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an-abyss-of-stars · 3 months ago

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𖤓 Don't You Dare Do This Without Me 𖤓 Ch. 3

Pairing: Rhaena x Aemond

Warnings: Smutty content mentioned, dirty erotic thoughts

Word Count: 5.9k

Summary: Aemond returns from his afternoon "activities" and is accosted by his mother in the halls of the Red Keep almost immediately, all the while he can't help but eagerly wish to return to his chambers...to return to his wife.

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 4 | Ao3 |

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Aemond did not dottle once he returned to the Keep. There was no need, seeing as he still had one thing on his mind.

One person, really...one woman.

Though it would seem that news of his exploits had already preceded him, the castle was a buzz. Huddled courtiers leading whispers from one corridor to the next. Careful to linger frightful gazes upon his moving form only to quickly flick them away as he matched them frigidly. Causing them to hurry on, to flee from their monarch.

They were so blatant with it.

But he was a hurricane, he could care less. His long slender legs moved with the speed of a man possessed and he most certainly was. However, he was, to his dismay, just as emotionally tangled as he was before he stormed out of the castle earlier this afternoon.

Burning that farming village down to the ground was meant to release this tension. His frayed nerves had blurred with a sting of pleasure when he'd willed Vhagar to breathe her magmatic green flames down from their perched swell in the sky. He'd felt a smoothing ache settle in the pit of his stomach, a roaring deep within the center of his cock.

Truly…it was monstrous and he knew it. The swelling power that coursed through him as he ended all of those pitiful little lives. It was the sound of the flames engulfing everything, the sweep, the swoop of it. It was the screams...the terror...the horror of it all that engaged him in what he thought would be a form of great release.

It had been before...her.

Only now, it felt like a false climax.

By the time he'd circled back over to King's Landing, his abdomen clenched with the returned weight of it all. The conscious memory of how his council had droned on in his ear during their meeting this morn. Harping on about the countless great Houses who would not truly bend to his will. While they had bent the knee in his presence, their loyalties were a falsehood. And as his council had so boldly reminded him, this handful of Houses were great enough that he could not simply burn and diminish them. He could not simply end the bloodlines of each and every single one of them, just because he wished it so. Dérogeance was barely an option in itself, though he had considered it.

No, it was a fact that he needed their banners, he needed their men for any such upcoming battle that would require foot soldiers.

Even still, it was an insult, the snide tones used during that meeting as if he were a fucking imbecile who hadn't even bothered to realize the fucking obvious-

He should burn something else.

Deplete the levels of rage that threatened to burn outwards, harm those closely around him. This anger of his that was still so embedded in his veins...it was building and in truth, the flight had done nothing to calm him. The stench of death and charred remains had done nothing to ease his mind. And he knew worst of all that he needed it to. Above all else he needed to return home calm enough to interact with his children with due care. He'd barely seen them today, and he'd be damned if his sons' were ever brought up to view him as a monster.

As the rest of the realm continued to do so. Even after he’d done so much for Seven Kingdoms. He’d managed to restore trade, abolished Rhaenyra’s taxes, and had loans given out to rebuild holdings that had been destroyed during the war. The city gates had been duly strengthened as he’d overseen the initiative of constructing several huge fortified granaries set throughout the kingdom, filled and made accessible for the people. Ten new war galleys had been commissioned and more were still yet to come.

And while it had not been his idea initially, his Queen had argued to the need to re-instill the respect of dragons amongst the smallfolk. As she’d once argued that he’d singlehandedly been responsible for the disillusionment the small folk now felt towards dragons. Although, while she’d hoped he’d find a peaceful way of going about it…he’d instead used terror. She wanted the dragon’s unchained in the dragon pit, and he did just that, riding amongst them upon Vhagar’s back. Purposely close, low to the city to remind them of the untouchable might of House Targaryen.

Yet even still…

Even after all of that.

Four years of what Aemond would like to consider held mostly acts of benevolence as far as he was concerned. Executions only held for those who’d earned it, torturing the likes of the conspirators responsible for the three royal assassination attempts he’d squashed under his leadership.

Aemond had been a good King…he had made it his mission to serve the realm to the best of his capabilities.

And yet…to them…to the smallfolk, to the Lords and Ladies of the realm…to his own wife…he was still nothing more than a kinslayer.

