Oct 19, 2025
one small branch on what is actually a giant tree... i may or may not get around to adding all the other branches
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from France
seen from China
seen from China
seen from France
seen from United States
seen from Bangladesh
seen from France
seen from Malaysia
seen from United Arab Emirates
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Malaysia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from France
one small branch on what is actually a giant tree... i may or may not get around to adding all the other branches
I love making my characters sad and also revisited detroit: become human so I'm making it everyone's problem and showing you my blorbos in a dbh au :)
Young lovers 🩷
It's finally here!!
Allie looks majestic, Kate looks ethereal and Trapmaker looks chopped as hell (should've just stuck with the slick back hair 😭🙏)
XXXIV
The sea winds rattled the windows of Dragonstone's hall, carrying the sharp cry of gulls and the scent of salt.
Candles flickered against stone, their small flames fighting the drafts that pressed against the old walls.
The council table, worn, scarred, and bearing the faint stains of wax and old blood, was lit only half, the rest of the room steeped in shadow.
Katerina sat at its head, her posture stiff, her eyes shadowed as if the grey morning had already touched her spirit.
Daemon leaned against the carved edge of the table, restless fingers drumming the wood.
Across from them, Aemond's pale gaze was fixed on the candle nearest him, the flame mirrored in his one good eye.
He had barely spoken since he entered, his silence heavy with anticipation, or perhaps dread.
Then came the sound of soft, deliberate steps.
Alys drifted into the hall with the poise of one who belonged everywhere yet was claimed by nowhere.
Her dark gown whispered along the stone floor, and in her hands she carried no scroll, no raven's message, only the weight of what she had heard.
"The whispers have returned," she said simply, her voice slicing through the silence.
Daemon straightened, his restless tapping halting mid-beat.
Katerina's eyes flickered, lifting at once to Alys as though she had been waiting for those words.
Aemond leaned back, shoulders tensing, his hand twitching against the table.
"What whispers?" Daemon demanded, tone sharp, though beneath it lay something brittle.
Alys's lips curved faintly, not quite a smile. "Of war. Of Aegon."
She let her gaze move between them, lingering for a fraction on Katerina.
"He knows of the coven. Word says he is preparing to march, even to cross the Narrow Sea if he must. He cares nothing for whether he finds your people or not, he means to burn the land itself, until every hiding place is ash."
The hall darkened at her words.
It wasn't the sky, the storm had not yet broken, but the weight of silence settling over them.
Katerina rose, her chair scraping harshly against the floor.
Her eyes glimmered with something sharp, dangerous.
"Then we must reach them first," she said, her voice low but commanding. "Warn them. Disperse them before his fire can fall. If they scatter, he will have nothing to destroy."
Aemond's hand slammed against the table before he even realised he had moved.
His voice cut hard through her words: "You do not understand my brother."
"You're powerful," he said bluntly. "More than most. More than enough to make even Aegon hesitate."
His lips curled faintly, not in mockery but something almost like admiration.
"But power alone doesn't fight dragons. Steel doesn't cut fire. And it is no fair fight, Katerina, for you to go against him without one of your own."
Katerina blinked at him, caught by the rare steadiness in his tone.
But before she could answer, Aemond cut in again, voice tight and trembling with his own anger.
"You think she should ride?"
His eye darted between them, the faintest flicker of something, fear, perhaps, breaking through his fury.
"Do you not see? This is exactly what he wants. To draw her out, to force her into battle. To set her against him so he can destroy her."
Daemon rounded on him, lip curling.
"And what would you have her do? Hide behind your silence while Aegon burns her people to cinders? She is not weak. She does not need your protection."
Aemond stepped forward, his voice dropping lower, quieter, as if the softness would carry his desperation better than a shout. "I do not want her protection. I want her alive."
Katerina's eyes softened for a moment, but the steel remained.
"Alive?" she echoed.
"And what is life in a cage, Aemond? I have been locked away before. Watched as my family was slaughtered, my blood spilled. I will not stand idle while your brother writes more of the same."
Her words cracked something in the air.
Daemon exhaled slowly, his hand brushing the scarred wood of the table.
His voice, when it came again, was lower, heavier. "I won't deny your strength. I'd sooner put my faith in you than in half the armies of Westeros. But against a man with a dragon, power is not enough. You'd need fire of your own to match his."
Katerina turned on him, her expression hard.
"So what then? You would have me wait until a dragon bends willingly at my feet? Time is not ours to command."
Daemon's stare was unwavering. "Then we make time. Because if you ride into his fire as you are, you may not come back."
The hall was still save for their breaths, jagged and uneven.
Alys, quiet as a shadow, finally spoke, her voice cutting through the tension.
"Both of you are right. She is dangerous, and danger is the only thing that might stay Aegon's hand.”
“But Daemon speaks truth, fire must answer fire. If she goes without it..."
Her gaze slid to Katerina, sharp as a blade drawn thin. "It may be her undoing. So we must think strategically.”
Katerina's lips pressed tight. She felt their eyes upon her.
Alys sat back in her chair, one arm draped lazily over the armrest, her expression unreadable.
"Danger does not wait. And Aegon will not wait. If he is truly ready to scorch Essos for her scent, then your silence will not stop him. But she" she tipped her chin toward Katerina"she might."
Aemond's, burning with fear hidden under fury, Daemon's, sharp with the weight of strategy; Alys's, inscrutable but knowing.
"I am not afraid of him," she said at last, her voice low, deliberate. "I will not hide. I am not the danger he seeks. I am the danger that finds him."
Her words rang like a vow, dark and absolute.
For a moment, none spoke.
Katerina's breathing was steady, though her pulse thundered in her throat.
Aemond's hands curled into fists so tight his knuckles bleached bone white. Daemon's teeth ground.
"No," Aemond said finally, the single word carrying the weight of his refusal.
"No. You are not a weapon for him to chase. You are not a shield to stand in his flame."
He stepped forward, voice dropping lower, almost pleading though anger laced it still. "You are not his to fight."
"I am not his," Katerina agreed softly.
She stepped closer, her eyes burning into his, sharp as a blade drawn between them.
"But I am not yours either. I am mine. And if anyone can stop him, it is me."
The silence after rang loud, as though the stones themselves held their breath.
And though neither Aemond nor Daemon answered her then, each of them felt the truth of it, she would not be turned from this path.
…
The sea winds still clung to Dragonstone, restless and cold, but within the gardens the air was quieter, though no less heavy.
The stones underfoot bore moss and the faint cracks of age, and wild roses, untended, half-wild things, climbed the ruined walls, their red blooms darkening in the twilight.
Aemond stood alone among them.
The council chamber's fire and fury still rang in his ears.
Katerina's defiance, Daemon's sharp words,
Alys's cutting truths. But none of it settled in him. It churned like a storm refusing to break.
He leaned against the cool stone, drawing in slow breaths, but even the salt air brought no calm.
His fingers brushed the inside of his cloak, searching for something he had carried longer than he cared to admit.
Slowly, he drew it out a small pendant, silver and simple, worn smooth by years of handling. His mother's.
Alicent's gift had been pressed into his hand long ago, back when his eye still bled, back when the boy he was had still sought comfort in small tokens.
She had told him it would protect him, that the Seven would look kindly upon him if he carried a piece of faith with him always.
Now, standing beneath the fading sky, he turned the pendant over in his hand, staring at it as though it might burn a hole through his palm.
It was his mother's, the woman who had borne him, who had stood by Aegon, who had turned a blind eye when Aemond's pain was laid bare.
Her love had been real, yes, but it had always bent toward duty.
To the crown.
To her firstborn.
To the realm's idea of order.
The pendant was heavy now. Heavier than it had ever been.
His other hand tightened into a fist at his side. His mother.
His brother.
His blood.
And then there was her.
Katerina's face flared against his thoughts like a flame refusing to die.
The sharpness in her eyes when she declared she would burn brighter than Aegon.
The tremor in her voice when she spoke of cages, of slaughter, of being made to watch while her family bled.
The way she had stood, proud and unyielding, while the others doubted and scorned.
She had not begged for protection. She had not asked for pity.
She had claimed her power and dared them all to deny it.
And gods help him, he loved her for it.
He hated her for it, too.
For the way she threw herself into fire without thought of the ash it would leave him with.
For the way she could look him in the eye and vow danger while his heart beat only with the thought of keeping her safe.
He squeezed the pendant until the edges cut into his palm.
Blood or love. Mother or flame.
The choice pressed down on him with the weight of the world.
He wanted both.
He had always wanted both.
To be the son his mother could look at without disappointment, and to be the man Katerina could trust with her fury.
But no such balance existed.
He lifted the pendant higher, the dying light glinting on its silver face.
Once, it had meant guidance.
Now, it was a question.
Would he remain bound to the woman who had birthed him, whose faith and loyalty chained him still to Aegon's throne?
Or would he bind himself to the woman he loved, the one who carried danger in her veins, who could very well bring ruin to them all, and yet, without whom, he could not bear to exist?
The answer came not as clarity, but as ache.
He thought of Joffrey's body falling, the sound of steel cleaving flesh.
He thought of Katerina's trembling, her eyes twitching with black veins, the way he had pulled her back from slaughter by reminding her of an innocent child's gaze.
He thought of her whisper in the chamber when rage gave way to heat. You've ruined me.
And his own words back. You're going to ruin me too.
Aemond bowed his head, the pendant still clutched tight.
He would choose her. He had already chosen her. Every path, every ruin, every scar upon his body told him so.
The realisation carved him open.
It meant turning from his mother.
It meant facing his brother's wrath, Otto's cold scheming, the faith that had bound his bloodline to the crown.
It meant bearing the title of traitor, perhaps, if only in whispers.
But it also meant living.
Living with her.
Loving her as fiercely as he was cursed to do, binding her flame to his cold steel until the world itself broke trying to part them.
He opened his hand.
The pendant gleamed faintly in the twilight. For the first time, it looked small.
Fragile.
Something of the past, not of the man he was now.
Aemond slid it back into his pocket, but this time it did not rest close to his heart.
He turned his face to the sea, his hair tugged by the evening wind, his eye burning bright as a dragon's ember.
He would not lose her again.
No matter what it cost him.
The gardens of Dragonstone were hushed save for the wind that carried salt and storm from the restless sea.
Aemond stood with his back to the world, still as a carved figure against the grey horizon.
His hand lingered over the silver pendant tucked away inside his cloak, the talisman that burned more as burden than blessing.
His mind churned in silence.
He did not hear the gulls screaming overhead.
He did not hear the waves gnawing at the rocks. He barely heard his own breaths, ragged with the weight of decision.
But another did.
From the archway at the garden's edge, Alys paused.
Her eyes adjusted to the dim light, her body stilled.
There he was, taut shoulders, solitary figure, the posture of a man being ripped apart from within.
She had come seeking the cool air to clear her thoughts, but her steps halted as though the stones themselves anchored her.
She did not speak. She did not need to.
Alys could hear the storm inside him.
His thoughts pulsed like drums, spilling raw and unguarded into the silence.
Mother.
Brother.
Duty.
Blood.
Then, cutting through like fire, Katerina.
Over and over.
Aemond knew she was there, the faint scrape of her slippers across stone, the shift in the air, but he did not turn.
He did not wish to see her gaze.
Not when his own thoughts betrayed him so nakedly.
So he let her linger, let her presence press against his back like another shadow, and remained lost in himself.
Moments stretched, brittle with unspoken weight.
It was Daemon who broke them.
His boots echoed against stone as he came up behind her, the faint metallic clink of a sword at his hip.
He stopped just short of her shoulder, gaze narrowing as he followed the direction of her stare.
There, the boy, Aemond, the kin not his own but tangled irrevocably with the blood of his daughter.
Daemon's lip twitched, though no smirk followed. His voice was low, pitched only for Alys. "Brooding, is he?"
Alys's eyes did not shift from Aemond. "Thinking," she murmured. "And in that thinking, tearing himself apart."
Daemon tilted his head, the corner of his mouth hard. "I know it well. That feeling. Not wanting to lose her. Not knowing how to hold on."
His tone was sharper than sympathy, but there was a strange sincerity tucked within, as though the words cost him.
Alys breathed slowly, considering, then said.
"Then you know also that he cannot be expected to choose easily. To love her as he does means to lose everything else. His mother. His brother. His name, his legacy. It is not as simple as you paint it."
Daemon's eyes flickered, narrowing as he studied Aemond's rigid frame in the distance.
"And you think it was simple for her?"
His voice sharpened, cutting like the edge of a drawn blade.
"She's lost everything. Everyone. And at some point, by your own damned whispers, she will lose me too. She will not make it out unscarred. Nor will he. They will end the same, Alys, hollowed by loss. But if they have each other..."
His hand clenched at his side, the words grinding from his teeth. "If they have each other, then it will not be for nothing."
Alys's lips parted, but no words came.
Her eyes lingered on Aemond, who still did not move, though she knew he heard them both. Every syllable.
He did not flinch, but the storm in his thoughts roared louder now, crashing against itself.
She has lost... I may lose her... I must choose.
Silence swelled again.
Daemon looked sidelong at Alys, his voice lower, grimmer. "He's listening."
"I know," she replied simply. Her dark eyes softened a fraction. "And he knows that I agree with you."
Aemond's shoulders shifted, barely, but enough.
Daemon turned back to him, his jaw tightening. He had not meant for the boy to hear what had slipped from his mouth.
He had spoken truth, not kindness, and truth could cut deeper than any blade.
He exhaled sharply through his nose, muttering, "Seven hells."
Alys finally glanced at him, her hand resting lightly on his arm. "Do not."
Daemon's brows arched, his expression sharp with disbelief. "Do not what?"
"Do not go to him." Her voice was quiet, steady.
Daemon's mouth curled faintly, but his laugh was humorless.
"Do you think me such a fool? To spill his blood here and now? As much as I'd relish it..."
His voice dropped into a growl, his eyes flicking toward Aemond again.
"I would not do what would drive her to madness. If there's one lesson I've learned, it is that breaking the ones she loves breaks her faster than any blade."
Alys studied him, her gaze cool but discerning. She searched his face for truth and found it, sharp-edged but sincere.
Slowly, Daemon reached down, prying her hand from his arm. He did so gently, though his grip was iron, his decision resolute.
"Do not worry, witch," he said softly, though there was a crackle of steel beneath. "I will not kill him."
He paused, eyes dark as he stared ahead. "Not today."
With that, he stepped past her. His boots carried him forward, across the stones, toward the solitary figure framed by the dying light of the sky.
