Chapter 65: Maybe Aemon Hadn't Been A Total Idiot

"Do not confuse refusal for humility. Some men do have an accurate image of themselves."​

I was still carrying the box as I returned to the family apartments. The fire crackling in the hearth lent the room an air of comforting warmth, a sense of home, one which was only amplified by the plush carpets and tapestries lining the walls. Truth be told, it nearly made for a nearly sweltering heat, but one to which I was accustomed. Dragons were hardly known for being cold-blooded, after all, being fire-made-flesh.

And Dorne had been little better.

And there went my good mood. Lovely.

Fortunately, there was someone waiting for me who could restore my good mood to earlier levels and propel it higher still.

Maegelle was sat in her chair, embroidery in her lap, apparently absorbed in her craft. She was not alone, however. Beside her, our littlest sister Viserra was equally engrossed by needlework. From across the room, I could not tell what they were making beyond some blotches of black thread on white cloth, but that was fine. What they made did not matter so much as they enjoyed making it.

As the door swung shut, the hinges made but a whisper. A welcome side-effect of telling the servants to keep them greased. Unlike the hinges, however, the wooden box bestowed upon me by my eldest brother made no shortage of sound as I set it down on the small table by the door.

Really, that soft click was all but deafening above the crackling and popping of the logs in the fire, quickly earning the attention of the pair inhabiting the rooms: My sisters Maegelle and Viserra, both seated by the fireplace, their attention rapidly changing from the scraps of cloth in their hands to me entering the chambers.

"Vaegon," Maegelle greeted me warmly, pausing her needlework.

"Brother!" Viserra did not share out sister's restraint, putting aside her needlework to rush into an embrace. An embrace I did not hesitate to return, only breaking it after several long moments to pick her up and spin her around. Really, I could not blame her excessive affection. It was rare to catch me without my children.

"Little Viserra!" I greeted her in turn. True, at 12 years she was fast approaching the point where I could no longer consider her little, but she would always be my little sister. "I see you have been working on some needlework. Anything we can display with pride in the halls?"

"I made a dragon!" she said excitedly, waving a patch of white cloth in my face as soon as I set her down. On it, I noticed a familiar pair of figures in equally familiar colors. "Black and dancing with a blue one! Like on your armor, but prettier! Livelier!"

As she spoke, she gestured at the armor I was still wearing. White steel plate, the Cannibal dancing upon it in black, made whole by Dreamfyre in blue. Of course, to be prettier than my heraldry was no difficult achievement, but seeing such pride in her handiwork brought an unabashed smile to my face. She might only have been my sister, but I had all but raised her. Some pride was appropriate, I would say.

"This? We cannot display this!" I exclaimed with mayhaps a touch of excess dramatics. "This belongs in the treasury, right next to the treasures of Old Valyria."

My words earned me a frustrated and childish pout, which meant that they had accomplished their goal.

"Are you going to keep Vaegon all to yourself or are you going to share?" Maegelle chose that moment to join us. More slowly than the little one, as was to be expected with her rapidly advancing pregnancy.

"You assume I would want to be shared," I answered easily, separating from my littlest sister.

"Did you bring me a gift?" Viserra asked, pointing at the box I had been carrying.

"Sadly not," I said, preparing myself for the big reveal. Well, the unexpected reveal, if nothing else. "Aemon offered me a place on the Small Council."

"Really?" Viserra asked, excitement clear in her voice. Clearly, the girl assumed I had accepted. And was simply happy on my behalf. Fortunately, she was unaware of my many flaws which meant taking a position with any official power was a frankly horrible idea. Not that Aemon had managed to reach that conclusion.

Personally, I blamed the brain damage.

That I had given him.

"I thought you disagreed with his idea for the Small Council," Maegelle said. Unlike Viserra, and unlike every other person in the realm, she knew where I stood.

