❝Ask me, my prince. What a storm is to a dragon.❞
[ Aemond can only breathe through your lungs, through your adoration and love. But when betrayal is nigh, what does it truly beget? ]
[ +18 MDNI ] [ 6,935 ] | Dark!Aemond Targaryen x Baratheon!Reader, minor, sort of (not really) Aemond Targaryen x Alys Rivers.
THIS IS A DARK FIC. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
contains— angsty, smut - DD:DNE: kidnapping, coercion, manipulation, possessive & obsessive behaviour, power imbalance, violence (not to reader) (a little bit to reader... i wrote this too close to book canon!aemond), murder, death, massacre, war - canon typical targcest, canon character deaths, canon divergence - dark!aemy - pregnancy, child, allusions to infidelity, mentions of bastard - i took liberties with canon (as i usually do) - #ripellyn you (sorta) will be missed shshs - the only specific reader descript. i did is the baratheon dark hair ok? ok - nsfw: male masturbation, dubcon/noncon, creampie - no kings, no martyrs, no betas.
a/n— there was this villain playlist on yt that was slowed and sexy, and my brain just. clicked. here it is if you wanna check. the real reason this is long is cos i can't help but add backstory ok? ok. lol. comment, reblog & like at will, mi luvs, mwa!
Storms have always been your favourite view in any window.
It is cliche to say, a proud daughter of the Stormlands, of course she enjoys the dark skies! But you do. There is nothing short of comforting in the rolling, fat clouds darkened in shadows. Occasionally, if the weather moved to your whim, lightning danced between plumes before you hear the boom and crack of it striking.
"It is a privilege to enjoy weathers such as these," your father once said, a hand on your darkened hair, a bluer tint to it, but Baratheon through and through. "It is our might that holds us at paramount, and thus, our privilege beckons warm fires and strong, stone fortresses to watch it all in comfort. To find enjoyment in the dark skies."
"Ours is the Fury," you replied immediately. Your father smiled.
"That, precisely. The paramount of our might and power is one we have taken and given with fury. Never forget."
"Even better than the Targaryens?" Your father's displeasure crumpled his face, and you were at an old enough age to understand his displeasure was not something you enjoy. But you had been learning all day, and the topic that day with your septa had been House Targaryen. You had learned the King's name, that he had a Queen that died, and that his heir is a girl.
His hold on your shoulders was heavy, but you do not flinch. Eyes bore into your own as if he was speaking the words into existence.
"We are the blood of the Kings too, my daughter. The White Hart proves our mark in the world, long before the dragonlords ever whispered in these lands. And what are dragons against the dance of storms?"
You had been little then, no more than six. The smallest of your sisters; Floris, though short in stature, looked elongated. A beauty. A fawn in the making. And your father is not the cleverest of men, but his words shelved itself in the corners of your brain. It eased and assuaged your fears like a quick spell.
Your spine straightens and your chin tilts upward. You are made of fury and storms, the blood of kings of old and solid, impenetrable fortresses.
You fury is your own, and 'neathe your fingers, under your very being, is a storm.
A good reminder, as when you had exchanged childhood for girlhood, a missive had been sent by the Queen Alicent Hightower, requesting for a daughter from Lord Baratheon's Four Storms, as companion for the Princess Helaena.
"Cassandra would do well."
"She hungers, husband. I am afraid of what might happen if we send her to the courts at her age. I do not yearn for a scandal."
"She would not shame her family so, do you reckon?"
"She is the eldest. You know how she is."
A sigh. "If she had a cock, she would be a good heir for my seat."
"Borros!"
"Apologies. Very well, mayhaps a good husband with no grit to him would do her well. She will lead the Stormlands by the hold of his— er, well, yes. Maris? She is clever."
"Far too clever. Even her tongue irks you, no. Definitely not. Her brain works too fast for her mouth. She will say the wrong thing and end us in war."
"You exaggerate, surely."
"I bore them, Borros, but they are your daughters. They live and breathe with your name and your House's banner under their own. What do you think? Bad enough they take so much of your heritage with them, and their looks, but they also plucked and chosen parts of you I'd rather not have for lady daughters."
