Chapter Text
When the conqueror and his sister-wives planned their takeover of Westeros' seven kingdoms from the painted table in Dragonstone, they did not anticipate much resistance. Three large, fire-breathing dragons could do more harm than the largest army any king possessed, and even the stoutest keep could burn, as some would soon learn to their detriment.
The Targaryens’ invasion strategy was simple: offer each lord and king two options – burn or kneel.
Parts of the Stormlands were eager to call Aegon their liege: Houses Rosby and Stokeworth, Massey, Celitgar, and Velaryon. Lords Darklyn and Mooton put up a piddling resistance that the Conqueror easily quashed with the help of his bastard brother, Orys Baratheon. The Gulltown fleet burned, and the Tullys turned against their River King and were rewarded generously.
The Stormlands was next to be submitted. After their king fell in battle, his daughter barred the gates of Storm’s End and laid on her own head a crown. But dragonfire is a frightening thing, and her own men delivered her to the Conqueror’s bastard brother, who took her house words and sigil along with her maidenhead.
Loren Lannister, King of the Rock, and Mern IX Gardener, King of the Reach, raised the most impressive army Westeros had ever seen. They managed to break the Targaryen force’s lines, but what good does armor do against flames hot enough to make glass of sand? By the time the Conqueror marched on Highgarden, the castle was promptly surrendered by its steward, Harlan Tyrell, who was hence known as Lord of Highgarden and Lord Paramount of the Mander.
Next to submit was the Vale, after its Queen Regent looked out her window to find the dragon Vhagar had landed in her courtyard.
And so, with armies falling and lords kneeling, Aegon the Conqueror and his sister-wives felt invincible. Only two kingdoms remained independent, representing the polar ends of the continent. Hot, arid Dorne with its brutal deserts in which an unprepared man could die of thirst or heat exhaustion within a matter of hours, and the cold, snowy North, with its vast forests, frozen lakes, and impassable mountain chains, nearly matching the rest of Westeros in area.
The Conqueror’s favorite sister, Rhaenys, set off on the back of Meraxes, boasting that she’d be back before supper with Meria Martell’s fealty signed and stamped.
Instead, Rhaenys Targaryen returned with only a promise: that Dorne may burn, but it would never bend nor break nor bow.
Busy with the Faith in Oldtown and the Ironborn off the west coast, Dorne and the North were left alone for a time, but not forgotten.
The conquest resumed in 4 AC, with the Conqueror-turned-king launching a bloody invasion on Dorne. They believed the war won when they arrived at Sunspear to find Meria Martell had fled, but they discovered it to be a ruse nearly the moment their dragons alighted in King’s Landing. The war waged on, with acts of savagery committed on both sides, until few men remembered what they were fighting for. Hate festered and vengeance reigned, but the Conqueror himself experienced more insult than injury, safe as he was atop the largest dragon ever known…
Until his beloved Queen Rhaenys and her dragon Meraxes fell from the sky above Hellholt, a massive scorpion bolt having found its target: one of the dragon’s golden eyes.
Blinded by sorrow and fueled by rage, the Conqueror burned as much of Dorne as he could, from the Red Mountains to the mouth of the Greenblood, and yet the men and women of Dorne continued to resist, using their knowledge of the mountainous land to their advantage.
In the end, a decade after the resumed conquest of Dorne, the war was settled not with a decided victory or loss, but with the passing of the prideful matriarch, Meria Martell. Her son, an old man in his own right, sent his daughter Deria to King Aegon’s court with a letter in her hand. The contents of the letter remain unknown to this day, but they managed to convince the conqueror to let Dorne keep its independence so that both factions could keep their peace.
Enraged by the contents of the letter and by whatever presumed leverage Prince Martell had used to stay his hand, Aegon set his sights on the last unconquered kingdom. The forgotten kingdom, some would say. It was isolated from everything that sat below the swamplands known as the Neck. Its people worshipped – individually and silently – some rustic gods that demanded no tributes, no songs, no statues, and no holy buildings. Northerners were considered savage or queer, depending on who was offering his opinion. Their climate and terrain made them hardy, but they could not raise large armies or navies, nor feed enough warhorses to have much of a cavalry. The King of Winter was the title the ruling man enjoyed, but to the rest of the realm Torrhen Stark was merely The King in the North. Rumored to be stern but fair, quiet but thoughtful. He had a couple of sons, a daughter, and a bastard brother that some considered to be Torrhen’s version of Orys Baratheon: capable, brave, and deadly.
But Winterfell would burn just like Harrenhal did. As would White Harbor. As would Last Hearth and Karhold and even the mysterious, floating Greywater Watch. The North’s forests would burn. Its fields would burn. Its livestock, its granaries, its siloes, and, of course, its soldiers.
To give Torrhen Stark a chance to kneel (after seeing what he would face if he chose the alternative), a parlay was held at White Harbor. The King in the North and the man who had already presumed to call himself King of the Seven Kingdoms met in the great hall of New Castle, shared bread and salt, meat and mead. And when Torrhen Stark politely informed Aegon Targaryen that “wolves don’t bow”, the Conqueror stomped out after issuing a loud threat: White Harbor would be the first to burn, crippling the North’s ability to trade with Pentos and the southern parts of Westeros. But the Conqueror would not waste time going castle by castle accepting surrenders. He would turn Balerion and Vhagar loose on Winterfell, commanded to burn until there was naught of the North’s seat but ash. He’d name the first Northern man to kneel to him as Warden and award him the funds to build a new seat or to expand his own keep for the purpose.
“Our parlay will expire the moment I mount my dragon, so I suggest you think quickly,” the conqueror sneered at the placid face of Torrhen Stark.
True to the terms of Guest Right, no one so much as gave the Conqueror a dirty look as he stomped out of the hall and out of the keep, needing no guards as no one would dare harm him when Balerion rested on the nearby beach. But many minutes later when the king took to the sky with intent to return to King’s Landing only long enough to invite his sister to join him and to command his men to prepare an army to march north, he learned that hubris would be his downfall. He’d barely begun his ascent when he noticed a lone ship adrift a little way out toward the Narrow Sea. It was no warship, no galley, just a merchant cog with no one at the helm.
By the time three large tarps were yanked off the three large weapons they’d hid, it was too late.
Three scorpion bolts were released at once.
The one that entered through Balerion’s mouth and exited through the top of the dragon’s skull was shot by a man named Brandon Snow, bastard brother to the King in the North.
The height was not enough for Aegon to die on impact, and he was fished out of the frigid sea by Brandon Snow himself. King Torrhen sent a letter to Queen Visenya in King’s Landing. “Try to make us kneel, and we will send a piece of your brother to each Warden who so recently surrendered to House Targaryen out of fear for what three dragons could do. Is their loyalty strong enough to endure such a test, your grace, when only one dragon remains?”
Three days later, with clenched teeth and fists, Aegon and Visenya signed a peace accord much like the one they’d permitted Dorne, but that Torrhen Stark retained the title of King, as would his heir, and his heir’s heir, and so on...
Aegon and Visenya begrudgingly honored the agreement, knowing they’d lose the faith of all the kingdoms if they broke their word, but some of their successors were less concerned. New dragons were born, and new dragonriders, refreshing the arrogance and covetousness that had led to House Targaryen’s original conquest. Vhagar was considered too valuable to be risked in a war of conquest over one kingdom that few south of the Neck cared about, not when she may someday be needed to put down a rebellion or thwart an Essosi invasion, but other dragons were used as weapons against the North over the decades. Some kings were even bold enough to try to march armies through the Neck, but none succeeded in making it past Moat Cailin – wherein the roofs of each tower held four scorpions eternally aimed skyward. Through the boglands their armies were thinned by archers who shot from the trees. When foot soldiers tried to pursue them, they only succumbed to more arrows, a terrible substance called quicksand, or poisonous snakes, spiders, lizards, and even vines.
Still, there were some Targaryen kings who managed to make the North bleed, but more who managed to make it burn. The latter, however, was not nearly so easy as it had been in other kingdoms. The North was massive and difficult to navigate even by air. Settlements and even castles were hard to spot from a distance as within and beyond their walls stood ancient trees a hundred or more feet high. Roads and paths that were spotted led to nothing but some old hunter’s outpost or small farmstead ninety-nine times out of a hundred.
Like Dorne, the North burned but did not break or bow, and most of the kings were content to let it be left in peace, or perhaps too uncertain in their abilities to risk being yet another man who failed to conquer the North.
…
Now, three hundred and five years after Aegon the First launched his invasion of Westeros, House Targaryen is at its strongest and – for the first time ever – the Iron Throne is occupied not by a king but by a queen. Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, First of her Name, ascended the throne upon the death of her father, King Viserys. With three younger half-brothers born of her father’s loins, all of court and much of the realm had been holding its breath, anticipating a war within House Targaryen that would see the Crown Princess, the king’s proclaimed heir, pitted against her eldest half-brother, Aegon, the legal heir by the inheritance laws observed everywhere north of Dorne.
Instead, someone whispered in the ears of the Crown Princess and her potential rival. Why fight over that which already belongs to the House of the Dragon, when half the continent remains unconquered? Let us extend our claim and our influence, gain enough for every child of Viserys Targaryen to have a kingdom to pass down to his heirs, if not to rule in his own lifetime.
And so it was decided, after King Viserys took his last breath, that the final bastions of Westerosi independence would finally be brought to kneel.
Dorne, the far south, would be set upon by the largest host the Crown had ever assembled, while Queen Rhaenyra on Syrax, Prince Aegon on Sunfyre, Princess Rhaenys on Meleys, and Crown Prince Jacaerys Velaryon on Vermax would lend support by air. It was expected to be a long, fiery, and bloody affair, unless Prince Doran Martell had the good sense to kneel and offer his daughter and heir to Prince Daeron, the queen’s youngest half-brother, and his younger son to Princess Rhaena, the queen’s stepdaughter through her husband and uncle, Prince Daemon. If a quick surrender was not obtained, then House Martell and its allies would be eradicated and Prince Aegon would take Sunspear then install friends and family at other key castles within Dorne.
The North was expected to be a much simpler conquest, because House Stark was the weakest it had ever been. The previous King, Eddard, had been a capable administrator but not exactly one to invoke fear. A humble second son, he’d had to step into his older brother’s shoes after the man was killed in a duel over the honor of their little sister, who had run away to escape marriage to some boorish widower known for drinking and whoring.
King Eddard, the so-called Quiet Wolf, had stepped in and married his brother’s betrothed, one of Lord Tully’s daughters, to ensure the North’s trade agreement with the Riverlands would not be rescinded. He got three sons and two daughters off his Tully wife before she perished birthing what would’ve been a fourth son. He also had a bastard son by some unknown wench, but the boy had enlisted in the Night’s Watch at his earliest opportunity, much like his uncle Benjen Stark, Eddard’s younger brother.
Viewing the Quiet Wolf as vulnerable, a civil war broke out in the North. Rumor was Lord Bolton had been waiting for such an opportunity for years, along with his kin-by-law, Lord Dustin and Lady Ryswell. House Hornwood joined them, having taken insult when King Stark denied Lord Hornwood’s thirty-year-old heir the hand of his teenage daughter. Similarly, House Karstark turned against their distant kin when Prince Robb – King Eddard’s heir – snubbed his nose at Lady Alys Karstark in favor of one of the Mormont girls of Bear Island.
The rebels were outnumbered but Lord Bolton’s cruelty toward his captured enemies encouraged some men to defect to his side and inspired some of the lords who could’ve easily tipped the scales in favor of House Stark to commit to neutrality.
The Starks and their allies eventually emerged victorious, but at great loss. King Eddard lost his life. Robb wore the crown of the winter kings for a mere month before following his father. The next oldest trueborn son, Bran, was crippled in a sneak attack, and the youngest son was said to have become half-feral after spending years on some remote island, having been sent there to ensure the Stark line would not be completely lost even if their kingship was.
For reasons unknown to anyone outside of House Stark and its closest friends and retainers, neither surviving son of King Eddard took the Winter Crown. Rather, with the kingdom still at war, the bastard, Jon Snow, temporarily set aside his vows at the Wall and fell upon those sieging his sisters and crippled brother in their home with an army of loyalists and – allegedly – wildlings from beyond the Wall. Outnumbered, out-trained, and out-armed his side was, but they fought like rabid animals in the field while Winterfell’s garrison pelted the rebel soldiers from above with arrows and rocks, boiled water and steaming pitch. Still, the Bolton-led host was winning a battle of attrition until, through means unknown, Lord Bolton himself was captured and dragged behind the walls of Winterfell. Some say he was strapped to a cross on the parapets and skinned alive by the younger Stark sister. Others say the younger Stark sister was in the field, fighting alongside her half-brother’s men, so it must’ve been the eldest girl.
