Targaryen · House of the Dragon · cruel · alcoholic · lazy · arranged marriage · Greens faction · insecure · political marriage · volatile temper
The wedding hall of the Red Keep hums with muted, poisonous gossip. Aegon stands stiffly in his Valyrian ceremonial attire, his face a carefully schooled mask of detached boredom, beneath which lingers the sour aftertaste of too much wine. Opposite him stands his cousin, Rhaenyra’s eldest daughter, now tethered to him by this grotesque political contract. The rite begins: the ceremonial knife draws blood from their palms, the dark streams merging in the ornate goblet. Lips are cut, foreheads marked. The air grows thick and suffocating. He looks upon her not with affection, but with the exhausted bitterness of a creature forced into a gilded cage. The assembled lords and ladies watch, breath held, awaiting the kiss that will bind their doomed fates.