Your father grumbles incoherently, you laugh under your breath.
"... Floris is too young. So..." The last one. You. You press your ear harder against the wood of your father's study, heart in your throat.
"She will be best," she says softly, insistently. She knows in her heart of hearts that though her husband is a hard, proud man, he has a softened heart for you. "Though she is clever, she minds herself well. Polite. Kind. She will do well with the Princess and her, er, eccentricities."
"Bloody weirdoes, the lot of them." A sigh. Another chastise from your mother, but she too, sounds exhausted. It has almost been a moon since the missive has been sent. Another one is bound to arrive, more order than request. It is all a political game. Princess Rhaenyra had no Baratheon ward under her court when she still resided in Kings Landing, for you and your sisters had been too young and your father had no sister. It is by chance that gives the Green Queen advantage to take a ward under your father's banner now, with a daughter she seeks to be Queen Consort.
"Send her then," your father announces. Though defeat clouds his voice, the Lord in him speaks each vowel clearly. "She will do best to represent the House out of them all. We might have a betrothal in our hands soon enough."
"She is pretty enough for a prince."
An angry snort. "She is more than pretty enough for a prince. Far better than the lot of them."
Softly, "That is because you like her best."
"Why would I not?" your father replies gruffly, making you smile. "A storm grinds and brews inside of her, wife. Even Maestre Loes, the old gnat that he is, sees my bloodline thick in her. Even if the King asks for her hand at this very moment, I would refuse. I would throw him off Storm's End with a smile on my face and a boot on his back."
You fight off a snort as your mother grumbles about treason and Maris.
"She is far better than the best of them." Another sigh. Heavier. "Why are we sending her?"
Your mother sighs. "Because as she is the best of them, she is the best of us. She will survive far better in that cesspit they call a keep than any of our daughters. Her storm can tame dragons."
You would argue that that too is treasonous given the context, but your father merely laughs. His laughter is a crackle and a boom.
"I would upheave our coffers to witness that."
Though you find her odd, you enjoy spending your time with the Princess Helaena. Mostly, she is quiet, in her own little world. Though it took time to get used to her many-legged friends, you soon realised the best times you spend with her are when shipments and gifts of pinned butterflies and books that have reached as far as Yi-Ti, to get to Kings Landing about bugs, and undeniable excitement unfurls in the Princess' face. More like a girl, a sweet one.
It makes her already cherub features appear more child-like, and she grasps your hand voluntarily as she points at each and every critter she recognises. It is so very rare to see true happiness in the princess' visage, and in her enjoyment, you see your sisters.
That is how you meet him, the Prince Aemond.
Princess Helaena had gone for tea with the Queen. It had not been planned. Though she often spent tea with family, either the Queen or the Lord Hand, or either of the Princes. Something had occurred, so now that Princess was having tea with her Queen Mother and her husband. If you had to guess, it was likely that Prince Aegon was being punished in some way.
Though there is no love lost between siblings, it makes you sniff at how blatant the prince's obscene indulgent for vices are. Princess Helaena didn't mind, rather, she didn't care unless they needed to spend time together, a clockwork patch of routine, and that was when you usually came in— you later realised, your primary job — soothing her nerves and distracting her thoughts before she had to enter her marriage chambers.
There is a resigned defeat in her, a woman's duty bearing down, looming like the Mother, and it makes you want to soothe her harder. Make her laugh.
With the change of plans, it was up to you to check for the new shipments of the Princess' things. A dictated note in your hand of the princess' handwriting, you were going through her boxes when a hand, gloved, rests on your shoulder.
"Do not move," a cool voice says behind you. Far too close for propriety.
You freeze. "Pardon?"
"I do not want to scare you, my lady, but there is a critter atop your head." The cool, calm voice waves off a steady rhythm to your heart, calming it further from the earlier panic of someone laying a hand on you (although this, is still not better. You are a lady and unmarried after all). "I will rid of it immedi—"
"No."
"... Pardon?"
"Where is it? Just atop my head?"
"... Yes?"
"It maybe poisonous, pease do not touch it." Before the owner of the hand and the calm voice could react, you pat your head until you touch a hairy, small thing with many legs. Relief spreads. "There you are."
