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Courted by the Dragon

Chapter 19 - Criminals

Aemond Targaryen is both the cause and witness to the greatest humiliation of your life. You would rather die than see him again. Yet summer at court and the precipice of civil war have other ideas.

Masterlist

~~~

Only when Vhagar settles on the beach, do you notice the crumbling ruins of an old castle, its shattered walls peeking through the trees like a mischievous child.

People had lived here once, you think, and for a moment, you almost envy them, spending their lives in a place where the forest meets the sand. How strange and beautiful, you’d never seen anything quite like it. But even the beauty of such a place, could not distract from its location.

How much time had passed since you’d left the party? Surely close to an hour by now, yet here you were, on a beach instead of your chambers.

“This is not the Red Keep,” you say, anxiety quietly twisting in the pit of your stomach.

But Aemond laughs, not nearly as concerned as you are on matters such as time or propriety.

“You have a keen eye, Lady Baratheon,” he says, and his tone is flippant, teasing.

"Need I remind his grace that he was supposed to be returning me home?”

“All the way to Storms End? Now that would be quite a ride.”

You turn to face him, “you're not funny.”

But he was funny, at least in his opinion, and his cheek twitches with amusement, while his eye widens with feigned innocence, “I'm simply trying to clarify what my lady means by home .”

“Is that so?” you begin, a little tartly, well, very tartly, “because I’d say you were being a fastidious arse who knows fine well what I mean by home.”

Any ordinary man might have been aggrieved by such an accusation, but not Aemond. His grin is entirely guilty and fiendishly unapologetic.

“Fastidious arse ?” he repeats, “that is what you call your prince when you want him to return you home?”

Your eyes widen, but there’s not enough alarm in the world to douse the fire suddenly burning in your belly, “I will not beg you if that’s what you imagine.”

“On the contrary, I'm quite content to know that my lady will have me grovelling at her feet for the duration of our marriage.”

So cocky. Even if you actually wanted to marry him, you wouldn’t do it.

“Oh?” you say, “and who is this lady that has agreed to be your wife?”

He purses his lips, and there’s a wicked spark behind his eye, before his hand settles on his thigh, reminding you just how dangerously close you’re sitting to him. “I’m working on it,” he nods to the ropes on Vhagar’s neck, “now climb down so I may continue.”

“And if I refuse?”

Aemond’s head tilts, his hands suddenly grasping your hips with far too much enthusiasm, “then I might start believing that my lady would rather stay seated on my lap?”

“I’m not your lady,” you insist, sliding your fingers around his wrists to pull him away. But he seems to have just as much enthusiasm for the way you're fighting him than he did for touching you.

He struggles against your grip with a soft breathy chuckle, his efforts not enough to free himself, but enough to make you hold him tighter. Firm and steady, the illusion that you could ever truly hold power over him.

“Vhagar needs to rest,” he says, as though it explains your stop at the beach, but it only forces you to glare at him.

“You’re lying.”

He doesn’t even try to deny it, he only grins wider, testing the strength of your grip again.

“I’m not going to ask you to take a dip in the water, if that’s what you imagine... unless you want to, of course,” he teases, and why you let him crawl under your skin with such ease, you cannot say. But it seems that's all it takes, to get you to do exactly what he wants.

Blowing out a breath of frustration, your leg swings over the pommel, and if you weren’t so irritated by him, you might have been more afraid. As it happens, you’re beginning to think you rather prefer Vhagar over her master. At least she doesn't speak, or look so dammed smug.

This is what you think, as you climb all the way down her long neck with the kind of frenzied confidence only anger can provide, and before you know it, your feet have hit the ground and you don’t wait around. You storm down the beach, away from the tooth and fire end of the dragon, and more importantly, away from Aemond.

"Will my lady be walking all the way back to Kings Landing?” he calls after you, and you do not slow.

Maybe you will walk back. Maybe you’ll walk right into Alicent’s chambers and say that her precious son stole you away on dragonback- though she’d probably like that. She may have even been the one to suggest it! And the very thought makes you want to scream, so you do, feeling powerless as you kick up a big clump of sand.

“If that is your wish, then you are heading in quite the wrong direction,” he calls again, the sound of his voice so much closer than before, and you stop, anger quickly turning into rage.

