breeding | SALTBURNT

i wanted to get you something you'd actually like, that you might actually use. not like some of the other useless shit the library's been giving out.

[ Then, prompted by the ambiguity of text (and suddenly nervous): ]

what do you think of it?

I am more fond of it than I thought I would be. It sits in my eye now.

[ diamonds can warm, it turns out. where a sapphire keeps its cool, a diamond takes to the heat of the body and makes itself known. maybe it's just this one, this black one so dark it takes in the light like the ocean at night; aemond wears it proudly, with the scar pointing to north and south like a compass. ]

I meant to stop wearing the eyepatch in the company of friends and family.

You should see it worn, your gift.

[ He's suddenly glad that the eyepatch the Library gave him was so gaudy that he didn't think it'd make a good gift ... and, more importantly, relieved that Aemond seems happy with the diamond. ]

i'd like that. and don't worry about the patch. if anyone objects to you not wearing it, that's their problem, not yours.

[ Is this rich, coming from the man who told the Deep to cover up his gills because he found them disgusting? Maybe, but the Deep's not his surrogate son, so. ]

If anyone objects, they can speak it true and proudly to my face. I have a knife now, too.

[ aemond has borne insult with the injury for years, and he wears the eyepatch to remind himself of some of his humanity. the scar is inseparable from the trauma that caused it; it is a pain entwined with his fury, the livid hatred that keeps him coiled tight as a fist. to not wear it - to let the scar breathe - is to let the world see the nakedness of his emotions.

and he wants the world to see, now. be it through sapphires or diamonds, he wants the fire within refracted out. ]

Did you choose the diamond personally?

i gave the library direction, but no, not specifically.

[ He thinks better of lying and saying that he did, considering what had happened during werewolf. ]

a knife? that's pretty good, around these parts.

The library can be capricious in its generosity. I thank you for your thoughtfulness, all the same.

It's more of a handheld spike, in truth. Pierce had made it for me. Given this place, a weapon is of great value. Would you like to see it?

[ like a child eager to share something he's found interesting. ]

pierce? should've known, he's got a good head on his shoulders.

[ my two murder boys ...... ]

yeah, sure. come by my room?

[ does homelander know? has he noticed? if he has and hasn't mentioned it, aemond will not either. ]

Handy with his crafts and his other skills. He is a good friend to have.

I will bring it with me now. Should I bring something else also?

[ The truth: Homelander has extremely not noticed it. ]

just the eye. unless there's anything else you want to show off.

[ god bless america. ]

I've not been back to your quarters in a while. I thought I might actually try for manners and bring a proper gift.

[ the werewolf games were not particularly kind to decency, on account of all the murders. ]

[ That's— surprisingly thoughtful. It's strange, Homelander has received gift after gift in his lifetime but nothing that's really felt meaningful to him. (Nothing from someone he cares about the way he does Aemond.) ]

i'd like that.

[ More acceptable, somehow, than that's sweet or something similarly saccharine. ]

[ what might one give to a man like homelander? aemond is woefully unprepared for this, he realises. a weapon? the man himself is a weapon. trinkets would mean little, and the fragile nature of the ephemera might seem a little insulting; aemond knows he would be, if he were to receive one.

food is entirely out of the question.

when he arrives at homelander's quarters, his gift is — perhaps more obvious than he'd thought. ]

Ser Homelander? 'Tis I.

[ he is regent, no? if homelander should be given a title, he will bestow it now. ]

[ The door is quick to open, as is a smile as soon as Homelander sees Aemond standing before him. Ser. He doesn't mind the sound of it — or rather, the way Aemond says it makes it sound— regal. Nice. The same way he feels when Alicent calls him knight.

Still, he repeats it out loud, ] Ser, huh? [ as though assessing the invisible weight of it through speech, though it seems like a plain sir on his tongue.

As he opens the door further to allow Aemond in, half-joking: ] Should I start calling you "prince?"

"My Prince" or "Your Highness", if you'll insist on titles, but you've earned the privilege of calling me by my given name.

No, I think I prefer hearing you speak my name and freely.

[ aemond keeps his voice level as he says so, but some of the fondness in him bleeds out all the same. the quiet surprise in his voice, the mellowing of his posture, the pleased half-smile aemond tries to hide unsuccessfully.

but he does have the eyepatch worn for now. a new eye needs breaking in so he can get familiar with the weight of it. even if it were the same size and shape as his sapphire, a diamond has qualities unique to itself. the space where his eye once was is soft tissue covered over only by scarred skin; aemond knows he would feel the stone every moment that he's awake. ]

I brought you something. It's... slightly used, but you might appreciate what it offers.

[ a ledger, or a notebook as they call it here. it's a slim volume of perhaps fifty leaves, bound with wire, the front cover a plain matte red. inside is a legend for high valyrian writing. ]

We are often at the mercy of others and their searching eyes. There is a handful few here who would be able to read this, and fewer with any skill. [ himself, daemon, perhaps rhaenyra. ] This could offer some privacy, if you would like it.

Aemond it is, then.

[ Because he can see that half-smile (can even see the diamond sitting in Aemond's eye socket, a perk of x-ray vision), something that pleases him in turn.

His smile only shifts when he sees what Aemond's brought to offer him, his eyebrows rising in surprise as he carefully opens the cover and takes in the text inside. The fact of the matter is that he's never been particularly studious — being Clockwork Orange-ed as a child will do that to you — and his first impression of it is less to do with potential secrecy as it is the way a child will come up with a cipher, but there's nothing in his expression to denote that distinction. He's charmed, either way. ]

What's this language, again?

[ He's only been caught up on the current political climate, after all, rather than some of the larger lore. ]

And you're fluent?

High Valyrian. The language of my forebears.

[ he makes a point to say my instead of ours, to make clear that this is not a shared knowledge between himself and his mother. yet another failing of his father's, that his wife is possessed of such intelligence and he had not sought to make use of it, or teach her of their ways. ]

I am highly fluent in both spoken and written form; only Daemon or Rhaenyra would compare, though Jacaerys is passable and Baela I have not had the opportunity to engage yet. Aegon cannot read it, to my dismay and always; he has the mind for it but not the taste.

We could, if needed, leave each other letters for each other. We would be the only ones to know how to read them, even if wandering eyes should see what we've written down.

It's a big of a learning curve, I'll admit, but I'm happy to share what I know of it.

[ It's been a long time since he's really had to study anything — he'd gone through schooling as a boy, alongside repeated tests of his physical abilities — and were the circumstances not what they are (e.g. were he not suspicious of this place, of most of the people within it), he'd likely rebuff the offer, say he doesn't see the point in it. But given the way things do stand, he thinks, shrugs, and says, ]

Alright, I'll bite.

[ Though there's no guarantee of exactly how good of a student he'll be. He's always chafed at authority, but this isn't— that, exactly. It's something shared, right? Something for them to do together.

He looks down at the notebook again, leafing through a couple of pages. ]

How long'd it take you to get the hang of it?

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