"There you are?" The voice says, almost mocking, incredulously.
You huff, taking the spider in both of your hands, before you tilt your chin behind you, only seeing the gloved hand. "Please take your hand away from me."
The hand retreats. You turn.
Valyrian features are most uncommon than your own, and the jolt of recognising the pale, white hair is a strike to your being, a gasp falling from your lips. It is the one-eyed mask that tells you immediately who it is, but you string everything else you know of the prince.
Prince Aemond had been travelling to Oldtown, a visit requested by the Queen in the guise of seeing family, his brother. But there had been whispers of something more, as the chatter of the maids who cleaned up in the King's quarters talked about how ill he got day by day.
You had seen flashes of him before this, but fate had kept you two apart. You were not there when he visited the princess— on another errand or two, and he starkly ever looked at the ladies surrounding his sister with a vehement light as their voices, high pitched and dreary, tire him so on a good day, increasingly irritating on a bad one, and anyway, the silence that falls in a stone room just from his arrival is enough to irk him.
But here is he now, with one eyebrow rose, a good eye of icy blue iris, and the very visage of a warrior in black leathers, a braided hair pulled to one side, and pursed lips in both amusement and annoyance.
He hums. The sound kicks back your manners, blushing lightly at having gaped at him for far longer than pleasantry dictates, and you pull yourself into a bow.
"My apologies, my prince, I didn't know it was you. I was scared you were going to hurt the Princess' new friend."
"They are bugs," he says steadily. "Not her friends."
"Like so, but just because they have many a legs do not mean we cannot befriend them." A small smile plays on your lips before you place back the spider in the cage he got out of. It is something you had once said to the princess to make her laugh. You feel his stare burn at the side of your face. "Is there a matter, my prince?"
"You are the Lady Baratheon, are you not?"
"I am." A small, ironic smirk tugs at your lips. "Is it the hair?"
He makes a soft sound that exhales like a laugh out of closed lips. He's still quite close, you can feel his warmth and idly wonder if all Targaryens truly do have the blood of the dragons in them for you can feel the contours of him, burning at the edges of his being. Like a comforting little furnace.
"Hm. And the princess has taken quite the liking to you. You are all she talks about during sup."
You can't help it, you're smiling. So many rumours concerning the young prince, not all of them good, but there is a certain novelty in basking under the attention of a prince of the realm. A Valyrian beauty that brought an ethereal glow to him. As so intently stares, catching pieces and niches as if you are the most fascinating creature.
The attention makes you feel like a blushing lady.
"My apologies then, my prince."
He cocks his head, the braid dipping and you catch the movement in your peripheral. "Whatever for my lady?"
You turn to him, unable to curb the cheek to your smile. "For interrupting better conversations with the topic of my name plaguing your sups so."
His mouth twists into a smirk. In Aemond's mind, it is not oft that ladies, especially Helaena's ladies, would care to... flirt with him. Because this is you flirting, is it not? The coy gaze, the curl at the edge of your lips? Aemond has seen these faces in ladies and maids alike, but directed at others. At Aegon.
Directed at Aemond... bereave to keep their conversations to themselves, and though it is not always a fault of theirs for his stoicism is his most valued armour, one would resign oneself of an arranged marriage that will take long moons before his lady wife would see the truest him, that he would not be able to experience such... coy conversations with the opposite sex.
Yet here you are, a light dust of red in your cheeks, a quirk in your mouth, and the playful joust in your eyes, daring him into a swords' dance.
It is thrilling.
"Plaguing is too harsh of a word to say so about a lady of your stature, Lady Baratheon." He steps closer, aware of propriety standards of how close two unwedded people should be, but he feels intoxicated of the whiff of life exhuming from your visage. A light citrus, oranges? Lemons? Tart and sweet, with a powdery finish. It is so very ladylike.
Addicting.
The perfect smell for a lady wife, a musing thought.
"Is that so?"
"Intriguing, I would say, would be the better word."
You laugh, low and sweet. It sends a pleasant warm to his centre. "I'm afraid my memory is failing for I do not remember any wily adventure or conversation the princess and I had for a prince of the realm to say I intrigue him so."
"It is less... about wily adventures or interesting conversations that pique my interest, but the lady herself." His eye, though lone, the other remaining hidden behind an eyepatch with hints of scarred, twisted skin underneath, bore against yours as if he wished to gather all your strings and see what each would give him. What you would show him.
"I'm afraid to disappoint you, my prince, but I still fail to see how I can ever so pique your interest." You meet his gaze, smirking. "I am just me."
Before he can answer, step forward— whatever, he is staring at the curve of your lips so, at the enchanting shimmer of your eyes, and Aemond Targaryen felt breathless — your named is called, and the spell is broken. The prince steps back, taking more space between you that is more appropriate.
His hand flexes.
But that is not the last you see of the prince, nor the last time you are able to hold a conversation with him. It seems that since then, you find yourselves orbiting each other in the fringes before one steps forward and engages. There seems to be a band that tightens either of you so obsessed with seeing the other in the periphery, the topic whatever may came, even as inane as the weather.
It is a dance of swords, kissing blades of sharp quips and interesting parry. You are interesting. Beguiling. Devouring. Aemond searches for you in most places now, unable to stop himself from asking his dearest sister about you— even his mother and grandsire have taken notice, eyebrows rose between shared looks.
"House Baratheon is of a Great House," his mother hesitantly brought up, too focused on her soup for it to just be idle chatter above sup.
"It is." His forced passivity is not as apathetic as he can make it. For any mention of you and your origins thrums his heart in a dance.
"And the Lady Baratheon has many admirers, a kind and dutiful lady, and Helaena likes her so."
He turned to his mother then, humming. At the barest hint of a smile in her son's face, Alicent beamed.
But others from court also soon took notice, and when Aemond realises the wagging tongues had come to note your name— unkind whispers besmirching your person, he disappears from you altogether.
The differences become stark to him; realising what a foolish endeavour it is to want you. Though he is a prince, he is mutilated, a monster that will ruin you. You are too good for him, a warmth he had forgone in the face of misery, apathy, and hatred. The urge to conquer your every thought and sound, from your fingertips to the top of your hair... it is a gasping thought, one he shamefully sins at the blackest hours, tugging at his cock desperately to the thought of what you had looked like that day. The sound of your laughter, the pull of your lips when you smiled, the gasp you let out when you touched water that had been too cold— his mind bends and moves, and images of you, images that he will have to pray for the in morrow but cannot stop—
Moves him to completion, a strangle grunt of your name from his lips.
And yet, every night since, it happens again and again.
The more he pulled away from you, the more he wanted you. It is a debase urge, one more fit for his drunken cur of a brother than he, more creature than man.
But he cannot stop, so the torturous cycle continues.
Until you've had enough.
You know that during hours of inky night, the prince prefers the sanctum of the library. Not always, and lately, not often, but if there are a few things you learned in the hunting trips your father brought you that your mother never approved of, is that lying in wait, patient, deals a hand much better.
And on the fourth day of your waiting, your hair in a braid, a book on your lap, and a small candlelit close by as to not alert any spooked princes— the door opens at the Hour of Eel, the familiar and sorely missed footfalls of a quiet but sure-footed prince enters.
You admire him for a moment, hidden as you are, your stare drinks in the ever smooth of his twilight-spun hair, those pursed lips and straight lines. He's lithe but you know, having been offered his arm on every walk, he is made of hard muscle. Aemond always walks so smoothly, like a panther, or a gazelle, with the barest hint of austre he can never hide.
It's the prince in him, you giggle to yourself.
A sweet pang in your chest is the reminder of how much you missed his presence. And that ends tonight.
With his back turned, perusing a shelf, you shuffle and make yourself known with a soft, almost admonishing voice.
"Good eve, my prince."
He stiffens, hand poised against a spine of a tome. He barely turns, only his head to the floor, in the general direction of you. "My lady. I did not expect you to be here."
Frustrated, you sigh loudly. "Have I offended you so horribly? Dishonoured you in some way?"
"What?"
"Why can't you even look at me, Aemond?"
A sharp intake of breath. When he speaks again,his voice is changed. "You forget yourself, my lady."
There is an ache to your being, pursuing your lips. "You had given me permission with your given name, my prince, or have you forgotten?" Anger overcomes propriety. Fuck propriety. You charge toward him, heavy, angered steps until you're close enough. "Can't you at least look at me, look at me as you push me away as if I amnothing—"
He turns abruptly, one eye flashing as he grasps your elbows in a grip. His eyes zero in on your lips as a gasp falls, eyes widen— if you could see better, you'd notice the darkened gaze drinking you in. Your widened eyes, your open lips— and Sevens, only a robe hides your nightgown, the smooth expanse of your skin is more bare to him than ever before.
His beautiful, beloved stag.
"You have never been nothing to me, nēdenka riña brave girl," he hisses. "Konir sagon se drīve That is the reason."
"Prince A-Aemond?" you say. He is against the shadows of the moonlight, only his hands holding your own is illuminated.
A wrangled exhale falls from his lips. You follow the sound, worried.
"Are you? Injured? Are you okay?"
"I have not been okay for the moment I met you," he rasps, hands bruising in his hold.
"Well. Gods. I'm sorry. If it's such a offense—"
"It is an offence!" he growls, pulling you abruptly that you yelp, bathed in shadows and darkness together, your eyes adjust as you scramble to have thoughts apart from just being this close to him. Hearing a voice you had never heard of him before, untethered from his princely visage, from manners and proper, and it makes you burn.
The thoughts of wanting him close, of taking more of that space until you are chest to chest are blushing thoughts.
But there is honour still, for he holds you at least an arm's away.
"I have wanted you the moment I have laid eyes on you," he whispers, voice rough, exhausted. "And each day I spend with you, each hour— my honour stands in shambles, in ruins at my feet for I want you as a man wants a woman. Honourably and... and carnally."
You swallow, and he follows the movement like a predator tracking his prey. The blush in your cheeks, the way your lips press together as if you are just as starved of him as he to you— oh, you want him too, don't you?
One hand moves from your elbow to slowly reach up. Your arms, your collarbones, your neck. A thumb brushing your cheek and your eyes flutter.
Aemond wants to devour you.
"You plague me so, and I crave you."
"Then have me," you sigh.
His eye closes. "I cannot sully—"
You grasp his neck, bringing your mouth close to his. "You cannot sully what is freely given. If you crave me, I want you."
Honour unbound, a snap is tightened by the hunger that uncoils from a dragon that wants you. Aemond had grabbed the back of your head, tangled his fingers, and made a mess of your mouth.
Gasps and teeth, touching skin from where you can feel it— touching skin from where you unbuckle, tear through hem and push against cloth. When he slams you again the shelf, a moan so lewd falls from your lips that he groans, pulling your nightgown until he feels the heat from your very womanhood, and so, so wet, that when he flicks his thumb, curious and entranced, moving it around experimentally, you are a mess of sound and feeling, gasping his name, A-aemond, oh gods, please, and he is whispering, forgive me, f-forgive me, like love letters, like penitent, like a kiss from a traitor so wrong but so tasteful against your skin as he pulls himself from his confinements, holds you steady, and breaches your tight cunt.
Just before a scream tears through your throat, he devours your sound, holding you steady, until the pain bleeds pleasure and you are holding him like an anchor in dangerous seas. You cannot think or feel anyone else but him; what you are and who you are do not stand a chance as Aemond Targaryen swallows your senses.
It is harsh and fast, it is sweet and devouring, and more, more, more, you don't know what you're begging him, you feel like a devout and he feels like a god, grunting against your skin, biting through anything his teeth grazes. When he shifts you at an angle, finding a spot that feels like a lightning striking through your entire being, you are screaming, twitching, reaching a high so blinding it feels like white death.
"Is that it? That sweet spot?" he purrs, a breathless laugh, shocked and delighted drinking in your trembling and pleasure. "Your cunt is tight against my own, holding me like you never want to let go." You cry out when his cock hits that spot again. Your combined wetness makes an obscene squelch, just as pretty as the sound you utter. He smirks. "Can you hear that? Not even a whore can make a sound so sweet, hm?"