“Just when I think that perhaps you might be somewhat tolerable, and that maybe we can actually be friends,” you snap, hair tangling wildly with the wind, as you turn to face him, “you prove yourself to be the most insufferable man that has ever lived!”

“Are we not to be friends on a beach?” he says, as though your reaction was a surprise to him, though you can see he’s enjoying it either way, and why wouldn’t he? You’re completely at his mercy.

“Were we friends, you would not trap me here!” you shout over the crash of a wave before crouching down to scoop up a ball of sand, which you promptly throw at him.

He dodges it, arms spreading wide, “I see no shackles, no prison walls.”

“Do not press me,” you throw another ball, which he dodges yet again, “or take me for more of a fool than I have already been!” And you were a fool, yet again you were the most foolish girl on the beach.

It was hard to remember what exactly you had been thinking in agreeing to leave the party with him. Certainly nothing rational. But Aemond didn’t want you rational, he wanted you here, miles from home, with the sea lapping at the shore and the stars your only witness.

He could keep you here all night, and even if he didn’t lay a single finger on your skin, you would be his, no questions asked.

“I do not think you a fool,” his voice is soft, coaxing, “I think you’re...”

“ What ?”

His lips curl, “the most terrible aim imaginable.”

You throw a third ball of sand, and as if to prove his point, it misses, and he proceeds to laugh. So, you throw a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth in quick succession.

“If you actually manage to hit me with the next one, then you have my word that I will take you home this instant,” he baits, knowing you’re just as competitive as he, and you suppose that’s part of the fun, if you could call it fun. You'd rather call it attempted murder with the only weapon you had at hand.

Crouching down to scoop up a fresh ball, you don’t waste it on a shot that might miss, you charge towards him, and Aemond runs away, clambering up a grouping of large rocks which form a sort of staircase towards the old ruins.

“Craven!” you shout, pursuing him as quickly as you can go, but finding your dress, and Aemond’s cloak, enough to hamper your every step.

You’re panting by the time you make it over the rocks and onto level ground. But you’re not giving up. You’d rather eat this ball of sand than let him win.

So you edge closer to the thick of trees surrounding the old keep, hoping his hair might give him away in the dark, but he’s vanished, or to put it another way, he’s hiding.

Returning to the beach and waiting him out would surely be a more sensible strategy. Yet, your patience has already worn too thin for strategy, and you can feel him watching. No doubt wearing that oh so familiar smirk he seems to acquire whenever you feel your blood begin to boil.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” you say, the words more demanding than playful, and the sound only met by the screech of an owl, and the rustle of leaves.

Still, despite the rush of nerves which shiver along your spine, you keep moving. Creeping towards a watch tower covered in ivy, while the ground below your feet, changes from grass to checkerboard tiles in the places where nature has not quite reclaimed the earth.

If it wasn’t so dark, you might have found it more enchanting. But with the tree cover filtering the moonlight, and another screech of the owl, your heart begins to thud.

This was yet more madness. There could be wolves or boars or bears lurking in this place, and you have to dare yourself to keep going, deciding to never speak with Aemond again if he jumps out and startles you.

But it's a whistle which catches your attention, and you spin around, looking up to see him standing on the second floor of the tower.

“How did you get up there?” you demand, moving to where the stairs have caved in, leaving only two steps to bring you closer to him, and both of them slippery with moss.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” he taunts, walking to the edge of the floor before crouching down.

“Do your worst,” he dares, and if he stays still, you’re feeling quietly confident with your chances as you take the time to roll the sand between your hands, fashioning it into a perfect sphere.

Then you arch your arm back, and launch the ball as hard as you can, before watching the way it soars through the air, fast and sure, but too heavy, too flimsy. Aemond doesn’t even bother to flinch as it collides with the floor, eliciting yet more laughter.

“This is why I hate you, you know!” you say, wiping your sand coated hands onto the soft folds of his cloak, and finding at least some pleasure in that.

Still laughing at you, Aemond scrambles down from the tower with relative ease, before stalking closer, slowly , as though it's you who’s the most dangerous creature in these woods.

“You don’t hate me,” he decides, “you just hate losing.”

“I can hate two things at once, and I only lost because you ,” you point your finger at him, “had the advantage.”

“What advantage?”

“Well, for starters, you’re wearing boots, not these,” you hitch up your skirt and kick out your foot to show your shoes, dainty and made for dancing, “nor do you have to wear a gown. I should very much like to see how you’d fare if you had to scale a tower without any trousers on-”

Just as the words leave your lips, you hear them, “I mean , you know what I mean.”

With his laughter simmered to a soft chuckle, he lets your blunder stew in the air before inching closer.

“Then perhaps I should remind my Lady Baratheon that she has two eyes, and the aim of a blind woman.”

You scoff, taking full offence even if he is right, “and I suppose you're an authority on throwing balls of sand?”

“I’d say that hardly matters anymore, and now you’re obliged to stay until I say we leave.”

It was strange, but you’d somehow forgotten the reason you'd been chasing him in the first place, and anxiety quickly returns to the pit of your stomach. “And if someone notices I’m gone?”

“It’s still early. They'll be drinking and dancing for quite some time I should imagine.”

Deep down, you knew he was right, but there was always a chance, even if it was a small one, that one of your family would retire before the party was finished, then what? “That’s easy for you to say, you’re a prince, you can do as you please.”

“Don’t worry,” Aemond promises, his voice serious even if his eye betrays him, “if my lady's virtue was to come into question, then you can be assured I would do the honourable thing and marry her.”

“The honourable thing?” you repeat with a sharp laugh, “a punishment far worse than the accusation, I’m sure!”

He moves closer, the toe of his boot grazing against the hem of your gown, “but not the crime?”

You try to laugh, but really, it wasn’t hard to imagine such crimes as letting him kiss you, or the way you might fall together on the soft mossy ground. In fact, it was all too easy.

“We are not speaking of this,” you whisper, though you hadn’t meant for your voice to lose all strength, or your body to lose all resistance, when his hands bunch into your cloak. No, his cloak. His smell.

“Only thinking it,” he suggests, fingers curling tighter, reeling you in, “I must admit, I seem to think of little else.”

You can’t look him in the eye, if you do, you might say something crazy like ‘so do I.’ Instead, you say, “then his grace needs better hobbies to occupy his time.”

Aemond snorts, “perhaps you could teach me to embroider, that would certainly take up some time.”

Trying to act more annoyed than you feel, you attempt to wrench the cloak from his grip, “perhaps lessons in manners would be better suited?”

“Oh, I’d say it's far too late for that, wouldn’t you?”

And he does let go of the cloak, but only so his hands can slide to cup your cheeks, and force you to look at him.

“It’s never too late...” your words trail off, evaporating into the crisp night air. In fact, the whole forest seems to have fallen silent, perhaps the whole world, and you know you can pull away from him. But your heart is pounding, and there is something dangerous, something wanton, curling in your veins.

Perhaps Aemond feels it too, perhaps he notices the way your breathing has slowed, just as you notice the way he’s looking at you, so tenderly-

“Do you think Vhagar supposes where we have gotten to?” you blurt, and his eye brightens in surprise, as you tear yourself from his hands, before quickly turning towards the beach.

Though your swift exit is certainly hampered by the rocks, which seem even more difficult to descend than they had been to climb. You almost fall down them, before Aemond overtakes you, his hands catching your waist to stop your escape.

Or perhaps he’s just trying to stop you from breaking your neck. Either way, you can’t help but be reminded of the last time you’d been running away from him at the beach.

The sound of the waves had been just the same, and your heart had been beating just as quickly, but your reasoning had been different. He'd been a stranger then, now he was the opposite, too familiar.

“Perhaps it would be best to return to the party,” you say, as though returning to the party was not the least of what you wanted to do.

“Why?” he almost laughs, “ so you can dance with Lucerys Velaryon?”

You’d forgotten all about Luke and his half-hearted offer of a dance, but Aemond hadn’t, couldn’t , and even though his tone was light, there was quiet fury in his eye. Fury which could be abated so easily, except you didn’t want that, you wanted to turn the tide of conversation. Needing to shift it from a place where you might easily fall into his arms.

“Why do you hate him so?” you say, even if you’re almost certain you know the answer.

“You know why.”

“I know rumours.” You’d heard a dozen since arriving in Kings Landing, but you’d often wondered at the truth, Aemond’s truth, even if it didn’t feel like your place to know.

