ℒove always wakes the dragon (Aemond x OC)

Glimpses of truth

Lia takes the familiar route — stairs, corridors, turns, and Baela catches up to her when she's approaching the chambers already. It still feels weird to call them hers.

"I want to apologize for him," Baela rushes to inform. "Whatever he said —"

"If I were to take offense every time a man tried to belittle me," Lia chuckles. "It's nothing I haven't heard before."

"I am sure he didn't mean it!" she doesn't sound sure.

"I think he did," Lia opens the door, and Marissa smiles at her from the other end of the room, in the process of changing the bedding. But her cheerfulness fades when she notices Baela's tense expression. The princess barely spares her a glance.

"He is too ambitious for his own good," she tries to excuse him.

"It's not ambition that pushes a man to be rude," Lia rebuts.

"He is at least capable to admit his mistakes."

"He doesn't feel himself in the wrong."

Marissa hastily goes to leave the room while Rhaena silently gets in. They look equally worried, and the girl quietly greets the maid but watches her sister.

"I fear you judge him too harshly," Baela's words are of sincere dissatisfaction, veiled dispraise. Lia grows weary of their pointless arguing.

"You love him, and it stains your judgment," she tells Baela bluntly. "But I am content with mine."

It couldn't be more obvious at this moment how different they are, forever divided by the years spent growing up in an environment drastically unlike. Baela's been driven into the framework of rules that grant her an illusion of having some control over her life but ultimately she always depends on men — her father first, her husband thereafter. The men in Lia's life only taught her to rely on herself.

She wants to carry on with their conversation no more than she wanted to fight Jace. It may be the only thing she and Baela have in common.

The princess sighs. "Jace will apologize because it is the right thing to do, and we —"

"Did you ever apologize to Aemond?" Lia blurts out.

Her question has the effect of an axe cutting off a head: Baela and Rhaena both sharply turn to her, their faces looking stricken, mouths slightly opened to say the words they are yet to find. The older sister snaps out of it first, crossing hands over her chest with a defensive expression.

"An apology would be uncalled for," Baela huffs. "He never made one."

"And what would he be apologizing for?"

"He nearly murdered Jace! He pushed Rhaena to the ground, hit me in the face!"

"You paint him to be so cruel yet all of you survived that night intact," Lia objects determinedly. "How so?"

Baela slitters her eyes, her stare flaming.

"Luke had his nose broken."

"But it stayed on his face, didn't it?" Lia notes. "Can't say the same about Aemond's eye."

"Luke acted merely in self-defense!" the very second these words leave Baela's mouth, her sister flinches. It is not clear if Rhaena is caught off guard by her raised voice or by the memories that may differ from what Baela is telling.

"You defend him so fiercely — and yet his betrothed is in no hurry to join you," Lia says.

The awareness flashes across Baela's face but she doesn't look for conformations — her eyes stay on Lia when she says: