duty and sacrifice.

It is a mammoth task, to suppress the flinch that instinctively rises at the lady's mention of the events that unfolded at Driftmark; they're still so fresh in her mind, as are the wounds at her fingertips, cleaned now, and no longer bloody, but raw still.  "He is your son, Viserys, your blood," she had begged before the entire court, Aemond's little hand gripped tight in hers like a lifeline.  They had all just stood by, gawping at her, as though a mother's desperate plea for accountability was a worse crime than what had been done to her son, what had been taken.  

She does not speak any of this, of course.  How could she?  She is the Queen, and she has let everybody down: her royal husband, the Gods, her children, the court, herself most of all.  The Hand had been the only one who seemed ... proud of her, in the aftermath, proud of the viciousness she proved herself capable of, the self-righteous anger that she has been smothering for so very long.  That fact alone is almost enough to mortify her.

She has dreamed of this day countless times, imagined how a reunion with her darling baby boy would transpire.  But just as she has dreamed of it, she has feared it too.  What if he resents her for sending him to ward with her family?  For separating him from his siblings and his parents?  Would he ever understand that, though it was not her choice to send him away, it was perhaps the best thing that could have happened to him?  To grow up away from the blight of the capital, from the iron fist of his grandsire, from the snapping maws of the court.  From what Gwayne has told her, and from what she can already see from the young man that stands before her now, maybe he really has been saved the fate that's befallen his mother and brothers and sister.  Maybe the rot and the poison that infects the grand House Targaryen has missed one.

"Daeron."  His name comes on a croaking exhale, one that is tinged with giddy relief, even if her expression is more conflicted, stained with trepidation and uncertainty.  He reaches for her hands and she takes his gladly, fingers gripping flesh tightly, lest he slip from her grip once more.  "I can only thank the Gods for bringing you back to us."  She pulls him a little closer to her, bridging the distance that lies between them –– but she does not hug him, cannot bring herself to hug him.  Much as she longs to be able to, Alicent fears the thought of infecting him, filth rubbing off on him, tarnishing all the good that has been built up during his years away from this place.  Away from her.

There is warmth in her touch, the eagerness to reclaim something thought long lost. There is something else, as well, a trepidation in her strong grasp, a fissure. Distance, he imagines, that cannot be breached in a moment. Sincere joy means not complete ease; perhaps she, too, hesitates in the face of change. He is not the son she said her farewells to, a boy trying to be brave when sent into the unknown. Daeron wonders if the same is true of her; is the Queen before him his same lady mother, who had kissed his forehead ere he departed?

❝ I had hoped to be knighted already, when next we met, ❞ Lighthearted, aimed in a different direction. Earnest, the first stone settled in attempted bridge. He would not disrespect the boundary set, only invite her to draw near ( and wasn't openness, then, the mandatory tenet? ). The Mother above prizes honesty; the prince could only hope so would his queenly mother appreciate it, mirthfully delivered words no less true. ❝ Yet though I regret not making you proud, I am more than glad to not have waited for it, if it afforded the opportunity of an earlier reunion. ❞

"Knighted or not, you are my son, my dear heart."  Another squeeze of his hands, fondness battling against the apprehension, and in the end, it wins.  She is proud of him, immensely so.  Proud that he seems to be blossoming into a true gentleman, no doubt capable of becoming the truest knight in the Seven Kingdoms.  Proud that he has not taken after his brothers, that he has not yet fallen victim to the base nature of this world of theirs, that King's Landing seems to be the hub of.  A flicker of fear returns, then, for only a moment, for as long as it lingers in her head.

it is a bitterness that the sainted mother knows intimately; one that greets her like an old friend. what's the saying? bitterness was borne out of a life worth living. our lady does not think so - for if she had the choice, if she could go back and do it over, she would not have done this, nor ended up here at the end of the long road. questions cloud her mind as surely as they do alicent's - what could i have been? who would i be now? amelia, instead of our lady of sorrows. her therapist has told her numerous times that there is no point on getting so upset about what ifs and could have beens. i am not upset, our lady thinks. i am furious.

" you are right, good sis- alicent. " alicent. alicent. her hands tremble something awful these days - a stigmata would suit them better than the monogramed lighter she holds once alicent takes the marlboro she so generously offered. the flame is neon against her pallid skin - and she lights it with ease; watching the embers glow in alicent's frail hands. it's laughable, she thinks - how lost they look; trying on old and new habits like a child wearing a parent's coat, trying so desperately to grow up. " ...men know little. but if men know little, then i know nothing at all. "

To think of her family again is bittersweet, to say the least.  She has not dared to see them again yet, though they have kept in touch: emails, text, the occasional phone call when her sons wish to hear their uncles' voices again.  But to see any of them face-to-face again is a daunting concept, and not one that Alicent thinks she is ready for just yet.  "Some of them, yes."  Three, to be precise.  The eldest, the youngest, and the one who is practically her twin, less than a year between them.  They were the only ones who would tell her stories of the times they snuck off the isle, who would not go running to their father at the slightest hint of disobedience, who hated more than anything to see their only sister cry.  "I did not think it ever possible for me to follow in their stead in that way."  How very small her voice seems, even now.

She finally takes a drag from the cigarette between her fingers, thinking it might do her some good, help her to find the words that have been beaten down within herfor so many years now.  All it does is make her cough.  Embarrassing, really.