The Kinslayer King.

He was still a monster to them. As his wife surely still saw him as. Deep down, in her heart...he knew that thick black hatred for him still lived embedded within her like a poison tipped blade. Especially since she drew upon it far too often for him to ignore it.

Perhaps that fuelled her behaviour this morning as well, he could always blame her for his mood at this very moment if that was the case. His lovely little wife, one half of the ever sought after Dragon Twins. It was by his hand that he made her the most powerful woman in the realm. He'd had her crowned as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, it was by his hand that he made her the mother of the future heir to the Iron Throne. The future of their bloodline, of the Targaryen dynasty.

All she need do was behave accordingly, give him what he wished for when he asked for it.

As any other dutiful docile demure noble wife would.

Instead, he chose a dragoness for himself...a right fucking stubborn little pin in his side. One that he'd unfortunately managed to find himself utterly entrapped by, enraptured by a woman who enraged him more often than not. But still, like a fucking hound, he still found himself crawling back to her. Desperate for the slivers of affection he could coax from her. To be so unequivocally wound around her finger as opposed to the opposite, the unseemly fact that it often felt like her body could solve a great deal of his mental woes.

It was unheard of surely, more akin to an illness than the likes of genuine love.

At the very least, he could tell himself so at times such as this. That he'd once spent his nights laying with a dark miskept witch in the days before his marriage, and even her visions, her less than shapely body had felt like nothing in comparison to plunging into the heat of his sweet curvaceous Valyrian wife.

Only sweet when she chose to be.

Forever embittered with him if she could help it.

Yet she seemed to come around on the pleasures of his company when it suited her needs. Somewhere along the way she’d welcomed the conception of both their second and now third child into her womb, even if she only reluctantly tolerated their first. Those particular behaviours had translated to everything else. With each babe welcomed to their family, it seemed she’d grown more bold and assured of herself. It started with miniscule requests; the return of her dragon Morning, access to the royal library, freedom to walk the grounds of the castle without him. But then her requests shifted into tactile demands. She'd demanded her spot on his council. Was in the making of demanding a complete overhaul of the Keep itself, she wanted the Seven pointed stars removed from the Great Hall and all public view as his mother had once initiated the placement of. She wanted to begone the wearing of stark dark Hightower green, to forgo the dozens of green gowns he'd had her fitted for as she'd always called the colour 'hideous, drab and disrespectful to their family name'. She had hated having to swaddle their babes’ in green blankets and wraps, and she hated to see the 'false' green Targaryen banners hung around the castle.

As she'd put it...she was no member of the blasted House Hightower. She was not a Green Queen, and he could forget the notion of ever referring to her as such.

Aemond had recalled chuckling at her indignation, retorting if she’d rather be recognized as a ‘Queen for the Blacks then.’

A remark that earned him only the coldest of responses, ‘no. Because there should no longer be any blacks or greens. The majority of both factions have perished. There should only be House Targaryen, as it once was. Before your mother declared war against a house she was lucky to have even wed into.’

That hatred for his mother…that still remained.

Though as time went on, Aemond couldn’t find it in him to defend his mother’s prior actions. Not when he could finally see through them. Instead, he found himself far more enamoured with his Queen’s bold fire. It made him think that perhaps he was underestimating his feelings for her, at times her defiance brought him great sense of joy. In fact, more often than not, it most certainly did.

Even now, he nearly smirked to himself. Recalling the way she'd crossed her arms over her swelling belly a few days ago, proclaiming that she wished to return to wearing true Targaryen colours. Reds and black, the true House they were meant to represent.

She was right, of course.

Her statements had set a fire beneath him to see her demands met as soon as possible. Seeing as the Dance had long since ended, and in truth he had no interest in being remembered as the Green King Aemond Targaryen. Kinslayer King that he already was, he'd facilitate his reign by wearing their family's trueborn colours. By having pride in their Valyrian ancestry, their history and their culture. He did want for those things...it was his right to have them. He'd just never thought to put them forth so front and center as of yet.