Alys remained behind, her gaze following him, then shifting back to Aemond.
Her lips parted as though to speak, though she knew no words were needed.
He could feel it, her agreement with Daemon, her quiet insistence that he must stop tearing himself in two.
That Katerina was strong, that he could not bind himself to fear of losing her but rather bind himself to fighting beside her.
The truth pressed against him like the sea's weight.
Alys stayed still, watching as Daemon closed the space between them.
She saw the way Aemond's spine stiffened, how his head lifted slightly though he did not yet turn.
The garden's silence had fractured. The storm was about to break.
The sky was bleeding into dusk, streaks of iron-grey and ember fading into the restless sea.
Aemond had not moved from his place among the roses, their thorns catching against his cloak, their petals falling like drops of blood around his boots.
His eye stayed fixed on the horizon, but his thoughts burned inward, tangled and restless.
The crunch of boots against stone broke the silence.
He did not turn.
He had known Daemon would come the moment Alys withdrew her hand from him.
The old rogue was many things, but subtle was not among them.
Daemon came into view only as a blur of dark leather and silver hair, striding until he stopped just at Aemond's side.
For a moment, he stood there, arms folded, gaze cast out over the sea as if weighing whether to speak at all.
Then, with a grunt, he lowered himself onto the stone bench beside him.
The space between them was narrow, but it might as well have been a chasm.
Neither spoke. The silence dragged long, taut as a drawn bowstring.
Finally, Aemond's voice cut through, low and edged. "I heard all of it."
Daemon's head tilted slightly, though his expression remained unreadable. "I know."
"You meant for me to."
A shrug. "Perhaps."
His gaze stayed on the horizon, eyes narrowing as if the sea itself might answer for him.
"But you cannot claim it is not the truth."
Aemond's jaw worked, teeth grinding as his fingers flexed against his knee.
"Truth?" he spat softly.
"You think it so simple. That she has lost, therefore I must lose. That I should accept it as if it were the only path left to me."
Daemon finally turned his head, studying the younger man with something like amusement, though there was no warmth in it.
Daemon finally turned his head, studying the younger man with something like amusement, though there was no warmth in it.
"It is not acceptance I preach. It is recognition. We are not men born to peaceful endings, boy. Not you. Not me. Not her. Death will find us all, but what matters is what we do while the gods let us breathe."
Aemond's eye flared, his lips tightening as though holding back words sharp enough to wound.
He looked away again, his chest rising with the force of what he swallowed down.
The silence pressed until it broke in a whisper, ragged and raw.
"I wished..." His voice caught, the word rough against his throat.
He shut his eye, forcing it out again.
"I wished for a life with her. One not filled with war and loss. A life of... ordinary things. Riding together. Reading in the same room. Hearing her laugh without fear. I wanted to wed her."
The last words came soft but solid, a confession torn from marrow.
His fingers tightened around the pendant still in his palm, the edges biting into skin.
Daemon exhaled through his nose, sharp as a laugh but stripped of mirth. "So do it."
Aemond's head snapped toward him, confusion flickering across his face. His lips parted, but nothing came.
Daemon smirked faintly, though his tone was matter-of-fact.
"You sit here brooding as though the gods hold the leash. They do not. If you want her, claim her. Wed her. Bind her to you as she is already bound in spirit. What in all seven hells stops you?"
Aemond blinked, the simplicity of it clashing with the labyrinth of fear inside him. "You cannot mean it-?”
"Oh, I mean it." Daemon leaned forward, elbows braced against his knees, voice low but firm.
"You think waiting for peace will grant you that life?”
“Look around you. There will be no peace. Not in our lifetimes. Each day is another battle, another ghost. If you waste time waiting for quiet, you will find yourself in a grave with regrets for company."
His eye narrowed, piercing Daemon's profile. "And you? You would give your blessing so easily?"
Daemon chuckled, the sound dry.
"Blessing? Do not insult me. I'd have sooner seen her wed to any lord in Essos before my own blood. But..."
His voice softened, grudging but genuine.
"She loves you. I have eyes, boy. She would bleed the world dry and still look for you in the ruin. That is not something I step in the way of. Even if it burns me."
Aemond swallowed, throat tight.
His chest ached with the weight of it, a pull between disbelief and the faintest stir of hope.
He had expected venom from Daemon, disdain. Not this reluctant concession, sharp as any truth yet curiously liberating.
His voice was quieter now, almost unsure. "You would have her give herself to me, when you despise me?"
Daemon finally turned fully toward him, meeting his eye with a look unflinching.
"What I think of you matters less than what she does. And she has already chosen. I may not like it, but I am no fool.”
“I have seen love in many forms. What she feels for you is not fragile. It is fire. And fire cannot be denied."
The words landed heavy, yet steady.
Aemond's fingers loosened their grip on the pendant, letting it rest against his palm instead of carving his skin.
His chest rose and fell, the air a little freer in his lungs.
Still, doubt lingered. "I have betrayed her once. She may not forgive me again."
