i am curious (yellow)

liz

[glasscandlegrenades]

The Dragon in Winter - Chapter 2: Weights

Summary: Six years after the Dance of the Dragons, Princess Aeyla Targaryen is sent North to honor the Pact of Ice and Fire - torn from everything she knows to live among strangers in the barren halls of Winterfell.

Betrothed to Rickon Stark since infancy, Aeyla despises her future husband and everything he represents. He is ice where she is fire, duty where she is passion, silent where she is fierce. But as years pass and childhood hatred transforms into something far more volatile, Aeyla discovers that the ways of the North are not so different from her own.

When war threatens to tear them apart and enemies move against House Stark, Aeyla must choose: remain the dragon princess who never belonged, or become the wolf the North needs her to be.

Chapter warnings: parent-child separation, aeyla targaryen being an absolute fucking menace

words: 6k

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Aeyla’s room at Winterfell is draughty and cold.

There are no tapestries, no embroidered curtains or hangings - it is nothing like the nursery at home. 

There is a nursery here, where Sarra and Alys and Raya and Mariah all sleep, and Aeyla thinks she might like it more there, but she is seven, and she would just have to move out soon anyways, so Lady Alysanne decided she needed a bedchamber all to herself like a woman grown. 

Aeyla’s room has a door, and that door leads to an unused parlor, and that parlor has another door, and beyond that door are Rickon’s chambers. 

When Aeyla and Rickon are wed, these will be their apartments. 

Sarra explained this to Aeyla on her first day at Winterfell without her family, when they broke their fast on cold porridge in the Great Hall. 

Rickon had sat across the bench from them, eating his porridge in silence. 

“We are going to be the best of friends, I think,” Sarra had said to Aeyla. 

“Yes,” Aeyla’d agreed, not eating her porridge. Food doesn’t taste right since Mother and Father left. It all sticks in her throat and makes her feel sick. “Who - who is friends with Rickon?” 

Sarra had frowned. “Rickon was very lonely when Father and Mother were in the South having us and being at court. But there must always be a Stark at Winterfell. His friends are Bran and Danny, but they do not make him smile overmuch.”

Aeyla had kindly refrained from telling Sarra that this was obvious. 

Aeyla tosses and turns in her big, cold bed. The furs itch her legs, but when she bunches them or kicks them down she becomes much too cold. 

Now that Aeyla is out of the nursery, she has a companion. 

A companion is like a lady-in-waiting back home, like Lady Clowance is for Mother. Mother used to have Lady Rhaena, too, but Lady Rhaena married Ser Garmund and had a bunch of babies so Mother just has Lady Clowance. 

Mother says Lady Clowance should be married with children of her own by now, for she and Mother are quite old at seven-and-twenty, but Lady Clowance says she needs to stay with Mother, to make sure that Mother doesn’t act like a nervous fool, and this makes Mother laugh. 

Aeyla’s companion is three-and-ten and does not make Aeyla laugh. She is called Salyce and she is the daughter of the master-at-arms, Ser Wylfred Marsh, and Rickon’s friend Danny is her brother.

She does not really talk to Aeyla, and Aeyla does not really talk to her, but she sleeps in a little featherbed at the foot of Aeyla’s big bed, and Aeyla lifts her head to look down at Salyce, watching her quilt shift as it rises and falls with her breath. 

Outside, a wolf howls. 

❄︎

“You haven’t broken your fast,” Lady Alysanne says, gathering her skirts to sit next to Aeyla on the long wooden bench. She forgets to call Aeyla “Princess”. 

Aeyla looks up from her dish. She feels Rickon’s eyes on her from across the table. Alys and Sarra are fighting about the spoons they’ve been given, for Alys thinks Sarra got the better one, but everyone ignores them. 

“I don’t like porridge.”

“Salyce tells me you do not eat luncheon when it is brought to your chambers, either. She says the servants bring the trays back, untouched.” 

Aeyla looks down the long table at Salyce. She rolls her eyes and looks away, talking to her Father in hushed tones, who glances at Aeyla under his bushy beard and rolls his eyes.

“Someone should tell Salyce Marsh that ladies don’t spy,” Aeyla snaps to Lady Alysanne. 

Alysanne’s lip twitches, and she takes a deep breath before replying. “Be that as it may, Lord Cregan and I feel it is our duty to impress upon you the importance of proper nutrition. The winters here are long and difficult, child. Illness is rampant. You must eat heartily, to keep your strength.” 

Aeyla can feel Sarra and Alys’ eyes on her. “I never get ill.” 

Alysanne ducks her head down so she can meet Aeyla’s eye. “That’s not true.” 

Aeyla know the story of when she had Winter Fever, before the war ended. Lord Cregan and Maester Heward saved her life while Lady Alysanne looked on. Aeyla doesn’t remember at all, she was just a little babe, but she hates that these people know things about her that she doesn’t even know. 

She glances down the long table. At the head, Lord Cregan watches her, his lips pursed under his bushy beard. Aeyla looks back to his wife. 

“I will try, Lady Alysanne.” 

❄︎

“Wake up,” Alys Targaryen murmurs. Aeyla stirs, the little cot built into the side of the wheelhouse terribly uncomfortable. 

Beside her, Mother smooths her dress over her giant belly. Aeyla is glad she’s not in Winterfell anymore, glad the babes are back inside Mother and not dead- 

“Wake up, Princess Aeyla,” Alys says again, and this is strange for Aeyla’s sister never calls her Princess. 

“I’m awake,” Aeyla murmurs, lifting her head, and then the wheelhouse smells like apples, and it’s not the wheelhouse at all, but the big bed in her room at Winterfell, and Sarra Stark is sitting on the big bed in front of her, her raven hair wild around her face, holding two little pies. 

Aeyla startles, sitting up and rubbing her eyes, before she glances nervously to Salyce, still sound asleep at the foot of the bed. 

“Why are you sneaking?” Aeyla asks Sarra, her voice a whisper.

Sarra’s brow furrows. “What is sneaking?” 

“Sneaking is what Father and Mother call it when you wander around the castle, not where you're supposed to be, looking at things you’re not supposed to be looking at.” 

“I’m only looking at you,” Sarra whispers. “Are you hungry?” 

Aeyla’s stomach rumbles. “Yes, but food makes me sick.” 

“These won’t,” Sarra holds out one of the little pies. “They’re apple cakes. The cooks make lots and lots of jars of preserved apples, so we can eat them all winter, with cinnamon. The apple trees grow in the summer, not too far from here. I have played in the orchards with Rickon and Alys.” 

Aeyla doubts that Rickon has ever played. Still she reaches out and takes the little cake from Sarra, bringing it gingerly to her lips. It is warm, and the cinnamon makes her think of home. 

The first bite is delicious, and Aeyla is careful not to eat too loud and wake Salyce, and to not get crumbs on the bed. Sarra eats too, and smiles at Aeyla. 

“Thank you,” Aeyla says when she is done. 

“I heard what Mother said to you at breakfast,” Sarra says. “I don’t want you to get sick.” 

“I don’t think I will,” Aeyla says. “I feel fine.” 

“That’s good,” Sarra says. “Do you have to go to lessons tomorrow?” 

Aeyla sighs sadly, looking to Salyce. “Every day.” 

“I wish I could go.” 

Aeyla decides Sarra is quite strange. 

❄︎

Sister,

We are almost home. We are staying at the Ivy Inn near Sow’s Horn. By the Gods, Sow’s Horn is ugly. The inn is nicer than that castle, I think. The ale must be good, for the whole retinue is very drunk. Gaemon joined them in the tavern and snuck the dregs of ale from the bottoms of their finished tankards before the wench could clear them away. He says he got very drunk this way, but I don’t believe him. He seemed exactly the same. 

Mother and Father left us all in the wheelhouse and traveled with Mhyrax to Harrenhal. I think they were visiting old Alys from the war. I wish I remembered more about her. When we stayed with her, I mostly remember you crying and her feeding Alys while Jaehaera and I played and explored the destroyed parts of the castle. I do not know if Mother and Father know that she let us do that. I imagine it would make them cross. 

Jaehaera and I asked to go, too, but Mother and Father said no. Mother is very snappish. Alys and Jae say that she spends most of the time in the wheelhouse weeping. She sleeps in the bed late into the day with only Baby Aemma for company. They can hear her crying “my babe, my babe,” in her dreams. Do you go to visit Jacaerys in the crypts? If you do, you should probably write to Mother to tell her. She is certainly extremely sad about the babe dying. It may make her feel better. 

Jaehaera is acting strange. She is always looking at Egg, and yesterday I rounded the corner of the inn to find a quiet spot for a piss and they were sitting back there, holding hands and speaking in Valyrian. Egg was speaking, Aeyla. I could barely believe it and I saw it myself. 

It’s not as fun without you. Alys and I speak more since neither of us have anyone else to talk to. Have you seen any giants or direwolves yet?

Your brother

Aemos, Prince of Dragonstone

Aeyla rolls her eyes at Aemos’ use of his title in his letter, and leans across the bed to shove it onto the table. She has been at Winterfell a moon, long enough for her chambers to get messy. Letters from the Kingsroad are scattered across her little bedside table.

She opens the next one. 

My Aeyla, 

I miss you so much. Are you eating well? Are you sleeping well? I cannot believe it has been a moon since I have held you in my arms, since I have heard your laugh and watched your mischief. I miss everything about you, my babe. 

Are you getting along with Rickon? Have you befriended the Stark girls? Do you have ladies now? What are their names? Do they share their dolls’ clothes with you, or show you the fashionable ways to braid your hair in the North? How are your lessons with Maester Heward? He is a very astute man, with a great deal to teach you young ones. You owe him a great deal, and I would hope you remember to thank him for his wisdom when you are able. 

Your sister Aemma nurses well and grows strong. I think she will start smiling soon. As soon as I can, I will fly Mhyrax to visit you. I would bring Father, but Mhyrax barely tolerates him as it is, and I think so far North she would be agitated enough to reject him entirely. 

We will be together again, my babe. Oh, I miss you so much Aeyla, I do. Do you visit your brother in the crypts? Do you visit the Godswood? I want to know all about your days, tell me every moment. We will be back to the capital in just a few days, and in the Keep there will be so many more ravens, and I can write you more often. Your father tells me to send you his love, and wants to know if you got his raven where he drew you the map of the Trident? 

All my love, 

Mother 

Aeyla looks to where Salyce waits for her by the door, impatient. Aeyla thinks she would rather die than braid her hair in the plain way the older girl does. Aeyla likes wearing her hair long and flowing, and she enjoys the way servants and the household here look at her platinum dresses longingly. Aeyla doesn’t care overmuch for fashion, and the North certainly does not inspire her to care more. 

She is late for her lessons, and she’s quickly learned that Salyce hates when Aeyla makes her late, so she must wait to write Mother and Aemos back. She hops from the bed and she and Salyce make their way from the chambers. 

“Do you miss sharing apartments with your family?” Aeyla asks, thinking again of Mother. 

“No.” 

“Oh.” 

Maester Heward smiles benignly, not seeming perturbed by the girls’ tardiness. Rickon, Bran, and Danny all wait on their little stools, slates in hand. Aeyla finds it very peculiar that in the North, a steward’s son and the master-at-arms’ boy would both be educated alongside a princess and the heir to the castle, but she is working hard at being good, so Aeyla holds her tongue. 

They are learning to measure today, which is not as boring as it could be, and Aeyla enjoys the little plink, plink, plink, of the tiles as they are dropped into the pans by Maester Heward. 

“How many ounces to a pound?” 

“Sixteen,” Aeyla answers, watching the beam tilt to the right. 

“Very good, Princess Aeyla.” 

They are each allowed their turn at dropping in the little tiles, of feeling their weights against one another. 

“Why might it be important for a nobleman or lord to know his measurements?” Maester Heward prompts Rickon, who scowls under his shaggy mop of hair as Bran drops a pound piece so hard it nearly topples the scale. The steward’s boy guffaws. 

“To know how to calculate how much is required to feed one man for a season, and therefore to know how much to multiply by to feed the entire castle,” Rickon answers. 

“Very good, Master Rickon. Princess Aeyla, can you think of essential measurements that would see a castle through winter?” 

Aeyla does not want to appear stupid in front of Rickon, and so she thinks very hard. She and Sarra had been sneaking in the kitchens yesterday, and she’d noticed big barrels of salt being set next to pork shoulders. 

“How much salt would be needed to dry the meat the butcher has prepared, so it can last for a very long time in the cellars.” 

