AN: The original chapter seven was accidentally deleted. So I rewrote it, but sadly was not as inspired this time around because I was so upset/frustrated with the loss of the original. The original chapter was a lot more descriptive and romantic, particularly the scenes with Aemond. And I hope to come back and edit it as time goes on. But to continue with the story I had to write an abbreviated version and I am sorry that it isn't up to the same standard as the other chapters or as what is to come.

/

That night at dinner no one spoke. We all ate in silence, chairs as far apart as they could go.

The men left dinner first, apparently, this was custom in Kings Landing. At home on Dragonstone, dinners had been far more enjoyable, mother made sure of it. It was full of laughter and love, and not coldness. But then again, the family I had now joined was cold. This was my future.

After dinner Alicent ordered some tea leaves to be brought up, with hot water.

'The tea leaves are from Dorne, they are supposed to help with fertility,' Alicent told me. Helaena scoffed at this.

All I could do was thank Alicent.

She had a servant girl taste the tea before us, to test it was poisoned, and when nothing happened Alicent began to drink it herself.

'you don't need a fertile tea,' Helaena pointed out.

Alicent sighed, annoyed at her daughter.

I thanked her for the tea and drank it. This was to be my life now. And if she was serving me tea with fertile properties it meant I would soon be summonded by Aegon.

'The jewel is yours,' Helaena whispered, causing chaos.

'Oh, what is wrong with you!' Alicent cried out, slamming her hand against the table.

Ser Criston coughed, he had just entered the room.

'My Queen, the King requests your presence,' he said.

Alicent nodded and went to stand up, earning another cough from Ser Criston. ''My Queen,' he said again.

Alicent looked to me before sitting back down and holding her head in her hands.

I followed Ser Criston at once.

He led me back through the red keep to where the royal chambers were. We passed my own room, and then the Kings quarters, instead going up one of the spiral staircases that led to the top of one of the turrets that overlooked Blackwater Bay.

'Why have we passed the Kings Quarters,' I said.

'The King has not moved into his father's quarters yet.' Was all Ser Criston said as we ascended the stairs. I knew better than to trust him, especially after what my mother had told me.

'I hope you can walk tomorrow,' Ser Criston hissed before going back down the stairs.

'Aren't you supposed to stand guard?' I asked him and he shook his head.

'I'd prefer not to listen. Don't be too scared dear, it won't hurt that badly.'

His words angered me.

As I entered the room, two lounge chairs sat facing each other, glasses and a carafe of wine in between them on a low table.

Violin music floated in from the open balcony doors.

I turned to my right, where I suspected the bed was, expecting to see Aegon.

Aemond leaned against the doorframe that joined the too rooms, his face solemn, 'I was hoping we might talk, put the past behind us.'

I couldn't resist his silky voice, so I listened as he proposed a friendship and questioned him his motives.

'Your mother offered you up to father my children,' I told him, and he sighed.

'Better me than Aegon who's riddled with diseases.'

'You've slept with the same woman…' I pointed out.

'He slept with her after me,' he countered.

'Well, I don't think I will be taking you up on that offer.'

And so we spoke until it was nearly early morning, and he walked me back to my chambers to get ready for the day. Kissing me on the cheek to show his respect.

I still burned for him in his beauty, I wanted him to kiss my lips, but that could not be, when I hated him as much.

But he had proposed we be friends, we train, and he teach me of life at court. And I would not turn down this opportunity.

Aemond had also told me that Aegon spends his days drinking in a stupor, and then tries to find something to sleep with at the night, anything will do. And he takes the person by force. I was proud I could defend myself then.

The next few weeks we spent in a sort of harmony.

My mother wrote to me, telling me little of life at Dragonstone, taking about how she missed me and giving recommendations for how to keep up my training and my mental skills. I wrote her back frequently.

The staff she sent over arrived a few day safter my meeting with Aemond. And Ser Erryk became my sworn protector in the Kings Guard. He brought a piece of home with him, even if it was metaphorically.

And so my mornings were spent training, either with weapons or endurance training with Aemond, who had admitted he believed he could learn a thing or two from me.

When Ser Criston came to training, we tended to move our sessions to the afternoon in the crypt.

Alicent was not best pleased, but I think we came to an understanding that I needed my escape from court.

The middle of the day was spent behaving like a Queen, seeing visitors and writing letters. And then the evenings were spent with Helaena when we weren't expected to dine as a family.

Helaena and I would eat together, or with her children, talking about everything and nothing. I felt a great deal of guilt for never trying to befriend her before. She taught me valuable things about the staff at the castle, and sometimes she wasn't even intending to do so.

And between her and Aemond I was learning how to act within the Red Keep, and had began to adjust to my new life and its responsibilities.

Alicent continued to lead the wedding planning and I let her. Aemond told me that she was throwing herself into it as a way of redemption by my mother. She wanted them to find common ground. Plying me with fertility drinks and suggesting I see Aegon again was another way she did this.

But Aemond and I would meet in his rooms almost everynight, in the tower. And staff believed I was with Aegon, and soon, Aegon believed he had been too. Finding himself waking up in my chambers, asleep on the floor some mornings, thanks to Aemonds cunning.

Aegon moved the wedding a week back, so that families from the North would make it in time. Although I think the real reason was so that he could feel better, the effects of the poison beginning now. I would slip it in his wine whever we had breakfast together, on the days he would wake up in my room, dutifully playing his part in the marriage but still refusing to engage in a lengthy conversation with me. He was told by the Maestor that it was because his father was also ill, that he was as his son. So for now, I was getting away with it.

And so I awaited my family's arrival, happier than I had been when I arrived, but not as happy as I ever imagined. I had found common ground, and whilst it was a good thing, my nerves were wrecked thinking at how my family would receive the nature in which Aemond and I treated each other or even the way any of the greens had come to treat me.

We had all reached common ground, and even though a part of me still burned with hatred for Aemond because of the death of my brother, the other part of me was beginning to soften to him. He was everything Aegon wasn't, and he felt like he was becoming my friend.