Daemon's lips twitched, half a smirk, half a grimace. "Then make certain she has no reason to doubt again.”
“Stand beside her. Fight with her. Give her your hand and your name, and let the rest of the world burn if it must. Do that, and she will forgive anything."
Aemond stared at him, the words like iron hammered against the walls of his mind.
He had thought Daemon his rival, his constant shadow of scorn.
But here, in the waning light, he found something else. Not approval, but clarity.
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was weighted with the understanding neither wished to voice, that love was as much war as any battle, and that to claim it was to bleed for it.
Finally, Aemond let the pendant slip back into his pocket.
He sat straighter, the storm inside him less a chaos and more a course.
His voice was quiet, but firm. "If I wed her, there is no turning back. Not for her. Not for me."
Daemon smirked, rising from the bench with a sharp crack of his joints. "There never was, boy."
He looked down at him, eyes glinting faintly with something between amusement and respect. "Do it. Or don't. But stop haunting these gardens like a widow when your bride yet breathes."
With that, he turned, cloak snapping in the sea wind as he strode back toward the archway.
Aemond remained, staring at the horizon.
But this time, his hand rested steady against his chest, no longer weighed by indecision but by something heavier still, resolve.
Daeron found his brother pacing in the council chamber long after the lords had departed.
Aegon's crown tilted slightly on his brow, the smell of wine thick in the air, and his boots echoed sharply against the stone floor as he muttered to himself about banners, fleets, and fire.
"You've lost your wits," Daeron said flatly, stepping into the chamber.
Aegon spun, eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"
"I said you've lost your wits," Daeron repeated, voice louder, steadier.
"I've just heard what you declared to the council. War on the covens, war across the sea. Do you even hear yourself? This will end in disaster."
Aegon's lip curled, his steps quick and jerking. "And what would you have me do, brother? Sit idle while she bleeds this city dry? While our people cower in their homes?”
“No. I'll hunt her, I'll drag her from her hiding place, and when the cities burn, the people will know who to blame. Katerina. Not me."
Daeron's jaw tightened. He strode forward until the table separated them.
"Have you been outside, Aegon? Have you seen the streets? She got rid of it all. The filth, the hunger, the decay. She did in weeks what you could not in years. And no doubt, if you push her further, she will rid us of you too."
Aegon slammed his fist on the table. "She is a curse! A stain that should have stayed buried. And I will not have her shadow darken my reign. You think I fear her? I have a dragon. I have an army. I have a crown!"
Daeron's eyes flashed.
"You also have a kingdom that is rotting, a mother who can barely rise from her bed, and a brother who will not forgive you. But yes, by all means, clutch that crown tighter. See how far it carries you when you've turned every soul in Westeros against you."
Aegon's teeth bared, his face flushed. "You speak like them, the traitors, the weaklings. Do you forget you are my blood?"
"And do you forget I am Aemond’s?"
Daeron shot back, stepping around the table until he stood directly before him.
His hand fell to the sword at his hip, fingers brushing the hilt. "Our brother is as much family to me as you are. More, perhaps. And I will not raise steel against him or Katerina."
Aegon's nostrils flared. "You dare-?”
Daeron drew his sword in one smooth motion, not to strike, but to lower it.
The blade clattered against the stone floor as he let it fall at Aegon's feet.
His voice was firm, unwavering.
"I will not fight. Not against her. Not against Aemond. Not against children, not against women, not against innocents who have no part in your war. If you want their blood, take it yourself."
The chamber stilled, heavy with the sound of Aegon's ragged breathing.
His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, torn between fury and disbelief.
Daeron stepped back, his eyes never leaving his brother's.
"You call this strength, but it is nothing but madness. If you think yourself a king, prove it by building, not destroying. But I will not die for your paranoia. Not when the gods themselves would curse such a war."
Aegon sneered, though his voice cracked with frustration. "Then you are no brother of mine."
Daeron turned on his heel, the echo of his boots following him out of the chamber. "If that is what it takes to keep my soul, then so be it."
…
The keep had grown hushed with the fall of night.
The torches along the hallways burned low, their flames hissing in the salt-heavy wind that crept through the cracks of stone.
Most had retreated to their chambers, leaving Dragonstone to a silence broken only by the faraway groan of the sea against its black cliffs.
Katerina's chamber was lit by a single candelabra. Shadows sprawled long across the walls, reaching over the table where she leaned, fingers trailing absently along the ink-marked rivers and jagged coastlines of Westeros.
The map was smaller than the one Daemon had laid across the council table, but its details were sharp enough to hold her focus.
Daemon's voice still echoed in her thoughts, a foothold at Harrenhal, and from there the Riverlands will bend.
His plan was bold, bloody, and typical of him.
She bit her lip, tracing the Riverlands with a fingertip before letting her gaze drift further east. Across the painted sea to Essos.
To the shadow of her coven, waiting, vulnerable. A second thought pressed upon her, perhaps Daemon could secure Harrenhal, while she sailed across the Narrow Sea, warning and shielding her own.