See, it was in those instances of defiance that he found himself allowing it. She'd coax what she wanted from him when he was at his most vulnerable. Her pale lilac eyes gazing upon him, freezing his heart in place, her long pale lashes batting daintily at him. As they lay in their bed, her beautiful body bare to him. Her plush thighs spread for him, her leaking wanting cunt taking him in full as her legs wrapped around him. By the Gods, he could envision it all so clearly as he’d fallen victim to this embrace over a dozen times. With the way her hands always clutched onto him...welcoming his cock to delve deeply within her. It was the easiest way for her to get exactly what she wanted from him.

Even if that was only a fraction of the time. For, when the roles were reversed, she somehow still managed to keep her wits about her with her answers. And out of their marital bed, well, he could never have her simply follow his instructions when he gave them. It was much too difficult it seemed to simply follow his command, as her King, as her husband—if it had nothing to do with their bedchamber.

The inequality of it all, truly, in all instances his word should be law. If he wished to have her company, he shouldn't even have to say the word.

It should be a given.

It should be happily offered to him.

His mind still burned with the churning thoughts of his wife and that of his council. As the wind whipped past Aemond as he rode on horseback, only adding to the windswept appearance of his once neatly made singular plait. Ruffling his black leathers as he rode through the streets of Flea Bottom with such vigor. Dismounting his horse in a smooth yet rattled hurry, jumping off before taking large strides to the western entrance of the Red Keep. Needing no greeting or gesture made for the guards standing on duty to push the doors open for their King. It was there that he stomped through the halls with the falsely made cool collected saunter he'd perfected in his youth.

The swirling aggravation that clouded his every thought, his body felt taut, itching to strike should anyone stand in his way. It was the look upon Rhaena's face earlier that still remained in his mind. Etched to his memory, he couldn't help but recall the look she'd made when she denied him what was his by right.

To simply lay with her in their marital bed, with his head nestled upon her ample bosom.

It was a simple request.

He only wanted a moment of peace with her. To feel the soft warmth of her body laid against his own, wrapping his arms around her hips. To rest his hand upon the taut yet soft curve of her swollen belly, feeling the life they'd created growing within her womb. Aemond only wanted to listen to the calming rhythm of her heart beat, to deeply inhale the sweetness of her floral scent. To feel her nimble fingers deftly comb through his hair in soothing strokes as he nuzzled his cheek against her pillowy bare chest. To feel the sun warm their skin as they ignored all else in the world and just…

In truth, he only wanted a peaceful hour alone with his wife.

Instead, her beautiful face had frowned in defiance. Razored verbal attacks were levelled at his feet as if he'd wronged her in some way.

He had not.

Did she think he paid so little attention to her that he would not notice the discomfort she was in. The last few weeks of council meetings were waning on her. Waking for the meetings themselves was something she'd grown to dislike in her current condition. As well as the long walk it took to arrive there, the stairs she had to descend and climb back afterwards. The fact that she clearly found the chairs in the council room much too rigid and hard to sit on for an hour or beyond, no matter the cushion used to ease her bottom or her back. There was the fact that she'd often need to excuse herself every time the babe pressed against her bladder, every time she felt overheated or a bout of morning sickness fell upon her. And her feet were often swollen by the time she returned to their chambers after every single meeting.

Aemond was a keenly observant man…perceptive to the plights of those closest to him. As far as he was concerned, Rhaena was eight moons along in her pregnancy, nearly to term. That was simply the fact of the matter. Confinement for most noble women would have begun at least a moon before now if not even sooner. And here his wife was fighting him on the very chivalrous kindness he'd done her.

The absolute decency he'd offered her as a proficient loving husband and father to his children, any other woman...

He'd paused when he caught sight of his Lady mother just up ahead, fucksake, he sighed to himself. She was commingling with the Grand Maester, Orwyle, when her eyes caught sight of Aemond moving with assurety. There was a member of Aemond's chosen Kingsguard walking five paces behind him, Ser Rickard Thorne. As Aemond picked up his pace, so did his guard. He did not need to look back towards the man to affirm his assumptions, "my wife, the Queen. She is in my royal chambers, yes?"

A quick beat was all that was needed before the older man intoned, "yes, your grace. I was informed that she returned shortly."

As expected.

As he wished it-

Wait a minute…returned?

In an unconscious effort to prolong the obvious interlude that would be conversing with his mother. Most likely on the events that had just occurred…burning a small village and that of the repercussions of it.

Aemond instead, glanced back at Ser Thorne and asked the question that formed on the tip of his tongue, “returned? From where?”