His teeth grazes your lips, sending shivers through your body as he licks the roof your mouth. "I want more of that sound. As your prince, you would grant me this, yes?"
But he isn't waiting for an answer, planting his feet and holding you steady, angling you back to that spot until he is snapping his hips, fucking into you as you can do nothing but beg and cry and tremble in the arms of a dragon taking what is his.
And you are.
You are his.
Maybe you had known it since then.
You definitely do when his seed floods your womb.
You want to say that that night was a fluke, a mistake that must be regretted. But once your gaze meets another, the fire burns, flickering and dancing, and it repeats. In quick fucks in dangerous spots, to slow, sweet love making in his room.
You are his, in mind, body and soul.
"Death is nothing but a friend," he murmurs against your neck, holding you close. Sweat cooling between your naked bodies. "It cannot stop me from finding you."
"I hope you say that to my father well," you tease.
" Marrying you is but the next step, my love. You are already mine as I am yours." He plays with your hair, brushing it past and kissing a bruise he made on your breast. "In face of every god and more, they will understand that we are but one soul."
You can plan the future in rose-coloured gaze for as much as you can, but the truth of marrying into a family with war brewing inside of it, held together by a dying king's hope and corpse fingertips— it is another matter entirely.
It all comes to a sharp clarity when Viserys I dies... and they keep his rotting corpse a secret.
And then they crown a whoremongering drunk.
"Aemond," you break into the silence, your entire being too cold for comfort. You had just come back from a privy council, a Green Council where the Queen had ordered you and your betrothed to reach Storm's End before the night fully breaks.
As if she knew where your loyalties are.
As if there is no question you will support the usurpation.
You turn to Aemond, busy with packing his things for they have bared the maids and people the of Keep. Because they are making Aegon as king and they know a revolt is underneath the floorboards.
"Aemond!"
"What? What has happened?" He looks confused, irritated. "We must make haste, my love, if we are to beat the storms at—"
"Princess Rhaenyra is Queen," you whisper but it could have been a scream. Saying it aloud gives you confidence, strengthening your resolved. You turn to him. "She is the King's heir, no one else. Aemond, this is an usurpation, unlawful in the eyes of—"
It takes little strides for him to reach you, for him to hold your neck in a tightened grip of warning.
"She," he spits, slow and careful as if you are a simpleton in need of teaching, "is a whore who is attempting to place her bastards on the Iron Throne. Rhaenys Targaryen held no chance of it, just as she. My brother is the firstborn son. He is king." His fingers dig into your skin. "You will do well as my wife to not speak of such blasphemy once more, do you understand?"
Your shock and fear melt from your visage, making way for compliance. You nod once. "Yes, my prince."
"Husband," he corrects, holding you much gentler but the weight of his hand is still there on your neck. A reminder. "Have you forgotten? We only come to Storm's End to officiate our union and your House's loyalty to the King. Once done, we will marry, yes?"
You nod, hands fisting. "Yes."
When he kisses you, harsh and needy, imprinting his will unto you— you close your eyes and plan how you make known to your Queen of their plots.
But Storm's End doesn't go as planned, does it?
Lucerys Velaryon, the Queen's son who had come as nothing more but an envoy for the rightful heir, and Aemond—what you thought to be your Aemond but a monstrous man who needed his revenge, who needed to draw blood for a grudge so deep, for an existence he finds so abysmal — had chased after him and came back to you bloodied, tearing up your dress, rutting in you in harsh, rough thrusts, as you listen to the storms from your window and think,
The Queen will never find his body. Her poor, sweet boy. Half in the belly of a beast, the rest spread and sunken into the water.
"I will not allow any marriage until the realm is at peace," your Lord Father rumbled with finality. He is not a smart man, truly, but he is a father. His gaze meets yours, full of meaning, of promises, before looking back at the seething prince. "You will have my bent knee for your king and for your war, but my daughter's hand shall be her own until the realm is at ease."
