taken another woman to his bed, and seeded her, too.
Now he was returning home – in haste.
He knew, then. That Daemon had let slip his secret. Perhaps it had even been the Rogue Prince’s last words. Spat in Aemond’s face in the seconds before his body tumbled into the lake below. Had she not been caught in the crossfire, she might have admired it for the masterful manipulation it was.
But in seeking to destroy Aemond, Daemon had destroyed her as well.
She was broken from her thoughts by the distant sound of people cheering. Aemond was making his way through the city more quickly than she thought. The streets weren’t as crowded as she hoped they would be this late at night.
It was late. Far later than she had become accustomed to. These days, she was often in bed and asleep not long after the sun had set, hoping that she would somehow find a full night’s sleep. Never to any avail.
For a moment, she thought of slipping beneath the blankets and pretending to be asleep so she would not have to speak to Aemond until the morning. But he would only crawl into bed with her, and then he would see when she inevitably woke…
That was not a conversation she wanted to have today. Really, there was no conversation she wanted to have with Aemond, only that which must be had.
She was resolved that Aemond would not find her weeping or stewing in heartbreak. No, she would not let him think he held such power over her, even if he did. He always had, even when they were young children.
So, she resumed her nightly routine as though nothing was wrong, as if she was entirely unaffected by his betrayal. Sitting at her vanity, she began to unbraid her hair. Her maids usually did it for her, but she had dismissed them the moment she read Daemon’s letter, not wanting to see their pitying faces for longer than she had to.
Since learning she was with child, everyone – including her maids – fussed over her constantly. It was not without reason, she knew. There was indeed very good reason why everyone was so concerned about her. But after six months, she was tired of it.
Just the simple act of taking her braids out and brushing through her loose hair by herself brought a welcome feeling of independence that she had not felt in some time. Perhaps ever.
That feeling slowly faded away as the cheering and celebration from the city came closer and closer, until she could hear gauntleted hands clapping in the castle courtyard below.
Aemond was here.
Her hand fell to cradle her stomach and was immediately met by three quick thumps against her palm. She knew the child did not understand what was happening and was only responding to the touch itself, much in the same way a cat arches its back when petted.
Still, it comforted her. It made her feel like she was not alone.
“Kirimvossi, rūhossas,” she whispered with a smile before resuming brushing her hair.
Her smile did not last.
Sooner than she had hoped, she heard the clanking of armor as the guards outside her door straightened, bowed, then retreated.
A shiver went through her, stealing the air from her chest while cold gathered in her heart and began sinking to her stomach. Dragging her brush through her hair suddenly took great effort, as did every breath.
Yet it was surprisingly easy to banish the tears forming in her eyes and school her face into tired neutrality. To glance only once at the figure now lingering in the doorway before turning away without acknowledging him.
She did not know if it was strength or cowardice.
He called her name, his voice rasping and low – desperate. “We must speak.”
She did not respond. She didn’t even look at him.
Aemond sighed, calling her name again. “Please, my love. Look at me.”
Still, she did not move.
“Ābrazȳrītsos,” he said, a hint of command slipping into his plea. Little wife.
He had always loved calling her little. According to their mother, the first thing Aemond did when he saw her as a babe was exclaim, “She’s so little!”
Ever since, he’d been calling her little.
First, she was simply hāedus. Little sister.
Whenever she tried to follow Aemond when he went somewhere she wasn’t allowed or did something she wasn’t allowed to do, he would gently scold her, “Haedus, you’re too little.” Inevitably, she would cry. About half the time, her crying was enough to sway him.
Then, she became zaldrīzītsos. Little dragon.
“You’re my zaldrīzītsos,” he would say when she hugged him tightly after Aegon or one of the Strong boys mocked him for not having a dragon. She didn’t have one either, but she never felt she needed one, for she had Aemond.
For a time, she was maegītsos. Little witch.
Aemond had dubbed her so when she came to visit him in the Maester’s tower while he recovered from the loss of his eye. The Maester would give her some “special leaves” so she could brew a “magic potion” to help Aemond get better. In truth, the potion was simply tea. But Aemond always pretended that the potion had indeed worked miracles, just to make her happy.
Once he was healed, she was again zaldrīzītsos.
Since he finally had a true dragon, she worried that he would not want her anymore. When she came to him in tears one day as he was leaving the Keep to see Vhagar, he hugged her tightly and told her, “You will always be my zaldrīzītsos.” Then he brought her with him to ride Vhagar. It was the best day of her life.