Seeing as his little wife was meant to be in confinement…the mere fact that Ser Willis Fell saw fit to even let her vacate their chambers was a problem in itself. She was meant to be resting, slowing down her daily activities…she was meant to be waiting for him.

“Your grace, I was only informed that the Queen took to the gardens for a stroll. A short one, with her sister, the Princess Baela,” the knight quickly blustered up a suitable response for his King, surely hoping his slight error would not be seen as incompetence, “Ser Willis Fell and Ser Rickard Thorne were with her, of course. A proper detail guarding her grace.”

“But of course,” Aemond intoned with a bitter tang, it would seem he’d have to clarify the meaning of ‘confinement’ not only to his stubborn wife but as well to the guards of his sworn Kingsgaurd.

As he made his way down the great hall, the inevitable drew near. With his mother bidding ‘good day’ to the Grand Maester of which she was conversing with, her large brown eyes then locked on to Aemond. Those eyes of hers, they'd always had the power to still him the moment he felt their pressure laid upon him. Her gaze pierced through him in an instant. It was instinctual within him to heel at the sight of her disappointment, the child within him who was still so eager to please her. That child he once was, the little boy who was almost always met with a grim vulnerable look in her eyes, her lips already set to frown as they always did.

There was no pleasing her...that was a lesson he’d learned with time. Though he was sure she had her reasons this time. It was an often occurrence over these last few years, especially ever since he took his cousin, Rhaena, to wife. But this was not the time, his mind was far too preoccupied. Did he outright wish to ignore his mother entirely, no, he knew better than that. So he did greet her presence with a meaningful nod, but he did not intend on standing by to be lectured by his mother like a boy of ten years of age once more.

“Mother,” he nodded.

"Aemond," the dowager Queen gritted back, ah, so she most definitely sought to admonish him. With all the force of a verbal lashing that would befit the crime of tripping up a sibling or something lesser, so unimportant. It wasn't until he aimed to rip his gaze away from her, side stepping past her, that her voice grew more assertive, "Aemond! You cannot ignore me. What have you done?! When your reign already lives in a constant state of peril, you move to make more foes rather than alliances?"

The common tongue, it felt so utterly grating at this moment. Especially coming from her...how his mother itched to remind him of his Andal roots.

With an irritated sigh, he pursued his lips down at her, "believe me, mother. I am in no mood for this," the words rang out like a gravely hum, anymore inflection and he would have seethed them out. As his body already ached with annoyance, that quiet rage he'd managed to tamp down as he rode back home...it was rushing to the surface once again. The very rage that eased him into the idea of burning fields and small villages as he wished in the first place.

Though it was unfortunate to say that Alicent Hightower was never one to back down from such a warning. Whether it was a verbal one or a quietly made physically looming one standing before her. Especially when it was her own offspring who permitted it, it was as if she could not see the full grown men her little boys had become. She still viewed them as children, attached to her will. Still in need of her guidance in some way, she still fought to remain so relevant in their eyes. To hurry her shorter legs along, to match Aemond’s long steps just to keep in stride with him, "I am not concerned with your current disposition. I speak with importance. Your allegiances with the North are already wavering, it is true, your council did not lie to you. The point was not made to berate you-"

Agh…such repetition once again.

"Mother, I know," he tried to cut her off sharply, in hopes of ending this admonishment before it could properly begin. But it felt as if there’d been no effect. Like a shattered piece of stone that simply would not burn no matter how hot the flames blasted upon it.

His heart thumped violently within him. While the heels of his mother's flats only stomped with all of her weight, as she straightened her shoulders and raised her chin. Her eyes no longer remained pinned to him, she instead focused on the hall ahead. To give the appearance of a simple casual conversation being had between a mother and her son, "you know, do you? As you currently threaten our bonds with the Westerlands. If you know all this already, then what is to be done? Four years have passed, and you've offered the North nothing of note. Footholds and trade agreements. Clearly they want something more substantial. The North still remains loyal to Rhaenyra's faction even in death, her spirit commanding their stale oaths. They would sooner ride out to face you in record numbers in the name of honour to another. Their loyalty to the name of Jacaerys Velaryon. As opposed to raising their banners for you and any war you might call them upon."

