𝐓𝐄𝐗𝐓𝐒 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓

[pronounce]

what a month! this is texts from last night.
(meme threads aren't game canon, but they're not not game canon either, right)

Comments

[provoke]

Then why come to me for advice? If you wish to continue failing in this here endeavour, then I will have no part in it.

You cannot punish him in the morning and then return to his bed the following night.

[holyposition]

It's not about punishment. It's about taking time on my own to think without temptation clouding my judgment.

...which I realize I've failed at, but I still think castration is a little drastic.

[provoke]

Your failures reflect poorly on yourself and your goals both. Perhaps drastic is what you need in true.

[holyposition]

With all due respect, I don't think you understand at all.

[provoke]

His behaviour upsets you, and you want to meditate on yourself? If it is not to leave him, then why must you change for him? He committed the offence, not you. You cannot keep giving a man allowances to insult you or disrespect you. You give him permission, in doing so.

If you must truly keep him, then either impress upon him that you mislike what he does and that he should change, or correct his behaviours instead of yours.

[holyposition]

Compromise is important in any relationship, which you'd know, if you'd ever been in one.

He's changed a lot, actually. You didn't know him when we first got here, or before. He's been working really hard, and he did something terrible, but that doesn't erase the rest of it.

[provoke]

I know more about compromise than you might, I'd wager. It'd be why I am also encourage you to leave him.

Are you not tired of the minimal effort? Effort for the sake of it should not be celebrated. What has he truly sacrificed beyond his mild discomfort? Would you make it equal to your suffering? If you are happy to do it, then more the fool you, but at least you're getting something out of the tediousness of waiting.

You should think yourself worth more than what he gives you. No one else will think it for your sake.

[holyposition]

I never told you the effort was minimal, where are you getting that from?

You wouldn't understand, because you don't have to worry about being out of a job or being abandoned by your family or going to jail, because you love someone. He's pushed through more than "mild discomfort" - back home people die over this, Aemond.

You're letting your uncle/brother in law/would-be murderer jerk you off at the bar, don't lecture me about healthy relationships.

[provoke]

Your defensiveness points to a desire that he'd do more, all the same.

[ he's not going to argue about the other points raised; not only would it be a waste of his time, it will tread over matters they've already argued over, and aemond is not inclined to repeat himself for anyone. he barely tolerates it with family. which— ]

And Daemon is family. Is this supposed to shame me? Have I not been clear in saying I'd prefer to marry my own blood than not?

Carouse and debase yourself with whoever you like, so long as you do not forget yourself the way you do with your Hawkins. Do you love him? Does he love you? Does his open affections now make up for his previous failings? Are you satisfied with this? He bats his eyes at you and you fall right into his hands without so much a token protest.

[holyposition]

Sorry, did your eye gloss over the part where I said he tried to kill you? YOU told me that.

You're making a lot of assumptions about a relationship you know very little about. I do love him. He loves me, too. That's worth fighting for and working through problems instead of taking off when things get hard.

[provoke]

And he will still try to kill me, just as will endeavour to kill him. The time will come for it.

Are they wrong, then? My assumptions. Has he said explicitly how he cares for you? I do not have any questions about where my mother's love lies, or where my uncle's loyalty stands, or any one person in my family. You have seen it yourself, how we've set aside our quarrels to stand for what is just.

Why do you turn your mislike outwards, Tim? Love alone is not worth fighting for if that is all you have to stand on. It needs loyalty. Honesty. Dedication, and both ways.

Do you not love yourself as much as you love him?

[holyposition]

And you don't think that's  unhealthy? Being intimate with someone who wants you dead?

I don't have any doubt about the way he feels. I used to, but it's better now. Nobody is without sin, I don't expect him to be. We've been working on all of those things. I didn't come to your place because he hurt me or lied or to self-flagellate.

I don't love anything as much as I love him.

[provoke]

I should think it worse to blind myself to another man's nature, simply because I hope for him to better himself. Hope does not simply change the manner of a man. You either make him change, or give him reason. It should not be an easy reason, or there is no sacrifice in it, and he will not have truly changed.

Why should he love you the same way, then? You do not respect yourself to love equally.

[holyposition]

You ignored my question.

And you didn't listen to my answers, either. He has changed. It can't happen all at once, but he has, and continues to.

That's not true.

[provoke]

I did answer. You think it damaging to me that I would treat with my uncle the way I do, because he intends to kill me. You're not listening either; much as we hate one another, Daemon and I, we have never been anything but truthful. Can you say the same? Can you say you trust all of his words in true?

You still needed time apart from him, did you not? If you will defend him and say he is as he says he is, with such sterling reputation and brilliant mind, then the fault must lie with you. It is your character that is lacking and your wits that do not meet his muster, if he has not met with you on equal footing.

You said it yourself. You love him more than anything. Your very self is second to his own.

[holyposition]

No, not yet. But I believe in forgiveness and second chances. I believe in giving him the opportunity to prove himself, and he has. He treated me as an equal during the games, he saved my life, he supported me through all of it, shared everything, just like I've asked him to. The argument we had that sent me to your room wasn’t because he mistreated me. It was a moral disagreement around someone else. You're assuming the worst for no reason.

Is that not true for you, too? You have no sense of yourself outside of your duty. You've put status and politics above yourself. I'd choose love over that every time.

[provoke]

You gravely misunderstand the nature of my duty if you think that of me. I am fire and blood, and I am more than proud of it.

[ love. when aemond was born not for love, raised with the faintest touch of it, trained without it. love has kept this war going on for far longer than it should, because rhaenyra would've been much sooner and his life - his, and aegon's and helaena's and their children and even daeron's - made safe without his mother's love for the enemy.

what would be the point in telling to man blinded by love? ]

How many second chances have you given him?

[holyposition]

Tell me then. Who are you, outside of it, Aemond?

[provoke]

A loyal son to an unloving father. A devoted brother to my siblings, for whom I would die and kill for to keep safe. A learned man in the histories and philosophies of the kingdom that is my birthright, should it ever find me. An enemy to fear, and a strong ally to gain, were we in our hallowed courts. My grandsire's favourite, for matching him in wit and cunning. My uncle's bane, for the same reasons.

Rider to Vhagar, her chosen, my dearest friend who accepts me for all of who I am and demands nothing of me, just as I demand nothing of her.

How many chances, Tim?

[holyposition]

Everything you've said is in relation to someone else. I asked who you are. Don't you have hobbies or dreams outside of your family?

I love my family, too. But I exist outside of them, and I exist outside of Hawk.

I don't think there is any answer i could give that you'd be satisfied with.

[provoke]

[ what the fuck is a hobby, what does that even mean ]

To fly across the Narrow Sea and revive Valyria of old, as Aegon the Conqueror had done when he crossed and claimed Westeros on dragonback.

[ to fly with aegon and daeron, with helaena as their queen, and bring dragonlords back to the heights of power that they once had before the doom.

it's as foolish as his mother's dreams of peace. ]

My satisfaction doesn't matter. How many chances have you given him?

[holyposition]

Is that for knowledge or for conquest?

Over the years? A lot. And I'm okay with that. Things aren't always so black and white. Complaints are always going to be louder than the good things. Sometimes you love someone even though they've hurt you. You've told me enough about your king brother that I know you know this.

[provoke]

[ this is going in circles. ]

It doesn't matter.

Complain all you like, then. Find your satisfaction in it when he commits offence against your senses and again. If you accept it of him his actions that displease you, then you permit it.

[holyposition]

I don't believe forgiveness and acceptance are the same.

[provoke]

You cannot forgive someone without accepting what they've done. What would be there to forgive otherwise?