And some say he was not skinned, but slowly eaten alive by a pair of gray direwolves, similar in size to the white wolf, black wolf, and gray wolf that were fighting in the thick of the battle, ever covering the bastard’s flanks. Lord Bolton’s screams were said to be so loud, the sister’s eyes so cold, that some of the rebel soldiers dropped to their knees in surrender at the sight, hoping to avoid such a fate.
More fought on, but the Stark coalition seemed to have nature itself on their side. Giant brown bears, falcons and eagles, snow leopards, wild wolves – creatures of sky and wood and cave, predators all of them, fell upon the rebels, each killing a handful, a dozen, two dozen, or more before being killed. But for each that fell, another would rise in its place. The old gods are angry, the rebel soldiers realized. More fell to their knees. And more. And more.
The ground north of Winterfell was more blood than mud, by the end – on that, everyone agreed. That, and the name given to the battle that ended the Northern Civil War: The Battle of the Bastards. Because in the end, when no more swords were swinging, when all rebels were either dead or on their knees, a particularly vile man was caught by the direwolves trying to sneak away toward the northeast: Ramsay Snow. Lord Bolton’s bastard was known for cruelty against women and cowardice against men, while King Eddard’s bastard, Jon Snow, was known for being fair and principled even if not soft. Though the bastards’ swords never clashed during the battle, their fists met in the aftermath.
Or, at least, Jon Snow’s fists met Ramsay Snow’s face.
Yet more rumors surrounded the Bolton bastard. That he had infiltrated Winterfell early in the rebellion, posing as a servant or guard and earning a trusted place in the Stark household. That he had taken the virtue of one of King Eddard’s daughters and pushed the middle son, Bran, down a flight of stairs when the youth tried to stop the attack. That he fled then, knowing his cover was shot, but kept some sort of memento that he later used to taunt Robb Stark and Jon Snow into making reckless mistakes – one that proved fatal, the other almost fatal. Yet another unknown to all but those most directly involved was what Ramsay Snow used to taunt the Stark brothers. It was a pair of ladies unders. No, it was a lock of auburn hair. No, a thin sword. No, a prayer bracelet. The most gruesome rumor speculated that it was the tip of the younger Stark girl’s pinkie finger, identifiable to the brothers due to a dark freckle just below the nailbed. The most lascivious rumor was that it was the dried petals of a blue winter rose that the elder was known to keep pressed between the pages of her favorite tome; a rose given to her the night Jon Snow took her maidenhead – hence the true reason he ended up in the Night’s Watch.
The latter rumor likely only circulated because the evening after the battle was won, after the fallen were burned and the injured tended, it was Jon Snow himself who placed the iron crown atop his sister’s auburn head, then kneeled before her, still muddied and bloodied, battered and bruised, and declared her his Queen.
The Queen in the North.
The Queen in the North
The Queen in the North.
What she’d done to earn the honor, none south of the Neck knew. By the gossip that reached King’s Landing, she was either the sweetest, most tender-hearted maiden in all the realm, or a woman so bitter and hateful that her gaze could freeze a man’s blood. She either had a spine of steel or skin as thin as silk. She was either so capable that the Northern lords accepted her rule without complaint, or so inept that she used her cunt to secure loyalty. The only rumor that did not possess an opposing version was that the girl was a beauty. Tully coloring paired with Stark-sharp features, her mother’s curves and her father’s height, and something uniquely her and entirely ineffable that the minstrels at court tried to capture when they sung their songs about the strange wolves of the North. The pack bound by blood, love, and grief. The pack that fought together and survived together, even when the odds were against them…
The bastard wolf, fierce and strong, dutiful and protective.
The she-wolf, feisty and sly, dangerous and daring.
The crippled wolf, wise and clever and gods-touched.
The wolf pup, wild and brave, loyal to a fault but to such a select few.
And the wolf queen, beautiful and poised, with fangs that were so well hidden, her prey never saw the attack coming, and so sharp that they didn’t even know it was happening until it was too late.
Together they’d fought and together they’d won, though to most in the South, the Starks were little more than novelty. A strange, mysterious family from a wild, unknown land.
Yet to the newly anointed Queen Rhaenyra, there was something of a challenge hidden in the lyrics of those songs, in the giggles that embellished seemingly idle gossip. Because novelty or not, there was a hint of something like admiration among those who sang or spoke about the wolves of Winterfell. And there was something a lot like jealousy in the eyes of the queen, even as she smiled along with those who rambled on about how the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives – a supposed favorite saying of the Starks.
What were dragons if not solitary creatures – lone wolves, so to speak?
What were Targaryens if not greedy, selfish, hungry creatures who’d tread on their own kin to reach whatever it was they coveted?
But also, what were dragons and Targaryens, if not destined to sit atop the food chain, bowed to but never kneeling, worshipped but never reverent?
So, while tens of thousands of men and four dragons prepare to venture south to conquer Dorne through fire and blood, it was a mere two men atop two dragons who set off to conquer the North, with a simple strategy: terrify the Queen in the North until she comes out of her castle and kneels on the slushy ground, begging for mercy and promising fealty. The terms of her surrender would be simple: wed Prince Aemond Targaryen and live with him in King’s Landing until two children have been born of the union, at which point Aemond and his Stark bride would return to Winterfell to rule the land and raise their heir while their spare remained a veritable hostage in the capital.
Given the mettle showed by Northmen in the past three centuries, it might seem a foolhardy plan, if not for the fear invoked by the two men sent on that mission to bring the wolves to heel: the Rogue Prince, Daemon Targaryen, and his nephew, Prince Aemond, better known as One-Eye. Together they were considered the Crown’s enforcers, sent wherever trouble was brewing to squash it through whatever means necessary. Daemon’s short temper and sharp sword preceded him wherever he went, though most in the capital loved him for that very fact, as his fearsome reputation kept crime as low as it had been in decades. And Aemond was known for being touchy, quick to take offense and merciless toward any who’d given it (wittingly or unwittingly). He was considered one of the finest swordsmen in the South yet had been known to kill men with his bare hands if they’d foolish enough to insult or threaten Aemond’s beloved mother or sister or little brother, or even the older brother he butted heads with more often than not.
Where Daemon wore his reputation like a badge of honor, smirking, bandying around quips, twirling his dagger, and swaggering like a Lorathi prince, Aemond preferred to blend into the shadows, to see without being seen, to be continually underestimated. Quiet and thoughtful and soft-spoken yet oh-so deadly, his mere presence had a way of discomforting others, though the prince would give all credit (or blame) to his scarred eye socket and the sapphire that blazed darkly from it.
But even if the men sent north had not garnered such reputations, it might be enough to bring Queen Sansa to her knees that one of the two dragons could burn Winterfell to the ground within minutes, all on her own.
The Queen of Dragons, Vhagar herself, had been chosen to face down the first Queen of Winter – a woman who, if Vhagar got her way, would also be the last Queen of Winter.
Princes Daemon and Aemond, atop the backs of Caraxes and Vhagar, alighted just beyond Winterfell’s southern gate on an unseasonably balmy winter day in the year 305 AC.
What followed would go down in history by a simple term that those directly involved in the events found overly simple, and not entirely accurate, but catchy, nonetheless.
The last stand of the North.
Notes:
AI cover art generously provided by Karlamarie. If you want to give a thumbs-up you can find the comment thread about this art in the comments of Chapter 13.
Thanks for reading chapter 1. Please don't worry about the ripple effects of Balerion dying or Brandon Snow not running away to Essos, or who the fuck is Jon Snow's daddy, because I'm not! Also, in case you're confused, the North has been more or less like Dorne for the past 300 years only more isolated. Assume some families, like the Manderlys, had more interaction with the South, and that even parts as far north as Winterfell and beyond did trade their fur and timber and what-not with the Riverlands, Vale, and maybe even the Crownlands and West and Stormlands. But the Starks and other Northerners weren't getting invited to King Viserys' birthday parties, let's just put it that way.
Next chapter will dive write in to Aemond/Sansa interactions!!
Please chat with me in the comments and LMK if you liked chapter 1, like the concept, etc.
Chapter 2: Of conquest...
Notes:
This and the next were one chapter but I wasn't ready to post the second half so I split them because I wanted to get some content to you guys as a THANK YOU for the huge show of interest and support in this fic's first 72 hours of existence.
If you're waiting for updates on my other fics, be assured they're not forgotten. In fact, the two active long fics FPTF and STSIF have next chapters written but I need to ruminate on them a bit more before I publish irreversible plot turning points, and writing this short(ish) fic has been a nice palate cleanser. If you're waiting on In the Blood or The Proposition updates, those come when I'm in the right headspace to write fun, funny, fluffy (or, in the latter case, sometimes angsty).
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aemond blinked his only eye at the unexpected and rather perturbing sight that awaited him and his uncle outside Winterfell’s south gate.
“The ice maid ‘erself, yer graces,” one of the men who’d come out to meet them spoke proudly. His Northern brogue was thick and his voice so raspy it made Aemond want to offer him some honeyed water. His dark beard seemed to never end, instead turning into the promise of a chest as hairy as a bear’s. In short, the man was the embodiment of everything Aemond had assumed the typical Northron to be, right down to the gap where his upper right incisor ought to be.
The woman he shoved roughly onto the ground a few feet in front of Aemond was nothing like he imagined a Northern woman to be, no matter how many times he’d heard the rumors of her exceptional yet gentle beauty.
He’d heard that moniker – the ice maid – and a dozen others for Sansa Stark, among a slew of nicknames that each of her siblings had earned. Even the youngest, a lad not ten years of age, had been dubbed ‘the wild wolf’, like his uncle before him, who had died days before his wedding in a duel.
The girl spitting snow and strands of red hair out of her mouth and pushing up to her feet could only be Queen Sansa. She was said to be of an age with Aemond – nineteen – and as beautiful as she was cold.
Aemond supposed he might describe her as cold, but only in the sense that ice could burn the same as fire. Her eyes of crystal blue were hard with hatred yet the rest of her face seemed only regal, as did her posture. Here she stood, underdressed for the weather in only a shift that was transparent in the places the snow had touched, looking proud and fierce. She wasn’t shivering from cold or trembling from fear. She wasn’t wrapping her arms around her chest, though with her hands bound in front of her, that wasn’t much of an option.
She only stared into the eye of the burly man who’d spoken those words as he shoved her down. The man’s jaw worked as he pretended to be unaffected, but Aemond could tell he was sweating, that his betrayal was eating him up inside – or perhaps that he feared the gods’ retribution for it.
The girl knew it, too. Without doing more than staring, she was toying with her prey, watching him trying not squirm under her judgmental gaze like a mother might do to her misbehaving son.
And then…
“PTUH!”
Aemond heard the sound a half heartbeat before the man flinched back and squeezed his eyes shut. The girl had spit right in his eye, and must’ve known it would not go unpunished, yet she stood tall, chin high and eyes defiant, right until the man’s leather-gloved hand clapped her across the cheek hard enough to send her back to the ground.
“Enough,” Aemond growled, undoing the ties that kept his jacket closed from throat to waist as he closed the distance between himself and the girl. He had no fear for himself, not while Vhagar was flying high overhead and Daemon had the reputation of one who wouldn’t be moved to surrender by something as minor as a death threat to his nephew. He reached down for the girl’s bound hands but she jerked them back and once again got herself to her feet, even if not gracefully. She began growling something at him, but Aemond did not understand the language she was speaking.
Holding out the jacket, forcing his eye not to look at what he knew were very erect nipples hidden only by a thin, damp under-shift, he stood there like a fool while the girl cursed him in some foreign tongue. The meaning was a mystery but the sentiment was not, and Aemond felt as the other man looked a few moments ago: like a little boy being chastised by a mother he feared more than any man or god.
“What’s she saying?” he asked the motley group of men who’d delivered the queen to the dragonriders.
“Who the bloody hell knows? The Starks alone bother wit th’old tongue,” the one seemingly in charge said while wiping at his eye.
Another snorted, “Knowin’er, she’s puttin’ a curse on yer princely pecker. Might wanna go hurry’n use it one more time afore it falls off.”
The others laughed at that, as did Daemon – loud enough to be heard from where he stood in front of Caraxes a good thirty paces off to the side.
“Sounds like generally sound advice, nephew,” Daemon called out, “think I’ll do the same. Even if our ice maiden here hasn’t cursed mine – and I can’t imagine any woman ever wanting to – it might just get frostbite if it doesn’t find somewhere warm to spend the rest of our stay.”