'I KNOW! I FUCKING KNOW!' is what he wanted to roar aloud, damned the look that would fall upon his mother's visage. Damn the fucking peasants who would have heard him, Lords and Ladies be damned, he was at his wits end. He'd had enough for one day. He only needed quiet solitude to think properly, to draw up real plans to secure the North truly to his side. Pacify the damage done during the war…make his mind up on what to do with the Westerlands…

But if all anyone wished to do was drown him in information he already knew-

Grunting as he rolled his shoulders, his eye blazed down at his mother. Tilting his head as he nearly spat his retort, "yes yes and all that stays their hand is their loyalty to their Queen, Rhaena Targaryen. As well as her sister, Aegon's wife, Princess Baela Targaryen. Yes, mother, I know. I chose them strategically. The North will not attack us. And the likes of the fucking Dowager Lady Johanna Westerling has already proven she has no mind for war or true retaliation," Aemond's jaw was grinding as he purposely focused on the corridor ahead. Ignoring the nobles that spotted a heated discussion between their betters as they passed through the halls.

Making their way up several flights of steps, Aemond found the world around him to blur slightly, the voices around him numbing to the faint mumble of incomprehensible jargon…then focusing in. He shook the uncomfortable feeling from himself, rattling his neck slightly, as he finally turned the corner with his mother. Heading towards his royal chambers, he lowered his voice to a smooth yet dull tone, "see, mother. I'm not some hapless fool. I know the North needs placating. I've known it since Aegon abdicated the throne to me, since my first son was born and then my second...."

There he took another silent moment to breathe deeply, unlatching his hands from behind his back. This level of fury and restlessness, it was convulsing within him, violently transforming into this warped unsettling thing in his gut. Soon enough, unconsciously he found his right hand had sprung up towards his throat. His thumb found comfort in stroking the old vertical scar that spanned down the side of his jaw, spanning the length of his neck.

Such a clean scar…a straight mark.

His deranged love for the wound that was given to him by his once caged bird, it was more of a cozy reminder than a haunting. And his chest felt as if heavy laid bricks rested against his heart, it was this reminder of the old slash his wife had once handed him that seemed to calm him. The confident fact that he’d have her in his midst soon enough. And with that certainty in mind, it was becoming far more difficult to not simply dismiss this conversation and leave it as he wished, because he could. Because his mother could no longer order him about as she once did.

No one could.

No one but-

She was not present in this hallway.

His dragoness…

He’d join her in their shared chambers soon.

He'd much rather be dealing with her than his mother at the moment.

Rolling his jaw, he knew he had to regulate his emotions. He could not explode, not here, not with his mother. With his dragoness, it was different, it felt mutual. She would fight him on anything...but his mother, she was just a woman. An older one grappling with the changes of the world, the changes in her station. The utter power she’d lost and had failed to ever regain…

Breathing in and out, Aemond continued on, "this is a task that needs planning, precise planning. Does it not? Treating with the Northern Houses, worse yet possibly offering marriage pacts and or true dragon allegiances. I have not taken this lightly. But Targaryen blood is scarce now and I cannot waste it so eagerly. Sending mine or Aegon's own offspring North just to appease a few sour Lords. The bloodline must be secured first and foremost, and other alliances may be needed in our future."

"Aemond-" she'd started, the lacking tone had already informed him of what she might say next.

But he'd given her no room to continue, "mother, when I say that I've considered everything, know that I have. When I say that I am devising a plan that may yet gain the North's favour, before we are set in a truly perilous situation...you must take my word for it."

"A perilous situation," Alicent’s frown set deeper, her brows creasing as her eyes sharply fell back onto her second born son, "and was it peril that emboldened you to burn the town of Oxcross? Peril or the basest peak of your petty fury at your own humiliation? That is what the council meeting settled within you, is it not?" she stood firm, her feet planted as they were now safely standing in the royal wing of the castle. With her hands delicately folded in front of her emerald green satin gown. Her fingers itching to fidget with the encrusted jewels there, if only to mitigate her own emotions as she boldly asked the question so few would ever dare to.

Though she seemed to forget that she held little power over him now.

Dowager Queen mother that she was.

Aemond slowed his own steps, eager to end this encounter out in the hall before he stepped into his chambers to face the other bold woman with whom he shared his life with.

