A/N: Some of you will not agree. But remember this is Westeros. Dragon Lords care only for there own.
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The people escorted in by the guards were trembling.
The woman held her two children tightly, trying to use her frail body to shield them from the terror that permeated the air, the scent of blood and death.
The older one was a boy, about ten years old. His wide eyes brimmed with tears, and he bit his lower lip hard to keep from crying out.
The younger one was a girl, perhaps six or seven.
Her head was buried deep in her mother's embrace, revealing only a mess of dry, yellowish hair and small, shivering shoulders.
The woman herself was as pale as paper, her gaze vacant with shock.
The moment Cheese's eyes met theirs, he froze.
The wretched mask of tears, snot, and blood on his face suddenly stiffened. He understood. He understood everything.
This wasn't a simple punishment or silencing; it was a meticulously planned scheme to utterly crush everything he cherished in the world.
"No... no... please, Your Highness! I beg of you!" Cheese erupted into a shrill wail.
He struggled with all his might to crawl toward Aemond but was stopped by Ser Criston Cole's boot.
His forehead slammed heavily against the cold, damp stone floor with a dull thud.
"It's me! It's all my fault! I don't know how I offended you! Kill me! Slice me into a thousand pieces! Please, spare them! They don't know anything! They're innocent! Please!"
Aemond just watched him quietly, his violet eyes showing not the slightest ripple of emotion.
Only after Cheese had bashed his forehead into a bloody mess and his voice was so hoarse he could barely speak did the Prince slowly open his mouth.
"Your life," he paused, his gaze sweeping over the three shivering prisoners, "is not equal to theirs."
"I'll give you the right to choose," Aemond said with deliberate slowness.
"I'll let you pick one."
He raised his hand and pointed at the two children huddled close to their mother.
"Between them," his voice echoed softly in the dungeon, "pick one."
"No!"
The woman let out a heart-wrenching scream, her arms gripping the two children tightly.
The boy finally burst into tears, while the girl was so frightened she forgot to cry, simply trembling violently.
"Choose," Aemond said, his voice devoid of inflection.
Behind him, the Hightower guards had already silently placed their hands on their sword hilts.
Several of the guards stepped forward, separating the woman and the children with rough but efficient movements.
The woman wailed and struggled piteously but was held firmly in place against the wall.
The two children were left isolated in the center of the clearing, lost and helpless.
"Pick one," Aemond repeated, his gaze falling on Cheese's deathly pale face.
"Or, I'll decide for you, and slaughter them all."
The guards' swords slowly slid half an inch out of their scabbards with a rasp of steel.
Cheese collapsed on the ground, his whole body shaking.
He looked up at Aemond's cold, heartless face, then at his wife, who was on the verge of fainting. Finally, his gaze fell on the two extensions of his bloodline.
The boy's eyes looked just like his. The girl's nose looked like her mother's.
His world was spinning and collapsing.
This was a torture far more cruel than killing one's own father.
"Ah... ah..."
Strange rasping sounds came from his throat. His eyes were vacant, his mind clearly on the brink of collapse.
Under the pressure of Aemond's thinning patience, his wife's desperate cries, and the cold glint of the guards' blades, his trembling, blood-stained finger finally moved.
It moved extremely slowly, as if bearing a weight of a thousand pounds, and pointed at the smaller, still-shivering girl.
The moment he pointed, Cheese seemed to have all his bones sucked out.
He collapsed completely, leaving only broken sobs in his throat.
Aemond looked at the finger pointing at the girl, his face showing no surprise whatsoever.
He even nodded slightly, as if approving of Cheese's choice.
Then, he stepped toward the girl.
He stopped in front of her. The girl raised her tear-stained face, looking in terror at the Prince with the silver hair and the eyes of a dragon.
Aemond leaned down slightly, bringing his mouth close to the girl's ear.
"Did you hear that?" he said softly, but his gaze was fixed on Cheese, who was slumped like a pile of mud.
"Your father... wants you to die."
Before his voice had even faded, he turned toward the guard standing behind the boy on the other side and smiled.
That smile carried a terrifying sense of catharsis.
The guard standing behind the boy didn't hesitate for a second; he had received the Prince's true instructions beforehand.
A flash of sword light rose, cutting through the dim air.
Squelch.
It wasn't a heavy hacking sound, but the sound of a sharp blade quickly slicing through flesh, muscle, and bone.
The boy didn't even have time to make a sound.
In those eyes that so closely resembled his father's, before the terror could even fully turn into agony, his head had already left his neck.
It traced a short arc in the air before rolling to the ground.
The headless body stood stiffly for a moment before spraying blood and slowly toppling forward.
The woman's scream caught in her throat, turning into a silent, violently twitching suffocation.
The girl who had been "asked to die" by her father stared blankly at her brother's fallen body, her little mouth open, completely stunned.
And Cheese.
He looked as if he'd been struck by lightning. His whole body jolted violently.
His vacant, desperate eyes suddenly widened to the extreme, instantly becoming bloodshot.
He opened his mouth wide but couldn't make a sound, the veins on his neck bulging frighteningly.
After a few seconds of deathly silence, an inhuman shriek, torn from the deepest depths of his soul, finally broke through his throat.
"Aaaaah!!!"
The sound was so shrill it didn't seem human. It was filled with extreme pain, unbelievable horror, and the frantic despair of being utterly toyed with.
The finger he pointed at Aemond shook violently as he stammered, "You... you... you said... you promised... you promised..."
Aemond slowly straightened up.
"I told you to choose," he said coldly.
"But your choice does not dictate mine."
The cold, tense expression on his face relaxed significantly.
He didn't look back at the broken, howling Cheese, nor at the sobbing mother and daughter.
His gaze met that of Ser Criston Cole for a moment.
Cole nodded slightly and stepped forward expressionlessly.
Cheese was still screaming, using his last bit of life force to curse Aemond.
The sword light flashed again.
Clean, swift, and precise.
Cheese's head, filled with endless pain and bewilderment, flew off his shoulders.
Only the woman's suppressed sobs of pain and the little girl's eventual eruption into wailing remained in the dungeon.
Aemond turned around, no longer looking at the bloody, messy living hell behind him.
After that fire had burned in his heart, what remained was not emptiness, but a cold, settled peace.
These hidden threats had been resolved. He stepped toward the dungeon exit.
"Your Highness?" Terra followed behind him, asking cautiously.
"The rest... how should they be handled?"
At that moment, Gwayne Hightower, who had been watching in silence, stepped forward.
He looked at his nephew's calm profile, then at the tragic scene in the dungeon, his brow deeply furrowed.
He didn't know when, where, or how Blood and Cheese had so deeply offended Aemond to invite such unnecessary cruelty.
But in any case, things needed to be wrapped up.
"Leave it to me," Gwayne spoke up, his voice steady.
"I'll handle it."
Aemond didn't look back; he just nodded, a silent acquiescence.
He was merely returning the nightmares that should have happened to Helaena, intact, to their creators.
'Curse me if you will, suffer if you must; let it all come for me...'
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