“Very good, Princess Aeyla. That is exactly the way a Lady of Winterfell must be thinking.” 

Aeyla feels a rush of pride, and she cannot help the smile that stretches her cheeks. Yet, when she meets Rickon’s eye, he still scowls at her. 

She doesn’t act much like a lady, he’d said. 

Aeyla feels her face fall, and she looks out the window. The views at Winterfell are as boring as the castle itself. 

At home, Aeyla is used to the shadows of dragons passing overhead, of the distant sounds of the smallfolk on the streets below, the clops of hooves and the shouts of sailors from the Blackwater. She would listen to the bells from the sept across the city and look out at the ruins of the Dragonpit and think about the war. 

Here there is nothing to look out but neverending white snow. Everyone says this isn’t even the worst of it. Winter is coming. Salyce says when she was Aeyla’s age, there was a two-year winter and she didn’t see the ground once for the entire time. 

The lesson goes on, and Aeyla daydreams of home. She thinks about Gaemon, and how he would say things about dragon dung and drunkards that were absurd and hilarious, sending her and Aemos into fits of giggles. 

She wonders if Jaehaera and Egg will wed. Jaehaera told Aeyla that when they were little, Father wanted Jaehaera to wed Aemos, but Mother refused and said Jaehaera could marry whoever she pleased. Aeyla thinks this is extremely unfair considering she is trapped up here with Rickon, and Alys will one day have to be a Baratheon, and Aemos will have to wed Hestyr Tully, who is only four years old. 

Aeyla supposes if Jaehaera’s father was still king, it would be different for Jaehaera. 

“Are you paying attention, Princess?” 

Aeyla startles and looks back to Maester Heward, who is staring at her curiously. 

“Where is your mind, Your Highness?” 

Aeyla thinks about how this man saved her life when she was a babe, and how it would probably be wrong to lie to him. Aeyla is trying her best to do things right, so she doesn’t lie. “Betrothals.” 

Bran and Danny both laugh aloud, and Rickon blushes.

Maester Heward’s eyes are bright. “Betrothals, indeed. Very well, let us begin the history portion of our lesson today. Master Rickon, what is the name of the official decree that solemnizes your betrothal to Princess Aeyla?”

Bran and Danny are still sniggering as Rickon answers, “The Pact of Ice and Fire.”

“Yes,” the old maester says. “And when was the initial Pact of Ice and Fire made, Princess Aeyla?” 

“During the Dance of the Dragons.” 

“Which was?” 

“The war that killed all the dragons and destroyed House Targaryen.” Salyce’s voice is smug. 

“It didn’t destroy it!” Aeyla snaps. “My mother burnt the Usurper and took her rightful throne.” 

“Children,” Maester Heward’s voice is clear. “And who made the initial pact?” 

“Queen Valaena and Prince Aemond treated with Lord Cregan Stark,” Aeyla answers primly. 

“Wrong, Princess,” Maester Heward says. 

Aeyla starts. Wrong? 

Maester Heward looks to Rickon for an answer, and Rickon glances at Aeyla from under his fringe once more. Aeyla is seized by the urge to grab a fistful of it and tug as hard as she can, but she resists. 

She stares at Maester Heward. Mother might think him so wise, but it’s really quite stupid that he doesn’t even know the terms of the betrothal his own lord made. 

“The initial pact was made between my father and Prince Jacaerys Velaryon,” Rickon answers, his voice quiet. “It said that I would marry the eldest daughter of his union with the Lady Baela Targaryen.” 

“Correct,” the maester says, and Aeyla is very confused. Her uncle Jacaerys made her betrothal pact? “And why was the initial pact not honored?” 

“Because Jacaerys Velaryon was killed during the Battle of the Gullet, while trying to save his brother, Prince Viserys. Their bodies were never recovered.” 

“Correct,” Maester Heward says softly, and he looks at Aeyla. “Are you still thinking of betrothals, Princess, or may we revert to measurements?” 

Aeyla doesn’t know where to look, not at Rickon, scowling, nor Bran or Danny, whose sniggers have been replaced with a quiet sort of horror, and certainly not Salyce, whose smug gaze has turned to one of pity. 

She chooses to stare back out the window. 

❄︎

No one can be good all the time, Aeyla decides as she leads Sarra and Alys down to the storerooms. 

“Why are we here?” Alys asks. 

Aeyla glances furtively over her shoulder, hoping desperately that Salyce isn’t following her. She doesn’t think her companion cares enough, but she is meant to stay near Aeyla all the time. It is really extremely grating. Aeyla is surprised that Mother seems to like Lady Clowance as much as she does. 

Then again, Aeyla never remembers Lady Clowance sleeping at the foot of Mother’s bed. 

“Princess Aeyla,” Sarra’s voice is louder than her sisters. “What are we doing here?” 

“I just want to see,” Aeyla says, looking around the storerooms. They are dark, the only light cast by the full moon pouring in through the window. “Do you think you could dry meat with something other than salt?” 

Sarra frowns. “Like what?” 

“I don’t know,” Aeyla says, scanning the little jars aligning one shelf. She looks at the strips of beef haunch laid out on the butcher’s block. One of the jars catches her eye as she turns back. “Chokeberry?” 

“Chokeberry?” Alys laughs, and it is a nasally little thing. Aeyla thinks the smaller girl is really very adorable. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a chokeberry dinner before.” And then she giggles.

Aeyla pulls the jar down and opens it. She sticks her hand in and pulls out a fistfull. “Oooh, they’re very poppy, look!” She squeezes one towards Sarra and it bursts, covering her face in purple juice. 

Sarra gasps, and then giggles. “Let me try!” 

The girls take turns squeezing and squishing the berries, and then Aeyla dumps them out into the mortar and hands Alys the pestle. The little girl smashes and smashes and then all three cover the haunch in the berry juice using their hands, rubbing and spreading and giggling. 

“I’m sure it will be delicious!” Aeyla laughs. 

Sarra scrunches her nose. “It does not smell delicious.” 

“It smells very sour,” Alys says. 

Aeyla walks across the room until she spots a barrel of salt and begins dragging it across the room. Sarra rushes to help, and then she and Alys stick their hands in that as they cover the purpled meat in the salt, obscuring the chokeberry juice from view. The beef looks perfectly salted on the butcher's block, and Aeyla quickly hides the mortar and pestle in a barrel.

Aeyla looks to Alys and Sarra, satisfied. Besides the girls’ stained hands and nightdresses, there is nothing to suggest anything different has happened to the meat at all. 

And she didn’t use a scale to measure anything once.

❄︎

“I don’t know what happened, my Lord,” the cook says, wringing his hands together. “All the scullery maids and kitchen lads swear they didn’t do it. One of them says the last thing he did before going to bed was lay out the strips for salting. But when the girls came in to light the fires, the beef had been salted. It wasn’t until we removed the salt that we discovered how fouled it had been by the juice.” 

Down the table, Aeyla and Sarra look at each other, and then threateningly at Alys, who sits on her hands. The berry juice is mostly gone now, and the stained nightdresses well hidden by chucking them into the privy closet in the garrison quarters. Aeyla doesn’t think anyone noticed them, but if one were to look closely, all three girls still have some purple around their nailbeds. 

“I don’t pretend to understand it,” Lord Cregan says, his voice gruff. Aeyla chances a glance at him and is relieved to see that he only looks at the cook, and not where the girls sit farther down the bench. “The whole haunch was ruined?” 

“I am sorry, my lord.” 

“See too it meat is not laid out again unless it is being salted that night. I will ask questions, mayhaps a culprit will be found.” 

Aeyla looks at Sarra anxiously, and when she glances back up to Lord Cregan, she sees Rickon staring at her, his gray eyes like steel.

❄︎

Aeyla is sneaking when she hears them. She likes using the servant’s hallways to get into crawlspaces and wardrobes in other people’s apartments. She’s devised a good plan. Once she is old, and has given Rickon his heir, she will make Mother or Aemos take her on as Mistress of Spies, so she can go home. She knows she must get good at spying to be taken seriously. 

She’s not sure whose rooms she’s in, exactly, until she hears Salyce’s voice, complaining to her mother. 

“Lady Alysanne made it sound so lovely. Companion to a Princess, showing her how we dress and behave here, and all the while she won’t even let me run a brush through her hair-”

“Hush,” her mother says. “It is a great honor. It means you will absolutely be able to wed a knight when the time comes, and perhaps even a minor lord if you comport yourself well enough. You could have your own small holding to run.” 

“I don’t want a holding, I just want to stop sleeping at the foot of the brat’s bed-”

Brat? 

“She is a princess-” 

Ser Wylfred’s voice cuts across his wife’s. “She is silly, spoiled, and unserious. I think Salyce is right. We might speak to Lord Cregan about separating them.” 

Aeyla’s face heats, even as the wife’s voice becomes shrill. “Separating them?!” 

Aeyla does not want to hear anymore. She hates Salyce, and she hates Salyce’s stupid mother, and she hates Ser Wylfred the most of all. She hates Winterfell and she hates companions and she hates scales and she hates cured meats and she wants to go home, she wants to go home, she wants to go home.  

The servants corridor is dark and cold and gloomy as Aeyla runs out. She doesn’t stop running until she reaches the lowest corridor in the tower, and then she runs into the yard, and into the next tower. 

She runs and runs and runs until she runs into someone, and falls flat on her back. 

She pushes her hair out of her face and looks up. Rickon stares down at her. 

“Why are you running?” 

Aeyla breathes, and more hair fans away from her face. “I wasn’t running.” 

Rickon rolls his eyes. 

Aeyla rolls herself over to push up from the floor. 

Before she can plant her palms on the cold stone to stand, Rickon’s hand swims into her view. She takes it, and he pulls her up.

She faces him, brushing dust off her wool dress. 

Rickon eyes her carefully. “Why did you ruin that haunch?”

“I didn’t.” 

“Yes, you did.” 

Aeyla wants to hit Rickon like he’s Alys or Aemos. But she is good, she must be good, and she must marry him. 

“Was it because no one told you about how your uncles died during the war?”  

Yes. 

“Of course they told me.” 

Rickon doesn’t speak. 

“Someone told me,” Aeyla lies.

Lying is not good.

“Who?” 

Aeyla thinks fast. “My father.”

Rickon doesn’t say anything, only stares at her. 

Aeyla frowns at him, and then she decides to go back to her room. She leaves him standing in the hall, and she can feel his eyes on her back as he watches her go. 

❄︎

Salyce is snoring and Aeyla cannot sleep. She kicks her furs around some more. She grabs one of her dolls and hugs it to her chest. 

She makes a decision. 

It is easy to sneak into the maester’s school room and take some of the tiles out of the scale. She is sure Maester Heward will not notice their absence at all. 

It is less easy, but still not very hard, to feel her way around the dark rough walls of the servants’ stairway, to sneak into the Marsh’s apartments. 

Aeyla is lucky - Ser Wylfred snores even louder than his daughter, and it masks the sound of her creeping footsteps. He keeps his sword on the mantlepiece, and Aeyla cannot reach it, but his wife has a little stool in the corner and it is light enough for Aeyla to carry across the stone floor without needing to drag it. 

She stands on her tiptoes and feels at the grip, twisting quietly, and is delighted when it gives from the crossguard. She is even more delighted that the inside of the grip is hollow, and just wide enough for her plan to work perfectly. 

❄︎

“It’s boring here,” Sarra complains. “I want to play with dolls.”

The girl cannot understand why her new friend continues to drag her to the training yard, where Ser Wylfred trains with some of the younger soldiers. 

For a sennight now, Aeyla has been sneaking into the Marsh’s chambers each evening, and she thinks soon, the weights will start to make their presence know. 

Wylfred’s swing goes wide, and one of the boys calls, “Alright there, old man?” 

Still, the master-at-arms recovers himself quickly, much to Aeyla’s annoyance, but he is sweating profusely, and swearing under his breath. 

Aeyla watches as one of the young soldiers steps forward. He lunges at Ser Wylfred, and Ser Wylfred goes for the beat, but he is short this time, and his blade comes down and the soldier only stops his arm just in time, turning to the side as Wylfred falls to the dirt swearing. 

The soldiers are guffawing openly now as Ser Wylfred shouts in anger. 

Aeyla grins. “I think I’m ready to play now.” 

“Finally,” Sarra huffs. 