Aemond resisted the urge to roll his eye and held the leader’s gaze, “What of the other Starks, her siblings?”
“The wolf bitch and the pup fled some days back when yer queen’s warnin’ was received. The cripple ain’t no threat t’ya. Touched in the head and prone to strange seizures. No one would rally ‘round him.”
“Where is he?”
“Went north t’the Wall. Claimed some crow called ‘im up there,” the man offered with a shrug that said he was accustomed to the Starks’ oddness, but Aemond was only annoyed that both brothers had left the castle. It would seem Winterfell was being surrendered to him much like Storm’s End had once been surrendered to Orys Baratheon over three hundred years ago, but would stubborn Northmen stay in line due to Sansa Stark being held hostage in King’s Landing if they had two male Starks to rally around instead? Not that eliminating or taking hostage the queen’s little brothers had been the plan, but to collect oaths of fealty in person from everyone named ‘Stark’, and to know that they had laid eyes on the fire-breathing beasts they would be bringing down on their people and home should they ever break those oaths, would’ve been good enough.
Daemon snorted again and began to approach, his strides casual and arrogant as ever, “So this she-wolf is the one causing all the trouble, hm?” He came to a stop right in front of the girl, shoulder to shoulder with Aemond, and reached for her cheek but she jerked her head back, eyeing him with a look of fear-tinged disgust. Daemon let his hand linger in the air for a moment before lowering it, “Seems all this one needs is a firm hand and a rough fuck. Wound too tight, she is. And too damned proud.” He reached for her again but this time instead of flinching away she went for Daemon’s glove-covered fingers, and damned near chomped them if not that Daemon’s reflexes were quick as ever.
Daemon answered only with a chuckle while clapping Aemond hard on the shoulder, “Alas, what would my Nyra do if she found out I was unfaithful? Looks like it will fall to you to submit the she-wolf, nephew. Suggest you keep your cursed pecker far away from her mouth though, no matter the temptation those sweet lips are.”
The men laughed. Aemond ignored it, fixing his eye on the girl again and making sure his voice came out sure and steady when he said, “Lady Sansa Stark, do you yield Northros, and accept Rhaenyra of House Targaryen as your queen and liege?”
She gave him nothing but an icy sneer. He sighed and looked to the apparent leader of the group, “I assume you took possession of the castle with intent to surrender it to us, delegates of the Crown?”
“Twas our intent, aye,” the man agreed.
Aemond nodded thoughtfully, “And that required the Lady Stark be marched out here in her unders why, exactly?”
The men didn’t look quite so proud after that, nor as assured of their safety.
Without dropping the leader’s gaze, Aemond held open the jacket again, waiting patiently and watching the man squirm when, after a small eternity, the lady turned around and placed her shoulders into the coat. He reached around to tie the highest clasp so the garment wouldn’t slip off her slender shoulders and even lifted her heavy hair out from under the collar.
Finally, the man seemed to find his voice, “Yer grace, we tried reasnin’ with’er first, but she refused to wave the flag a’surrender and even tried to have the last of ‘er loyal men put us in chains. Perhaps we were… overzealous… but after the bi- the lady made us look like criminals for tryna spare every man, woman, and child livin’ in and aroun’ Winterfell… well, I guess you’d say our blood was up.”
Aemond fought the desire to clench his hands into fists, “Is that your way of telling me you assaulted the lady?”
The man’s eyes widened as he blurted out, “No! We wouldn’t… I wouldn’t… Her maidenhead – if she still got one – is yers,” the man bowed deeply.
Aemond worked his jaw back and forth, trying to control the dragon within so he wouldn’t lose control of the dragon without. It wasn’t out of honor or respect or basic moral decency that these men hadn’t raped their lady, but out of fear that the prince wanted to do the honors first.
He might have killed the lady if Winterfell wasn’t surrendered. He might’ve burned her alive or crushed her with smoldering rubble if these men hadn’t forced their stubborn queen out of her massive, millennia-old keep. But he’d not have raped her, even if he’d had the opportunity. Other men spoke of the act like it was their much-deserved spoils of war, but Aemond had never been able to stomach the notion. It was too easy to picture his mother or Laenie in place of the victim and realize that he could not wish on any woman that which he’d kill a man for doing to his mother or sister.
(And that led to him wondering if the women he loved felt just as violated by their husbands, even if less damaged. His beautiful mother, with her shiny, golden-brown hair, having to lie beneath his fat father, with his sickly-smelling sweat and tendency to huff like an overworked horse if he had to take more than ten steps. Or his sweet sister, with her plump cheeks and kind eyes, grimacing as their older brother rutted away like it was an act of penance to fuck his wife when there were still serving girls and whores he’d yet to sample.)
“Well,” Daemon clapped his hands loudly, jostling Aemond’s thoughts free, “Glad that’s settled. Shall we proceed into the castle? The longer we stand here, the more that whole ‘dick frostbite’ thing feels less like a joke.” Daemon blew into his gloved hands to illustrate his point, then began strolling toward the gate, where a small group was waiting, presumably with bread and salt.
Aemond tilted his head back to find Vhagar far up above. Easy, girl, he commanded the she-dragon without speaking. He could feel her unease here, deep in lands they’d never explored.
Or perhaps it was something else that unsettled her, and wondering what it could be put goosebumps all over his skin.
He shook away the thought. The most likely explanation was that Vhagar could detect her rider’s energy, because to say that he felt uneasy was an understatement. His stomach felt as choppy as the sea, knowing what was to come.
“Claim Winterfell and you will be rewarded most generously: the she-wolf as your bride, and Winterfell as your keep, to be passed down to your firstborn son, who shall be the first prince of ice and fire.”
It had sounded so easy. None of his kin nor any of their advisors expected Sansa Stark to do anything but tremble and kneel and beg and cry after seeing Vhagar cast all of Winterfell in shadow. But only after witnessing the woman’s resolve firsthand did Aemond realize what all the rest of his family must’ve known: if the she-wolf would not willingly bow, he’d be expected to quite literally bend her to his will. Aegon, Daemon, even Grandfather would see no issue in that method. Nor would Rhaenyra, who’d come to resent the she-wolf only because she had piqued the people’s interest (and admiration) from afar. Nor even would Mother, who could be as coldly pragmatic as any Hightower, which meant being capable of shutting down her sense of compassion whenever the emotion was inconvenient.
He wondered then… had it not been because he rode the largest and most experienced war-dragon in the realm that they chose him to conquer the North, but because they assumed him capable of wedding and bedding an unwilling bride? He was known for having a fiery temper, after all, and he wouldn’t be surprised if others – even his own kin – believed him sadistic enough to force himself on a woman. Disappointed but not entirely surprised, because he did go out of his way to keep most of his feelings to himself. But to delight in the hurt feelings of the nephews who’d tormented him when he was small was not the same as taking pleasure in a woman’s protests and pain.
Did they think him so calloused, or only so dutiful?
He also wondered… Was Daemon sent here not because of his reputation, nor his prowess with a sword, but because he would do his nephew’s dirty work if necessary? Aemond favored his paternal uncle, after all, and who in the family really cared if they got their claim on the North through Aemond’s seed or Daemon’s? All that mattered was that the next Warden of the North be blood of the dragon.
Aemond jerked his chin toward the gate, indicating the men to go ahead of him. He didn’t trust them enough to put his back to them, unlike Daemon.
He brought up the rear, with Sansa Stark’s upper arm held too tightly in his hand, but it couldn’t be helped.
Notes:
Thanks again for reading! Special thanks if you take the time to leave a kudos or a comment. :)
Oh - and now you know why I say this was inspired by the story of Argella and Orys.
Chapter 3: ...and surrender
Notes:
Thank you again for all your wonderful, supportive comments. Most of them reflected an anti-Targaryen sentiment, which I completely get since the Targaryens were like, I dunno, the Illuminati of Planetos [Daenerys says 'what do you mean it would be impractical for one person to rule all Westeros AND southern Essos?']. Though FYI this is not going to be a pure anti Targaryen or pro Stark fic. Mostly it's about Aemond/Sansa, though I won't hint at the rest of plot to avoid spoilers. I will, however, warn that this will at times sound anti-Rhaenyra because it's written from Aemond's POV and he's had 19 years of Alicent, Otto, Aegon, and Criston telling him that Rhaenyra is grasping, duplicitous, whorish, dumb - choose your adjective. His inner monologues on his half sister will at times sound harsh, maybe even sexist, but remember he is a 19 YO prince born into a family with a low-simmering feud in a medieval, patriarchal society, and - TBF - he is just as likely to call Daemon a whore, so his sexual slurs are actually pretty gender-equal.
Also lots of comments reflected a belief that things seem a little *too* easy for our dragonriders. That you think me, of all people, capable of such a bait-and-switch is... totally logical. :)
Happy reading!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Father, Mother, Grandfather, and even Rhaenyra agreed that this was the way to keep the North in line. Sansa Stark would live in King’s Landing with him, a guarantee for her family and people’s fealty to the crown.
Except her family had abandoned her and her people had betrayed her.
Flying here over the past few days, Aemond had imagined the lady throwing herself at his feet the moment he and Daemon landed the two dragons that could turn all of Winterfell into cinder within minutes.
He imagined Sansa, without knowing precisely what she looked like, beautiful and desperate, begging him to spare her home and her people.
“Please, my prince. I would do anything you ask, if only you show mercy.”
“Would you speak vows to me? Wear my cloak? Take my name? Let me between those long, long legs? Show me that not all of you is as cold as they say?”
“Of course! I shall be honored! Allow me to seal my promise with a kiss.”
In short, Aemond had imagined a bride who wasn’t just willing but eager. No matter that fear and self-preservation would be the motivating factors behind such eagerness, it would give him an opportunity to earn her favor genuinely in time. Sansa Stark, full of gratitude, would spread her legs so wide for him, but when he didn’t pound into her with his rod and instead sucked the nectar out of her flower, he imagined her crying his name in ecstasy and then, after she was weak and boneless from pleasure, realizing that theirs could be more than a marriage of politics. Aemond had never wanted such, or he’d have let himself be betrothed a dozen times over to a Lannister or Baratheon, a Hightower or Royce or Florent or Mooton or Frey. He would do it, if commanded, but a prince in line to inherit nothing was not much of a prize except to a lady who had her own keep and lands to inherit who simply wanted to marry as high as possible. And Aemond had been waiting for that day to come; for Grandfather to tell him that Lady So-and-So’s elder brother passed without heirs, and she needed a man to help rule her lands since her father was already departed. He’d imagined himself becoming Lord of House So-and-So, some humble keep that wasn’t worthy of the rider of Vhagar. He'd imagined his brother, uncle, and nephews flying in for a visit just to snicker at him – King Viserys’ second-born son reduced to effectively being the steward and stud for some thick-waisted and homely heiress.
Why he’d imagined his future bride as unattractive he wasn’t entirely sure – he only felt that his elder brother or much elder half-sister (and her husband) would ensure that he did not enjoy the boon that is a pretty wife. It already seemed Rhaenyra and Daemon and at least half their brats thought Aemond had stolen something from them the night he claimed Vhagar. He’d thought an eye was fair payment, but subsequently suspected they’d not have parted with such a treasure for anything less than two eyes, one hand, and a cock.
Thus, when it was decided that he would be the one to claim Winterfell and its famously beautiful (and slim) queen, he’d waited for it to be revealed as a jape.
And waited.
And waited.
Then realized while he was waiting, someone might come to his or her senses. So he’d agreed, hurried along Daemon’s preparations, and immediately begun plotting his personal conquest – not of Winterfell, but of Sansa Stark’s heart.
Well, that made him sound like some sap when his real motives were much more practical. Alliances sealed through marriages were all well and good, but if the couple actually cared for one another, wouldn’t that make those alliances all the stronger? Or maybe he didn’t expect their marriage could be a strong one defined by mutual respect and affection and even love, but at minimum he wanted the former Queen in the North to not stab him in his sleep or poison the water in his pitcher – both of which seemed like very real possibilities given all the rumors that surrounded the mysterious Starks and their even more mysterious matriarch.
Thus, he’d planned to ensure she was quite pleased with at least one aspect of the marriage that she’d not be entering entirely by choice. And, having never seen Aegon’s pretty, unscarred face, or the lively eyes and thick brown curls of Aemond’s nephews, or the leonine grace of the Velaryon men, he was certain she would consider herself the luckiest woman in the realm. And he’d keep reminding her of her luck – morning, noon, and night – so that when they reached King’s Landing, she’d not change her opinion, no matter how many handsome, suave men tried to sway her.