Your mother steps forward, her courtly smile on her face. "We want for her to have a grand wedding, my prince. She is the first of our charges to wed, and to a prince of the realm no less! By sure, at the time of war, we must err on the side of caution, as our coffers will no doubt focus on our troops. A future princess of the realm must be mindful, of course."
She bows in deference, your sisters following suit. Maris is the first to look up, defiance burning in her eyes.
You remember a conversation with him, feeling like a lifetime ago.
"Ask me, my prince," you teased. "What a storm is to a dragon. A creature is a creature. Even you must acquiesce to the way of nature for she has bowed to no one since her existence."
Aemond may be blood of the dragons, but he is surrounded by storms on all sides. The fiercest.
And your father will never marry you to a Kinslayer.
Yet you stay beside him, your duty now clearer than ever. Every new information you can grasp is sent back to the Queen and her council. In a courtier of the Greens and Traitors, you are the sole Black Stag. You use Aemond's adoration for you, his possessive obsession of what he thinks is love, as a protection and guise.
Any time he beds you, you sneak in moon tea. His bedding of you is just as much his hold on you and his defiance against your father's refusal. Once caught, you remind him he would not enjoy a bastard child. Especially at a time of war. Not after what they had done to his nephews.
"Do you want for me to suffer as your sister does?" The tears in your face then had not been a folly, for your heart broke for sweet Helaena and her sons. For Jaehaera. The world bleeds and bleeds, and all who die that reaches your ears are nothing more but innocents.
Aemond does not bed you after that, but he keeps you in his chambers, pulls you close as if he is trying to mould your skins as one. Times like this, your heart stutters. Your love to him and your morality as a person is at a test of swords.
You are in love with him,
He is a monster,
He has lost his nephews,
He has killed his own.
And it makes you wonder if you are a monster too, lying beside him as his bedmate, caring for him, wanting him still as his heart beats as your own, so connected to the umbilical of fate and chance while war rages, bodies falling all around you both, most from his own hand and word.
The war rages, and Harrenhal comes to view.
With it, a slaughter and a witch.
The worst of the massacre is the steely, lulling silence.
No one tells you that most of what an execution is that silence. That it amplifies each scream, each shout, each thick drop of a head as it falls on cobblestone. The sound is wet and a mouthful. Then it is nothing, consumed by that silence again.
You are locked in a room with a window that doesn't face the horror of what Aemond is doing. As if this is enough to shield you from what he is, what he truly is doing to win this war.
The worst part, committing genocide of an entire house is nothing more but a horrific grudge.
Strong blood spills, enough to make a lake.
By the time that night bleeds and a maid had entered with dinner to light a fire— your body is still so cold. No food has touched your stomach since the day before yet you retch.
Does loving a monster meant that you are just as monstrous?
Mayhaps it is still worth it, you muse in your silent madness, tears tracking your cheeks as the heaviness of your being stays. For who can say a monster can love you so monstrously? Who else can?
When Aemond comes back to you, freshly cleaned and a reminiscent of the prince that you loved, and he is making excuses of wanting you as you are, pawing at your clothes, you let him. You make love in the silence suffering from the massacre he had just finished. You hold him and kiss him in a desperation as you know this will be your ending.
That your Aemond is gone, or worse. He had never truly existed.
When you are both spent, satiated in a sweet glow, your head pleasantly quiet, he speaks about a plan.
A woman, a Strong witch, that promises him an assurance of winning with her sights and blasphemous magic. He had spared her among others, and that itself makes you look at him, truly look at him.
In exchange of what— for such things do not concede so easily as gratitude to mercy of one life, yes? Because desire devours itself. A snake eating itself.
"A child," he whispers against your battered head and bruised heart. "From my blood."
"A bastard," you murmur as he stiffens. "From a bastard Strong. Surely the irony is not lost on you? You have started this war by killing your bastard nephew, and you plan on ending it by fathering—"
"Do not question me," he says softly, grip tightening against your arms. Your eyes close, heavy with the weight of being a spy. Of loving him. "I will fuck a babe in her how many times it takes, and when the war is won, I will kill her and it. For your womb is the only place my lineage will live. I am doing this for the good of the realm. For us."