"Mother...careful now. It’s uncouth to pry," his voice lowered to the base of his throat as he slowly stepped towards her, his polished riding boots clacking against the hard stone floors. Echoes permeating the otherwise empty corridor. It was there, he could see it, at the end of the hall. Almost glowing with a direct ray of sun beaming upon the door…Aemond could see the guards there. At his chambers, his sanctuary away from all of this. It was all so close...yet his mother stood in the way like a blockade of the most egregious kind.

"Is that what you're doing now?" Alicent hummed darkly, twisting her own lips in the process. The auburn waves of her unbound hair falling back behind her shoulders as a look of doubt and subtle disgust fell upon her face. She looked him up and down along his form, the wordless gesture of it all was all too clear even before she spoke, "my own son, threatening me once again. First with your wish to rule the Seven Kingdoms, to snatch what was rightfully your elder brother's. What we fought for here, the freedom, our very lives. And then you made the unilateral decision yourself. To bestow upon the two of you, wives that were of the blood of our enemies. The man that almost killed you!"

Exhaling with the whole of his body, he maneuvered around his mother, rolling his stiff shoulders, flexing his fists away from her. Stroking that scar of his, the one that laid just opposite of the one that nearly severed his head that day. Above the God’s Eye, when the Gods’ saw fit to save his life instead.

No…when Gods’ left everything up to the will of pure luck itself.

Daemon Targaryen had almost killed him that day…his uncle would have taken them both to oblivion.

And now here he was stroking a scar made by that man’s own daughter, the daughter he’d chosen to take to wife the very same year.

His mother surely knew as much, even as she watched his actions with perplexity. Surely clueless as to why he felt the need to knead his wound as he did. But it was a precaution taken on his end. Because he could feel it building within him, something dark within his soul. Doing his best to tamp down the feeling, trying to remind himself that he could not unleash it here. He couldn't harm her...

However, he could halt this line of questioning. Straightening himself, he stood to his full height, towering above his mother. He watched as the mix of emotions filtered across her face, as the fearlessness in her eyes began to waver. Not that he would ever lift a physical hand against her. But she did doubt him now...ever since the war...ever since Lucerys...she did doubt him.

She thought him a monster...just like all the rest.

"Do not forget yourself, mother," he eyed her with cold precision, watching as she took one step back and then another. Her hands were trembling just a bit as he in turn settled his hands behind his back, hardening his countenance in the process, "Aegon handed me his crown, that was his choice, he knew he was not fit for it. But in the case of our wives, no other would do. The war depleted the amount of dragon's blood in the realm. It is my goal to replace what was lost, that cannot be done with any old bride. Andal or otherwise. Both Aegon and myself needed Valyrian brides. And we have since brought forth several trueborn Valyrian children to the crown, to this house. House Targaryen."

Every statement he made was punctuated with a step towards his mother, so that he could see the understanding settle in her eyes. Watch as her gaze fluttered about his face in a course of action that seemed desperate to find the little boy she was so used to squashing beneath her. The boy she once used to serve her needs first then looked to appease his own.

But that boy was gone.

He died during the war.

In some horrific form of symmetry or horrid cosmic karma, that little victim of a boy that lived within Aemond had died the day Lucerys Velaryon...Strong had died. Where the anger and pity that swirled within him in a mix of blinding fury and flurried uncertainty. That fury is what led him to chase his young nephew and his tiny dragon up into that storm. With the sole wish of killing the young boy at the forefront of his mind. It was never meant to be a game to him...the sick thrill of it all, terrorizing that child as he gleamed all of the joy in the world from the power he'd felt.

It had all been so glorious.

Justice...for himself, finally delivered.

There was no hesitation, he did not wish to fall back.

Until it happened... he'd bade Vhagar take her moment, strike while the young pair were unprepared. Only then did uncertainty finally strike at Aemond's core...only once he'd done the deed.

Once the boy was dead.

Scattered strewn limbs tossed to the sea...the rest devoured by Vhagar.

A fate worse than a simple death, to be of the blood yet eaten by a dragon.

A cardinal sin, surely.

The act of killing one's kin...the act of severing a line of dragon's blood, no matter how thin. It wouldn't have mattered if he regretted it...the life was already lost. Rhaena had once screamed something along those very same sentiments towards him once before. The truth of the matter had settled there.