Her chest ached with the weight of choice. Duty stretched her between two worlds.
The door creaked, a low groan of hinges. Katerina glanced up, startled, then softened when she saw who stood in the threshold.
Aemond lingered there, tall and straight as a blade, his single eye fixed on her.
He said nothing at first, simply watching, the pale curve of her face bent over the map, the furrow in her brow, the faint glow of candlelight in her hair.
She seemed so lost in thought, so unlike the creature of fire and fury the city had whispered of.
At last he cleared his throat.
Her head lifted, and at once her lips curved. A tired but genuine smile. "Oh, Aemond."
The simple way she said his name stirred something restless in him.
He stepped forward, boots soft against the rugs laid across stone.
She returned her gaze to the map as he approached, her hand resting against the Reach.
"Daemon spoke of Harrenhal," she murmured, not raising her eyes.
"Of binding the Riverlands to our cause. I thought it wise... though I wonder if I should take ship east, to Essos. My coven must be warned, and hidden. I would not see them burned."
Aemond drew up beside her, his hands clasped behind his back.
He studied the map, studied her.
"If Daemon takes Harrenhal, he risks stretching his lines thin. The Riverlords are fickle, they bend, but they break just as easily.”
“Better to anchor strength at Harrenhal, aye, but only once the Vale or the North are pledged. Otherwise, it is an empty hold, nothing more."
Her eyes flicked to him, thoughtful.
She nodded slowly, her finger tapping the Vale. "Perhaps you are right. It is a fortress, yes, but a hollow one if the lords desert. Best to shore up loyalty first."
Silence fell again, but it was different now, not heavy, but threaded with something quiet between them.
When she looked at him again, she caught a glint in his eye, not sharp but strangely vulnerable, as though words pressed against his lips, fighting for breath.
He inhaled slowly, then exhaled, his jaw tightening before the words found voice.
"I would speak with you," he said at last, the softness of it at odds with the steel in his tone.
His hand brushed the edge of the map, then withdrew, as if steadying himself. "Not here. Will you come with me?"
Her brows arched faintly, curiosity lighting her face. "And where would you take me?"
Aemond's lips twitched, not quite a smile, not quite a smirk. He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "A surprise."
For a heartbeat, she studied him, searching the set of his mouth, the flicker in his eye.
Then a small laugh escaped her, hushed but warm. She pushed back from the table, the map forgotten for now.
"Very well," she said, slipping her hand into his. His fingers closed around hers with quiet surety.
The chamber door shut behind them as they stepped into the shadows of Dragonstone's corridors, the candlelight dwindling into silence.
…
The stone steps spiraled endlessly upward, the torchlight dimming with every turn, until at last they reached the narrow door at the highest floor of Dragonstone.
Aemond pushed it open, and the night air swept in, cold, briny, and vast.
The balcony stretched outward like the prow of a ship, carved from black stone, its jagged edge a sharp silhouette against the endless sea.
Above them the sky yawned open, ink-dark and scattered with stars.
The moon hung low, pale and luminous, its light spilling across the waters and painting the waves in silver.
Below, the roar of the tide was a steady hymn, crashing against the cliffs.
No guards lingered here.
No sound of men, no plotting voices, no wars to weigh upon them.
Just the two of them, a prince and a princess the world could not forget, standing beneath the heavens.
Katerina stepped to the edge, her fingers brushing the cold stone railing.
Her hair shifted with the sea-wind, catching fragments of moonlight.
She breathed deep, eyes lifted skyward, and for a moment she seemed untethered, as though she belonged to that starlit expanse rather than the world of men.
"I’m surprised we are here" she said softly, glancing back at him.
“Why?” Aemond tilts his head, a slight glimmer of confusion in his eye.
“Daemon would never let me up here this high. He was always afraid I would fall” Katerina chuckled.
Aemond nods understandably.
"It is the highest balcony of Dragonstone," he replied, his voice low but certain.
He lingered near the doorway at first, watching her with an expression caught between awe and unease.
"Few ever climb this far. Too many steps. Too much silence. But I..."
He trailed off, shaking his head faintly.
"But you?" she pressed gently.
"I wanted you here," he finished, his one eye fixed on hers, the candle-glow of the keep long forgotten.
Katerina tilted her head, smiling faintly, though her gaze lingered on him with curiosity.
She had grown used to his silences, to the way he weighed his words like weapons, but something in him tonight was different.
There was a tension about him, not anger but something heavier, like the taut string of a bow.
For a while, they simply stood side by side, the quiet of the sea filling the space between them.
Aemond was the first to break it. "Do you know," he began slowly, "how long I spent imagining what it would be like, if you lived?"
Her eyes flicked to him, wide and startled. He rarely spoke so openly. "And what did you imagine?"
He inhaled, his jaw tightening.
"That you'd be here. That you'd walk these halls. That I'd hear your laughter in them again. That I'd see you grow older, stronger, until no one could touch you."
