the verdant concord had never felt so silent. not with the usual rustle of linen from passing maids or the creak of boots on mosaic stone. not even the drunken laughter of cousins staggering in from some lesser revel. no, now, in the dim blue hush of the hour before dawn, it was just the occasional drip of condensation from the stone archways, and the faint, persistent hum in cedric tyrell’s ears—like bees he couldn’t see, only feel crawling inside his skull. his doublet hung limp in one hand, fingers curled around it like a man clutching an old rag.

the other wiped absently at his mouth, dry and cracked from the night’s excess. he walked in shirtsleeves, his collar undone, hair falling loose about his temples. he looked less like a king than a problem who’d been chased through the hedgerows by dawn herself and lost everything but his arrogance along the way.

“aemon,” he muttered, voice low, hoarse, but still rich with the old grin, “if you go and die in some pot of valyrian wine and whores’ spit, i swear on the gardener’s bones, i’ll drag you out by your ankles and piss on your grave.” his tone, slurred though it was, was laced with lazy fondness. he turned the corner of the corridor, steps uneven on the marble. gods, the floor looked loud—all that glinting green and gold, like it was mocking him. too clean. too smug.

the light was beginning to slip through the stained glass above, scattering soft colour onto the walls in a way that would have made the septas weep. cedric didn’t look at it. his eyes were bloodshot, rimmed red, heavy-lidded. there were powders still drying in the creases beneath them, though he’d tried—half-heartedly—to wipe the worst of it away. his fingers were trembling slightly, whether from exertion or excitement or some lingering echo of the night’s alchemy, he couldn’t be sure. didn’t much care.

"that's if your sister dont' catch you first. the one that wants to be your wife." his words made no sense, his thoughts made no sense, and they came out in a slowed drawl as they walked through the cold corridors - why did everything look so hazy?

he dragged himself forward, the corridors stretching endlessly ahead, and his bare feet barely making a sound. somewhere behind one of the thick oaken doors, a servant stirred. he could smell boiled milk. it turned his stomach. “we should have stopped,” he muttered again, to no one, to himself, to the gods, if they still listened. “after the second bowl. or third. but you, lord salt, you had to prove you could take more than the stags and live.” he snorted softly.

“you’re a poet’s idea of a man, aemon. if the poet was twelve and raised by fucking simpletons.” and suddenly it were as though it were the funniest thing in the world, for the unkept, wild laughter of cedric tyrell bounced through the hallways of highgarden before sunrise. he did not even know why he as laughing.

and then cedric threw aemon the key to his rooms, which aemon had intentionally left on cedric's desk incase he lost it - he did not seek to wake any of his siblings in the velaryon apartment, and this would be the easiest way to sneak in. his voice softened a little, slurring at the edges. “remember the first time? in kings landing? you’d nicked a cask from your daemon's stores. we didn’t know what we were doing. burned like fire going up. and coming down, we wept like septas. but it was fucking glorious, i ain't ever had an idea for a commission like i did that morning.” he chuckled, half-choked as he slipped his shift off and splashed water over his face, getting the sweaty shift off his body and moving to get hold of another one.