#and the pale king made the dead baby pit and locked his child in the eternal torture chamber

[yrlocalghost]

congratulations to dutch van der linde on being a worse father figure than the pale king. very high bar

[thephantomcasebook]

Someone said “Jonerys babies” So I come’a runnin ...

It happens once in a generation. It something that they sing about in songs that make young girls swoon and young men strive. But how many times will the Seven Kingdoms bleed for young and impetuous actions of chivalry? Prince Rhaegar had done it for prophesy and it turned into a deep and all-encompassing love that nearly destroyed his entire family. Daenery’s Targaryen had done it for an alliance with the North, and her machinations turned into a soul consuming attachment that cost her a dragon, her child, and engulfed the realm in a war for the dawn. All, because, the man she loved was at death’s door … and she couldn’t live without him. A Grandfather, a mother, all making the same mistake … risking everything they hold dear for a Northern lover. Was it any wonder that one of them, one of these miracles that she bore wouldn’t blink at the chance of making the same mistakes, when that passion was in their blood?

Aemon Targaryen was a handful before he even was born. Daenerys labored for days in one of the coldest winters that had ever been recorded. Though he was gone, King Jon sat outside the birthing room with his sword, convinced that the Nights King had returned to seek revenge against the King and Queen that had defeated him. The baby came into the world raging with passion as his mother lay drained and pale. Though Tyrion and Sam wished to discuss the likelihood of the Queen’s death, King Jon would not hear of it. He locked himself in the room with her and wouldn’t come out till she was strong again. In the meantime the baby was wrapped in his mother’s Crimson sash by Gilly Tarly, and was named by her Lord Tarly. He spent his first months of life cared for by his Aunt Arya. The wild and mysterious beauty took the baby deep into the King’s Wood, where she nurtured him at her breast by the fire, while guarded by Ghost, his father’s direwolf, in a place where no Queen’s Guard dare follow. It was there that the Dragon that had possessed his older brother and sister, had passed over Aemon, and he became the Lone Wolf within the Dragon pits.

When Daenerys held him for the first time, she immediately saw how much trouble he would be. Fore she didn’t see a wolf staring back as others did … she saw only herself. It wasn’t just that he looked like her, with the exception of his father’s black curls. It wasn’t even that he was somewhat like her. It was that Aemon Targaryen was too much like her. Not the meek little girl whose beautiful body was fondled and unwantedly worshipped by a cruel older brother. She had given too much of herself, too much of her fire, to the boy. And since then it has been as if Daenerys Targaryen had declared war on herself.

The boy was as wild as his black and white streaked Direwolf, Shadow. A daredevil of the highest order that was brash, and too brave for his own good. He took his parents orders as more guidelines than pinpoint instruction. He rode against Dortharki disguised as a Mystery Knight, despite his father and certainly his mother’s explicit order that their son not participate in such barbaric sporting practices such as Tourneys. Upon Aemon’s identity being revealed to the shocked Lords and Ladies as “The Knight of the Laughing Tree”, he informed The King and Queen that they never said he couldn’t fight. It was, technically, true. They had told his older brother, The Crown Prince, he could not, him being five and ten. But they never dreamed that they would have to extend their ban to their ten year old as well.    

His antics had stoked flames of resentment amongst the younger Dorthaki that had developed Westrosi prides in the generation born away from the Great Grass. Their fathers pressured by their perfumed and silken Khaleesi and westernized sons, demanded retribution against the young prince for the humiliation. The Queen threatened to burn the Khals alive for threatening her youngest babe, and King Jon refused to hold a trial for a small boy, despite his natural skill with a blade. But the pressure placed diplomatically upon the Crown in sight of a full on Dortharki rebellion, led to what Queen Daenerys saw as the greatest mistake of her life.

She exiled her son from Westros.

She swore to the boy that it would be only for a short time, till they settled things with the fragile state of the Seven Kingdoms and Dorthaki. The boy refused to look at her. His last words were said by addressing her as “Your Grace” instead of Mama. Once again from a weakened mother, young Aemon was passed to his Aunt Arya. The mysterious woman with a beautiful face that sometimes wasn’t her own, took her nephew as her apprentice and squire and together, with the boy’s direwolf to guard, the two set off for the unknown regions to chase dreams and adventure.

It had been seven years since. The elder Dorthaki still showed their allegiance, their sons showed more and more arrogance, and their mothers muttered mutiny against this Dragon Queen and her beautiful and perfect children. But the young sons of the Khals in silk, fur, and eye shadow would not let go and could not live down their humiliation at the hands of the Queen’s youngest child. He had stayed away for years, they only hearing of his exploits and adventures from far off places.

So they, with encouragement of their mothers, began to plot their revenge.

A fast walking, sleek, figure with long tumbling silvery blond tresses stormed ahead. Her tall black boots thundered down the upper gallery of the Throne Room with loud echoes. Daenerys Targaryen, the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, wore a black padded doublet, skin tight leather pants. A red sash was draped across her chest, clasped by a silver dragon head’s broche. She hadn’t aged a day since Jon Snow first saw her sitting on the throne in Dragonstone, but she was different than she was now. It had been a good long while since she had fought a war. And between that time she ruled an empire and raised children … and through all of it, she had only loved one man. And he was all she wanted to hear from at the moment.