His gaze slid down, fixed on the stone railing beneath his hands.
"I imagined everything except what truly came to pass."
Katerina's lips parted, words caught in her throat. Slowly, she turned to face him fully. "Aemond..."
"I love you," he said suddenly, fiercely.
His voice was sharp, almost too sharp, as if the words had cut him on their way out.
He turned his head then, his single eye burning, silver hair tousled by the wind.
"I love you more than I have loved anything, anyone. And I have tried to bury it. I tried to bury you with it. But it would not die."
Her breath caught.
She stood frozen, heart hammering as the weight of his confession pressed down upon her.
She had known, gods, she had always known, but to hear it said so plainly...
Katerina swallowed hard, her own defenses fracturing. Her voice trembled when she answered. "I love you too."
Aemond blinked, his expression faltering, as if he hadn't expected to hear it back.
His lips parted, then closed again, his throat bobbing with the force of what he held back.
Katerina stepped closer, her voice firmer now, steadier with each word.
"I love you, Aemond. Through your fury, through your cruelty, through every mistake we have made, I never stopped. Not when I hated you.”
“Not when I tried to kill you. Not when I turned my back. Love doesn't vanish simply because we wish it to."
His breath shuddered.
He reached for her then, fingers brushing the back of her hand, tentative as though she were made of glass.
She did not flinch away.
They stood in silence, their confessions lingering in the salt-heavy air, until at last Aemond's voice broke through again, softer, trembling on the edge of something deeper.
"You and I," he whispered, "have a truer call to heed."
Katerina's brows drew together, her lips parting. "What?" she asked, not harshly, but with confusion, her tone soft as the sea breeze.
Aemond's eye found hers, unblinking, fierce with resolve. "Wed me."
The words seemed to cleave the night in two.
Aemond's face was tight at first, as though bracing for rejection, but in his uncovered eye flickered a light both fierce and terrified, the trembling hope of a man laying his heart bare for the first time.
Katerina's eyes widened, then softened, the sharpness in them folding into something unguarded, her lips parting though no sound came.
In that silence, every bruise and scar between them seemed to fade, and what remained was the raw truth that had always bound them.
Their gazes locked, and in the depth of that stare bloomed the unspoken confession that no matter how many lives they lived, or how many worlds they tore themselves through, they would find one another again and again.
Katerina's breath came uneven, her fingers trembling against the stone rail.
She could not speak, her voice caught in her throat, but she could not look away from him either.
Aemond took a step closer, his voice hushed, urgent. "We will wed in the tradition of our house. In fire and blood. And then we will leave this cursed rock. We will travel together to Essos. We will find your coven. We will make them ours."
He leaned in, his eye never leaving hers, his voice lowering to a plea. "Come with me."
She stared at him, stunned into silence, her lips trembling but no words forming.
He tilted his head slightly, the faintest crease in his brow, his mouth softening into something almost fragile.
The steel of him cracked open, and for once he looked not like a warrior, but a man.
Still she said nothing, but her silence was not rejection.
It was awe, fear, love all knotted together in her chest.
Her hand lifted slowly, almost of its own accord, to his cheek.
His skin was cool beneath her palm, his jaw clenched tight.
Aemond leaned into her touch as though starved of it, his eye closing for a moment, lashes trembling.
Then, without a word, she closed the distance between them.
Her lips met his in a kiss,
not fierce, not desperate, but soft.
A kiss that answered the plea in his eyes, that carried the weight of acceptance.
His hand cupped the back of her head at once, pulling her deeper into it, their foreheads pressing together when they broke for breath.
Aemond's lips brushed her ear, whispering hoarsely, “I love you.”
And for the first time in so long, Katerina allowed herself to be loved.
“I love you, in every universe” he whispered.
The stars blazed overhead.
The sea roared its approval.
And on the highest balcony of Dragonstone, with no one to see but the gods, their betrothal was sealed in fire, blood, and a kiss.
Two days passed, and when the morning broke over Dragonstone, the sky was bright but veiled with drifting clouds.
By midday, the sun hung high and merciless, turning the jagged rocks and dark walls of the castle into blazing stone.
The sea crashed below in endless rhythm, its spray carried high on the wind, salt clinging to hair and skin.
It was here, on the cliffside beyond the castle gates, that the rite was prepared.
Not within walls, not in secrecy, but outside, beneath the gaze of sky and sea, where nothing could hide from the gods, neither the new nor the forgotten.
There was no music.
No banners unfurled.
No crowd to bear witness.
Only four souls stood at the cliff's edge, the sunlight painting them stark against the black stone.
Alys bore the ceremonial dagger, its Valyrian steel glinting silver-white in the sun.
She was composed, almost priestess-like, her face unreadable.
Daemon stood near, his arms folded, his cloak snapping in the stiff breeze, eyes narrowed against the sunlight.
He had seen many vows in his life, yet there was something unsettling about this one, as though the island itself held its breath.
And then came the two to be bound.