Or it was, until the day they were officially betrothed, and she became raqiarzītsos. Little darling.
It was what he would call her every morning when he greeted her with a chaste kiss on the cheek. How he would summon her to his side at court events. What he moaned when they kissed unchastely each evening before saying goodnight.  
She had been so excited when she became his ‘ābrazȳrītsos.’ The first time he had whispered it in her ear at the wedding feast, she’d blushed so brightly that their grandsire inquired about her health. The next time he said it, Aemond made sure they were alone.
Little sister. Little dragon. Little witch. Little darling. Little wife.
Always little.
Once, the names had made her heart flutter with delight. Now, they only prompted another wave of nausea.
Aemond was everything to her – he always had been. She thought he felt the same way, but it seemed she was wrong. To him, she was just “little.”
She flinched at the sound of his voice, of that word. How he spoke to her like she was some frightened animal poised to lash out.
Yet at the same time, her heart melted to hear the voice she loved so dearly after so long an absence. Merely the sight of him in the mirror sent a feeling of warmth and belonging flooding through her.
She hated him.
She loved him.
She was angrier at him than she had ever been in her life.
She wanted nothing more than to run into his arms.
She could do nothing but continue to brush her hair and stare into her reflection.
Aemond sighed, finally stepping into the room and shutting the door behind him. “You won’t even look at me, ābrazȳrītsos?”
She gave no answer.
He whispered her name again, “Abrazȳrītsos, please,” Aemond’s voice turned quiet as he reached her and set a hand on her shoulder as if to turn her around by force, but she wrenched herself out of his grip, staring down at the floor. Though she did not look at him, she could almost feel the misery on his face. “Please look at me.”
“If I look at you, I fear I will be sick,” she explained weakly. “I don’t want to harm the babe.”
His irritation began to surge, she knew it even without seeing him. His breathing quickened slightly, and she could hear the creaking of leather as he rolled his shoulders and balled his hands into fists – he had been so hurried he had not yet taken off his riding gloves.
“You are my wife,” he huffed. She could hear him attempt to contain the sharp edge of barely contained anger in his soft voice. At least he was considerate enough to hide it. “You are my sister – my blood. You love me as I love you, and you carry my child within you. Yet you cannot even look at me?”
Fury roared to life like a surging flame within her. How dare he be angry with her when he is the one who ruined everything?
“Why did you come back?” she spat back, quietly yet viciously.
His stare continued to weigh on her through the mirror. “I promised you the day I left that I would return to you when the war was done,” he said, half-smiling at the memory. “The war is over, so here I am.”
She shook her head. “The war is not over.”
“Of course, it is. Daemon and Rhaenyra are dead, and – ”
“The fighting is over,” she corrected. “But the war is not finished. Peace must still be brokered. As Prince Regent, that is your responsibility. Yet you are here rather than with the rest of the soldiers and politicians at Harrenhal. Why?”
She wanted him to be the one to say it.
Aemond sighed, raising a hand to touch her, then pulling away. “Is it so hard to believe that I missed you and simply couldn’t stand to stay away a moment longer?”
She was moving before she could process what she was doing, standing from the vanity and turning to face Aemond, her hand raised and ready to strike.
But he caught her arm by the wrist, stopping her moments before her palm could impact his cheek – his scarred cheek. His eye was wide, filled with sadness and shock in equal measure. He turned to look at her hand as if it was some kind of curiosity he had never seen before, like he couldn’t understand how it could ever be raised against him.
Tears were spilling down her cheeks when he turned back to her, and his expression gave over entirely to despair. Aemond opened his mouth, but words failed him.
He lowered her hand gently, bowing his head slightly to the right to give her an easier target.
It broke something within her.
She dove toward him, wrapping her arms around him as she cried into his chest, clinging to him as if he were her the only thing keeping her anchored to the ground.
But the moment Aemond moved to return the embrace, she shoved him away. It only moved him a step back, still within her reach. He did not move closer, and when she began to pound her fists furiously against his chest, he didn’t try to stop her.
“Why did you come back?” she demanded as she pushed him once more. “Why did you not just stay in Harrenhal with your whore and leave us alone?”
Aemond did not respond. His mouth hung open, but he said nothing. He could do nothing but stare at her, his eye flitting between her belly, where his child had grown –so much he could hardly believe it – in his absence, to her eyes.