They are going under the eaves when Aeyla looks up and sees Rickon staring down at her from the wall-walk. His lips are thin, and then his gaze drifts away. Aeyla follows it to see him looking at Ser Wylfred, who is holding his sword at arms’ length, testing its balance.

❄︎

Lord Cregan’s solar is cozy, with rich tapestries and rugs, and warm furs on the settee. Aeyla sits here, her hands on her knees, looking at the small frays in the fabric. She likes her dresses here, they are simple and unstructured, nothing like the stuffy gowns she wore at home. And no one in Winterfell, besides Salyce, seems to care that she likes wearing her hair down, even though Mother was always trying to get her to braid it at home. 

“Why do you think I’ve brought you here, Princess?” Lord Cregan asks. His voice is soft and gentle, his Northern accent agonizingly slow. It’s nothing like the soft hiss of her own Father’s voice, the way it slices and cuts when he is angry. Aeyla finds Lord Cregan’s quiet unsettling. 

“I do not know, my Lord.” 

Lord Cregan does not huff, nor sigh. He just stares at her in icy silence, the only movement the slight bristling of his mustache as he breathes. 

Aeyla looks at her knees some more, and then the chambers, and then at her knees. She tries very hard to not make eye contact with Lord Cregan. 

“One day, you will be the lady of this house.” 

This is not what Aeyla expected the lord to say, and she looks up in surprise. 

“I know, my Lord.” 

“You will have to steer this castle, and the whole of the North, through long, dark, and brutal winters. If you cannot fulfill this role, many will starve. Children will die. And it will be your fault.”

Aeyla thinks of her brother, alone and entombed in the crypts below this castle. She knows Mother wants Aeyla to visit him, but she feels afraid.

Lord Cregan sits next to Aeyla on the settee, and she stares into his face. His beard makes him look very old, she thinks, because when she is close to him, she sees he is younger than her father, even. 

“Princess Aeyla, it is important that you know, in the North, when the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” 

Aeyla might be little, but she isn’t stupid. She knows that the Northerners work hard to survive, harder than they have to in the South.

“My son has asked me if he must marry you.” 

Aeyla’s jaw drops. “What?” 

Lord Cregan’s eyes are clouded, and now he sighs, leaning forward to look at Aeyla. She feels uneasy. 

“I was surprised by his question myself, Princess. In the ten years since Rickon was born, he has never made a request of me, never tried to shirk any expectation of him. He is respectful, honorable and dutiful.” 

And I am none of those things, Aeyla thinks, looking away. And so he wants to be rid of me. 

“I told him of course he must marry you, because I think that you are exactly the sort of person that this castle needs after me and Lady Alysanne are long gone.” 

Aeyla looks back at the man, her mouth falling open. 

“You are brave, and smart, Princess. You have been here not even two moons, and yet that much is clear. But you are bored. And recklessness from boredom will not be tolerated. Ruining food for play, humiliating my master-at-arms for your amusement, such things will not be tolerated.” 

Aeyla’s face reddens, embarrassed and furious that Rickon is nothing more than a big snitch who hates her. “I understand, my Lord,” she manages. 

“I know you do, child,” Lord Cregan says, standing from the settee. “Now, go to your chambers.”

❄︎

Aeyla’s slippers are immediately muddied by the yard. It is one of the last days of summer, and Aeyla can feel the slight warmth of the timid rays against her cheeks, even as the wind whips her hair. It is enough that some of the snows have melted, turning the training yard into an ankle deep pond of dirty sludge. 

“I’ve neglected to have boots made for you, child,” Alysanne says, standing in front of her, holding her bow, a quiver of arrows at her back. “I will have the cobbler sent to your rooms this afternoon.” 

“Yes, my lady,” Aeyla says, very kindly not reminding Alysanne that she’s forgotten to use Aeyla’s title again. 

“Cregan says you’re bored.” 

“Yes.”

“He says that his son told him you are reckless and a mischief maker.” 

“Yes, my lady.” 

“He says that you dragged my daughters along with you on your misadventures.” 

Aeyla looks up at this, sticking up her chin defiantly. “I didn’t drag them. They came of their own free will.” 

“Good,” Aly says. “I would hate to raise girls who are meek. I am certainly glad you’re not. I have known you since you were a babe, Aeyla, and when I first met you I thought you were destined for an early grave. But you proved me wrong then, and I hope it will be the first and last time.” 

Aeyla does not know what to say to this. “Why did you summon me here, my lady?” 

Alysanne smiles, and hands her the bow. “I’m going to teach you to shoot.”

Aeyla takes the thin wood in her hand. It’s a short bow, and she runs her fingers down the string to a small wood clip. 

“That’s the nocking point. That’s where your arrow will rest.” 

Aeyla looks up in surprise. “Princesses don’t shoot. We’re meant to do other sports, like hawking or dancing.” 

“Well, I don’t hawk, nor do I dance particularly well, so we would likely both end up bored if I tried to teach you to do either. But I am a fair shot, and I am thinking you might be too. I suppose Ser Wylfred could teach you to wield steel like your mother, but last I heard he was still fishing weights out of his pommel.” 

Aeyla blushes. Alysanne reaches into the quiver and removes an arrow, handing it to Aeyla. “I trust you know which way to point it.” 

Aeyla grasps the arrow and aligns it with the bow. She lifts both together, her hands sweaty and trembling slightly, pointing it at the target in the corner where she has seen Lord Cregan’s banners training.

She pulls back and releases, but the arrow tips forward and falls at her feet. She looks up to Lady Alysanne, mortified. But the lady only smiles, stepping forward and guiding her hand. 

“Well, you have the idea of it.”

❄︎

The arrow sinks into the center of the target and Aeyla grins. Some of the soldiers sitting on nearby barrels, polishing their weapons, cheer appreciatively. She turns and gives them a little curtsy. 

“Girl of nine is better than you, Martyn,” Rickard Cerwyn chuckles to Martyn Norrey. Aeyla flushes with the compliment. At four-and-teen, Rickard Cerwyn is the most handsome boy at Winterfell. 

Since she turned nine a moon ago, it seems like all Aeyla can think about is boys. 

Alysanne claps as Aeyla goes to stand near her, allowing Sarra to step up for her turn. Her arrow hits the target, but far to the left, and Sarra groans. 

“It’s in your footing,” her mother calls. 

“It was a fair attempt, Sarra!” Lord Cregan affirms. Aeyla turns, and sees Rickon standing near his father, staring at her. Their eyes meet, and he glances away. 

There is a collective gasp as the yard is suddenly plunged in darkness, and Raya and Mariah cover their ears as a scream splits the air around them. Aeyla looks up to the sky, her heart pounding as she sees Mhyrax’s muddied underbelly soar past towards the field near the winter village. 

It has been two years since Aeyla Targaryen has seen her mother.

It has been two years since Aeyla Targaryen has seen a dragon.

[glasscandlegrenades]

Girl i havent been this excited to read a multichaptered fanfic in a while!!! your aemond fic is DELICIOUS and IM DEVOURING IT lol (stayed up until 3 am yesterday reading)

Bb thank you so much!!!!! Hahaha it took me sooooo long to finish so it’s been so rewarding to hear that people are just discovering it!

[glasscandlegrenades]

The Dragon in Winter - Chapter 1: Winterfell

Summary: Six years after the Dance of the Dragons, Princess Aeyla Targaryen is sent North to honor the Pact of Ice and Fire - torn from everything she knows to live among strangers in the barren halls of Winterfell.

Betrothed to Rickon Stark since infancy, Aeyla despises her future husband and everything he represents. He is ice where she is fire, duty where she is passion, silent where she is fierce. But as years pass and childhood hatred transforms into something far more volatile, Aeyla discovers that the ways of the North are not so different from her own.

When war threatens to tear them apart and enemies move against House Stark, Aeyla must choose: remain the dragon princess who never belonged, or become the wolf the North needs her to be.

Chapter warnings: childbirth, stillbirth, parent-child separation, targaryens being targaryens and stressing out house stark

words: 6.7k

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Aeyla hates wheelhouses.

She hates the way they shudder and lurch and jostle one about. She hates the way her little sister Alys doesn't seem to mind, how she keeps pulling down the shutters to point at everything she notices past the grated window, naming each sight aloud, as if no one has seen a bog before.

Most of all, Aeyla hates that Alys doesn't seem to notice that something is wrong with Mother.

Lady Clowance notices, and so does Jaehaera, and Aeyla watches as the two share a worried glance before looking back to where Mother pretends to read on the great bed, her knuckles white as she clutches the book with one hand.

Her other hand rests on her giant belly, where Aeyla’s new siblings live.

“Your Grace…” Lady Clowance starts, leaning forward from the settee. Mother’s eyes lift from the page to meet her ladys’, and she gives a small shake of her head, her nostrils flaring and her lips thin.

“Is that a direwolf?!” Alys points dramatically out the window, before dissolving into a fit of giggles.

“Mayhaps we should stop.” Jaehaera’s voice is soft. “Stretch our legs.”

“My princess,” Clowance barks at Alys. “Close that window!”

“No stopping,” Mother gasps, dropping the book and shifting to her other side, her hand digging into her lower back.

The thunderous clop of hooves that had surrounded the wheelhouse suddenly cease, and then the wheelhouse itself jolts to a halt, throwing Lady Clowance from the settee.

Aeyla manages not to laugh, which is very good of her, she thinks.

Alys scoots around where Clowance is picking herself up off the floor of the wheelhouse, her dark curls bouncing as she climbs up beside her sister.

Aeyla and Alys turn together, pressing their faces against the grate.

At first Aeyla can see just what made her stop looking out the window in the first place; nothing at all.

Well, muddy fields and trees with no leaves.

She cannot believe that she will have to live in a place so hideous for the rest of her life, away from the gardens of the Red Keep and the lovely stained glass windows of the nursery that make rainbows dance across the walls at midday.

Then she hears the snuffle of a pony, and Aemos’ silver head comes into view. He looks at his sisters through the grate, his eyes full of questions.

Overhead, Mother’s dragon, Mhyrax, begins screeching.

Aeyla shrugs, indicating to Aemos that she has no idea what’s going on. Alys is so little she doesn’t even know that she doesn’t even know what’s going on.

Alys never knows anything.

Aeyla looks down at her sister, and before she can even think about what she’s doing, she reaches out and shoves Alys off the settee.

“Princess Aeyla!” Lady Clowance gasps as Alys wails. “That - that is unacceptable.”

Aeyla hates herself, Lady Clowance, and Alys, in that order.

There is a creak, and the thump of boots, and Aeyla bends down to haul Alys back onto the settee just in time for the door to the little bedroom in the wheelhouse to swing open, revealing Father.

Father’s jaw is doing that thing where he clenches it so tight his scar turns white. Last time he did that was when he caught Aeyla trying to light the fireplace in the nursery all by herself because Septa Madella wasn’t there to tug the bell for the servants.

Mother looks up, sees him standing there, and sits herself up straighter on the bed.

“How are you?” Father asks, his voice soft.

Aeyla knows Father is not happy that Mother has come North with the rest of them to give Aeyla to Lord Cregan and Lady Alysanne for fostering.

Aeyla overheard her parents arguing about it before they left home. Father had shouted that it was safer for Mother and the babies to stay in King’s Landing, and that if she went on progress North she was probably going to end up giving birth and bleeding out on the side of the Kingsroad. Mother had said the maesters and midwives could progress with them, and that she wasn’t going to miss any chance to spend time with Aeyla.

Aeyla’s stomach feels sick.

“I’m fine,” Mother snaps now, biting her lip and breathing through her nose as she swings her legs off of the bed. Her dark hair, which she wears loose, is sweaty near her face. “I’ve been reading, Aemond. I’m fine.”

Aeyla looks at Jaehaera. Jaehaera looks back and grabs first Aeyla’s hand, and then Alys’. Aeyla wonders if Jaehaera can tell just by looking at Aeyla how much her stomach hurts.

Alys does a sad little hiccup and then looks at Aeyla with angry eyes.

Father crosses to the little bed and squats so he and Mother are looking right at each other. Mother’s hand comes back to her big belly, and Aeyla sees her fingers are even whiter, the same color as a piece of parchment.

“Valaena,” Father says, and though his face is stern, Aeyla hears that his voice is very worried.

“It’s fine,” Mother huffs. “I - I’m fi-ohhhhhh…”

Alys startles and Jaehaera grips Aeyla’s hand tighter as Mother doubles over, her whole body getting very tight.