Now though, watching her sitting at the table in a dressing gown, angrily eating the meal he’d ordered for them after giving himself and the lady a chance to rest and freshen up, he realized that Sansa Stark would not consider herself lucky when he delivered his proposal. More likely she’d go for his good eye with that spoon that she was using to add injury to insult for the poor venison stew that’d been served.
Firstly, he could see why it was said that Northrons didn’t have a sense of humor. If he had to eat such fare day in, day out, he’d be rather morose as well.
Secondly, he should have told the guards to deliver her still bound at the wrist. He did not doubt his ability to subdue her, but he could hardly take his eye off the damned spoon to focus on the conversation he ought to have initiated fifteen minutes ago when she was delivered to the personal dining room in what he’d been told were the Lord’s chambers.
And here he still sat, wondering how to tell a woman who obviously hated him that her options were to marry him or burn. How in all seven hells had Orys Baratheon managed it with Argella Durrandon after she was thrown chained and naked at his oversized feet, mere days after he’d slain her beloved father? Sure, Orys Baratheon was said to take after the Warrior in stature and bone structure, but wouldn’t that have made him all the more intimidating to a maiden?
Aemond silently cursed his uncle for having fucked off nearly as soon as they’d been given their bread and salt, going off to whore or fight or drink (or all three) and leaving his nephew to deal with the Queen in the North, with only the future unity of the Seven Kingdoms at stake. Implied was that he’d not be leaving here without an agreement, but thanks to the betrayal of her men, she must know a beheading was not out of the question if she did not concede to his demands.
But how could Aemond kill a woman with his own hands? How could he kill a woman as beautiful and spirited and alive as Sansa Stark?
He honestly hadn’t realized that he’d done nothing but watch her eat until she threw the spoon down with a clang and gritted out, “Will you just get on with it?”
Aemond frowned, disoriented to have been shaken out of his intense thoughts and worries by such a seemingly incongruous outburst. “Get on with what?” he asked.
She scoffed, “You know damned well, your grace. We are not alone in a room together without so much as a guard or chaperone so you can watch me eat. Just…” her hands clenched into fists that she hastily lowered to her lap, “…end this torment.”
“I… What… I’m not tormenting you.” It came out sounding too petulant, too defensive, if he meant to maintain the positional advantage in their war of wills, yet he could not retract the words.
Sansa snorted emotionlessly, “I heard you’re the clever one, and I saw it by the way you spoke to the men who delivered me to you, so I don’t believe anything you do is accidental.” She reached for a mug of cider and that was when Aemond realized that the tension in her had not been anger, but fear. Her hand trembled as she brought the rim to her lips. Seeing it for herself, she hastily put it down, lifted her chin, and put her hands in her lap again.
And he realized all the rumors about the Queen in the North got it wrong. Got her wrong. She had no spine of steel. She would not laugh in the face of danger, fearless and brash like some wolf who’d never met an opponent it couldn’t beat. No, Sansa Stark knew fear quite well, but she had learned to mask it with a look of solemnity, imperviousness, hardness… This was a woman ruling prideful men that respected strong arms, not sharp wits. This was a woman doing everything she could to hold her kingdom together and keep her place at the top, because for one such as her, the fall would be fatal. How many men would wed her for her power and position, then dispose of her or at least limit her influence over anything but childrearing? Aemond had seen it in all the families but his own: very few women had any agency, any control. Looks, wealth, smarts, connections – they were weapons certain ladies wielded better than others, but never as powerful or sharp as when they were in a man’s hands.
And if not for our dragons, Targaryen women would be the same. Does Daemon truly love Rhaenyra, and respect her, if he whores at every opportunity? No, he only loves being the man beside the most powerful woman in the realm. He loves being married to the closest he can find to the female version of himself, yet also loves fucking anything with teats.
Did Father love Mother? How could he, when he always chose his first wife’s daughter over his second wife and his second wife’s sons?
And this Sansa Stark was a woman who understood the way the world worked. She understood she was a lone wolf squaring off with a dragon. A maiden trapped in a room with a Targaryen prince, one she would assume inclined to take whatever he wanted because his dragon would ensure he never had to pay for it.
He’d never been good with words, where women were involved. Men he could cut down with a barb quicker than Daemon could cut them down with a sword, but women had always put him on his back foot. He could never tell what they really thought of him. Were they disturbed by his scars, or by the knowledge that behind the eye patch was nothing but a gem? Were they laughing at him or with him? Were they glad to flirt with him or fuck him because he was a prince, or disappointed because he wasn’t the prince who mattered (not that either of them really did, with Rhaenyra and her bastards alive and kicking). Did they like him, or did they only pretend to in order to ingratiate themselves with the royal family? And if they did like him, was it only because he’d garnered some reputation as the mysterious one? If they found out he was the same as them – breathing, sleeping, eating, drinking, shitting, fearing, and hurting – would he lose his appeal?
And so, about as smoothly as he ever acted when in the presence of a pretty girl, he blurted out, “My sister the Queen has ordered I take you to wife.”
Sansa only blinked at him.
He licked his lips, “Meaning, if you wish to avoid the destruction of your home, if you wish to avoid war for your people, you will consent to marry me. We would live in King’s Landing. Northros would join the rest of the kingdoms under the queen’s dominion. Once assured of your loyalty to the Crown, and once we have two children, we’d return here to rule the North and teach our eldest to do the same.”
“While the younger stays in King’s Landing, no doubt.”
Aemond took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, “Yes. A ward of House Targaryen, the queen’s own nephew or niece, to be treated with all the respect and honor his or her status demands.”
Sansa did not call it a lie, only lifted her chin and asked, “My brothers?”
“It sounds as if they’ve relinquished their claim on the North. Likewise, your sister. They chose you to rule them.”
“So you would not hunt them down and eliminate the threat they could pose to your sister’s hold on the North?”
Aemond shook his head, “I would not. Nor would I allow any of my kin to do so. But if either would try taking Winterfell from his nephew – or from us – then I would show no mercy. I’d prefer to see one of their daughters married to our future son, though I likely won’t have a say in the matter. The queen will no doubt expect the Warden of the North to be matched with a princess of the realm. But that is tomorrow’s problem. So…” he took a deep, quiet breath, “do you accept?”
By way of answering, Sansa stood and slowly rounded the table, leaning a rather lovely hip just next to Aemond’s place setting, not quite directly in front of him but in full view of his only eye.
“Do you agree,” she spoke softly but assuredly, “that Winterfell, as of this moment, is still mine? That those turncloaks had no right to surrender the castle that has been in Stark hands for eight thousand years? That you and your uncle are protected by guest right here – one I could choose to break, under the treasonous circumstances – but that if on the morrow I ask you to leave and pick up where you would have if not for six cowards approaching you outside Winterfell’s gate, you will?”
Aemond nodded slowly but he was not sure it was honest. Highgarden and Storm’s End had been surrendered through acts of betrayal toward one’s liege, and no one cried ‘unfair’, nor demanded the seats be given back to their original holders. Would he really walk out of here on the morrow only to climb atop Vhagar and lay waste to all of Winterfell, including the beautiful young queen and those men who had tried to defect to House Targaryen?
He supposed it would be easier than dragging Sansa Stark into the courtyard and making her an example of what happens to those who defy the house of the dragon.
And, more to the point, “You know we could have taken Winterfell easily.”
She shrugged as if it was a moot point, “I know you could have destroyed Winterfell easily, yes. And with it, you’d have destroyed a bloodline that has held the largest, roughest of kingdoms together for eight thousand years. Your queen or one of her successors might have come to regret that in time, but yes,” she admitted freely, “I acknowledge that House Stark would not have won a battle against the queen of dragons. But you must also acknowledge that having the fealty of Lady Stark will go much further for you than having the fealty of Danric Moore, traitor to his liege.”
Aemond was not entirely sure anyone south of the Neck cared one whit, but he understood that most north of it would care a great deal. He dipped his chin, “I do.” It was no lie. He could just imagine Grandfather’s face if Aemond returned to the city with no Stark bride, no Stark hostage, just a sworn oath of fealty from some lowborn coward who was unlikely to hold Winterfell for a day, much less the rest of his life. But he was sure to keep his expression neutral. He did not want Sansa Stark to know how much leverage she had. Perhaps not to Rhaenyra, but if his sister thought it was so easy to submit a she-wolf, she could grow a cock and give it a try. Perhaps Daemon would be kind enough to let her practice her technique on him.
Though, it would seem, the she-wolf already knew precisely what position she was in, as she continued what felt like a negotiation, “And you know that, no matter my decision, if ever being part of the other kingdoms becomes more burden than benefit for the North, their knees will unbend.”
“Seems that way, yes.”
“Then, Prince Aemond, I will consider your proposal. May I have this night to make my decision?”
Surprise nearly floored him, and relief most certainly flooded him, and he found himself fighting a smile as he nodded and rose, ready to escort her to her chambers (and make sure the guards without were some of the six who had made this meeting possible), but before he could offer his arm, she slipped in front of him, putting herself in the small space between him and the table, so close that her head was tilted back to hold his gaze. His hand had gone to the dagger on his hip on instinct and did not leave once there because he would not assume her honorable enough to uphold Guest Right. As a rule, he assumed no man or woman was honorable, and certainly not one that was an enemy to him or his house.
Her blue eyes slid down to the dagger, then back to his face. “I’m unarmed,” she said softly.
His eye narrowed, “So you say.”
Slowly… so slowly it did not register as a threat… her right hand crossed her body to pull at the tie that held her dressing gown closed. The fabric drifted to the right and a swath of skin from her armpit up to her neck became visible. Then her left hand crossed her body to pull on the inner tie, and that panel of silk drifted away, revealing a wide strip of skin straight down the middle of her.
His eye tracked down – how could it not? – from the divot between her collar bones to the twin inner swells of breast tissue, to a flat tummy punctuated by an adorable navel, to an inverted triangle of coppery curls, a shade lighter than the auburn hair on her head, to her soft inner thighs, down to stocking-covered calves and slipper-covered feet.
Realizing how distracted he was, he snapped his gaze back up, but found no hint of an attack to come.
His first reaction, other than awe and arousal, was suspicion – that she thought he could be seduced into rescinding his sister’s threat and had no problem offering her cunt as payment for her people’s continued independence.
Except… did she really think he would sleep with her and then… what? Fly away tomorrow and tell his family that he’d agreed to Northern independence and that if any of them moved against the snowy kingdom they’d look like oathbreakers to all the realm?
He could not fathom her being that naïve, yet nor could he fathom a woman going from hate to fear to lust in a matter of minutes. He only knew he needed to get to the bottom of this. He felt his mouth twitch with something like self-amusement as he said, “I’m not entirely convinced you’re unarmed, Lady Stark. You could have a small dagger up your sleeve, for instance…”
If it was all an act, it was a damned good one. He saw no hesitation, no fear, not even any surprise or annoyance as she shrugged off the dress. The fabric landed lighter than snow on the stone floor around her feet. She held her arms out at her sides, twisting her long, feminine hands as she made an exaggerated effort to show him there was no weapon strapped to either arm. Her arms stayed somewhat away from her body as she turned, never stopping as she made a complete rotation, but going slowly enough for him to appreciate her pert little arse, pale as virgin snow and just wide enough at the hip to remind him that she was a woman grown, no matter how soft and bizarrely innocent she suddenly seemed.
When they were facing each other again, he still could not read the expression on her face as she said, “The night is long, but not endless. I suggest you start trying to convince me.”
He almost laughed to realize she had not undressed as part of some scheme to override his brain with pleasure until he ceded to all her demands. Rather, she was giving him precisely the opportunity he had hoped for when he set out on this mission: to win the approval of his bride. He’d wanted the chance to show her that a marriage between enemies need not be without benefits. And, apparently, she’d wanted the chance to find out whether she would regret agreeing to his terms, even if it was the only way to keep her home and people from burning.
It was not that he didn’t know what to do, nor that he didn’t want to do anything with her, but wanting to do everything that held him still.
He wanted to drop to his knees and bury his nose in her hair, his tongue in her slit.
He wanted to push down on her shoulders until it was her on her knees, staring up at him with those sleepy eyes while she unlaced his breeches.
He wanted to drop back into his chair, bring her along in his lap, bounce her up and down.
He wanted to turn her around, bend her in half, take her like she was an animal, with a fistful of her red hair serving as his reins.
He wanted to lift her onto to the table, lie her down while he stayed standing at attention, battering her cunt like a ram against the enemy’s gate.