And now, looking back at it all, he knew it just as well. The death of Lucerys was the day Aemond knew he could never return to living beneath the will of another. Not as he had existed before...not beneath Criston fucking Cole's will, or his mother's, or his grandfather, and certainly not beneath Aegon in that fashion.

He was King now.

His word was law.

To be obeyed above all else.

Aemond finally relented his stalking pursuit, his mother seemed concerned enough. And truth be told he only needed her attention for one final statement, simply rasping the words, "I've never threatened you, mother. I've only ever stated what is. When I brought the dragon twins here, I stated they'd be made to wed myself and Aegon. It was a decision I made as King, not a Prince, not Prince Regent...but as the highest power in the realm. It was not to be argued with, and most certainly not to be overturned by you or my grandfather. The same could be said about this matter now."

Finally, stepping around her, he made his way towards his chambers. Relieved by the simple fact that he could not hear his mother's footsteps following him, instead he heard her voice trembling off, "and with no one left to guide you any longer...you'd what? Rain ruin and death upon all the land, nobles and smallfolk alike? When you feel insulted? Or denied…wronged in some way? Or just because it makes you feel strong?"

"Neither...or all of the above, feel free to choose for me. Clearly you’ve already decided," he'd shrugged carelessly, not bothering to attach an emotion to his mother’s otherwise heartfelt deliverance. Nodding for the two guards at his door to unlock the room and give him entry. The respectful taste that would normally sour in him, to bid his mother 'good day' or to at the very least 'excuse' himself had evaporated. He'd instead left his mother alone in the corridor, with his back turned towards her, entering the bright sunny haze of his chambers with a breeze of warm Spring air wafting towards him.

His sanctuary.

Within that breeze was the familiar scent of his wife, sugary sweet wild berries mixed with a bright lilac air. It was Rhaena's signature scent, a mixture of the fragrant oils, soaps and creams she always used to ready herself.

Gods, how he'd missed it.

It’d only been a few hours away from it…but he’d wholeheartedly missed it.

—

Notes: In-universe backstory, that will be fleshed out in the full longform fic that's coming later on. The scar that Aemond is touching so fondly in this chapter was given to him by Rhaena! (there's more detail about this incident in the notes on Ao3!)

#aemond targaryen #rhaena targaryen #rhaena x aemond #aemond x rhaena #rhaemond #hotd #hotd fanfic #chapter 4 will be out in a few days!! probably some time during the weekend! 😌#Don't You Dare Do This Without Me

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syncopein3d · 7 months ago

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Left Alone 1: Abandoned

Author's note: This originally came as a reply to this prompt, but I thought I'd give it its own beginning for easier linking on my masterpost page. I did a poll here to decide who finds Tolly, and it just wrapped up, so here we go!

Tropes/content warnings: vampire whumpee, male whumpee, non-binary caretaker, morbidity or thoughts of death. There will be a lot of play with, and discussion of, the concept of consent in this series, as it applies to many topics. Mostly we're talking about consent to be bitten, but being bitten in this universe varies from "mild discomfort" through "multiple climaxes" and I don't know where the story will end up yet, so I think it's important to be clear going in. If there's more specific gore etc., I'll try to also do content notes as it comes up. “Stay in this room.”

It wasn't a large room. It was the width of the basement, but shallower, so that he could lie full length on the floor in one direction but not the other. He was six feet and a handspan tall. Six feet and a handspan long, if he didn't lift his arms. He would have needed a special coffin, or he must needs lie curled up inside it, not stretched regally in state. He would never have a coffin at all. That would have meant an end.

It wasn't a large room. It wasn't particularly well decorated. There was no silk paper on the walls down here, just bare stone encrusted with mold and damp. There was a rug. It was old when he was shut up inside, the dark green and gray colors faded, pipe dottle burns scorching several spots. He knew each one by heart, and had often speculated as to their respective age and how far apart they had happened back when this rug stood in front of the fireplace in the upstairs study. He had counted every single thread and every single strand of every single dull golden tassel. It only took him a couple of minutes, so he did it often. He had never been thwarted by throwing down a handful of seeds, not Bartholomaeus Bardulf. The debate as to whether he should stop counting the thread he had pulled from one side to play cat's cradle with raged on for some time. Eventually he had painstakingly weaved it back in, a tiny bit at a time, with his long nails, just to end the torment of uncertainty.