Father's hand finds Mother’s. Aeyla watches their fingers twist together, and then Father's knuckles go white too, like whatever is hurting Mother is crossing from her fingers into his.

After a moment, Mother relaxes, and Father looks to Lady Clowance. “How long?”

Mother makes a queen face at Lady Clowance, and Lady Clowance turns right away from Mother like she doesn’t care. Aeyla thinks Lady Clowance is mayhaps the only person who can do such a thing without getting chopped up by Father or gobbled up by Mhyrax. “Just after the wheelhouse began moving,” she tells Father. “Just after dawn.”

Aeyla looks back out the window. Aemos peers back at her in confusion.

“Grand Maester Orwyle is three carriages back,” Father tells Lady Clowance. “Fetch-”

“No,” Mother says, in her sharpest Queen voice. “We are nearly there. I will manage.”

“Valaena-”

“I will manage.”

Father is quiet, and for a very long moment, he and Mother just stare at each other, not blinking, while Aeyla and Jaehaera and Alys and Lady Clowance watch them.

Then Father sighs and leans forward, pressing a kiss to Mother’s forehead. He stands and places his hand first on Aeyla’s head, then on Alys’, and then on Jaehaera’s, before nodding to Lady Clowance and striding from the carriage. His boots crunch on the gravel, and his voice, big and loud, shouts, “We ride on!”

❄︎

Mother makes it down the wheelhouse steps, her boots just touching the muddy earth just beyond Winterfell’s gate, before her knees buckle and she cries out. Aeyla, Alys, and Jaehaera stand behind mother in the wheelhouse, and Aeyla watches in horror as Mother doubles over, liquid pooling at her feet.

Father is off his horse and at Mother’s side in an instant, scooping her into his arms as though she is Aeyla’s size and not a woman grown and huge with child. The dragons swoop overhead, screaming their rage and their fear, and Alys covers her ears and screams along with Sundance.

Lord Cregan, who Aeyla recognizes immediately from his time on Mother’s council, drops into a hasty bow before ushering Mother and Father into the keep.

Servants and guards standing at attention in the yard immediately scatter, some ushering forward the royal retinue to tether the horses, to bring in the trunks. Lady Clowance, not allowed to leave the carriage until the princesses have disembarked, ushers the girls forward, and as Aeyla’s feet hit the ground, she looks up at her new home.

The yard after the main gate is muddy and the same grey that seems to characterize everything in the North.

Aeyla cannot feel the sun on her face, cannot see the blue of the sky.

Towers loom over her, dark stone towers dusted with a peppering of snow, and the buildings facing her all bear the grey banners of House Stark, the wolves head still, for there is no breeze here, not like home, where the winds come off the Blackwater and whip Aeyla’s hair around her face, carrying the briny smell of the sea.

Clowance rushes after Mother, leaving Aeyla, Alys, and Jaehaera standing in front of what remains of House Stark, absent their lord.

Aemos comes around the corner of the wheelhouse on his little steed, and dismounts easily, walking over to stand near his sisters as his steward rushes forward to lead the pony away.

“What’s happened?” he asks in a low whisper. “Father rode like a mad man the last miles of the journey.”

“The babes are coming,” Jaehaera answers, and Aemos pales.

Aeyla can only look at the line of Starks standing in front of her, four girls neatly ordered in height

Lady Alysanne drops into a curtsy that is directed at Aemos, and then turns to Aeyla, Alys, and Jaehaera with a smile. On her right, her daughters, all raven-haired as she, cluster together, staring at the massive wheelhouse with wide eyes.

Mother says that Aeyla knows Lord Cregan and Lady Alysanne’s eldest daughters, Sarra and Alys, because they were born in the capital when Lord Cregan was still Master of Laws.

Mother and Father like to tell a tale of a time, when Aeyla was four, where she and her Alys, and Sarra and the other Alys, all took a bath in the Godswood together, because the maids had dragged the big tub outside on a beautiful day. Mother and Father both smile at the memory and said it was sweet and beautiful, and made them feel at peace, but Aeyla doesn’t remember anything from being four at all, and certainly not these two wild looking little girls.

The older one, who must be Sarra, curtsies to her and then smiles toothily, waving. Alys Stark curls into her mother’s skirts, and the two little toddlers stare at the royal retinue with glazed expressions.

“Their graces certainly never miss an opportunity to cause a stir,” Lady Alysanne says with a small smile. She shifts, and Aeyla sees the boy standing to her right.

He is Aemos’ height, but there is already something severe in his expression, something serious and grown-up in his grey eyes that are framed by soft black curls that has Aeyla recoiling, because surely there is no way this can be-

“Rickon Stark,” the boy mutters, dropping to one knee before Aemos, who looks bemused at the deference. Aeyla figures that with Father carrying Mother through the castle, Aemos must be the most important person in this yard right now.

Rickon straightens and then looks at Aeyla, who stares at him, trying her best to look graceful and princessy. He bows his head to her, and then turns away, scowling.

Aeyla scowls right back.

“Come, your royal highnesses.” Lady Alysanne claps her head together, and her little girls flock to her like puppies. “I will see you to your chambers.”

The children all follow the Lady of Winterfell into the castle, and despite her annoyance, Aeyla cannot help but be glad when Sarra Stark hangs back with her, Aemos, and Alys.

Jaehaera, the oldest of them all at three-and-ten, willowy and ethereal in ways that Aeyla will never be, glides ahead to speak politely with Lady Alysanne about their journey. Rickon walks behind them, but ahead of Aemos, who gazes at the Northern boy with curiosity.

“Your mama is having a babe?” Sarra’s eyes are knowing, and Aeyla looks back to all the little girls surrounding Alysanne.

“You can’t call her ‘our mama’,” Aemos huffs importantly. “She is your Queen, my lady. You must call her ‘her Grace’.”

Sarra looks chastened, but amends quickly. “Her Grace is having a babe?”

Aeyla nods, thinking of the noises Mother was making in the wheelhouse, like an angry cow. “Two babes.”

“I know how babes get out of the mothers' bellies,” Sarra says. Rickon turns back to his sister and scowls some more.

Aeyla is intrigued. “How?”

“They slide out from the same place we piss from.”

Aeyla tries to imagine Mother pissing out a babe, and falls short. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true,” Sarra says.

“How would we find out?” Aemos asks.

“We could ask a maester.” Alys Targaryen is nothing if not practical.

They have crossed the threshold into the first tower of Winterfell now, and Aeyla watches as a servant circumvents their party at a brisk jog, holding a stack of white linens.

She smiles. “I have a better idea.”

❄︎

Both Alyses start whining about hunger the moment they reach the apartments dedicated to the royal nursery, and luncheon is sent for immediately. Lady Alysanne leaves the royal children and brings her own brood back to their chambers to dine, but not before little Lady Sarra leans into Aeyla’s ear and whispers, “This tower, next floor down, left at the staircase.”

Aeyla tells Aemos her idea, and Aemos brightens. Aeyla watches as he goes to stand near the door of the chambers, watching the Winterfell maids come and go.

The maids stop going back and forth, and Aemos waves to Aeyla, and mayhaps Aeyla is meant to wave to Alys, but she doesn’t care, Alys is at the table eating cold water salmon pie, likely the only lunch Aeyla will ever have again, and so Aemos and Aeyla run from the room and down the flight of the stairs, and then take a left.

They skip and laugh down the hall, Aemos tugging at Aeyla’s hand, until they reach where Sarra stands in the darkened and windowless corridor.

Rickon is beside his younger sister, and Aeyla deflates. She doesn’t like him, doesn’t even want him here. Aemos smiles, and Rickon bows, and Aeyla can tell just by looking that the two boys like each other and are going to be friends, and the thought angers her.

Angry Aeyla, the servants at home whisper under their breath, thinking she cannot hear.

"Where are we?" Aeyla asks.

"The servants' corridor," Sarra answers. "I heard Mama say these would be the Queen's chambers."

The passage smells damp and warm from steam hissing in the walls.

Without windows, Aeyla has to feel her way through shadows between the sconces, Sarra beside her, the boys trailing behind.

"Shouldn't we walk ahead, as men?" Aemos asks Rickon.

"You're a little boy, Aemos," Aeyla snaps, tripping. She can hear voices ahead, and over them, the same groans Mother was making in the wheelhouse. A strange sense of peace washes over Aeyla, as though this is just where she is meant to be.

"Here," Sarra says, pushing against a door that leads into a dusty wardrobe with furs and linens stacked about. Aeyla can hear Mother clearly now, and Father, and many other voices she doesn't recognize.

The wardrobe doors to the bedchamber are slightly ajar. Aeyla pushes towards the light, Sarra on her heels, and Aemos stands on his toes to crane his neck over her shoulder.

The wardrobe is perpendicular to the bed, and all Aeyla can see is Mother’s lower half as she lies on the mattress, while Grand Maester Orwyle sits on the end of the bed, peering between her spread legs.

“I told you,” Sarra says in satisfaction as Aeyla looks on with a mixture of curiosity and revulsion.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Rickon murmurs from the back of the wardrobe.

“Rickon’s mother died birthing him,” Sarra whispers, by way of explanation.

Aeyla’s stomach clenches. It hasn’t occurred to her that Mother could die. But she does not have time to respond, for on the other side of the door, there is a great cry.

“I - I can’t do this on my back, please, I have to get up. Aemond, Aemond, I have to get up-”

Father’s voice is low and soothing. “I know, my love, I’m so sorry, but Orwyle’s said the positioning is poor, he needs to be able to see-”

Mother only groans some more, and then her groan becomes a scream.

Aeyla gasps and turns to Aemos, whose face has turned as white as his hair. Rickon swears from the back of the wardrobe, quietly and under his breath. Only Sarra appears unperturbed, watching curiously.

“The head,” Orwyle says, and Aeyla’s view is blocked by a servant rushing forward with a muslin blanket.

The maid steps away and when she does, Aeyla can see Mother, curled over her stomach, her hair sweaty and her face red as she screams. Father stands beside the bed, one arm wrapped around Mother, bracing her, and the other holding her hand. Lady Clowance rushes around the room, barking orders, her skirts flouncing out around her.

Mother’s screaming ends, and then Orwyle is saying wait, wait, wait, Your Grace, but Mother shouts out and Father says, “Oh!” and then the maester pulls his hands back from between Mother’s legs holding something purplish and unmoving.

Orwyle is shaking and pressing on the purplish thing, and Mother collapses back on the bed, obscuring her from Aeyla’s view.

Aeyla pushes forward so she can still see what’s happening, and the door creaks. One of the maids looks to their hiding spot, her brow quizzical, but then blessedly looks away. Mother’s face is pale, and Father pulls her hand to his lips.

“What is it?” Mother’s voice is slurring. “Why are they not crying?”

“Something’s wrong,” Aemos whispers from above Aeyla. Aeyla looks back at her brother, frowning, and then Aemos takes her hand and squeezes it.

Aeyla looks back in time to see Orwyle stop moving. Father and Mother both look at the maester as he shakes his head.

“I’m very sorry, Your Grace.”

“No,” Mother breathes. She raises her hand to her mouth and turns to where Father stands, allowing Aeyla to see her face. Her eyes are the saddest that Aeyla has ever seen.

“I think,” Aemos’ voice shakes even as he whispers. “I think it’s dead.”

Aeyla can't look away. She wants to run to Mother and crawl onto the bed with her, but she hates when adults cry. It makes her feel scared.

Father squats down close to Mother's face, brushing back her hair. He turns to Orwyle. "Can you not do something?" Though his question is demanding, there is no anger in it, only sadness.

Mother's lower lip trembles. "Aemond," she gasps.

Lady Rhaena's babe was dead, and she cried every day for moons. But it won't matter if Mother does the same - Mother will be at home and Aeyla will be here.

Above her, Aemos is crying.

“I think it’s dead,” he whispers again, his voice cracking.

It does that more and more, now. Mother teases that it’s because he’s becoming a man. Aeyla doesn’t think Aemos is a man at all. When Aemos is a man, he will become King, and that will mean that Mother and Father are gone.

“Stop saying that!” Aeyla says, but she is too loud, and Father turns away from Mother, looking in the direction of their hiding spot.

He steps away, and as he moves Aeyla sees the maester pass Mother the purplish thing, which has been wrapped in the muslin blanket. Mother holds the bundle to her chest and weeps and weeps.

“Oh, fuck,” Aemos whispers, pulling away from the door as Aeyla watches her mother’s arms shake as she holds the babe, but then a shadow passes in front of her, followed by a creak -

Aeyla gasps as Father’s face swims into the doorway, his nostrils flaring.