He wanted to lift her up until her legs wrapped around his hips like a snake its prey, then carry her to the bed and worship every inch of her body until the sun rose on the morrow.
When he went too long without doing any of it – without so much as blinking – she leaned her bum against the table, after idly pushing aside Aemond’s largely untouched meal, and lifted one dainty foot up to rest on the chair he’d just vacated, her calf brushing the side of his knee in the process.
“So far, you’re not making a very favorable impression,” she teased. Or perhaps it was no tease. Perhaps it was a warning that she was not japing when she said he had tonight to convince her. That his performance – not in the training yard, the small council chamber, or on the back of Vhagar, but in the bedroom – would determine whether the Queen in the North accepted his terms or had him thrown out of her castle to begin the battle that would’ve started hours earlier if not for some traitors to House Stark waving white flags from the southern parapets.
It ought to have been too much pressure, but not for Aemond Targaryen. It was talking with a beautiful woman, sitting across a table from her, sharing a meal with her, minding his manners, that put him out of his element. But fucking? Fucking he could handle. Though, it should go without saying, fucking had never quite been a matter of life and death for him. More often than not, he handled his business efficiently and without any unnecessary embellishments – otherwise the whores ought to be paying him – but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to pleasure a woman at least in theory. Innate knowledge, visual observation, overhearing lewd jokes and manly crowing, and of course his own experiences, limited in frequency as they may be – suffice it to say, Aemond was a quick study in any subject he’d ever attempted to learn. This was just a subject he’d never considered practicing, figuring that would come when he had some noble wife who wasn’t getting paid to do it whether she liked it or not.
Slowly, gingerly, he brought his left hand up to Sansa’s face, skimming her rosy cheek with his calloused thumb, “And you, my lady, are making a very favorable impression.”
It would seem she had been expecting something different and prepared herself accordingly. He almost laughed at the confused look in her cool blue eyes, just a shade away from green. No hint of the warmth found in his violet-blue iris – the color of the sky above the horizon line of a summer sunset, where the pinkish orange is just yielding to blue. Hers were the sky straight overhead when the sun was neither waking nor going to sleep, when the clouds bore not the slightest hint of storm. Clear as crystal, as water from a spring; the aquamarine to his sapphire, on opposite ends of the spectrum of blues. Aquamarine signified tranquility and a connection to the divine; sapphire signified strength and wisdom, a mind grounded in reality and ever-focused on the task at hand.
Then again, no matter Helaena’s insistence, he’d never believed such nonsense. If he did, he might be musing that he was earth and Sansa sky, but how could that be so, when dragons could fly almost as high as the heavens while wolves made their homes in underground caves dug with their four land-bound paws?
His thumb stroked gently her cheek, her jaw, her lower lip… then it trailed down, in no rush at all, to dust over a nipple the color of a blush. The little bud hardened instantly, but his thumb was already moving on. Down the front of her flat belly, just left of center, then swiping out to caress a sharp hip bone, rather than in to caress the coarse hair at her apex. Her skin went from smooth to textured wherever his thumb traveled, a million little bumps springing up to meet his touch.
“I don’t believe I ate my fill,” he mumbled, almost to himself.
Then the plates and bowls and cups and everything else on the table found a new home on the floor, some of it shattering in the process, but a new feast was instantly there to replace the one he’d wasted, this one infinitely more appetizing than Northros’ version of venison stew.
Her lips were parted as she looked up at him, perhaps impressed or simply surprised by how quickly a man could rearrange her like a doll on a shelf. She was on her back now, her feet on the edge of the table, separated by the width of his hips. He loomed over her, left hand resting on the surface, right holding her neck gently, thumb on her jaw and fingertips buried in that soft hair of hers. As those mesmerizing orbs stared up at him, he saw fear and intrigue, desire and doubt. He had all the leverage in this position, but something told him she liked it. She was a wolf, after all – how could she yield to someone who hadn’t earned it?
Perhaps, he took a moment to muse, that was what led her to disrobe in front of him. No seduction, no scheme, no sampling… perhaps it was all about submission.
“Is this what you want?” he asked, a smirk in his tone, “to be able to say I pinned you down? Had my way with you? Submitted the wolf queen? Shall I squeeze harder, make it easier for you to believe?” he did just that, curling his right hand’s digits, putting pressure around her neck where before it had only been the lightest hold, the one he’d used to cradle the heads of his infant nephews and niece. Instantly and likely instinctively, her hands clamped around his right forearm and her thighs closed against his hips. She was not strong enough to dislodge his body nor pry off his hand, but her eyes looked too much like a hunted prey for him to feel any satisfaction. He relaxed his fingers while lowering himself down, down, down, until his lips brushed against hers, her eyes and his wide open, locked in a gaze that burned hotter than the kiss.
“She-wolf,” he admonished lightly, moving back just enough to see her entire face.
“Queen’s fist,” she countered mockingly, “Or is that your uncle?”
“He’s the queen’s cock.”
Sansa Stark snorted.
Aemond Targaryen smiled.
He let it fade away, feeling the moment was at risk of becoming something more than mutual posturing, “I do believe I was supposed to be convincing you…”
Perhaps he ought to have planted gentle kisses over every inch of her milk-white skin, but that seemed as risky as it would be to stare into her eyes much longer. It was his hand that trailed down her body instead, making the journey from neck to hip as his frame uncurled itself and backed away until he was seated in his chair, staring forward and slightly down at a pink slit surrounded by copper hair abutted by a pair of decadently long thighs. The hand continued until its thumb was tracing the inside of her puffy outer lips in a wide circle that got tighter and tighter until it was pressed against her entrance, then inside. Hot, slick, snug. Very slick. He coated his thumb then brought it out and up to her little nub, treating the sensitive little spot to the same tight circles until Sansa’s hands came down on the edge of the table, squeezing, and her hips rose up from the same, seeking.
Deeming her sufficiently aroused, he decided not to dally. The sun had gone down before their meeting started, and he’d have to stoke the fire soon or he’d have no light by which to see.
He leaned forward, like Aegon did when he’d had too much wine the night before and would sooner rest his head on the table than eat food off it. His left arm circled her thigh, the hand coming around to spread her open. His right hand’s thumb returned to her tunnel, entering just a bit then crooking to press the knuckle hard against the magical spot he knew about only thanks to his brother – a lesson Aemond had neither asked for nor appreciated at the time. And finally, he set his tongue in the same place and pattern as his thumb had been, circling her nub, tight and fast.
It took a few minutes during which she was clearly trying to suppress her body’s enjoyment until the lady’s right hand dug mercilessly into his hair, but thankfully her fingers didn’t snag on the strap for his eyepatch. The lady’s left hand formed a fist and thudded against the table – a softer version of a man at a feast showing his agreement with the speaker’s words. The lady herself was fairly quiet, though he supposed she’d have too much pride yet to cry out a Targaryen name. Her breaths went staccato, at least, and her hips said that which her lips refused to tell: that she was loving this.
Perhaps it would be good strategy to stop there, leave her stranded just on the wrong side of ecstasy then extract some agreement from her as payment of the toll, but Aemond was not thinking as a prince of House Targaryen, the queen’s half-brother, the rightful king’s full brother. He was only thinking that he had to know what Sansa Stark sounded like and looked like when she peaked. Thus, he kept at it, deciding he could show off other techniques later – he planned to do this until dawn – until her voice choked out a faint, “Don’t stop”.
He didn’t.
He couldn’t.
He only lifted his eye to watch her belly quivering, her breasts jiggling, her muscles clenching and unclenching until her back bowed like a cat’s, leaving only her arse and shoulder blades on the tabletop for several long moments during which he still didn’t stop. At some point, and entirely without his awareness or permission, his thumb had gone from pressing on her tender spot to fucking her almost violently, wrenching her entire body back and forth with the force and speed of the digit’s thrusts. It hadn’t been strategic nor even conscious, only his thumb doing that which was not yet an option for his cock.
He didn’t stop until she pushed his head instead of pulling it, but even still he did not leave. He counted to eighty in his head then pressed his lips onto her nub and sucked as if his very life depended on it while his thumb resumed its rapid motions.
She wasn’t as quiet this time, a shriek slipping past her previously diligent lips barely half a minute after he’d started.
A third time, then a fourth, he brought her over the edge. If not for the fact that she was by then dead to the world and his cock was hard enough to hammer nails, he might have continued. Instead, he gave himself a mental pat on the back and untied his breeches, standing and sliding Sansa so her arse was just past the table’s edge. He knew he should ask for permission, but she had plenty of time to protest. All she did was blink at him sleepily then eye his cock curiously. He swelled a bit more under her gaze but didn’t bask in the attention for long. Cock in hand, he lined up and pushed in and then there was nothing that could stop his body from rutting like a dog. Hard and fast, his upper thighs bumping the table and maybe moving the heavy piece of furniture a half inch each time – he didn’t know or care. His right arm curled around her thigh, holding the back of her leg against his torso and effectively tilting her hips upward. His left hand held her opposite side by the hip. He kept her where he wanted her and pounded away, his over-excited cock ready for the end right from the start. It wouldn’t last long. He couldn’t last long. He could only look down at the feminine bounty he’d either won fair and square or stolen like a pirate. He could only watch her flesh undulate wherever his body smacked against it. He could only look at her flushed face, the awe contorting her features as he tapped her so…fucking… deep…
“Take it off,” she panted.
He knew the article she was referring to. He knew he’d be mortified to be asked such under any other circumstances, but he was so close to busting his nut in what he just knew was going to be a toe-curling, spine-tingling orgasm, that he ripped the eyepatch off and let it fall to the floor without a care.
“Oh,” she moaned while focusing her gaze on the eye that couldn’t return the favor. “Oh. Oh… Oh! OH!”
It seemed to have snuck up on her, that fifth climax. Her head whipped back hard enough to thud against the wood and her claws went to his hips, somehow finding flesh to gouge in muscle that he knew was hard as bone.
His completion was just as sneaky, hitting him as quick as a trap snaps shut on its unsuspecting prey. One moment he was marveling at himself for making her peak without even trying, the next his veins were filling with sunshine and his hips were jerking in time with the pulses of pleasure that squeezed seed out of him in bursts.
When the pleasure receded, he pulled out gently and collapsed his bare ass into the chair, breathing in labored gusts as he watched his seed ooze out of Sansa Stark’s cunt, dribble down to her arse, then fall like a raindrop to land on her discarded dressing gown.
Aemond Targaryen leaned back and smiled.
Notes:
Well lookee here! Aemond behaved himself, and Sansa decided to get her freak on. Gonna be smooth sailing from here on out, right?
Right?
Chapter 4: Of confessions and featherbeds
Notes:
Thank you all for the lovely comments on the previous chapters. I hope you continue to find the fic engaging, and that you leave a comment if you're so inclined.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aemond’s return to consciousness was gentle and slow, the featherbed soft, the air warm, and his heart light.
Before even opening his eye, he recalled carrying Sansa to the lord’s bedchamber and straight to the bed, his cock sticky and limp. He’d undressed down to his smallclothes and stockings and climbed in with her. Then they’d dozed off, tangled like pups under the furs, but never drifting all the way into a deep slumber.
When they realized sleep was not ready to claim them, they did not speak a word and yet communicated so much: their marriage would be no duty, no burden, no courtesy lacquered over disdain. An insult to her pride, perhaps, but not a lethal one. Sansa Stark would not be dragged to King’s Landing a chained wolf, a spectacle for the masses and a trophy of House Targaryen. No, she would glide in on the back of the largest living dragon, her arms wrapped around her royal husband’s middle, her gaze unflinching and her hands unshaking as she climbed down, her tone edged with the slightest hint of defiance as she greeted Rhaenyra as ‘your grace’. Subtle the insult may be, but Aemond couldn’t wait to see the look on his half-sister’s face when she realized she was not the only queen in King’s Landing. Sansa may not wear the title, nor the crown, but her poise, her wit, her sharp words, her history of being the person that the hardened men of the North chose to rule them… Well, people would find it hard not to worship her, especially when Rhaenyra threw one of her famous tantrums, her voice going pitchy and squeaky as she reminded everyone that she was the queen, or ran off to demand their uncle fight her battles, capitalizing on the fact that the man would never say ‘no’ to a good fight.