Those eyes. A warm, rich brown that shone with gold in the firelight. It was Aemond’s favorite color. For whenever he saw it, in her eyes or their mother’s, he knew he was home.
But now those eyes he loved so dearly were filled with tears of his own making. He wanted nothing more than to see them dry and sparkling with love once more.
“Abrazȳrītsos, you must know I will always return to you,” he begged, stepping forward and cautiously placing a hand on her belly. Almost immediately, he felt a stirring within her, and a weak pushing against him.
His child.
Was it reaching for him, or pushing him away?
Before he could truly ponder either answer, his wife pulled away from him, her arms curling protectively around her abdomen.
He had to say something. Something to take her pain away, to make everything well again so he would have the chance to hold her and the babe. Even if it was a lie, he would say it if it made her forgive him.
“Raqiarzītsos,” he started, only for her to take another step away and scowl at him. He sighed as the realization of how deeply had hurt her truly sunk in. He softly called her name, “My love, it was one mistake. One moment of weakness, I swear –”
“Liar!” Her voice had grown rough with her fury, and Aemond flinched at the sound. He had never heard her shout like that, not even when she was a babe herself.
She saw his discomfort and reveled in it. Seeing him suffer a fraction of what she felt gave her a sinful spark of joy, one that she felt no need to beg forgiveness from the Seven for. She turned away from him and retrieved the letter from Daemon, panting as she looked over the words once more.
“A mistress now lies in your husband’s bed. She was a wetnurse at Harrenhal, some Strong bastard. She must be something truly special, for she is the only Strong – trueborn or bastard – to have survived Aemond’s rather thorough purging of the bloodline. I suppose it is now clear why. I have not been able to learn much about her. She is called Alys, my spies tell me.”
With smoldering eyes, she turned to Aemond and began to read aloud. “She reports to your husband’s chambers every night without fail, as she has done from the very first week he arrived at that cursed place. One of my spies even reported that he calls her to him after each battle or razing of some poor Riverlanders, as well as anytime he feels frustrated. It is no surprise, then, that there is another bastard babe in the whore’s witchly womb. Your brothers do have a fondness for seeding unsuitable women, don’t they?”
When she looked up from the letter, she found Aemond’s face set in anger, his fingers curled as though they were aching to grip his sword and run someone through. His eye flew from the letter to her face, the rage burning there only softening for a moment.
The left corner of Aemond’s mouth twitched upward involuntarily, and he jerked his head to the side to try and hide it. “You would believe Daemon’s word over mine, abrazȳrītsos? After all he has done?”
She let the letter drift back to the table. “If all I had was his word, I would not have believed it,” she explained. “But it is not only his word.”
Aemond exhaled slowly, looking away from her. Incensed as he was, he would not make her the target of his ire. Never her.  “Will you tell me who else?”
“No,” she answered, shaking her head slightly. There was a dark glint in his eye that promised violent retribution upon whoever she would name. No one deserved torture, or perhaps even death, for telling the truth.
With a nod, Aemond closed his eyes and bowed his head. He would not press her further, though she knew he would likely still try to find out who it was by other means. But in that moment, she could not bring herself to care.
She was so tired.
She had anticipated a long fight, and thought she was ready for it. In the hours she waited for Aemond’s return, she had carefully tended the spark of her anger so it would burn only when she commanded. But the moment she saw him, it escaped her grasp and became a wildfire in a dry grassland. It was fierce, quick, and lethal. In an instant, it had consumed every bit of her strength, leaving only the barest smoldering remains in its wake.
After a few more silent moments, Aemond again opened his eyes and looked down at his wife.
“I will not insult your intelligence by trying to deny it any further,” he said, clenching his fist to stop himself from reaching for her, “and I know there is nothing I can say to excuse what I have done. But my love, I truly am sorry. For what I did, and for the hurt I have caused you.”
She stared at him, trying to detect and hint of insincerity. She found none.
“I love you. I know I have given you ample reason to doubt that but…” he swallowed thickly. “I do love you, abrazȳrītsos. I always have and I always will. I know in my heart that the gods made us for each other. And if they had fated us to others, I swear I would have defied their will and ripped them from the heavens so that I could love you.”
He licked his lips and removed his gloves before offering her his shaking hand.
Perhaps it was the result of the weariness pervading her entire being. Perhaps it was the tug of an unborn babe reaching out, somehow knowing its father was near. Perhaps it was the sliver of her soul that had always belonged to Aemond beckoning her to rejoin him and become whole again.