“Out,” he hisses, but even though his voice is furious, Aeyla sees that he has tears in his eye, too.

Aemos is backing away, and Rickon and Sarra are already back in the hall, but Aeyla stands her ground, reaching out and grasping at her father’s tunic.

“Is the babe dead?” she asks.

Father’s look of anger turns briefly to surprise, and then his face crumples. He presses his lips together, and pushes through the door, extending his arms.

Aeyla reaches up, and Father lifts her, letting her wrap her legs around his waist she she twines her arm behind his neck.

He doesn’t say anything, instead walks back towards the servants’ corridor, away from Mother, away from the babe.

Aemos, Sarra, and Rickon all follow him. Rickon breathes deeply, and his exhale shakes. Aeyla thinks of his mother, dead in childbed.

It occurs to Aeyla, all at once, that Rickon will be her husband the way Father is Mother’s husband.

Aeyla glances at the serious boy, instantly weary, before burying her face in Father’s shoulder.

They reach the corridor, and the candles are still flickering, and from back in the apartments, they can hear Mother’s groans once more. Aeyla has forgotten there is still another babe inside her.

Father places Aeyla gently on the floor and presses his lips to her forehead. He straightens and looks to Rickon and Aemos. Rickon’s head is hung, and Aemos is staring up at Father with a tear-stained face.

“Kings and Lords do not spy in servants’ quarters,” Father says. “If you are keen for news, wait in the hall, with dignity.”

“Yes, Father,” Aemos says.

“Yes, my Prince,” Rickon says.

“And if you must spy,” Father looks to Aeyla and smirks, “a good king always sends his spymaster in his stead.”

Aeyla grins.

Aemos, however, still frowns, serious, beside her.

“Is the babe truly dead?” he asks, his voice soft.

Father’s smirk vanishes, and he sighs, his eye sparkling. He turns from Aeyla and places both hands on Aemos’ shoulders.

Aeyla watches in surprise as Father bends down and presses his lips to her brother’s brow.

Aemos only permits kisses from Mother, normally, but he just stands there, looking up at Father like a scared little boy.

Father stares at Aemos for a long moment before speaking. “You had a little brother. The Gods saw fit to take him from us.”

From behind Father, a low groan sounds from the chambers, and then there is a call of “Aemond!”

Father pales, and takes a deep breath. “Try not to fret, try to play. I will come find you and Alys soon.”

Aeyla and Aemos nod, and so do Sarra and Rickon, even though Father wasn’t really talking to them.

Father leaves, and Aemos sniffles loudly.

Aeyla looks at him. “Why are you crying?”

“I’m sad about the babe.” Aemos says.

“It’s not like we knew him,” Aeyla says grumpily. Everyone’s sad for some babe they’ve never even met, yet no one is crying for Aeyla, who they’ve known for seven whole years and who is being given away to another family. “It’s not like he was our friend.”

“Why are you always so cruel?” Aemos asks.

Aeyla looks back, affronted. “I’m not cruel!”

“Yes you are, Angry Aeyla,” Aemos says.

Aeyla punches Aemos. He shouts and turns away, grasping his arm where she struck him.

“Why do you never hit back?!” Aeyla shouts.

“Because you’re a lady!” Aemos shouts back. “I can’t hit a lady!”

“She doesn’t much act like one,” Rickon says, and it’s the most he’s spoken this whole time.

Aeyla recoils at the insult. Rickon doesn't act much like a noble lord, but Aeyla hasn't pointed that out. Her throat feels very tight, and she wants to punch Rickon, too.

“Come,” Aemos says, looking awkwardly between his sister and his new friend. “Let us find luncheon.”

❄︎

“Babes die sometimes,” Jaehaera says softly, holding Aeyla’s hand on the bench in the great hall. In Winterfell, bannermen and nobles eat together at long tables. Aeyla doesn’t mind it, though, because Gaemon is allowed to sit next to her. “‘Tis more common amongst the smallfolk, but it does happen, Aeyla.”

Everyone in the hall is whispering about Mother and the dead babe. Lord Cregan and Lady Alysanne further down the table, surrounded by their own children, talking quietly amongst themselves. Aeyla keeps glancing towards Rickon, who is frowning into his soup.

Aeyla can only bear to stomach crusty bread. She does feel sad about the babe, and worried for mother, but she does not cry.

A soldier’s voice carries down the table. “The maids are saying the boy had the Queen’s look about him-”

“Hmm… bad blood always brings complications in the birthing bed..."

Lord Cregan’s head whips around towards the soldiers, who quickly shush their comrade.

Aemos goes red, and Jaehaera pales. Gaemon rolls his eyes.

“What does that mean, bad blood?” Aeyla asks. “Is that why the babe died? Something was wrong with his blood?”

“Nothing was wrong with his blood,” Jaehaera says. “Do not repeat such things.”

“What things?” Aeyla asks.

“Shut up, Aeyla,” Aemos snaps.

Aeyla cannot help but notice the furtive glances towards Alys, of all people, whose long, dark, curly hair has been braided prettily around her face. Aeyla’s own curls hang loose down her back, for she cannot sit still long enough in front of the mirror to wear pretty braids.

“Well then why did the babe die if it wasn’t because of his blood?” Aeyla asks. “I just felt them moving in Mother’s belly yesterday in the wheelhouse, she showed me where to put my hands-”

“Only the gods know, Aeyla,” Jaehaera says. “Eat your bread.”

There is a clamoring in the hall as the door to the chambers burst open and Father strides in, his face pale. Benches squeal against the stone floors as they are pushed back, and soldiers and Starks alike stand and incline their head in Father’s direction as he walks to Lord Cregan and Lady Alysanne.

Cregan bows and then reaches forward, grasping Father’s shoulder bracingly. “How fares her Grace?”

“As well as can be expected,” Father says, and Aeyla finds herself smiling. “The realm has a new princess.”

A new princess. Another sister.

Another brother and another sister.

“We’re so sorry for the loss of the prince, Aemond,” Lady Alysanne says, her voice warm and familiar. “You know Winterfell is at your disposal. Anything you or Queen Valaena need, please just tell us.”

“I’m sure she would be grateful for company,” Aemond says. “The Grand Maester has said she may not leave bed for the next sennight.”

Aemond excuses himself to walk down the table to his own children. He sits on the bench beside Aemos and pulls Alys into his lap, kissing the top of her head.

“You have a sister,” he says softly. “Her name is Aemma.”

“I am glad it is a sister. Sisters can share dolls,” Alys muses, smiling and reaching up to pat Father’s scarred cheek. It makes Father smile a real smile, and Aeyla is glad of it.

“Does our brother have a name?” Aeyla asks. Father stops smiling, and Aeyla is mad at herself for asking.

“Jacaerys,” Father says, and this makes Aeyla sad, because Jacaerys is the name of Mother’s twin who also died, and Mother gets sad about him often, and Aeyla worries that calling baby Aemma’s dead twin Jacaerys just like Mother’s dead twin will make Mother doubly sad.

“When can we see them?” Aeyla asks.

Father’s face is stern when he looks at Aeyla. “You will wait until you are invited, Aeyla Targaryen. Your mother is exhausted. I mean it.”

Aeyla blinks.

Father’s nostrils flare. “I mean it, Aeyla. No sneaking.”

❄︎

Winterfell is an extremely easy castle for sneaking. Aeyla’s discovered that lots of snow makes everything quiet, and there are not nearly as many guards and servants milling about as there are at home.

She finds the servants’ corridor again easily, and the wardrobe, and she peeks in to make sure that Mother is alone, that Father is still downstairs conferring with Lord Cregan on the wording of her betrothal decree.

She doesn’t see Father and doesn’t hear him, so she bursts into the chamber and jumps onto Mother’s bed.

“Gods be good, Aeyla!” Mother gasps, looking up from where the new babe nurses at her breast.

“Why do you do that?” Aeyla asks. “Surely Lord and Lady Stark have a wetnurse.”

“I don’t like wetnurses,” Mother says softly, tracing the babe’s cheek with her finger. “Sweetling, why aren’t you in bed?”

“I wanted to see the baby,” Aeyla says. “If you don’t like wetnurses, why did you name Alys after one?”

“Because there was a war and I couldn’t care for you all the way that I would’ve liked, so Alys’ wetnurse looked after you all for me, and I wanted to honor her for that.” Mother’s explanation is patient, but her voice and her face are very sad, just like they always are when Mother talks about the war.

“I’m sorry about the other babe,” Aeyla says. Mother gives Aeyla a long look, and Aeyla wonders if it is because Aeyla doesn’t use the word sorry very often.

Finally, Mother says, “I’m sorry, too, Aeyla. I think I will be sad for a long time.”

“More or less sad than you will be about leaving me here with these people?”

“Oh, Aeyla,” Mother’s eyes fill with tears. “My Aeyla, those are questions you think in your head and do not ask, do you understand me?”

“I’m sorry,” Aeyla says again, and then she crawls across the bed to Mother’s side and hugs her, peering at the baby sister that suckles at her breast. She has silver hair like Aemos, Aeyla, and Father, but when her little eyes open, they are brown like Mother’s.

Aeyla thinks they are very pretty. Mother wraps her free arm around Aeyla and turns so she can kiss Aeyla’s cheek again and again.

“What are you doing here?”

Aeyla freezes and looks up to where Father stands in the doorway, his face especially angry.

“Aemond,” Mother sighs. “She is only curious.”

“Your mother needs rest, Aeyla.”

Aeyla frowns, narrowing her eyes at Father and clutching Mother closer.

Mother sighs. “Aemond-“

“Now, Aeyla!” Aeyla cannot remember a time when Father shouted at her like this.

Mother’s voice is angry even as Aeyla slips from her embrace. “Do not speak to her like that, Aemond!”

“I told her she needs to stop sneaking about,” Aemond says. “We have been too lenient with her, with all of them, and look at how she handles herself. We are lucky the Starks are honorable people who uphold their oaths, if we brought her to Storm’s End acting like a little urchin instead of a princess-”

“I want to be with her,” Mother says, and now she is crying again, and Aeyla scrambles off the bed, hating it when Mother cries. “I want to spend as much time with her as I can. I came to this place with five children and will leave with only three, and I, and I-” she sobs, her head falling forward onto her chest. Aeyla watches a tear land on baby Aemma.

Father’s face is so sad as he watches Mother weep, and Aeyla knows he hates it as much as she does when Mother cries. He turns to Aeyla, and then his expression becomes one of anguish and guilt, and Aeyla is surprised when he hides his face in his hands. She and Father have always gotten on, always been each others’ favorites, but she has never seen him like this before.

“Mayhaps,” Aeyla takes a deep breath, trying her best to sound like more than just a silly little girl. “Mayhaps you should just bring me home. Mayhaps I can come back when I am old enough to wed Rickon, and then no one will have to be sad.”

Mother stops crying and looks at Aeyla, and Father’s mouth falls open in shock. He pulls his hands from his face and when his eye finds Mother’s, it is frustrated. “Are you happy now?”

Mother swallows noisily. “Aeyla, my love, you have to stay. It’s all been agreed upon, for years. You - you have to know the Starks as your family, you have to understand the North. I don’t want you to come when you’re older to live amongst strangers and feel the shock of their culture, this way it’ll be like an adventure, you’ll have so much joy, with Sarra, and Aly, do you understand, sweetling?”

Aeyla understands perfectly. They do not want her. She is Angry Aeyla, not sweet like baby Aemma or easy like Alys.

All this time she’s been thinking they had to leave her here, that it was for the Realm, but it never occurred to her that they might want to, that it might be easier for them if she wasn’t at home, sneaking and hitting and shouting. She feels a lump form in her throat and becomes very scared she’s going to cry. Mother and Father are both looking at her, their expressions miserable, and she nods her head. “I understand. I will go back to my rooms now.”

“Let me carry you there, my Aeyla,” Father says softly, reaching down. “Lord Cregan will have to take you on as a maid if you keep using the servants’ corridors.”

Aeyla allows herself to be picked up, and when she looks back at Mother over Father’s shoulder, she sees that Mother is crying again.

❄︎

Mother rests, and baby Aemma suckles, and Aeyla tries her very best to be good. She doesn’t shout, she doesn’t sneak, she doesn’t lie, and she doesn’t hit (though she does pinch Alys one night at dinner when Alys eats the last bannock, leaving only eel pie for Aeyla, but that was deserved).