“Your Grace, times of are different!” Lord Tyrion was panting as he tried to keep up with his liege. The dwarf’s hair was more white than blonde these days when age was starting to catch him. “You can’t just ride Drogon to Starfall and burn them to a cinder!” He pleaded with her.

The Queen stopped. “I warned their fathers, long ago!” She pointed a finger at her and Jon’s Hand. “I warned them that I’d burn my enemies alive. Not “our” enemies, my enemies!” She raged.

“We worked so hard to integrate them into the Kingdoms, into society. If you take Drogon down to the mountains of Dorne and burn them, the Khals will see it as an attack on all of them, on all of Dorthraki culture. You’ll ruin everything we’ve spent almost twenty years building …!”

“They’ve ambushed my child!” She snapped. “They’ve ran him down and trapped against the sea! I don’t care about your progress or integration! They were savages before I brought them here, now their child brides wear King’s Landing cuts and Highgarden perfumes! And I’ll roast them in their silk for even presuming to even look at one my children!  Aemon is my son, my youngest child! I’ll destroy this entire world till there is nothing left but ash, before I EVER allow you to talk me into betraying him again!” She turned her back on Tyrion. For his part, the dwarf looked stricken with his own shame of the incident seven years past. She never knew how many nights, the Hand had laid awake, thinking of the ways he could’ve done it all differently.

The door to the small council chamber flew open when the queen burst inside in a fury. But she paused when she saw a man at the table observing a map of Dorne. All the fire in her bright eyes left her and she looked vulnerable. She had come in, ready to demand action, to not be questioned. And there she found Jon Snow, being every bit Jon Snow, being everything she ever needed. He was already dressed in a suit of battle armor, and Long Claw was on the table next to the map.

“It’s days like these, I miss Dragonstone.” He replied with a tired sigh.

He looked older, older than her. There was some snowy white in his beard and a streak of it in his hair. He said that it was a gift, but his age made her self-conscious in the lack of hers. All the time she arose unburnt from ashes, and she never once thought how deep the magic went, how much of herself was pure magic.    

“It was much easier back then …” She felt foolish for saying it, looking the way she did, like she could’ve stepped right out of his memory of those days. “When it was just you and I, Tyrion, Davos, and Missandei, and Cersei and the dead were our enemies …” Her eyes glassed over. “Anything was possible in those days … the world was ours for the taking, before we gave it …” She nearly broke a moment, her voice shuttering. “Before we gave the world things to take from us.” She finished with a whisper. For a long moment Jon Snow and Daenerys locked eyes with each other. Gone was the fearless conqueror, the elemental storm that everyone knew her as. Alone, in the safety of his gaze, Daenerys entrenched herself in the darkness of her husband’s eyes, in the inexhaustible strength within this paragon of everything she loved.

“I, uh … meant the painted table.” Jon looked down at the map. “It was better topographically.” He knocked the polished wood underneath the map.

“Oh …” Daenerys cleared her throat. “Yes, it is …” Sniffed and looked away. There was a long awkward pause between the two. Slowly a smirk overtook the older king as he looked back. The queen bit her lip to stop the grin that his smirk always dragged out of her. But the sputtered scoff was mostly a laugh even as tears ran down her cheek.

She was grateful to feel the cold steel against her breasts as she felt him take her in his arms. She placed her face against his as he nuzzled her cheek. She felt a deep wroth of guilt spread through her, an old wound, near mortal as a poison blade to the shoulder. He had begged her to reconsider seven years ago, pleaded that Aemon being a “handful” was no reason to do this to their child. She had planted her feet, said that she was doing it all to protect him. At first she was convinced it was the right decision, that someday he’d see it her way. But as the years melted one to the other, she began to realize how wrong she had been. And the worst part was that he never stopped loving her. She had spent long periods of time away from him afterward. They didn’t talk for years. He went back to Winterfell for a time, leaving her alone to contemplate her ‘righteous decision’. But every week she received a raven from Winterfell, from the ruins of The Wall and Castle Black. It never said anything but the same thing every time.

I love you.

“I’m sorry, Jon … I’m so sorry.” She whispered. “Please …” She begged him not to say anything, not to forgive her for this. But she couldn’t stop him from being Jon Snow, any more than she could stop loving him.

“I’ll bring him home … I swear to you, Gendry and I will break through that siege, or die trying.” He swore.

Dany sniffed and looked up. Her strength returned, her face portraying strength. “You cannot die, Jon Snow …” She shook her head. “I never gave you permission to … leave.” She stumbled when she realized that they have had this conversation before.

She expected him to reply to it the same way he once had when they … when he was young. But instead he did what he had wanted to do when she had first said those words to him. Since then they had fought wars, had children, and spent years apart, but this time there was nothing stopping him as there was a million reasons back then.

Jon Snow kissed Daenery’s Targaryen.