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HOMELANDER

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[provoke]

[ he imagines it, how alicent's fingernails would have torn themselves as she clawed her way out of the ground. packed earth can be harder than stone; with the cold freezing the moisture, aemond understands the earth would have taken hours to dig through from above. how much did she suffer, his mother? even with the shallow grave, just deep enough so the animals could not get to her — how long did it take her to make her way out? ]

Strange in what way? Was she visibly hurt that you could see? She is keeping herself hidden from me.

[breeding]

she didn't elaborate, but she was stronger. stronger than your baseline human. and she wasn't hurt.

[ A beat. He hadn't realized she'd been avoiding Aemond, hadn't really thought about anything beyond the fact that she was back at all. He hadn't really suffered the same effects, after death, but he remembers that dizzying feeling, remembers being nearly completely lost in those first moments after waking. ]

it's a lot to adjust to. she probably wants to make sure she doesn't hurt you while she figures it out. give her some time, and if she's still avoiding you, i'll see what i can do.

[provoke]

[ in her defence, aemond has not thoroughly sought her out, but he understands that if he cannot simply find her then there must be a reason she keeps away. the scarring on his neck tells the story well enough.

he's prideful enough to presume he's part of the reason why she's stayed out of sight. he's her son, and she'd bitten him. ]

I'd just like to know she's safe. I understand returning from death is not an easy matter to deal with. As you would know.

[breeding]

she was when i saw her. or at least as safe as any of us are.

it was
weird.
but i didn't come back different the way she did. there was the resurrection and then just
business as usual. i'm not really sure why.

[provoke]

You died during the game. She died— I can only presume about the circumstances, but unlike the methods made known to us before. Different games, different deaths. Different means of coming back.

[ it paints an ugly picture in aemond's mind. ]

Who killed you? Whose hand led them?

1/2

[breeding]

i guess that makes sense.

[breeding]

maeve. led by no hand but her own.

[ He hesitates, wondering how much else he ought to say — of her strength, of their relationship, of how much she'd hated him — but skips to: ]

it wouldn't have happened if i weren't limited, here.

[provoke]

Our hosts keep us away from our true selves, it seems, to prevent us from leaning to our natures. I understand your grief, if not entirely the breadth of it.

[ homelander, limited near to the weakness of a common man. aemond and his kin, absent their dragons and lifelong companions. it is all an insult, and aemond has been blind to the extent of it until now. ]

She was a friend of yours, was she not? Allied with you, at the least. Why had she come for your life?

[breeding]

[ To anyone else, this is what Homelander would say: She was jealous. She wanted what I had. She was mad I moved on. And he believes each lie, a little bit. But he knows what the truth of the matter is, too.

He weighs it for a moment, but— Aemond understands him in a way that the others don't. ]

she was scared of me.

[ Because that's truer, isn't it, than to say that she'd hated him? (He remembers Aemond had expressed a similar fear about his mother, that she would grow to fear him. Well, this is that path's natural conclusion.) ]

i thought maybe she'd changed, coming here. maybe she understood me better.
but maybe that was the problem.

[provoke]

[ she was scared of me. i think she fears what i am now. two sides of the same coin, aren't they? ]

At times, understanding leads those we love to believe in themselves in ways we do not appreciate. I'm sorry for your losing her twice, in this way.

[ to lose them in life is a different matter from losing them in trust. aemond has suffered one and the other, with different people. to suffer both with the same person — he doesn't envy homelander in this. ]

Will you still welcome her, if she returns?

[breeding]

[ There's a long pause, even before the ellipses pop up on Aemond's screen, thousands of thoughts diluting into one, the most important thing: ]

i'll kill her if she shows her face around here again.

[ He owes her that, if nothing else. ]

[provoke]

[ most others would find it troubling, this answer, but aemond understands what homelander means. death owes itself death; to pretend otherwise would be a greater insult. ]

Will it be a quick one?

[breeding]

not if i can help it.

would you do the same?

[provoke]

If they deserved it, certainly. Otherwise — audacity needs be met equally, wouldn't you say?

1/2

[breeding]

[ At first blush, Homelander would say he's not really the type for prolonged torture, and on a very physically literal level, he's not. He's hurt people to get what he wants, before, but cards crumble quickly when his degree of strength is on the table.

But then, all the time he'd forced Starlight into his corner— an answer to audacity, to frame it the way Aemond's putting it. So, after a moment: ]

you're right about that. no point in letting people think they can walk all over you.

[ (As if outright murder wouldn't already send that message.) ]

but i owe her that much, even if this place would just bring her right back.