A fortnight after their arrival at Winterfell, Aeyla’s family, and the Starks, and the whole retinue from home, Lady Clowance and the maesters and all the commanding soldiers, stand in the crypts, watching as Prince Jacaerys Targaryen’s tiny coffin is placed behind a stone wall. A bronze placard says his name, and the year.

Father and Mother watch in silence, and though Aeyla and her family are technically the Faith of the Seven, there is no Septon presiding. Lord Cregan says a few quiet words to the Old Gods, and Father holds Mother’s shoulder, but she did not sob as she had done in her bed the night the twins were born, she just stands very still, tears glittering in her dark eyes.

Aeyla stands with Aemos and Alys. Baby Aemma is with one of the maids in the wheelhouse. She will return home with Aeyla’s family, and Aeyla will be here with no one but a dead brother.

Jacaerys will be here forever, Aeyla realizes. Just like her. She will marry Rickon, and grow up, and have his stupid, ugly, sullen babies, and then she will die and be buried in these crypts alongside him.

She looks at her betrothed and finds him glowering at her from under his wild fringe. He has not said one word to her since the day they hid in the wardrobe, and Aeyla prefers it that way. Sarra has been a friend, and she has shared her carved wooden direwolves with Aeyla when they play.

Outside the dragons screech, Morghul and Sundance loudest of all, and Mhyrax croons her sad song. The Starks look around uneasily, but none of them speak.

“My mother’s dragon sounded like that after Jaehaerys died,” Jaehaera observes quietly, and Mother hears her, her head turning sharply and her lip trembling.

The masons step forward and begin laying the stone that will entomb Aeyla’s brother forever. Aeyla wants to leave this place, but none can until Mother does first, and Mother watches, still and silent, as every stone is placed.

It takes nearly half-an-hour. Aeyla wants to run or scream or shout, but she has promised to be good.

Finally, the last stone is slotted into place, and Mother blinks rapidly. Father, his expression pained, his scar twisted and his lone eye miserable, takes advantage of her pause and whisks her from the crypts. She allows this, and the rest of the sorry party follows them up to the gates.

The portcullis is drawn, and Aeyla can see the wheelhouse and Father’s horse beyond. One of the squires has tied up Aemos’ little pony, and he eyes it warily, clearly not relishing the thought of the ride.

Mother looks at the wheelhouse and her lip trembles some more. She turns to Aeyla and drops to her knees, throwing her arms around Aeyla and pulling her in close. She feels so nice, soft and sturdy all at once, her hair tickling Aeyla’s face.

“I will write you, my girl, I promise,” Mother weeps into Aeyla’s hair. She cradles Aeyla’s head and kisses her cheeks, her tears dampening Aeyla’s face. Aeyla holds her back, trying to think of something to say past the lump in her throat. “The moment Aemma is weaned, I’ll visit on Mhyrax. I love you, Aeyla, I love you so much.”

“I’ll be good,” Aeyla says hoarsely. She says it half in the hopes that Mother will believe her and bring her back with them.

But Mother just gives a hiccuping sob. “I know you will, my Aeyla. Oh, Aeyla, I love you. Your life here is going to be an adventure, I know it, I know it.”

She pulls back and Aeyla can see where Father stands with Aemos and Alys, a hand on each of their shoulders. He is biting his lip, and he takes a deep breath in and looks away, to Lord Cregan of all people. But Lord Cregan seems to understand something in Father’s look, because he nods his head.

Mother pulls back and goes to stand with Aemos and Alys, and Father comes forward now, kneeling down just as Mother had and pressing his lips to Aeyla’s forehead.

“You are strong and brave,” he tells her. “You will do incredible things here, Aeyla. I love you. Anything you need, anything that is upsetting you, you will send me a raven. Yes?”

“Yes, Father,” Aeyla agrees, and then Father is embracing her, squeezing her, and through his doublet she can feel the amber charms he always wears, little cases with strands of her hair, and Aemos’, and Alys’, and she wonders if anyone thought to snip off a piece of Jacaerys’ hair for Father before they buried him away forever.

Aemond calls Aeyla’s siblings forward and they both hug her. Alys starts crying, and it makes Aeyla’s stomach hurt, and Aemos says he hopes that she will see a real direwolf or a giant from beyond the wall and if she does she must write him about it, and Father jests that she must write him about it too because if Giants are coming South of the Wall Father will have to come back North with his royal army to slay it.

Alys is brought to the wheelhouse by Lady Clowance, and Aemos’ squire helps him onto his fat little pony, and then everyone bows and does their fealty to Mother and Father.

Aeyla, too. She curtsies and says “Farewell, Your Grace,” and “Farewell, my Prince,” like a good princess, but Mother and Father just look confused.

So Aeyla watches as Father wraps an arm around Mother and begins to lead her away.

They are almost at the wheelhouse when Mother gasps, “Wait!” and then she is running back to where Aeyla stands and lifting Aeyla into her arms like she is a babe again, and she holds her close and whispers, “I love you, I love you, you’ll always be my first girl, I love you.”

Aeyla can’t speak, she only clings more tightly to Mother, and then Aemond is saying, “Valaena,” in a soft sad voice, and Mother is nodding, and when she sets Aeyla back on the ground her beautiful face is covered in tears and her cheeks are pink from the cold. She looks at Aeyla for a long time, and then takes a deep breath.

Father guides Mother up the steps of the wheelhouse, and she doesn’t turn back, though Aeyla can see her shoulders shuddering with sobs. Mother walks up the stairs, and Father closes the door behind her. He gives Aeyla one final guilty look before mounting his horse and galloping through the gate. The wheelhouse lurches off behind it, and then all the soldiers, and then they’re gone.

Aeyla’s eyes are burning, and her face is wet, and she doesn’t realize she is crying until Lady Alysanne picks her up and brings her back into the castle. She sees the Stark children all staring at her sadly as she is carried past.

Even Rickon has something like concern in his eyes.

Aeyla does not want his pity.

“I hate crying,” Aeyla tells this woman she barely knows.

“So do I,” Lady Alysanne says. “But sometimes we must.”

[glasscandlegrenades]

The Dragon in Winter

Summary: Six years after the Dance of the Dragons, Princess Aeyla Targaryen is sent North to honor the Pact of Ice and Fire - torn from everything she knows to live among strangers in the barren halls of Winterfell.

Betrothed to Rickon Stark since infancy, Aeyla despises her future husband and everything he represents. He is ice where she is fire, duty where she is passion, silent where she is fierce. But as years pass and childhood hatred transforms into something far more volatile, Aeyla discovers that the ways of the North are not so different from her own.

When war threatens to tear them apart and enemies move against House Stark, Aeyla must choose: remain the dragon princess who never belonged, or become the wolf the North needs her to be.

Winterfell

Weights

There will be fifteen chapters in all.

[glasscandlegrenades]

I’ve read all of Children of Empire on Ao3 and have left several comments (I’m the ‘Lauren’ guest with the quote comments haha), decided to look up your Ao3 name on Tumblr to see if you appeared and ta da! Hopefully this doesn’t sound too stalkerish lol, but anyway LOVE CoE (duh) and even made a pinterest board today of angsty art that reminded me of the fic cause I kept thinking of it!

PS: More comments are coming your way on Ao3! Reread a few earlier chapters again and just had to copy and paste my fav quotes into my notes app. Now need to actually articulate my thoughts and get them down…

Hi Lauren!!! It’s not stalkerish I’m so grateful you’ve enjoyed the story enough to engage with it like this! I would love to see your Pinterest board if you’re ever willing to share it!!!!

I can’t wait to read your comments on the earlier chapters!!! I love when people do rereads and pick up on little symbols or foreshadows I slipped in (I admit, I’m not very deft at this but I digress)!! Your comments make my day!!! Thanks for finding me here!

[roserosette]

The Possession Of Joel Delaney, 1972, Waris Hussein

[glasscandlegrenades]

Children of the Empire

a/n: finally finished my aemond x strong!reader fic, only took me two years and 350k words so i thought i'd share it here in celebration

✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵

Summary: You are the eldest daughter of Rhaenyra, Princess of Dragonstone, and twin to her heir, Prince Jacaerys. When your younger brother assails your uncle in a childhood squabble, your grandsire, the King Viserys, offers your hand in marriage as payment for Aemond's lost eye.

Plighted in a match that is beheld by many and desired by none, you find yourself alone in a nest of vipers, forced to watch as your mother and the Queen maneuver and vie for influence within the court and the Realm. Despite your youth, fears, and insecurity, you know you must apply your will and wits to one claim or another, but this choice becomes more and more difficult as you find yourself further entrenched within the family who would see your mother and siblings fed to the flames.

Aemond x Reader

Warnings: arranged marriage, non-con, abortion, suicide, depression, grief, unwanted pregnancy, childbirth, motherhood, toxic relationships, dubious consent, traumatic birth, i promise some good things happen too tho

Word count: 350k

Chapter One: Without Love

“I am so frightened.” 

You whisper it as your mother leans over your shoulder, fastening a pearl earbob to your lobe. 

You whisper it like a prayer for only her ears, for mothers have more sway than all the gods put together, or at least yours does, her noble brow wrinkled in concern all morning as she has pushed through your trousseau and sharply directed the servants who hustle about your chambers with swaths of linen. 

You have avoided pleading; your mother and stepfather have both met with the King already, suggesting matches that may strengthen ties to other houses, but the King has been insistent. 

He appears to have very little energy for anything anymore, but he has thrown himself into planning your wedding with great vigor, and the feasts and tourneys of the last week have rivaled those that the Queen had held for her two eldest children’s wedding three years past. You suppose it should feel an honor.

It feels like an insult.

Your mother releases the pearl, a great sigh escaping her lips as you feel her hand fall to your shoulder and squeeze gently. 

“My darling, would that I could spare you this,” Rhaenyra says, her lips turning down in worry. She steps around to face you, giving your white gown a once over before taking your hands in her own. 

“I was loath to marry your father, but my King commanded it.”

Your mother’s voice is deep and quiet. She reaches forward and tucks a loose mahogany curl behind your ear as she gives you a wan smile. “In the end, Laenor and I shared many happy memories. I am sure that you both will find a way to share in your own joys.” 

You blanch at the thought of your one-eyed uncle. “He questions our legitimacy, Mother. He hates me.” 

Rhaenyra’s smile falters and she releases a shuddering breath. “I’m so sorry.” 

She looks across the solar, past the balcony and across the city towards the sept. You feel an immense wave of guilt at how quickly she has turned despondent.

Neither Jace nor Luke ever cause her such anguish. You have no wish to, either. 

Rhaenyra twists the rings on her left hand. “I feel that I have failed you.”

“No, Mother, I-” but she gives you her look, the one that silences you immediately. You haven’t received one so severe since you and Jacaerys returned from Spicetown, drunk and stumbling, on your fourteenth name day. 

Your mother continues, her expression solemn. “How, my darling girl, how can I make this better for you?” 

You press both hands to the bodice of your gown, trying to tamp down the queasiness that bubbles in your stomach. 

“Do you think it will do any good?” You hate the childish note in your voice, craving her reassurance that your suffering will not be for nothing. “Do you think the rumors about us will stop if I wed one of them?” 

Rhaenyra’s gaze chills as she observes you. “We are Targaryens. There will always be whispers, and sometimes our presence alone is enough to fan the flames. It does not matter what anyone thinks but you, my sweet girl.”

She smiles, then. “I hate the thought of leaving you, but perhaps instead of remaining here as his wife, you can think of yourself as my envoy here at King’s Landing. Make sure that the wishes of Dragonstone, and not those of Oldtown, are given their consideration, hm?”

You try to smile, but you can feel it falter on your face. Your mother’s brow creases with worry again, and you feel guilty at upsetting her, especially when being in the capital already causes her strife.

She once more pushes some of your unruly curls behind your ear. “What ails you, my sweet? I know I may have been a - well, an indulgent parent, yet I also know that I never promised that you would be able to marry for love alone,” Rhaenyra sighs again. “Mayhaps you and he might work out some arrangement - one where you are able to do your duty to the Realm, and then-” 

“That’s just it,” you groan miserably. “My duty, let us name it for what it is: to be a mother to his children! To grow fat with Targaryens over and over, to give endless heirs to a pompous, proud, arrogant man who has only looked in my direction with scorn.”

Your mother purses her lips. You look over her shoulder, to where one of the maids arranges a bouquet of sugarbushes. The Queen’s favorite flower. 