Perhaps Rhaenyra would have the good sense to name Aemond as Hand when Grandfather died or resigned. (The only reason he hadn’t been dismissed already was because Rhaenyra was focused on conquering the unconquered kingdoms and couldn’t afford to piss off House Hightower, the Faith, or the Reach.) Perhaps, when that day came, people would whisper that Rhaenyra wore the crown, but it was Aemond who ruled the realm. Perhaps they’d call Aemond and Sansa the real king and queen. Quietly, of course. And perhaps that would be satisfaction enough for him, raised as he was to expect no more than any other second son, no matter that he wore the title of ‘prince’.
Or perhaps it wouldn’t be enough, but he had plenty of time to think about that later. He’d not yet seen his twentieth nameday, and who knew what would happen in the soon-to-be battles in Dorne? He could find himself three steps closer to the throne in a year’s time. And the people might realize that it was one thing to accept a bastard as the someday queen’s someday heir, and quite another to accept him sitting on the great iron throne, with the Conciliator’s crown on his brown head, anointed as Lord Protector of them all.
He'd shared none of his musings with Sansa, and she’d shared none of whatever occupied her mind as she drew her fingers back and forth across his chest, tickling the wiry hairs that grew there. He’d brought her dawdling fingers to his lips, kissing, then sucking, then nibbling on each one until he found himself looking up at her shadowed face as she swept her hair to one side and sunk down on his cockhead, going no further before rising up, teasing him with her cunt until he grew tired of the game and slammed up into her, which was apparently just what she’d wanted.
He'd lied back, one hand behind his head and the other exploring whatever part of her he pleased. A soft caress of her thigh, a rough squeeze of her breast, a quick swipe of her pearl.
Having drained his sack only an hour or two earlier, he could simply enjoy the feeling of her silky-wet caress of his length, the sight of her body working his over, and the look in her eyes that he almost dared to call love. That was a fool’s thought, certainly; a byproduct of good sex and nothing more. Yet when she moaned his name and rolled her hips, when her hand cupped his scarred cheek, when she never broke eye contact as she came undone, he found it hard to believe it was anything like how ladies typically performed their spousal duty.
“Come here,” he had beckoned after she trembled then melted above him.
She came all the way down, her palms on his chest and her elbows bent, and let him take over. One hand on her jaw, the other on her hip, he held her where he wanted her as his hips canted up and down, up and down.
When he eventually spilled, it was with his tongue tangled around hers, penetrating her mouth nearly as deeply and forcefully as he penetrated her cunt.
So far as he could recall now, he’d fallen asleep with her cradled against his chest, his cock still inside her.
He stretched out his limbs and yawned into his shoulder before forcing his sleepy body to sit up and look around. Fire burned bright in the hearth and the bed was empty but for him. With the windows shuttered and curtained he could only sense that it was daylight, not know for certain.
He’d have glass sheets and glass workers brought up from the south, or perhaps from Essos, long before he had to live here.
“Hungry?”
He jolted slightly at Sansa’s voice, not realizing she was on his blindside. He turned and found she was cleansing her skin with a damp cloth, wiping away the sweat from last night’s exertions and probably a fair bit of his dried seed.
“Very,” he answered, though she was not looking to see it was her he was eying like a roast boar at a poorhouse.
Yet somehow, she knew. “I meant for food,” she responded with neither delay nor a change in her inflection.
“Aye, for that, too.”
She glanced his way with a withering look. He returned it with a shrug and a smirk.
“I sent for some light fare, assuming you’d not want to eat in the great hall just yet.”
She was right about that, though Aemond knew it couldn’t be put off much longer. The people would have to know that their queen had agreed to make their kingdom part of the Seven, to take a Targaryen as her husband and… Well, she hadn’t agreed to any of that, had she?
He cleared his throat, “You’ve had a night to consider, as was your wish. Have you reached a decision?”
She placed the rag down gently and crawled back onto the bed, lifting up the covers and not stopping her approach until she was straddling his lap.
“I have decided that being your wife would not be so horrible.”
Aemond chuckled faintly as he leaned back on his palms, “What a ringing endorsement of my virtues.”
Sansa rolled her eyes, “It is a ringing endorsement of at least one of your virtues,” her gaze dropped to his groin though she could hardly see it with her own body in the way.
Perhaps he should be insulted that the only part of him that had managed to charm her thus far was his cock.
He wasn’t.
She chirped in surprise as he flipped them both, letting her favorite of his virtues rest against the hair at her cleft as he hovered over her, marveling at the fact that less than a day ago this girl was being thrown at his feet, looking at him with nothing but hatred while now she was showing nothing but desire.
He wanted to be suspicious – it was his inclination, after all – yet what sort of game could she be playing that she hoped to win? Hold him and Daemon hostage and expect Vhagar and Caraxes to simply fly back south and forget about their riders? Dragons did not work that way. They could not be bargained with or bought. If Sansa or some remaining loyal men made a move against Aemond, Vhagar would feel his anger, his fear, and she would come rain fire on Winterfell in her rage – no matter that her own rider would likely be among the casualties.
Still, he had no explanation for how the Queen in the North had so quickly come to accept her fate, her people’s fate.
Unless…
Unless the crown had proven too heavy for her. Losing her mother to the childbed, her father and elder brother to war, on top of only-the-gods-knew what sort of personal suffering… Perhaps she had never wanted the crown but once her bastard brother – allegedly – thrust it onto her head, she knew better than to refuse. Perhaps she did not want war against the South, against a family with close to a dozen dragonriders, half their mounts grown enough to use in battle; a family for whom the knights of the Vale and the Reach would fight without question or complaint, and who had no shortage of princes and princesses to barter to the Stormlands, the West, the Riverlands, and even some of the less patriotic Northmen. It was a war she knew her people could not win, not without being crippled at the outset of winter, yet she knew how it would look if the first Northman to kneel to the Iron Throne was no man at all. She’d go down in history as a traitor, a coward, a weak-willed cunt. But to have been forced at dragon-point, betrayed by her own men? Well, who could blame her for surrendering when Aemond One-Eye and the Rogue Prince alighted outside her walls on arguably the two deadliest dragons in the realm. And Aemond might not look like much of a prize, but perhaps she had noted the way he dressed down the men who were so devoid of honor as to deliver their queen to her enemies in naught but a thin under-dress. Perhaps last night truly was a test, and he had passed. Perhaps—
“Does it hurt?” Sansa stroked the bottom of his scarred cheek with her thumb, but he knew she was referring to the socket forced to take a hard sapphire.
He shook his head faintly, “Hurts you more to look at, I’d wager.”
“It doesn’t bother me. It certainly doesn’t hurt me. It’s actually rather… pretty.”
His eye followed the flush that spread down her neck and he found himself smiling, “Your blush is rather pretty, too. Just like all the rest of you.”
“Flatterer,” she accused.
He felt no need to defend himself with words and instead did so by kissing all the parts of her that flushed under his praise or his gaze. It was an arduous process, but not the least bit boring.
By how easily he slipped into her slick cunt after, he was sure she felt the same.
<<<<>>>>
“We really should make some sort of formal announcement…”
Aemond didn’t bother opening his eye as he hummed in agreement. He only found it odd that Sansa was in more of a rush than he was, given she was the one who’d entered this arrangement rather reticently – or at least seemed to.
“I suppose I should find my uncle, too,” Aemond conceded.
The thing of it was, he did not wish to leave the warmth of the bedchamber, much less the bed. So far today he’d only done so to use the pisspot, wipe his and Sansa’s body fluids off his person, and accept the tray of food a trembling girl had brought up, her big gray eyes looking rather puppy-like as she surreptitiously tried to peek into the room, presumably to see that her lady was well. Vhagar had – quite by happenstance – chosen that moment to let out a rather loud trill, and the girl would’ve spilled their meal if not that Aemond already had his hands on the other side of the tray.
He and Sansa had eaten bland Northern fare in bed. When Aemond asked if Winterfell’s cooks knew that there were spices and seasonings other than salt and onions, Sansa had shrugged a bare shoulder and told him that in the North people counted themselves lucky if they had two full meals a day, and that ‘flavor’ was a rather superfluous concept. They were both exaggerating, of course. The fruit preserves were some of the best he’d ever had, the butter definitely the creamiest he’d ever had, but the sausages were rather lackluster.
He'd told Sansa that he was lucky he had her when he was in the mood for something tastier, then proved just how tasty he found her. After swallowing down all she had to offer, she was kind enough to return the favor by letting him ride her again.
He’d officially had as much sex in the past day as he typically had in a year.
Well, in a half-year.
“What will you do with any who argue?”
That got Aemond opening his eye and sitting up in the bed, leaning against the headboard as Sansa had been for a while now.
“Do you expect any to argue?”
Sansa shrugged, “Some. Might be.”
“The men who tried to stop the others from… handing you over?”
She turned away, “No, not them. They were put in the dungeons. I’d like you to give them a chance. Loyalty to one’s liege should not be grounds for punishment by one’s subsequent liege. Don’t you agree?”
Aemond let out a snort and pivoted, resting his weight on his palms and facing Sansa, “Is this another test? If I tell you that those men in the dungeons should be made examples of, will you deny my very generous proposal?”
“Generous?” she lifted a brow, “Kneel or burn? Marry or die?”
“Have your Kings of Winter not used similar terms throughout history? Or did they simply ask nicely, and the other kings readily agreed to give up their crowns, their daughters, and a portion of their profit?”
“There was nothing nice about it. Men have always sought to conquer, but when you put dragons into the equation… Well, it’s a bit like giving a squire a butter knife and putting him against a knight wielding Valyrian steel, isn’t it? Actually, I’d say the squire has a better chance than the people ever had against Balerion the Black Dread.”
“Was it any fairer when the Andals came with their horses and their steel armor to conquer the First Men? Or before that, when the First Men came with their muscles and their axes to conquer the Children of the Forest? Except they did not merely conquer, did they? Their goal was not to unite their people with those already inhabiting the continent they wished to claim. Their goal was to eradicate those natives.”
“So, we should all aspire to be no better than primitive men who lived thousands of years ago?”
Aemond shook his head, “No, but nor should we fight the inevitable.”
Sansa rolled her eyes, “So if some mysterious people came from some faraway land, with war beasts even bigger and deadlier than your dragons, you’d simply roll over?”
“Of course not. But if I saw that victory was not achievable, but that I could ensure my family’s and my house’s survival by marrying one of their daughters?” Aemond lifted and dropped his right shoulder, “It would be an easy decision.”
“You mean to tell me you would bow if you found yourself facing a superior opponent? You’d give up your family’s regency? You’d give up being a ruler and accept being ruled?”
Aemond scoffed, “I’m a second son; I’m already ruled.”
Her eyes narrowed at that, “You fly the biggest war dragon since Balerion was—”
“Felled by your great-great-great-great uncle, yes. What’s your point?” he could not keep the impatience out of his voice.
“My point,” Sansa sat forward, putting them nearly close enough to kiss, “is that there is a difference between surrendering and being conquered.”
“And which is this?” he asked, the corners of his mouth curving despite his attempts at self-control.
She gave no answer for a spell, her eyes going back and forth between his real and his gem.
“I don’t know,” she finally admitted, reticently but without guile.
An airy chuckle slipped past his lips. He wasn’t sure there was anything more alluring than an honest woman.
“Which do you want it to be?” he asked, then watched the bump in her throat rise and fall with a swallow before she shook her head faintly.
He hummed, “Difficult, isn’t it? To surrender implies it was your choice, which implies you had some control in the situation, even if only to pick between two poor options. But to be conquered…” he brought his gaze down to her chest, those full teats he had licked and sucked and squeezed more times than he could count in the past sixteen hours or so. He put his right hand between them and pushed until Sansa laid down, her tangled hair looking radiant against the beige pillow covers. “…but to be conquered – to be conquered by a dragon…” he slid the hand down to her flat belly, “Who could blame you?”
He stroked down further, until his entire hand was slipping between her outer lips, cupping her sex. Laid out before him, beneath him, his hand on her most intimate place, he could feel the tension in her limbs, could read it in her eyes. She wanted to slam her thighs together nearly as badly as she wanted to buck her hips and rub her cunt against his calloused palm. She wanted to kick him away and pull him closer. She wanted to spit in his good eye and kiss the scarred one.
She wanted to fight.
She wanted to yield.
He wanted to conquer.
He wanted to kneel.
Without breaking eye contact, he brought his body to where his hand was. Still nude, and once again as hard as steel, he moved his hand away only once his cock was there to take its place – guiding it in before getting out of the damned way. One sharp thrust had Sansa crying out. The second had her nails digging into his sides.
He lowered himself down, let his full weight rest on his hearty Northern lass, his hands grasping her arse cheeks hard enough to bruise as he curled his hips over and over, a small movement done so forcefully that the bed was rather noisy in its protest.