Aemond and Katerina walked side by side across the stones.
They came as they were, blood of dragon, fire of dragon.
The midday sun blazed above them, turning Katerina's silver hair to molten gold, making Aemond's pale hair shimmer like steel.
The wind whipped strands loose, carried their scents of salt and ash.
They did not look to Daemon, nor to Alys.
Their eyes stayed fixed ahead, toward the firepit that had been built at the cliff's edge.
The flames inside it burned high, fed with oil and wood, a column of smoke trailing into the bright sky.
Against the brilliance of day, the fire was less shadowed mystery and more defiant beacon, a challenge to gods and men alike.
Alys raised the dagger, and the rite began.
Aemond was first.
His hand extended without hesitation.
The steel kissed his palm, opening flesh, and his blood fell heavy and dark into the waiting fire.
The flames hissed and spat, bright sparks spiraling upward, almost swallowed by the midday glare.
Then came Katerina.
She did not flinch when the blade touched her hand, and her blood joined his, falling into the same flame.
The fire leapt higher, golden tongues devouring the offering, the smoke curling briefly into shapes.
Wings, scales, something vast and fleeting before dissolving into air.
Their hands were pressed together, palm to palm, blood mingling hot and slick between them. The cut flesh met with cut flesh, red binding red.
The sun caught their joined hands and lit them like molten bronze.
They stood facing one another, the fire blazing beside them, the sea crashing below, the wind tugging at their hair and cloaks.
Their eyes locked, steady and unblinking, Aemond's burning with unyielding hunger, Katerina's reflecting fire and sorrow both, yet steadied with resolve.
They knelt as one before the flames.
Blood dripped from their joined hands onto the stones, marking the rock with dark stains that the tide below would never reach.
The fire hissed louder, sparks spinning skyward, as though the flames themselves had accepted what had been offered.
From the altar stone, Alys lifted the chalice. Into it she let their mingled blood fall, deep red pooling and glinting under the sun.
The chalice was passed first to Aemond, who lifted it to his lips and drank without hesitation, the taste of iron sharp on his tongue.
He handed it then to Katerina, who raised it and drank just as steady, her gaze never leaving his. In that moment, their blood was not only bound but consumed, fire in their veins, oath in their marrow.
Daemon's gaze flickered briefly, a flash of awe, pride, and unease mingling, though his face remained hard.
Alys lingered by the fire, her lips parted faintly, as if she alone recognized the omen in the twisting smoke.
When Aemond and Katerina rose, the blood dried between their fingers.
They did not let go.
Their foreheads leaned close, and their lips met in a kiss that was slow but fierce, full of iron and salt and fire.
The sea thundered below, and the sunlight struck their faces so bright it seemed to brand them in gold.
No vows were spoken. Their silence was vow enough.
It was done.
No bells tolled.
No singers raised their voices.
No feast awaited them.
Only fire, sea, and sky bore witness.
But it was enough.
Alys lowered the dagger, placing it on the stone altar with hands that trembled faintly though her face betrayed nothing.
Daemon stood silent, his shadow long on the stones, his expression unreadable.
And the two who had been bound walked away hand in hand, their bloodied palms hidden between them, their eyes fixed not on those who had watched, but on the horizon ahead.
The bond was sealed, truer and older than crowns.
XXXV
𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚 House of t. Dragon Masterlist 𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚
── ࣪˖ ࣪ ⊹ ࣪ ˖ ──
Rhaenyra Targaryen:
✿: Unwavering commitment ⤦
Pining + fluff + angst; fem!reader; 1847k.
Aemond Targaryen:
꩜: Virtuous initiation ⤦
Arranged marriage + Slow burn + Domestic bliss; fem!reader; 1030k
✿: Ad Astra Per Aspera pt1 ⤦
Arranged marriage + Slow burn + Enemies to lovers; Pt. 1 - 2,200k
╰┈: full series masterlist
Helaena Targaryen:
-: Loving the Prophet ⤦
Fluffy + Domestic bliss + wlw + relationship hcs; fem!reader; 0.6k
Cregan Stark:
-: Handmade ⤦
Fluffy + arranged marriage + bad at feels + mutual pining; fem!reader; 1.2k
╰┈: Part two; 1.3k
✮: Favorite Positions ⤦
Smut + marriage + kinky + fluff; wife!reader; 0.8k
꩜: New Surroundings ⤦
Happy ending + cultural differences + fluff; Targaryen!reader; 0.8k
Multi-character:
- The guardian ⤦
Single parent au + fluffy + hcs; 1,019k
about. ꩜: reader’s choice.
✿: my favorites. ✮: spicy.
Requests are open. Go to my ao3.
Buy me a coffee <3
Next to Normal meets House of the Dragon
Seriously, Superboy and The Invisible Girl slaps hard with the Green kids in mind.
It also goes with Rhaenyra v Viserys' coveted son (on technicalities even more so) - but I just couldn't help but think of Targtowers first.
Aemond and Y/n have a friendly duel