Whatever the reason, despite the protestations of her aching heart and her rational mind, she put her hand in his.
It did not fit as well as it used to.
If Aemond noticed, he did not acknowledge it. He raised their joined hands to his lips to kiss before resuming his plea. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, and I will understand if you do not give it, but for the sake of my heart and the love we share, I must ask it. Abrazȳrītsos, can you ever forgive me?”
The world fell silent, and so did she.
If she focused, she could hear her heartbeat, along with two others, thumping out three different rhythms. It was discordant, yet somehow comforting. She listened to it for a moment, trying to hear a melody within it. But there was nothing.
She turned her attention to her hand in Aemond’s grasp. There was a welcome heat where his skin touched hers, but also a tingling numbness. A slight discomfort, akin to wearing new gloves before they had softened and molded to her hands.  
Then, she looked at Aemond. At the face that was more familiar to her than her own. It had changed in the last six months – more so than she would have expected. The color of his skin had deepened from so many days spent in the sun, and there were new blemishes that had not been there before. The shadows under his eyes, the roughness where it once was smooth, and the new smudge of a scar above the corner of his right brow.
All of it was strange. Known, yet unknown. Question, but no answer.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“What…” Aemond’s lip quirked again as he cupped her cheek with his free hand. “I don’t understand, what don’t you know, my love?”
She winced slightly at the foreign sensation of his hand against her skin. He had callouses now he didn’t have before. “I don’t know how to forgive you, or if I even want to. I just feel… tired.”
Aemond nodded, bowing his head once more to hide the disappointment he could not keep from his face, and looked at her belly. “Of course, you are tired,” he said, “I am sorry, I did not consider how late it was.”
She caught his eye flicking towards the bed – their bed, or at least, it used to be. A cold coil of panic began to wrap itself around her heart. He could not sleep here. He could not see…
“I would prefer if you slept elsewhere,” she said hastily before he could ask otherwise. “For tonight, I would like to be alone.”
Tears shone in Aemond’s eye for a moment, but he did not let them fall. He gave her a tight smile and again kissed her hand. “If that is what you wish, I will obey, but may I ask one thing?”
It would be foolish to say yes. Foolish to give him the opportunity to persuade her at all when she knew how easily he had always been able to sway her with his sweet words. Foolish to do anything but send him away immediately.
And yet…
“What would you ask?” she whispered, betrayed by the foolish little part of her heart and soul that was still and would always be his ‘hāedus.’
“I ask only for a few moments, and then I will leave, as you wish. But it has been half a year, abrazȳrītsos, since I have seen you, or heard your voice, or held you in my arms.” He squeezed her hand, drawing her attention to his face, open and earnest and pleading. “So for only a few moments, please, allow me to hold you again.”
His softly spoken words were like a siren’s song, and she began to feel faint as she struggled to resist falling under its spell. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, begging her mind to calm and think clearly.
“I promise, I will do nothing more than hold you,” he said, running his hand delicately over her cheek. “I just want to hold my wife.”
He did not deserve it, she knew. Nor did he deserve to be touching her as he did now, though she did not push him away. He did not even deserve her consideration of his request.
But it had been half a year for her, too.
Half a year with no one to kiss her good morning or good night. No one to carry her to bed when her legs and back ached. No one to hold her hair and whisper soothing words when she was sick.
She’d had her mother, her sister, and her maids. Even a Maester, at one very low point. But that was not the same. It was not the touch of a beloved husband.
Despite her anger, she was aching to be held by him.
“Just for a few moments,” she whispered through trembling lips. “Then you must leave.”
She did not have time to regret her decision before Aemond pulled her forward and wrapped his arms around her, kissing her forehead as he thanked her. And before she could pull away, he was turning her slowly, so her back was pressed flush against his chest.
“It’s alright,” he assured her when she made a soft noise of confusion. “Trust me, abrazȳrītsos.”
His hands skated down her arms, his touch featherlight and yet searing. She gasped as he began to cradle her belly, her head lolling back into his shoulder. If given one more breath, she would have pushed him away, but then…
He laced his fingers together and took the weight of her belly into his own arms.
It was a rapturous feeling, to have the burden of it lifted from her and her eternally aching spine, even for a moment. She sighed in relief and leaned back further into her husband. Gratitude flooded through her, and her hands flew to rest over his.
“Oh, Aemond,” she breathed into his neck.