"I did," I said. "And I still do. Unfortunately, there is work that needs to be done. The city is…" I glanced at the child still in the room and rapidly reconsidered my choice of words. "Not in a good way. Action was necessary."

"Look at you, learning and adapting," Maegelle said, her tone encouraging. The squeeze she gave my hand only amplified the effect. "Which position did you take?"

"I did not take a position," I answered. "He offered, I asked for some time to consider it."

"What was there to consider?"

"To find a polite way to tell him to keep me out of politics," I explained. "I am not made for politics."

"Politics?" Viserra asked. The poor innocent child did not know what I did. "I thought Aemon asked you to help him. What is political about that?"

Everything. Absolutely everything.

For one thing, nepotism. No matter how competent I might have been, no matter how qualified, I was still being given a position in government based solely on the fact that I was related to the man doing the appointing. And that was aside from the political nature of appointing someone with only tenuous authority to do so.

Not that I would say as much. The girl deserved to keep her innocence for a few years yet.

"A few factors," I allowed myself to say. "But nothing that significant. Rather dull, really. Matters recorded in some dusty old tomes on laws stretching back centuries. Nothing half as exciting as a good picture, let alone one of yours. Why don't you finish your needlepoint? I'm certain the little ones would love to see it once it is complete."

"Of course!" Blessedly, Viserra understood what I implied, and rushed off to her own rooms, a broad smile on her face. Leaving me with Maegelle.

As soon as the door swung shut on well-greased hinges, she broke the silence.

"What position did he offer you?"

"Acting Hand of the King," I revealed. "I am considering tossing the box into the fire, if I am being honest."

"What?" Maegelle looked confused. Like she could not comprehend why I would do something.

It was a stupid position to offer me. Theoretically, the Hand was the second-most-powerful man in the Seven Kingdoms. In times of war, they would lead armies and in times of peace, they would make a king's dreams a reality. But without a king?

Were it a true regency, a case could be made that the Hand was the most powerful man in the kingdom.

I did not trust myself with that kind of power.

No man who was easily consumed by his base desires should have that kind of power.

"I'm going to refuse it," I said. "Once I find a reasonably polite way to do so. This kind of power… it is not for me."

My wife stood in front of me for an agonizing moment, just studying my face. It could not have been more than half a dozen heartbeats before her features softened in realization.

"You're scared," Maegelle said, knowing me well enough to all but read my thoughts. Were it anybody else, I would have felt quite violated. But with Maegelle? All I felt was comfort. Comfort which was only magnified as she wrapped me in an embrace. "You rush to battle, revel in your melees, did not hesitate to meddle in our father's plans for the war, and yet you fear to become Aemon's advisor."

"I can actually do serious harm as Hand," I said, leaning into the embrace ever so slightly. She was far from frail, but I was a large man. Well, she too was large, but for an entirely separate reason. "And with what I did in Dorne, I… I cannot let myself have that kind of power."

"Vaegon, you silly man," she said with a giggle. "You really are the most curious creature."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I mean you have always had that kind of power," she said, and my blood froze. "Your friends in the City Watch, your bank, your ships, your singers, your many holdings in the city… if you wanted to do harm, you would have done so years ago."

"Those were all to help…" I said by way of explanation, extricating myself from the embrace. I wanted to protest, to tell her she was wrong, that those had all been perfectly under control, but Maegelle cut off any further words with a single finger on my lips.

"And the fact that it never occurred to you that you could use those things to do harm is all the more reason why those worries are baseless," Maegelle explained. "The war really did leave its scars on you. Before, you would have charged ahead without a care for consequences."

"I would argue this is an improvement," I said. "Carved away the worst of me."

"Seeing how much trouble you started back then, I would almost agree," she said. "But I can tell when you're hurt."

Tragically for helping me stay sane, that was when the children barged. All of them, from Rhaenys to Aelys. Well, save for little Daemon. The presence of the Mooton and Darry children more than made for his absence, however.

I had almost forgotten it was training time for the kids.

Now that I could do.

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