When he thinks you are asleep and leaves— you take your things and make haste to leave. Not once has your people left you in the arms of the kinslayer. Always one maid, always three guards from your father's army, loyal to only you.
You bundle up quick, and rush for the passage, you are blocked by a woman. Pale skin, dark hair, and eyes greener than wildfire. You know her before she speaks. You hold yourself to fight, and the witch of Harrenhal laughs.
"You have changed the tide of destiny, my lady." Her head tilts as if she can see past you and through you. "Once your choice has affirmed, your thread chosen, I cannot stand in the side of the One-Eyed Kinslayer without the Stranger coming for me. So instead, I will grant you one gift. One that will require no sacrifice."
"I do not want it."
"Ah, but it is a gift." She nods at your torso. "Your belly will soon take size, in it, his heir. You will not escape him as soon as he knows." Her head twists to the window. A raven flies. A storm grumbles. The sound comes first before the lightning strikes. A false storm. "Time is flowing, changing and twisting. He may have betrayed his kin, but he is still a prince. He will know soon."
Her green eyes glint as if she is seeing now and tomorrow. Now and a moon. Moon from a year. "You must run now. Hide and hide well."
You hold your stomach, bile rising in your throat. "Where? Where am I safe?"
A faint smile rises to her lips. "Your heir looks more like him than mine did. You will not escape him. But go north. As far North as you can. The fjords can hide him for a while. He will grow well there."
She moves away, letting you pass.
You never look back.
Dark locks. Baratheon hair.
A tuff of silver lock atop his head.
And the rest... his nose, his eyes. With your fingers, you pull his lids. Bloom in mullish blue with the faintest tint of iridescent violet. You know from your histories, that faint tint will overpower the blue.
Oh, he is utterly beautiful. Utterly yours. And utterly his father's son.
Rough breaths strangle out of your raw-bitten lips, brushing blood away from your babe's face, his head, his wet, silvery hair. Few they maybe, unmistakably Valyrian features they still are.
"Oh, he is beautiful," your mother murmurs, tears stain her cheeks. "Quiet as you were, as a babe. Looks just as much as you."
She is weighing his Valyrian features too. Your blood tried, but it seemed as if Aemond's grudge grasped your womb and affected your shared blood.
"We cannot stay," you say, still staring at him, admiring him. Your heart locking in place, steeling itself as you prepare to do your utmost to protect him. "We will have to travel posthaste."
Your mother swallows her grief. She had almost lost you. She will lose you again, now along with her only grandchild. "Where?"
"North. As far as North as we can."
Your mother nods. Ever a lady. "I will send a missive. The Lord Stark is loyal to the Queen and knows by how much you have sacrificed for this realm. He will protect you on his honour or he is no Stark."
You will need to hide. You will need to hide well.
You pull him close to your chest, hot tears freshly spilling from your eyes.
The witch had not lied, for your boy grew up amongst ice and warmth. He grows up with love from you, from the Lord Stark and his people, and love from his father in the way that he resembles him.
The slope of his nose, the sweet purse of his lips.
When your boy had gotten angry once, nothing but a quick burst, it shocks fear and tears from your eyes for you had seen the prince.Nothing more than a flash.
You pull him close and wound him to your heart as he cried, apologising for scaring you.
The North had granted you reprieve from the war as it came and went. Your betrayal to the Greens had mounted to the Black Queen's win. The betrayal of House Baratheon as House Stark and their bannermen joined the fray had squandered any rebellious thought on which sovereign will preside.
The last you heard of what became the Prince Regent was his surrender at the Battle Above God's Eye.
When you had cried that night, you did not know if it was from relief. Or fear.
But a black stag on white snow is easy to spot.
It takes years, yes, but the Stranger is but an old friend.
For when the day of your wedding to the Lord Stark arrives, a familiar screech of a dragon that your marrow will never forget— tolls the bell of death.
And when you looked up, snow swirling, holding onto your son that looked up in awe at the man who looked so much like him—
Aemond is smiling.
Sweet came the word— dracarys! — as Vhagar split her mouth opened and obeyed her rider.
What have I told you?
You are mine as I am yours.
In face of every god and more, they will understand that you and I are but one soul.
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