Gods, she had missed him so much. Everything would have been so much easier if he’d been here to hold her like this. He had always known been able to help her, she should have known that even with their first child, he would somehow know what to do…
Her eyes snapped open, and her blood ran cold.
This was their first child, but it was not Aemond’s only child.
He had another, far away, within a different mother. A mother whom he had been there for as she grew, Who, thanks to her role as a wetnurse, would be able to teach him exactly how to help.
“Did you hold Alys like this?”
Aemond stiffened behind her, and his grip tightened. “Abrazȳrītsos…”
“Don’t lie to me, Aemond. Not anymore.”
Silence, then…
“Yes, I did.”
She seized his hands and ripped them apart, tearing herself out of his grasp as quickly as she could, heedless of him reaching for her. Stumbling, she crossed the room before turning back to him, eyes blazing through new tears.
“Do not ever touch me like you touched her,” she spat. Her rage had reignited, the barren grassland now an endless field of flame.
Aemond’s mouth hung open as he looked to her in despair, his arms held helplessly in front of him. His voice broke as he said her name – a plea. “I just wanted to hold you. To help you.”
“And you did. For a few moments, just as you asked. Now leave, as you promised.”
He was looking at her like she was a wild beast, primed to lash out should he make one wrong move. But she didn’t mind, for that was exactly what she felt like. He had made her feel that way, and she hated him for it.
Aemond just stood there, and she could see his mind working desperately to figure out what to say to placate her. She would not give him the chance.
“Leave!” she screamed, her voice ripping its way out of her throat, burning as it went. She could not help but wonder if that was what dragons felt when they breathed fire.
Lowering his arms, Aemond nodded. “I will leave, abrazȳrītsos. Just as I promised. I am sorry.”
“I don’t care.” She meant it. His apology meant absolutely nothing to her raging, broken heart.
She watched him carefully as he turned and walked through the door, ready to rage at him again if she needed to. Perhaps she would actually breathe fire the next time.
Aemond did not try anything to soothe her or convince her to change her mind. The warrior prince knew when a battle was lost. But she knew he had not yet ceded the war.
That much was clear when he paused in the doorway, looking back at her in determination. “I love you, abrazȳrītsos, and nothing will ever change that.”
Then he closed the door, and was gone.
But she could not stop crying, for she knew he would return.
Worse, she knew that as angry as she was, she loved him, too. And nothing would ever change that, either.
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amayanocturna · 2 years
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Journies to new Horizons
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spiderfreedom · 1 month
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It's interesting how the same misogynistic trope can reappear, independently, in different countries. I'm reading "Scream from the shadows: the women's liberation movement in Japan" and this section about the connotations of the word 'woman' is interesting:
In the Japanese context, the semantic distinctions between the terms fujin, josei, and onna, which are all translated as “women” and/or “woman,” must be given careful attention, as they often signal political differences. Ribu [women's lib] activists deliberately chose and reappropriated onna, a term for woman that can be used in a pejorative manner with sexual or lower-class connotations. As noted by Kano Masanao, the term onna approximated a discriminatory word (sabetsu go). It signified the raw and total being that had to be liberated. According to linguistics scholar Orie Endo, its strong sexual implications made it a term that could “be substituted for many sexually related terms, such as mistress or prostitute,” and this was considered disrespectful, taboo, even “dirty.”
As a kid, I never liked the word 'woman' because it often sounded sexual to me, and I hated the way it was used. "My vices are alcohol, cigarettes, and women" - treating 'women' as equivalent as objects. "Love going to Colombia and seeing all the beautiful women" - treating 'women' as sightseeing objects. "You've known her since she was a girl, now watch her become a woman" - being a 'woman' is to be a passive sex object that is (often against her will) penetrated.
I used to think this was my personal issue with the word, but I've since learned other women also felt the same way about the word. And apparently in Japan, the word we foreigners are taught is the default word for woman (we learn woman = onna and man = otoko) is also subject to being sexualized, objectified, and degraded. What the Japanese 'ribu' activists did was to reclaim the word onna to mean a woman who was a subject, who was free to pursue sexual pleasure for herself and not for men. In other words, the degradation of the word for 'woman' isn't just something that happens in English, but in other languages and cultures. In this case, it does not appear to be a result of Western colonization, either.
If you haven't read much feminist work outside your home country (or about the West), I strongly recommend doing so. The more you learn about feminists in other countries, the more you realize that the form sexism takes is eerily universal.
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