“Of the night I came to lose my eye?” he says, and hearing it said like that, you realise this was a stupid, awful , thing to bring up.

“I shouldn’t have asked you that, I’m so sorry.”

“Why ?” his head tilts, “you think me ashamed of the way I look?”

“I...” you stutter, “didn't say that. I don’t-”

He scoffs, “everyone pretends they cannot see my eye, when for most people, it’s the only thing they ever look at.”

"It’s not the only thing I see,” you say, and you’re not sure why it's so important for him to know this. You were supposed to be hating him after all, but you can’t stand to think he’d ever imagine you don’t see him. All of him.

He doesn’t say anything, and his attention turns towards the sea, his hands no longer interested in your company, and you can sense the old wound, still fresh and sore, as though it had happened only yesterday.

Now it was you who felt like the most repugnant person in the world, and you hate yourself for the way his shoulders have stiffened, the breeze feeling so much cooler than before. Because no matter how you might have felt about Aemond Targaryen, you were sure you never wanted to hurt him.

"Aemond ,” you reach for him, your hand finding purchase on his arm, and his muscles tense beneath the leather. Perhaps you shouldn’t notice such a thing at a time like this, but you can feel his strength, feel how he could break you apart if he really wanted to.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” you say softly, wanting to bring him back from whatever dark place you’d sent him. But it's too late.

He stares at the way your hand is touching him, before his eye slowly scrapes to meet with yours.

“I was ten when I saw Vhagar on the beach,” he begins, his voice small, raw, and hearing him like this, somehow feels more intimate than any of the times he’d held you in his arms.

“You were so young,” you say, picturing the white-haired boy, who’d dared to face the largest dragon in the world.

“Not for a Targaryen,” he swallows, his words garnering more control, “you can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up in this family without a dragon, even the bastards had them. So, when I saw her, all alone, it was like she was waiting for me, while the rest of the world looked the other way.”

You glance at her, sleeping peacefully on the brow of a hill, but still so fierce, so terrifying.

“At the risk of giving you another compliment,” you say, trying to lighten the mood you have created. “I cannot believe you had the courage to tame her.”

“You never tame a dragon.”

You frown, uncertain, “but she is yours, is she not?”

“It's a bond, one that will last a lifetime. And I don’t know if it was courage, so much as desire...” he steps up, so he’s standing on the same rock as you. Then his eye crinkles with the beginnings of a smile, or perhaps it's just pride for the boy he was that night. “The first few minutes of the flight almost killed me. But I clung to her so tightly, and then we were flying as one, and I knew she was mine.”

You both turn to her now, and she snorts as though she’s listening. Perhaps she is. Perhaps her eyes are closed but her ears are open.

“When we landed,” he continues, and together you settle down on the edge of a rock, knee pressed against knee, “I was so excited and... perhaps a little too proud, I could hardly wait to tell everyone of my triumph. But my nephews were already waiting for me, with Rhaena and Baela, and they already knew what I had done.”

“What you had done ? You make it sound as though bonding with her was a bad thing?”

He tilts his head, looking at you strangely, quizzically , “Rhaena wanted Vhagar for herself.”

“But ... she chose you .”

“And so we fought.”

“You fought all four of them?”

When his eye narrows into a pointed look, you cannot help but laugh, “of course you did.” This was Aemond, a child who’d mounted the largest dragon in the world, he wasn’t about to run from anything or anyone.

“Hand to hand at first, and naturally ,” he shrugs, “none of them were any match for the hours I’d spent in the training yard. But even so, I was only one boy against four, and they just kept coming.”

“After a while, I picked up a rock, I just wanted to frighten them,” he holds out his hand, his fingers curling at the ends, as though he can remember the very shape and weight of it, “but Jace drew his sword, just a little thing, a needle really.”

He looks at you, and your stomach tightens, afraid of what he’s going to say next.

“He tried to swing at me, but I was taller and faster, so I knocked him down, and the sword fell away. I thought if I just kept hold of the rock, then surely they would run. It was already over, you see? Vhagar was already mine. And I’d bested them, they knew that.”

Suddenly his hand tightens into a fist, and you imagine the rock crumbling into dust, before he wipes his palm along his thigh as though he cannot even stand to touch the memory of it.