“You thought you deserved more?” Rhaenyra’s voice is quiet. 

“I did not think of it at all,” you fiddle with the lace on your sleeve. “I certainly didn’t expect to be offered up in payment for a debt, but even after Grandsire betrothed us... I didn’t realize, not until now, how oppressive it would feel. Like my life is ending; that after this evening I will never have a chance to see the world outside this Keep again.” 

Rhaenyra’s mouth turns down, and she reaches up once more to cradle your cheek, pecking it three times.

“I understand,” your mother sighs. “When I was your age, the prospect of marriage, of motherhood, it was stifling, overwhelming. Terrifying, actually, after how I lost mine own mother. I avoided it with every ounce of will I possessed. But…” 

She trails off, looking rather misty, and it shocks you, for your mother is in turns proud, stern, warm, jubilant, defiant, but rarely weepy. She turns away from you, her voice low. 

“The moment you and Jacaerys were placed in my arms was the greatest of my life. I - I cannot - there are not even words that I can lend to describe it.”

Her emotion discomfits you, and you cast your eyes around her chambers. The old ones from your youth. They have been cleared of all of your old toys, redecorated in various shades of Hightower green.

Your mother follows your gaze before speaking again. “Motherhood - that which I feared the most... my love, you and your brothers are my greatest joys. And you - you have a warm heart. Any child you have - regardless of who sires them - they will make your world far larger, I am sure of it.” 

You nod, despite still feeling unsure; though, to be fair, you are always unsure, and it is hard to imagine your mother being afraid of anything.

Your mother rode a dragon for the first time at age seven; you yourself had a dragon hatch in your cradle, and yet you have always preferred your feet planted firmly on the ground, leaving Mhyrax to take riderless to the skies. 

“Do you-” your mother interrupts herself, clearing her throat. “Do you know what to expect tonight? I don’t - I wouldn’t wish for you to be surprised, or uncomfortable….”  

You blush slightly, looking down. “Gods, Mother, you sound like a septa. I’m sure I’ll manage.”

Rhaenyra chuckles lightly, before frowning once more. “I’m sure you will, my girl. It’s only,” she takes a deep breath, and your stomach sinks. “The King has commanded a viewing of your bedding.” 

You pinch your neck with how quickly you snap your gaze back to your mother’s. 

“A what?”

Rhaenyra blanches. “They were more common in the days of the Conqueror, to ensure consummation, prevent annulments, but I fear my father believes the Queen may also try to undermine your union, as he believes Daemon and I have-”

“How long have you known?” you interrupt, and that she does not immediately reply makes your blood boil. “Mother!”

“I did not wish for you to dwell over that which you had no control - I know how you worry-” 

You are shrill. “How long?”

“Since we arrived,” your mother admits. 

“Who?”

Once more, Rhaenyra begins fiddling with her rings. “The King, the Queen, the Grand Maester, the High Septon was meant to attend, but he is too frail, so Septon Eustace-” 

“You?”

“Would you like that?”

You hesitate, unsure if it would be better or worse.

You think of your twin. Jacaerys would find it uncomfortable, to be sure, but he would likely pinch the bridge of his nose, shrug it off, and give them a show. He certainly wouldn’t make Mother endure his discomfort. 

“No,” you say. 

“You will have ladies to attend to you,” Rhaenyra says, and her dry tone hardly makes it sound reassuring. “The Queen has apparently hand-selected them.” 

You narrow your eyes at her. If Alicent has chosen your ladies, they are certain to be uninspiring. Your mother purses her lips, rolling her eyes. “A great honor,” she finishes. 

“Oh, delightful,” you groan. “They can gather around my marriage bed and say prayers for my discarded maidenhead.” 

Rhaenyra laughs aloud at this, and you chuckle too, only remembering the pit in your stomach as your mirth subsides. 

“It’s only - I am very afraid,” you murmur. “I wish I could be brave like you.” 

Your mother purses her lips and angles her chin down, her eyes bright. “I know that you are too wise to mistake bravery for the absence of fear.” 

“Very cowardly, then,” you say, your stomach roiling.

Your mother gives you a small smile. “I have yet to know a coward who jests over her fears.”

The door opens, and your aunt’s head peeks around, her brow raising slightly as she takes you in. Her silver hair has been braided away from her face, and she wears a dress of an earthy green. 

“Princess Helaena,” your mother sighs. 

Helaena is paler than usual. There are whispers that Prince Aegon has put another child in her, but it is as yet confirmed, and there is not enough closeness between your two sides of the family to make delicate inquiries.

You try to inspect her midriff, curious, intrigued. This is your fate, after all. 

“It is time,” she says softly, and behind her, you see your cousin, the Lady Rhaena. The closest thing you’ve had to a sister on Dragonstone these last years, she gives you a reassuring smile. Together, they will carry your train.

You feel dizzy. Your mother will ride with the King, the Queen, and the rest of her siblings in one wheelhouse. Daemon, who will be removing your maiden’s cloak, will be accompanying you to the Sept. 

You glance to the corner of the room, where the sea green cape rests, the delicate silver embroidered seahorses shimmering in the sunlight that streams in from your solar. Helaena follows your gaze. 

“The seahorse trips the light, and the dragon is set aflight,” she murmurs, before glancing back towards you. “You look nice, in your dress.” 

“Thank you, Aunt.” Warmth is not what you expected. 

“Come,” Rhaenyra’s voice cuts severs the nice moment like Dark Sister. She yanks the cloak up and drapes it over your shoulders, pulling your curls forward over your shoulders, ensuring all of the front tendrils of your hair remain twisted in your tiara. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” you repeat, and then she is embracing you, pressing three small kisses to your brow. You stare at her in agony as she releases you. 

Helaena moves from the doorway so that you may pass through, your heart pounding, your head spinning. 

You know not where to look as you approach the grand staircase of Maegor’s Holdfast; you are terrified that you will trip, and walk with exceptional slowness. It is quiet in the Keep, and you know that the courtiers must already be at the Sept; your footsteps echo, as do those of your mother, and Rhaena and Helaena’s too, trailing behind you as they silently carry the corners of your cloak. 

You fear that you need the privy, and you do your best to allay your own worry without giving voice to it - who has ever heard of a bride announcing she may shit herself on her wedding day?

Once beyond the steps, it is easy enough to reach the main gates where the wheelhouses wait. There: your stepfather, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword as he speaks idly with the King.

Your grandsire is more emaciated than ever, his flesh disappearing. You hate looking at him; you hate the knowledge that this can happen to a body, that this could happen to your body. Your mind grapples with what he may have possibly done to bring this affliction upon himself. 

Still, Viserys smiles as he sees you, even as the queen glances you over, her nostrils flaring slightly as if you have brought a terrible smell from the Holdfast. You drop into a curtsy as you reach them. Aegon, standing as far from his mother as he can while still looking decorous, sways slightly and scowls. Helaena drops your cloak and moves to stand by him, her hand smoothing the front of her gown.

“Granddaughter,” the King says. You stand, looking upon his pockmarked face. “What cause for celebration. To see this rift within our family finally healed.”

Alicent scoffs at this before turning away. 

You nod, attempting to look gracious, or at the very least like you’re not about to be sick on your own shoes.

Daemon steps forward, opening the door to the wheelhouse and looking at you expectantly, a small smile playing on his own features. You clamber inside, his hand offered in aid, and then you are seated, your mother and Rhaena folding your cloak gently around you, the latter pressing a kiss to your cheek. 

Daemon sits across from you, crossing his legs at the ankle and stretching as the wheelhouse lurches into motion, the smell of the city soon reaching your nose. You grasp for your pomander. 

“How did you spend so much time with the City Watch?” You immediately regret breaking the silence.

It is not an uneasy one; you are often in Daemon’s company, and you often speak little. He is not necessarily terrifying, he is too warm to your mother to be so, but it is clear you are dear to him not for yourself, but only as an extension of her. You have never felt like an actual person to Daemon Targaryen, let alone a daughter - not the way you did with your own sire, Ser Laenor. 

Not like you did with Ser Harwin Strong, your mind voices treasonously. 

Daemon shrugs, chuckles lightly, and then pulls the screen away from the grated window, gazing out to Flea Bottom. 

You reach the Sept in little time, and as the wheelhouse door is pulled open and sunlight pours in, you see your new ladies tittering anxiously before the stairs.

Daemon looks at you again, a small grin playing at his countenance, before he steps down from the carriage and offers you his hand.

You climb out with as much dignity as you can muster, releasing Daemon’s grip as soon as you can, and then grasping the cuff of his doublet when he offers it to you. Your handmaidens, still whispering among themselves, form around you, two of the older ones taking over the handling of your cloak. 

The sun is reaching the center of the sky behind the Sept, and it is momentarily blinding, but as you blink you see the High Septon, so stooped and frail he looks as though a strong breeze may carry him away, flanked by the Hand of the King.

You feel Otto Hightower and Daemon sizing each other up, and try your best to bear it little mind. You move fluidly up the steps, and realize the finality of this moment; the last threshold you will cross an unwed woman. 

You nearly laugh as you walk through the Sept, trying to ignore the courtiers flocking the aisle, and approach Aemond. He stands with his hands crossed behind his back, his stance profoundly, obnoxiously wide.

Who could he be squaring up against at this moment? The world was Aemond’s enemy, and yet here, before the altar in his leather doublet, it looks as though he is willing to fight the very gods.

Daemon is casual, caustic, as he deposits you at the Septon’s feet with little regard for your dignity; you stumble slightly as he tugs the Velaryon cloak from your shoulders. 

It is impossible to find an adequate place to divert your attention. Aemond stares at you with freakish regard; you wonder how someone with naught but one eye can go unblinking for so long. 

The High Septon is enough infirm that he can barely speak; your hand grows sweaty in your uncle’s as he clasps it tightly. You look over his shoulder.

Viserys is smiling in his familiar, dotard way, though your mother would have your hide for considering it such. Alicent scowls. Daeron has but a mild expression on his face, and Aegon and Helaena look akin in their misery. You wonder what expressions your mother and brothers share behind you. 

Jace. 

He had been livid at the news of your betrothal. Not willing to blame the King, believing, for his own sake as much as any others, that a King’s word is inherently just, he had fought with Lucerys at first, saying that you would’ve never been traded away had he not been so foolish as to maul Aemond. 

Luke had stammered that he was merely defending Jace’s life when he took Aemond’s eye, that, in fact, Jace should be grateful.

No one, neither of your brothers, nor your cousins, had guessed that you would be the price to pay for Luke’s impulsivity. 

The boys had mended their bond soon enough, but neither knew what to do with you.

You had hardly known what to do with yourself. You grew up on Dragonstone with the lot of them, on eternally borrowed time. 

The Septon finally pauses, and you and Aemond murmur the words to one another; those that you have heard a thousand times, as the ribbon is wound around your wrists, about you being his possession, and bafflingly, him being yours. He sweeps his cloak over you. It itches. 

And then his mouth, pursed and muscled and hesitant, is on yours, and bizarrely you find yourself thinking of Queen Alicent, and what guidance she offered to this boyish man, or mannish boy, to reassure him, for he must find himself as unwitting and unwilling as you.

Your heart is filled with anguish and you can only gape at him as he pulls back, his face angular and cruel and determined as he shakes his head slightly and looks away. 

The Septon proclaims you man and wife, and the ribbons are unwound, and you wish you could turn, turn to look at anything that isn’t Aemond’s family, all clutching their bodices and picking at their doublets. 

You and Aemond leave the dais side-by-side, not touching, not speaking, and make your way to the wheelhouse, where you spend another brutal part of an hour not speaking or touching. 

The feast is grand, and Jace and Luke, to their credit, swap chairs and swivel around aunts and uncles to reach you, doing their best to make it better for you. Your mind can hardly think of anything but the bedding. 

The mechanics are clear; Aemond will put himself inside of you. Likely, it will hurt. Children will result. They may kill you in their efforts to get out. Luke sniggers at something and you are seized with the urge to slap him. 

“Do you think he removes the patch when he’s with a woman?” Jace asks Luke.

“Oh, shut up,” you say, reaching for your goblet for the umpteenth time and taking a hearty swig. You glance to your mother, who has spent most of the evening deep in conversation with Daemon. 

“Have you heard what he keeps under there?” 

You glance from Rhaenyra to Alicent, who reclines in her chair, scowling eternally, before you process your brother’s question. You bristle. “Shut up, Jace!” 