It wasn't a large room. There was no window, because that might have ended his suffering. Black Tolly only knew day from night by the dragging of his limbs, the need to lie down and cease for a while. He never fought it. It was time away from this place. Sometimes while he lay dead, he dreamed, and sometimes in his dreams he was outside. Every time he arose from lying on his back on the rug, hands neatly folded across his once-white shirt, he scratched a marking into the wall.

It wasn't a large room. Besides the rug, there was only a table in the corner and a single chair. They were plain furnishings, the sort of straight peg-and-groove stick construction you would want for something that needed to last a long time but didn't need to impress anyone. The chair was not for him. It was for his old friend Nicholas, who had left him down here for the last time three thousand, six hundred and twenty days ago. It was where Nicholas would sit when it was time for the needle and the vials.

Bartholomaeus Bardulf missed the needle and the vials. They had been an interruption of the monotony of his days. Sometimes, with new blood fresh in his mortal veins, the years crawling backward across his face, Nicholas would stay and talk to him. Tolly was polite. He had no power to be otherwise while the charm of Nicholas' voice held him in thrall, while Nicholas wore the old gold ring with the glittering ruby stone. He did not even resent this after the first six hundred days or so.

“Stay in this room,” he always said, when it was time to go. He never said “goodbye, Tolly.” Because they both knew he would be back. At least, Black Tolly had been sure of that. And then, three thousand, six hundred and twenty days ago, Nicholas had departed and never come back. And then Tolly had nothing, no meals of barely warm, half-congealed animal blood brought him in the same glass bottle, no moral debates as he paced the far wall and watched Nicholas grow younger, no pleading for his long eternity to end. Blood of cow and pig was not enough, not what Nicholas had promised him, and he gradually weakened on it, but it was better than nothing. On nothing at all he grew thin and withered and gray, his hair a few white strands clinging to his yellowed scalp, his canines permanently large and prominent with his thirst.

It wasn't a large room. There was nothing to see, nothing to do. Even for a creature like Bartholomaeus Bardulf, Black Tolly, Bardulf the Bastard, an old monster with the patience of the long dead, to keep sane you needed something. You needed anything at all. He made his marks on the wall. He counted his threads. He carved in the opposite wall with his talons, because those did not weaken as he began to dry up. Now there was an elaborate mural of curlicues and arabesques there, leering grotesques peering from the stylized vines and bushes of the forest of his mind. More than one of them had the face of Nicholas, beautiful, beloved, despised, hateful Nicholas.

And then, on the three thousand, six hundred and twenty-first day of his captivity, he heard noises from upstairs. Tolly threw himself at the secret door, screaming, pleading hoarsely, but the stone walls were too thick, and no one heard him. No one heard him scraping at the clean wall, ruining the smooth expanse of the moldering stones where he might have begun another mural in time. No one heard him pounding. His strength had waned with time, but still he paced, intent on every smallest sound.

When he heard the faintest echo of footsteps, detectable only to a creature with such exquisitely tuned hearing as the old monster, he threw himself against the secret door, milk-white eyes unblinking and intent on the smallest crack. He didn't really expect it to open. He was hoping for some scrap of scent, some sound of breath, some tantalizing agony to at least give him something to think about for the next hundred days. It utterly shocked him when it began to open. He darted backward into the far corner beyond the rug, crouched at the foot of his mural, and watched the door swing open.

“Stay in this room,” Nicholas had said. And he could not cross the threshold, could not even reach across it with his long, bony arms. But then the scent of fresh, living blood smote his nostrils, and he hurtled across his cell in a frenzy, desperate for it. And came up short just before the door, hissing in agony as every muscle in his body contorted in absolute refusal to move further.

For a second the stranger – exquisite, delicious creature, like Nicholas, savoring of life and health – was confronted with a gangly cadaver in a dusty once-white shirt and the tattered remains of a gray suit that had once been an expensive bit of tailoring, the narrow lapels immaculate, the trousers to bag at the knee just ever so. He never took the jacket off. The thirstier he was, the more he felt the cold in his dead bones. Part 2: Discovery

#whump #vampire whumpee #trapped #tw thoughts of death #male whumpee #enby caretaker #syncopein3d future reference #non-binary caretaker #Black Tolly #Arden #Trifold Balance Universe

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