When her hands tried pushing, he let go of her glorious bottom to pin her wrists to the bed on either side of her head. Between the legs she was so warm, so slick, that he never wanted to leave. With his head resting against the front of her shoulder, his body sweat-stuck to hers from chest down to thighs, he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt more connected to another human being. His hands squeezed her tiny wrists, her legs squeezed his slim hips. He rocked and pounded and rocked and pounded, unaware at first that he was telling her to “take it” until he heard her whimpering “please” back to him. Anyone witnessing this might think she was begging him to stop; Aemond knew she was begging him to go harder. If not for her feet on the back of his thighs pulling him forward each time he reared back, he might have doubts. Or not. Perhaps he already understood Sansa Stark at a level he rarely understood anyone. And in doing so, he thought he understood himself better, too.
To the world, Sansa Stark needed it to look like she’d been conquered even if, within the walls of this bedchamber, they’d both know just how readily she’d surrendered.
To the world, Aemond Targaryen needed to look like the conqueror even if he had actually been conquered – made devout at the altar between the wolf queen’s legs.
“Aemond… Aemond…” she breathed. His name was all he could hear. Not the filthy, frightening things he was growling and grunting into her neck.
Nor – minutes later – the sweet and just as frightening things he found himself kissing into her cheek.
<<<<>>>>
“How did it happen?”
Sansa’s wet fingertips traced the scar from just beneath his eye to where it ended on his cheek.
He slowly opened his eye, blinking up at the ceiling. His heart had begun thudding too forcefully the moment her question reached his ears, pumping to spread his anger through every inch of his body.
Sometimes he thought that if he was ever skinned alive, his tormentor would find no muscle and bone as his inner constitution, just white-hot rage. It was always there, right beneath his skin, screaming to be released like too much flame built up inside a dragon, yet he was sure to let none know how much of his time was consumed by resentment and anger. The man who angers you, controls you, Grandfather always preached. Aemond knew it to be true and knew how much certain men – his uncle Daemon came to mind – loved knowing how much they dominated other men’s thoughts. Anger, jealousy, envy, disdain, desire… Daemon did not care what other men thought of him, so long as they thought of him.
“Did you not hear the tale this far North?” he answered her question with a question of his own, keeping his voice light and bemused though he felt anything but.
“I heard that it was incurred while claiming the she-dragon Vhagar, but I cannot imagine a beast her size wouldn’t do much more damage.”
Aemond clenched his jaw then forced it to unclench, hoping Sansa wouldn’t notice the tension in him as he lied in front of her – against her – in the tub, “It was incurred just after I’d claimed her. A gift from one of my jealous nephews. Lucerys. Earlier I’d slapped then pushed his little brother into a pile of dragon dung when he tried to alert the adults to what I was attempting. Jacaerys and Lucerys ganged up on me with wooden swords. Even little Joffrey, still covered in dragon shit, was swinging a wooden sword at my knees. I wasn’t much bigger than him even though I was ten, truth be told. I was a runt for true, yet still I’d claimed the largest living dragon.” Aemond took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh, “Regardless, I eventually got the upper hand – skill over size sort of thing – and started pummeling Jacaerys. Lucerys swung at me with his dagger, took the eye.”
Sansa hummed, “Well, to draw a sharp blade during a fistfight is craven, but you shouldn’t have slapped his little brother. How old was Prince Joffrey? Only seven or eight?”
Aemond groaned, “Three.”
Sansa sighed loudly, “I take it back – Prince Lucerys wasn’t craven. My sister would’ve done worse if someone had hurt Rickon at that age. She’d have put the blade through your eye and out the back of your skull.”
Aemond snorted, “Will I get to meet her? She sounds lovely.”
“I doubt it. She and I never got along. She had nothing but anger when Jon crowned me.”
“She wanted it for herself?” he asked while drawing a figure eight on her right kneecap with a finger.
“She wanted it for Jon. But he said in front of everyone, ‘Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa.’ Bran is crippled, you see. He cannot… Well, he could not consummate a marriage, let alone sire heirs.”
Aemond thought he might be blushing, “He could name a nephew his heir.”
“He is disinclined toward rulership. Frankly, he became so queer after his injury that I think the lords don’t know what to make of him.”
“So then why not your bastard brother?”
“He was sworn to the Night’s Watch and besides, to take what four trueborn siblings had a better claim to would only prove him to be as covetous and disloyal as many believe bastards to be.”
“Then the youngest – Rickon? Why not him? You or your sister could be regent for a few more years.”
Sansa snorted rather bitterly, “Why indeed. A willful little boy also considered strange after his time with the Skagosi? I imagine the lords feared crowning him, lest he not grow into the man they hope to follow. I, on the other hand, had proven capable of rulership, of diplomacy, of seeing my people through war. Why not name me Queen for all those reasons, knowing that if ever they regretted putting the crown on a woman’s head, they could correct the mistake by giving it to my brother instead, claiming it had been too radical an idea all along, one made when they were high on victory and not thinking straight.”
“Whereas crowning one of your brothers would be harder to reverse.”
“Precisely,” Sansa’s waterlogged hands stroked up and down his arms, sending goosebumps all over his skin.
“Yet they could not have disclosed those reasons…”
“Of course not. They said I was the one who won us the battle, I deserved the crown.”
Aemond frowned, turning his head to face her somewhat, “You won the battle?”
“No, but as you just pointed out, they needed an excuse.”
“Pray tell.”
After a deep sigh, she did, “Roose Bolton himself was leading the charge on Winterfell’s west gate while the rest of the rebel army was engaged by the Stark loyalists, led by Jon among others. He’d broken through the outer gate and the next would fall in only a matter of time. So… I ordered the gate to be opened.”
Aemond snorted, “And…?”
“And… then had it closed again.”
“You trapped Roose Bolton inside Winterfell. Except how did you get the gates closed with what must’ve been hundreds of men pouring through?”
“Well, the giants helped.”
Aemond pulled himself forward then twisted to face her more fully, “Giants?”
“One weg, one dar, one and mag mar, ton do-weg.”
Aemond blinked at her, “You’re japing… You expect me to believe that you know not just one giant, but several?”
“It’s only two. You could call them One-One and Mag.”
“Giants are extinct. Everyone knows that.”
Sansa smirked at him, “And lizards the size of mammoths would never be able to fly.”
Aemond rolled his eye, “Fine, so you have two giants…”
“I don’t have them – they are not pets! – and neither survived the battle.”
She looked genuinely sad enough that Aemond almost fell for it.
“Fine,” he pretended to concede, “So the giants closed the gate, trapping a small group of your enemy inside your walls?”
Sansa nodded slowly, “I meant to get his men and allies to surrender. Apparently, they saw Lord Bolton as rather disposable, so the battle waged on.”
“Hm… even after you skinned him alive? Or was it fed him to your pet wolves?”
Her cheeks darkened, “Is that what they say in the south?”
With a sigh, Aemond slid back to lean against the opposite wall of the tub, positioning Sansa’s legs over his, “It was either you or your sister, aye, and either flaying blade or tooth and claw. I chose to neither believe nor discount any such story. I’ll believe something when I’ve seen it myself.”
Her mouth twitched into something almost reminiscent of a smile, “Well, in this case you were right to doubt. I only had a noose put round his neck and stood him on the parapets.”
“Only?” Aemond quirked a brow.
“Mm. It was his bastard I fed to the wolves,” she smiled impishly.
“Ah, my mistake. Was that before or after the wolves came out of the forest in droves to fight alongside House Stark? Or was it bears? Or shadowcats?” Aemond pretended to be concentrating hard to recall the memory.
“It was not droves.”
“Ah, well, it all makes sense then. Except that I saw no pet wolves upon my approach, and I did quite a thorough aerial inspection of your castle, so…”
Sansa bit her lower lip, “More casualties of the battle. Except Ghost – he’s Jon’s wolf. He’s at the Wall with Jon.”
Aemond nodded, “Loyal beast. Or are Ghost and Jon one and the same? The way some people shared the tale, your brothers can transform into giant wolves.”
Sansa barked out a laugh, “No wonder all you Southrons think we’re heathens. Do you also think we howl at the moon? Dance naked around bonfires? Wear grass skirts in the summer and give tributes to forest sprites?”
Aemond gave a small smile, “Fine, then what all have you heard about us?”
“Southerners?”
“Targaryens,” he glared at her.
She looked far too proud as she said, “That you’re vain, greedy. That you only pretend to keep the Faith but actually worship some old gods of Valyria. That you put dragon eggs in your children’s cribs, and that it’s a chore to sleep with anyone but your sisters.”
Aemond reached for and pulled her calves until Sansa almost went under, squeaking as she reached for the sides of the tub and putting up a token protest as he pulled until she was seated in his lap.
“Do I look like a man doing a chore?”
“So, you’ve never slept with your sister?” she asked shamelessly.
“So, you’ve never slept with your brother?”
Her face scrunched, “Why would you ask me that?”
“You’re clearly no maid – not that I’m judging.”
She scoffed and pushed away from him, immediately getting out of the tub and wrapping herself in her robe. It felt strange to continue this – or any contentious conversation – while naked and looking up at her, so he too stepped out, wrapping his waist in a drying sheet and pretending that the air against his wet skin wasn’t chilling him.
She seemed ready to storm out of the room so he reached for her wrist and spun her back into his arms, not giving her time to peep out a protest before he spoke.
“You asked about my eye; I answered. When I asked about how you won the battle, you gave me some fairytale about giants. Now you want to ask if I’ve ever fucked my sister – by the way, are you referring to my brother’s wife or my uncle’s wife? – and I’m not allowed to ask if the rumor about you and Jon Snow is true?”
“What rumor?” she asked defiantly, but Aemond knew that beneath her indignation was embarrassment. Perhaps she had thought her secret had been better kept. Or perhaps there was no truth to it. Either way, Aemond had struck a nerve.
He rubbed at his scarred brow, “That the way Bolton’s bastard taunted your brothers – first the heir then the bastard – was with the petals of a blue rose that—”
“That Jon gave me in exchange for my maidenhead?” she cut him off sharply.
Aemond closed his eye as he nodded. When he opened it, he found Sansa no longer looked so mad. Her eyes were unfocused, and her crossed arms now looked less defensive and more like an attempt to comfort herself.
“Look, forget I—”
“It was Larence Snow.”
He frowned in confusion, “What was?”
“It was Larence who gave me the rose. He was Lord Hornwood’s natural son. He and I had the same nameday, we’d noted when we were small children. As I grew older, my mother… Well, she was from the Riverlands, you know. She taught me that bastards were untrustworthy, and sometimes I believed her, but… Well, here in the North they don’t approve of the Faith of the Seven. They think any religion that demands its followers communicate with their gods only through a human intermediary is a false one. Septons and septas and septs, donations demanded of those who have so little to give. Rules about what to do, what not to do. Our gods make no demands. They listen to our prayers, they witness our promises, and that is all. Sometimes they intervene, but more often they let us live our own lives.”
“So you did not believe what your mother said?”
Sansa shrugged, “I pretended to, to please her, but… but no. The older I got I saw that all her coldness toward my half-brother Jon had nothing to do with him being some duplicitous, wanton thing. She was jealous of him, or of what he represented: a woman my father chose to be with, whether out of mutual love or mere physical urge or anything in between, while my mother was the one he had to take to honor his older brother’s promises, to keep our agreement with Riverrun in place. But even if I’d been inclined to believe her… It was impossible to not see that Jon was the best of us. The most dutiful, the most disciplined. He could be churlish and sensitive, but he was never mean-spirited. He was kind and protective of his siblings, not jealous of his brothers and lustful for his sisters. And I realized if the Faith was so wrong about bastardy, they must be wrong about other things as well…”
Aemond nodded slowly, trying not to rush Sansa. After a few silent moments she lowered herself into a chair and let her hair down. She picked up a brush but Aemond needed something to do other than standing there naked from the waist up watching her, so he quickly reached for it and moved around to begin the methodical job.
He cleared his throat, “So… you and Larence…”
Don’t be jealous. Don’t be jealous. Only insecure little pricks are jealous.
Sansa took a deep breath before saying, “He had the Northern look.”
“Meaning?”
“Oh. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. Usually also tall and broad shouldered in the case of men, tall and slim from top to bottom for women. And yes – I take after my mother.”
“You’re quite slim… except in all the places where I don’t want you to be slim.”