[breeding]

[ Then, an instant later, sent on impulse: ]

what's the worst you've ever hurt somebody?

[provoke]

I killed my sister's son. Left her nothing of him to bury.

[ whether he meant to or not matters little. lucerys is dead. aemond does not regret his dying, only the manner of it. ]

She will suffer the pain of her loss for what little of her own life remains. I suppose that makes me cruel, but so is she. Cruel, and a liar unrepenting.

[breeding]

[ It's— an interesting answer. An emotional wound, ultimately, more than a physical one. ]

rhaenyra?

[ He knows that, at least, if very little else. ]

didn't realize things were that tense.

[ An invitation to elaborate further, if Aemond wants to, but just as much leeway to leave well enough alone. ]

[provoke]

She had neither kindness nor grace to spare for me when her sons took my eye. Blamed me for it, in truth, for daring to do what our forebears have always done in claiming the dragons we hold dear. I was ten years old, ganged upon by four of her children, and she would have had me whipped for calling her bastard sons exactly as they are.

Rhaenyra made clear she had no love for me then, and no regard for fairness or justice. So she will get none of such things from me.

[ he will never be free of his scar or the loss of his eye. he will never receive an apology from viserys nor rhaenyra. lucerys's corpse is a fitting justice; let his nephew's death scar his sister's heart now. ]

[breeding]

[ Ten, too young an age for that kind of cruelty. (Hypocrisy, maybe, from the man who'd pushed his own son from a roof, but he'd known that no damage would be lasting, that he was strong enough to take it. What kind of hero would he be if he couldn't?) More pieces click into place.

What Aemond needs to hear isn't I'm sorry — the sentiment fucking useless in the face of actual hurt — and what Homelander types out isn't what he needs, either, but it's something he can't understand. ]

doesn't it drive you crazy, having to keep the peace here?

babymond for vibes

[provoke]

Every fucking day.

[ if he had his way, rhaenyra would already be dead. she would have stayed dead, more to the point. every time he sees her he remembers her affront against his blood, against their shared blood. she had taken everything: their father's love, his mother's adoration, his brother's crown, his sister's son, his own eye. even their uncle and their dragons she had stolen to her side, as though only she had a right to them. what more else does she want?

if aemond could take her bastard sons all, it would still only be a fraction of what she owes. ]

But we keep the peace, so we do not war amongst ourselves in this house. Mother bid me, so I stay my hand.

What would you do in my place, Homelander?

[breeding]

[ A few thoughts occur to him: the first, that if anyone had tried to hurt Ryan, let alone take his eye, he'd have cut them down where they stood. But here it's ... impermanent. Nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Maybe that's what's stayed Alicent's hand; otherwise, it'd just be a constant bloodbath. He can't understand it in any other terms.

(Then again, he's a soldier, not a politician, even if he doesn't think of himself that way. But violence will always be the first tool he reaches for — to solve a problem, to gain leverage, to shift a weight.) ]

she must have a good reason.

but i wouldn't stick my neck out for any of them, that's for sure.

[provoke]

I would not keep the Stranger's hand from taking hers, either. She should have died a long time ago.

[ violence is the only answer aemond has for rhaenyra. in this, homelander perhaps will understand him best. what good reason exists to keep rhaenyra alive, if not his mother's wishes? without alicent to insist on peace he would happily pierce rhaenyra's breast and cut her heart out to lay before aegon's feet.

she has lied and connived and used used her whorish ways to claim what is aegon's by birthright. she herself ignores oaths given before all gods, yet she expects men to hold to their words. there is no peace to be found in a woman like her. aemond will not stand for her, now or ever. ]

They were friends once. Mother hopes for peace, still.

[breeding]

[ They share this, their place in the crucible of violence. For Homelander, the mercy that love would buy is, more often than not, a swift death. But he thinks of Maeve again, perhaps unavoidably, of the cell he'd kept her in. Somehow, he doesn't think that kind of imprisonment would really register on Alicent's radar, not in a situation like this. ]

you know where my loyalty lies.

[ The best he can do, for now, if he doesn't want to directly contradict Aemond's mother's instructions. ]

everyone's number comes up eventually.

[provoke]

[ it shouldn't be so satisfying, but it is. reading the words plain, unequivocal in their declaration: i am on your side. aemond would have begged his own blood for a fraction of such feeling. even if homelander proves himself more loyal to his mother than to himself, he would accept it. it's his blood own, not rhaenyra's, that homelander hews to. ]

She has given offence and not paid for the insult. I should hope I am the one to claim justice upon her, when the time comes.

Do you still keep to my mother's side?