Then he laughs sadly, “but my nephews and I have never held any love for each other. So, when Jace saw an opportunity to throw dirt in my eyes, Luke picked up the sword, and -"

His hand reaches towards your face so quickly you startle. But his touch is not pain or blood, it's a slow caress across your eye, sealing it shut. Yet only for a moment, instead of forever.

“An eye for a dragon is a fair exchange,” he shrugs, but the words feel too well practiced; the hurt pushed away as though its nothing more than a speck of dust.

Yet it was so much more, and you have to swallow the swell of tears which has caught at the back of your throat, as you think of that little boy, so proud, so excited, then broken .

“No ,” you say, your voice strained, “what they did to you wasn’t right, and it certainly wasn’t fair.”

The way he looks at you, almost surprised, makes your heart ache all over again. And if he was one of your sisters, you would wrap him in your arms, and hold him so tightly he'd have to fight to break free. But doing so, would cross a line you were trying desperately to avoid.

“You know, the strange thing is, I don’t even hate them for taking my eye. We were children, and the fight was far out of hand, but they never apologised. Even now, they laugh about it, like it was a joke, like it meant nothing .”

You hadn’t wanted to cry, but your eyes are too full, and a tear dares to break free, rolling lazily down your cheek, before its silvery trail is interrupted by the brush of Aemond’s thumb.

“Lady Baratheon... don’t tell me you’re crying for the most repugnant man in the world?”

Sniffling, you force a laugh before wiping the back of your hand across your eyes. “ I'm not .”

“You know, now that I think of it,” his voice is lighter, his eye more playful, “it seems I have a habit of finding all the best things waiting for me on beaches.”

You roll your eyes, before finding a length of cloak not sullied by the sand to pat your cheeks dry, "I’m not a dragon.”

“Not yet .”

The way he says that last word, so certain, you almost believe him, and force another laugh to hide any other emotion which might slip onto your face. Because sitting and talking with him like this was far too easy and far too comfortable.

“Speaking of which,” he continues, “since my many charms have yet to convince you to stay in Kings Landing, does that mean I am to invite myself to suffer a winter in the Stormlands? Or will you be so kind as to bestow me an invitation yourself?”

“Suffer?” you repeat with mock surprise, “I happen to like the stormy weather; I think it very beautiful.” And cosy, there was nothing better than a warm bed and a raging storm to pound against the walls.

He brushes your hair from your shoulder, his eye tracing your face, “I’m growing rather a taste for storms myself.”

“You should think me tame if you ever flew through a storm over Winter Solstice.”

“That I refuse to believe,” he says, close enough that even a whisper is easily heard over the waves, and leaving you to wonder why every moment, seemed to shift into a moment which felt like he might just lean in and kiss you.

“Well ,” you stand, pulling yourself from his gentle touches, “thanks to your mother, and this gown,” you gesture along the green silk beneath your cloak, “we are not leaving tomorrow after all.”

Aemond’s eye widens, the blue so much brighter than before, “you’re staying?”

“Only so we can entertain Tyland Lannister.”

His jaw ticks, “Tyland Lannister?”

“It's just tea ,” you add, thinking Tyland might not have been your favourite person, but he wasn’t bad, and you hardly wanted him to suffer over tea and cake.

But Aemond doesn’t seem so convinced, and his laughter is almost a growl as he stands, and begins to climb back down the rocks, before turning to offer you his hand, “then we should leave at once, I wouldn’t want my lady to miss an afternoon in the company of another man.”

“I’m not your lady,” you remind him, climbing down haphazardly without his assistance, “and if you must know, it was my mother who invited him.”

“Your mother?” he ponders this information as you walk back towards Vhagar side by side, “then we shall have to remedy that .”

Alarmed, you stare at him, trying to read his expression, but his face shows no tells. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” you say.

His lips quirk and he has no intention of telling you. Instead, he mounts Vhagar with the same swiftness he’d used in the dragon pit, leaving you to wonder.

Then again, you don’t wonder for too long, because all too quickly, you begin to remember that you weren’t supposed to be on a beach with Aemond in the first place.

Then you’re only wondering one thing; if it's late enough for you to be caught.

~~~

Thank you for reading!

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