Luke is pale as he glances towards Aemond, who has moved down the table to speak quietly with Helaena. “Mayhaps it’s best we don’t discuss it-” 

“Do you think the troubadours will play the Ballad of Simeon Star Eyes if we asked?” 

You groan. “Do NOT, Jace!” 

“Why not?” 

“It’s my nameday,” you grumble, drunk. “You have to do as I say.” 

Luke laughs aloud. “What?” 

“It’s not your nameday, crazy girl,” Jace is guffawing. “It’s your wedding day.”

“Who cares? I hate that song.”

Your twin brushes against you as he stands and leans forwards, pressing a soft kiss to your temple. “What would you prefer? We can dance.” 

Before you can think to answer, Jasper Wylde stands, looking right at you as he shouts: “We’ve had the wedding! Now let us see the bedding!” 

Jeers break out from across the hall. Noble ladies dressed in the off-shoulder florals of the Reach swarm your husband, while the man they call Ironrod charges the head table. 

You look to Jace, startled, but he merely shrugs, and then you scan the room for your mother, whose mouth is open as she regards you being lifted onto the shoulders of the realm's Lords. 

“You are in luck, Princess!” Jason Lannister cries. “You need not two eyes to know where to stick your cock!” 

You look across your torso at your bobbing slippers, nearly falling off your feet over the shoulders of the lords, just in time to see a ringed hand, one you can tell belongs to a Tully based on the fish embossed upon the signet, rip your bodice from your breast.

You cry out and are met with a burst of laughter; you flail wildly, hoping that mayhaps you might even slip from their arms as they turn a corner. You look back to the hall and are surprised to see Aegon staring at you solemnly as he leans in the doorway. 

The apartments you and Aemond have been gifted are humble, standard fare for a second son of the Realm, and therefore on one of the lowest levels of Maegor’s Holdfast. The Lords jape and jest all the way to the bed, tearing at your gown until you are left in the shift that covers barely your breasts and sex, and deposit you as such. 

You scramble up to the head of the bed as the men leave, and suddenly you are confronted with an open door from which the Grand Maester, the Hand, and Septon Eustace leer at you. 

“What is happening?” you slur, drunk.

The Queen enters the room and sighs as if this is some great struggle for her, before looking at you. “The bedding, dear.” 

There is a great clanking and Sers Arryk and Erryk are guiding the King into the chamber now. You are struck with the realization that this bed, the headboard of which you cling to in the filmiest of linens, is where you are meant to sleep every night from here until you pass into the embrace of the stranger. Your stomach roils once more. 

You glance around the room. The furnishings are dark, rich, damask. An honor. It has been beautifully kept. There will be a solar adjoining, and rooms for Aemond. A bureau, perhaps. Rooms for children who outgrow the nursery. You glance around wildly as Grand Maester Orwyle approaches you. 

“Princess?” he asks. 

You turn towards him, your drunken gaze fixed in question. From near the doorway, the Queen clears her throat. 

“You must be examined, Princess,” she says, her tone edgy and clipped. “For virtue.” 

The wine dulls your reaction to this, thankfully, while also making your head twist unevenly as you try to understand. “By the Maester?”

The Queen nods. 

“Oh.” 

“It will be brief,” Orwyle explains. “But your…. Princess, your positioning is not conducive. I would see - I would see you supine with your legs spread.” 

In the haze of your intoxication, you are forced to look down at your squatted limbs. One of your feet is pressed to a bolster pillow. Your toes look unnatural, like something belonging to another's body. You swear you were wearing slippers in the hall. 

You look back to the Maester, huffing so that your hair billows from your face. You debate telling him how frightened you are. The maester on Dragonstone, Gerardys, is a gentle man, always offering sageness and wisdom in your bodily qualms. This Orwyle does not seem as amenable. 

You release your grip on the headboard, the carvings imprinted on your palms as you grip at the hem of your shift and pull it down towards your knees. You sidle yourself past the pillows and press your rear into the mattress, sliding your heels down towards the footboard and spreading them slightly. The Grand Maester nods, approaching the bed so that he made sit with his boots planted on the flagstones as he places one hand on your knee and reaches another beneath your skirts. 

His touch is cold. You flinch as it seeks, objective and uncaring in its pursuance. You grit your teeth, fingers flexing, air pushing from your nostrils. You glance over his shoulder towards the Queen, unabashedly seeking sympathy.

It is the King’s doleful gaze where you find it.

“I would examine her thoroughly, Grand Maester,” the Queen says, her mouth turned downwards. “She was late to bleed; if she is barren we’d be better to learn of it now; an annulment will be more difficult to procure after the consummation.” Beside her, the Septon nods solemnly. 

You grimace. You were, in fact, not late to bleed at all - you bled at three-and-ten like most healthy girls of your station. Your mother managed to hide the fact from the King for several years, until six moons past, when your grandsire threatened to send the Grand Maester to examine you for signs of infertility - word was sent to King’s Landing within the fortnight that you had miraculously flowered. 

“Try to relax, Princess,” the Grand Maester says from between your legs, prodding a bit. You clench harder in response, and the man sighs, pulling back. 

“I see no reason why the consummation should not take place. The Princess appears intact.” 

The King nods, sinking into his chair bedside the Queen, Ser Criston and the Septon lingering behind them. Two servants walk in carrying a screen, and you stay where you are, further reclined on the bed.

Aemond follows them, looking as profoundly abused as you feel. You crane your neck to view him, and then decide it will cause you little comfort and naught but a crick.

You lie back, fists clenched at your sides, as your husband comes to stand at the end of the bed. Someone behind the screen coughs.

You try to look anywhere but at Aemond, who kneels on the bed, crawling the few paces towards you. He moves slowly, and when you glance back to see how much space still stretches between you, you are mortified to see the look of utter revulsion in his eye.

He turns away, his long hair creating a sheet between you both, and spits into his hand, shoving it under his billowing shirt.

You watch in a combination of horror and fascination as his arm moves, his hair shuddering with the motion, and when he turns back you can see his cock jutting towards you from under the hem of his shirt. You swallow audibly as he crawls forward, so that he looms over you, for there is no mistaking that he is huge, and you are not convinced whatsoever that he will fit inside you with no small amount of discomfort.

You slide further onto your back as Aemond places one hand on either side of you, his elbows extended as far as they will go so that it is only his hips brush tentatively against your thighs. His shirt falls over you, and you suck in your stomach in avoidance. 

Aemond hovers, his hair creating a shield as he turns to the right and grasps himself once more. You swallow, sweat beading on your forehead as you register little but the brush of his muslin shirt against your arms and chest.

He shudders as he sinks heavily; his chest presses into yours and you are pushed down into the mattress, fixing your gaze on the scar that hovers inches above your face.

His teeth grit as you feel first his clenched fist against you, then the dull, throbbing heat of him as he presses against your entrance. 

First it stings, and then it pinches, and then you’re gasping, trying to angle your hips to accommodate something that feels endlessly foreign.

You wish he would stop moving for a moment; give you a chance to adjust to a level of discomfort that you could at least stomach, but he keeps pressing forward, forcing you to screw your eyes closed and breathe out through your nose to avoid crying out.

Everything about his presence feels intrusive; Jace once described this act as natural, and you couldn’t think of a more inaccurate description.

Aemond begins breathing heavily as he draws back, providing you with momentarily relief before he invades again. 

You can hear more heavy breathing, not Aemond's, behind the screen and you open your eyes, trying desperately to find anything to focus on beyond the dull weight of your uncle above you or the rattling, wheezing, musty respiration of your grandsire to your right. 

The bookshelves to the left of your bed are full; they must be Aemond’s, you think wildly as he presses into you again.

You clench in a horrifying, miserable, unwilling response. His shirt covers your face; you cannot see for a moment, cannot breathe. You groan, not in pleasure, but in anguish, and close your eyes once more.

Someone in the room coughs. 

Aemond snaps his hips forward, and the angle he hits within you causes your whole body to spasm in response; the discomfort abates for a moment and you gasp, your hands reaching out and groping blindly at Aemond's shoulders. He flinches, you can feel it beneath your palms and within you, and you move your arms back to your sides. 

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, your eyes still pressed closed.

Aemond releases a sharp breath through his nose, and then picks up his pace, hammering into you relentlessly. It sears horribly.

You try to focus on breathing, but it is hard to muffle the whimpers that slide from your lips as Aemond grunts softly above you. 

Finally, after what feels like hours, your husband releases a great huff of air that pushes your hair from your face as he stills above you. This is followed by a groan, not audible, but felt as he trembles slightly, and then the throb of him as you are flooded with warmth. Aemond pulls from you, the sticky gush of his seed following him, and you feel the weight of the bed shift as he steps to the floor.

You open your eyes slowly to see him looming above you, his singular eye fixed on the spot between your legs, an inscrutable expression on his face. You blush, moving to clench your knees together, but before you can Aemond reaches forward and grasps the sheet, tearing it from beneath you with a harsh rip that echoes through the otherwise silent chamber.

He pulls away, and you see the red spots of your blood marring the white linen as it dangles from his grip. 

You sit up slightly, trying to ignore the sticky warmth dripping from your sex. You watch Aemond, his legs long and muscular beneath the hem of his shirt as he walks to the screen, pulling it back to reveal the audience behind. You grip the bottom of your shift and drag it down so that it covers you. 

“It is done,” he says, holding up the bloodied sheet before tossing it at one of the maidservants lingering near the doorway. She catches it and scampers, the door clanging shut behind her. “You may see yourselves out.” 

The Septon clears his throat. “There will need to be another examination of the Prin-” 

“It is done,” Aemond interrupts, even as he turns and stalks off towards the doorway in the corner, his voice echoing behind him. “I wish to bathe; you may leave.” 

The King sighs before attempting to stand. You are still lying supine as two Kingsguard rush forward, grasping him by his elbows. The Queen rises, throwing you a look made of pity and disdain before sweeping her skirts towards the antechamber into which Aemond disappeared. 

The door creaks open, and a small parade of pubescent girls rush forward, eagerly dodging the screen that the pages carry from the rooms that are, from this moment, to be yours. 

One of the girls, with ears so large she can be nothing but a Florent, comes to your bedside and takes your hand. 

“Oh, Princess,” she sighs daintily as you gape. “The Queen sent for us; your husband has taken your innocence, as the Seven require of him, but we will pray to the Father for his glory, and your continued virtue, and mayhaps the Mother will give you a child.” 

Drunk still, you scoff slightly even as the indignity of Aemond’s seed drips from you. The Florent girl gives her companions a look, and they flock to you.  

“A child,” one of them smiles at you. “Can you imagine anything more lovely?”

Another one, dull in only the ways that a Tarly can be, places her palms out even as her eyes well tragically with tears. “We have yet to pray to the Maiden for her lost virginity.” 

You giggle at that, and even as your new ladies look upon you, scandalized, you think of your mother and laugh abruptly aloud. 

✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵✵

Keep Reading on AO3: 2. Farewells  3. Young Blood  4. Visitors 5. Breech  6. Aemos 7. Moderation  8. Sapphire  9. Whispers  10. Blight 11. Stitches  12. The Lord of the Tides 13. Aeyla  14. Shield  15. Interlude - Storm's End  16. Luke  17. Sanguine  18. Ascending  19. Guilt  20. Wrath  21. Rook's Rest  22. Prince Regent  23. Jace  24. Fall  25. The Black Queen 26. Interlude - Alys Rivers  27. Ashes of Roses  28. Heirs  29. Mhyrax  30. God's Eye  31. Interlude - Strong 32. Unconditional  33. Ivy Inn  34. Second of His Name 35. Dragonstone  36. Home  37. Alys  38. The Hour of the Wolf  39. The House of the Dragon  40. Epilogue - The Dragon in Winter 

[laedeviour]

[scr33ncaps]

Marie Antoinette - Sofia Coppola (2006)

[bedtime-bun]

Tom Kittens Garden by Beatrix Potter

[molly-b-damned]

The five Cottingley Fairies photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths between 1917 and 1920.

[isabelcostasixties]

Françoise Hardy playing the guitar in her studio in the Rue du Rocher in Paris, November 1963. Photo by Gerard Gery (Paris Match)

[cinequeer]

Monica Bellucci on the set of Briganti – Amore e libertà (1994)

[this-is-so-xv-century]

Film du Jour:  The Beguiled - 2017 -  Sofia Coppola

[babushkadiana]

The Family by Justine Kurland 

[plsingly-deactivated20251210]

[vegtble]