She snorted at that, “I won’t bore you with the details, but we grew close starting around our twelfth nameday. Only as friends, at first. His warden, Lord Glover, often brought him along to Winterfell during his visits. Larence and Jon got on well – both highborn bastards. Even he and Robb got along. For me… Well, I suppose there were only so many handsome young men around who weren’t my brothers, but it was more than that, truly. He was… he was kind. He was patient. He humored my little siblings, he respected my father and his warden. He would tell silly jokes to make Bran and Rickon laugh. And he was sweet to me.”
“You loved him,” Aemond stated flatly, only half a question.
“As much as a thirteen-year-old girl with a head full of songs knows love, aye, I did. And he loved me as much as a thirteen-year-old boy can, when he’s been told all his life that he’ll never have a lady for a wife. That he’ll either be his half-brother’s castellan or a brother of the Night’s Watch. Not a lord, and not a father of little lords and ladies.”
“Let me guess: for hearing that you couldn’t have each other, you wanted each other even more,” Aemond thought back to a brief phase during which he’d been jealous of Aegon for being betrothed to Helaena. It wasn’t that Aemond lusted for his sister – no more than Aegon did – but that he loved her, and knew Aegon never would. To think that she’d have been his if only he’d been born before Aegon felt like a particularly cruel punishment. It wasn’t until he was old enough to know what lust felt like that he realized he was lucky to not have been made to marry a girl he saw only as a sister, but for a couple years there, to hear that Helaena would be Aegon’s, not Aemond’s, was downright painful.
“I suppose that’s true,” Sansa admitted, “Well, we were both dutiful sorts, and we stayed dutiful until it became too hard to resist the temptation. I was fifteen. No – sixteen. He did not take my maidenhead, but he did give me the rose and his heart – promising it would never beat for another girl even if I’d never be his. It was so romantic I was more than a little tempted to elope with him, but I knew how it would look if Lord Hornwood’s bastard ran off with King Stark’s daughter.”
“Wait… Hornwood…” the name had rung a bell when she said it minutes earlier, but only now did Aemond realize, “They sided with the Boltons in the rebellion.”
Sansa took a quivering breath, “Perhaps you heard that they did so because my father denied Daryn Hornwood’s request for my hand. Larence’s older half-brother by twenty-two years. He’d have been forty to my eighteen if we’d wed as he had proposed. He was not bad looking, and there’ve been wider age gaps between man and bride, but my father turned the offer down because…” in her lap, Sansa’s hands wrung together, “because he liked Larence, and he loved me, and he did not want to doom us to a lifetime of seeing each other around Hornwood and having to pretend that we were naught but goodbrother and goodsister. Or,” Sansa shrugged, “Maybe Father feared we’d surrender to desire and doom ourselves to Daryn’s justice. Maybe he feared Larence would kill his own brother and do the same. All I know was that I was so happy,” she ended with a bitter little snort, and Aemond knew it was directed at no one but herself.
After giving her a pause from the storytelling, Aemond found he needed to know the rest, from her lips. He knew by her age of sixteen that war must’ve been just on the horizon for House Stark, but to hear from someone who lived through it after years of picking up only outlandish gossip, or speculation disguised as fact, or facts that had been repeated a hundred times between Winterfell and King’s Landing, and each time twisted a little bit here, exaggerated a little bit there… Well, Aemond felt he’d die of suspense if Sansa clammed up now.
“Hornwood was insulted?” he asked while working a particularly stubborn tangle out, careful to hold the lock of hair with his other hand so as not to tug at her scalp.
Sansa snorted again, though rather loudly this time, and not directed inward.
“To put it mildly,” she said, “He had no idea about Larence and me, though. He only thought King Eddard deemed his princess too good for a Hornwood. Well, Lord Bolton capitalized on Daryn’s anger, fanned the flames of it. But Daryn was fool enough to tell his younger brother of their eventual plans. Larence, afraid a raven would be intercepted, snuck away one night so he could warn his king. He rode and walked and rode and walked to get to Winterfell, afraid his brother would realize his intention and send some men to intercept him. He made it here by the mercy of the gods and warned my father, indeed. Lord Bolton planned to use my brother Robb’s wedding to Lyra Mormont the next month to stage a coup. In short, he planned to kill my father and brothers – though by some versions he’d have kept Bran and Rickon as his wards – married my sister Arya to his bastard, Ramsay, and given me to Daryn Hornwood.”
Aemond shook his head, “Meaning he’d have made Hornwood the prince consort over himself? Hornwood believed him?”
“He would claim Winterfell and all the North, including my father’s crown, for himself. King Roose Bolton, First of His Name. He’d already promised his heir to a daughter of House Karstark, so it was his firstborn daughter through some wife he did not yet have that would go to Daryn’s eldest son through me. Houses Dustin and Ryswell needed no such incentives – they’d always been strangely loyal to the leech lord. His first wife was a Ryswell, his goodsister wed Lord Dustin, but had some grudge against our house from since she was a girl. Some say my uncle Brandon snubbed her. Some say it was my father. We’ll never know, now.”
“Why do you call Roose Bolton the leech lord?”
“You never heard? He had a most vile habit of leeching himself, claiming it cleansed the blood of disease and weakness.”
“Eww!”
She made a small noise of amusement before continuing, “You’ve probably gathered that, thanks to Larence’s interference, my father and brothers were spared – as were all of us, really. My father called his loyal men to arms. Lord Glover was among them – he was Larence’s warden who’d been kinder to Larence than Daryn ever was. Lord Flint. Lord Umber. Lady Mormont. Lord Manderly. They and many of their vassals answered the call. Unfortunately, some of the men thought Larence a turncloak for choosing his warden and king over his trueborn brother and lord. As such, my father could not reward him immediately as he’d wished to: by legitimizing him and giving him my hand.”
Aemond stopped brushing, feeling a warm flush creep across his skin. He’d become swept up in conspiracies and murder plots and leeches and forgotten that all of this was meant to explain Sansa’s lack of a maidenhead.
“He promised that after the war was won – and they all thought it would be very swift – Larence would have earned the trust of the other loyalist lords and so they would not whinge so much when he was also given a princess for a bride. Considering ourselves all but wed, we finally gave in to our desires the night before he was to ride out with my father’s host. Just about every chance we got over the years, we took, knowing it could be our last.” She shook her head faintly, and Aemond realized he’d stopped his work. He resumed stroking the bristles through Sansa’s hair which he found himself comparing to living flame.
“I was so worried about losing my secret intended and somewhat naïve about the risk of losing my father or brother. I thought that a king and prince would be protected even on a battlefield. But Father fell – an infection that started in his leg and spread through his blood. The rebels were using tainted swords and spears and arrowheads. For every man they killed on the battlefield, another two or three died of infection weeks later, or lost a limb which made them useless in the war. Our side still had the numbers even after those early battles, but the soldiers Lord Bolton’s side captured were… tortured. My brother was spending more time executing deserters and trying to maintain morale than he was planning battles.”
“Wait… They called your brother the one-month king.” Aemond couldn’t help but say. All they’d heard about Robb Stark in the South was that he fought like a man twice his age and thrice his size, but still died on the battlefield a month after his father had succumbed to the same.
“Well, unbeknownst to anyone in Winterfell, Lord Bolton’s bastard had been among the new recruits to join our household guard, back before the war even started, along with a few of his friends. No doubt they’d have had some role to play in Lord Bolton’s planned coup, but when King Eddard and Prince Robb and all the others rode out, they came up with a different way to betray House Stark. They planned to kidnap whichever Stark child they could get their hands on, then use her or him to force Robb to surrender Winterfell. Apparently, they deemed me the safest target, having observed my sister training with her thin sword. The attempt was thwarted by my brother and two of our wolves, but Ramsay was sly. He and one of his companions made it out, with no Stark to show for it, but not entirely empty-handed. Ramsay had taken the blue rose days earlier. I’d noticed it missing but blamed my sister for stealing it out of jealousy. He sent the rose and a note to my brother’s camp – though we only found that out later. The note was… well, imagine the sorts of claims a man might make in regards your sister to put you into a blind rage. And Larence was there, one of Robb’s right-hand men, to see and recognize the rose. When Larence nearly killed the messenger, Robb took it as confirmation that it was all true. He rode out the next day with only half his host, against all advice to wait until more men were recovered, including Robb’s wolf, Grey Wind who’d been almost fatally wounded in the previous skirmish. Robb didn’t listen. He thought he had enough men, and he would’ve, but the rebels’ numbers were greater than expected. Lord Ryswell had struck a deal with some rogue band of Ironborn reavers to augment his numbers. Promised them Bear Island and Deepwood Motte. It was… a slaughter.”
Sansa stopped talking, but Aemond kept brushing. It felt like his hand moved up then stroked down a thousand times – a motion he could not stop – before she spoke again. He noticed belatedly that there were no more snorts, no more sighs, and barely even any inflection in her tone. The more she spoke, the less animated she’d become.
“Robb was dead. Father was dead. Larence was captured. And I was the Stark in Winterfell, because Bran was still in a coma after Ramsay pushed him down the stairs during his escape, Rickon was only nine, Arya too blinded by rage to think anything through or to care about anything that wasn’t vengeance. Roose Bolton could have brought the war to Winterfell right away, but he knew that we were well provisioned and the fortress all but impenetrable unless faced with a force twenty times the size of our garrison. Hmpf, or a dragon. I sent Rickon away with a small group of protectors to Skagos, hoping the Stanes, Crowls, and Magnars would fight for House Stark but knowing at minimum they’d shelter my baby brother. I sent a separate group of men to ride to Castle Black with all haste, hoping my brother Jon could convince the Night’s Watch to set aside their neutrality. Meanwhile the rebels terrorized the smaller keeps and towns and villages, adding able-bodied men to their numbers. Some petty lords defected to their side, claiming that they took the deaths of Eddard and Robb to mean the Old Gods no longer approved of Stark rule, but I know that was just an excuse. They were terrified of Roose Bolton. Fight for me or die screaming. Perhaps it was only their skin they had to worry over, it would’ve been different. But after Ramsay’s little trick with the rose, men feared their wives and daughters would pay the price if they refused to kneel to the leech lord.”
Fight for me or die screaming
It sounded so vile to Aemond. So wrong, so dishonorable. Like cheating, even though in war all normal rules were set aside.
And yet, had the Conqueror’s message been so different? Kneel or burn.
“Months passed and finally the rebels were ready for their biggest challenge yet: Winterfell…”
A chill ran over Aemond’s skin, from calf up to scalp.
“The rebels knew we’d received reinforcements from the far North. Wildling lover, they called Jon. Yet more defected to Roose Bolton’s side. But what the rebels did not know was that, among those who came south with Jon, some were set to guarding Winterfell from within – a sort of last line of defense. They included two giants that each stood around fourteen feet tall and weighed about forty stone. They saw all that was left of the Stark loyalist army – about four thousand – augmented by another two thousand disorganized Wildlings.”
Aemond set the brush down and picked up one of the ribbons, tying it around Sansa’s hair at her nape, then he rested his hands on her shoulders, “And the she-wolf set a trap and caught herself a leech lord.”
Sansa hummed absently then suddenly was on her feet.
“If we mean to address everyone at supper tonight, we should get a move-on.”
“Sansa…”
“I’m tired of talking. I just… I don’t know why I even…” she rubbed at her forehead, “I forget what you even asked.”
Aemond almost did, too, but it was easy enough to recall the angry look on Sansa’s face when he’d asked if she’d ever been intimate with her half-brother, if the rumor of the blue winter rose was true.
He was still curious about too many things, but he knew she’d say no more – not when she already seemed mad at herself for divulging what she had.
“It doesn’t matter,” he shook his head, “let’s get dressed.”
<<<<>>>>
All in all, it went better than expected, though that might’ve had as much to do with Daemon deciding to take a late afternoon flight to show off Caraxes’ acrobatic skills about a hundred feet above Winterfell’s highest tower. The man seemed to be in a particularly good mood and gave all the credit to some redhaired prostitute in the nearby village that had been brought into the castle at Daemon’s request by the same men who hours earlier had thrown a different redhead out of the castle. When Aemond sought out Daemon after his bath with Sansa to apprise him of the situation and the plan, he’d had to suffer through a vivid description of how the whore could take both of Daemon’s stones into her mouth at the same time which compensated for her having areolas the size of tea saucers. Aemond shared no details about his own night (and morning, and early afternoon), but Daemon somehow knew that he was not exactly displeased with his match.
Standing at the head table with Sansa by his side, he’d shared the news which was not news to anyone in Winterfell: he and their queen – now lady – had reached an accord in which the North would become one of the Seven Kingdoms, with Sansa its wardeness, Aemond its warden, and their future firstborn son the heir to Winterfell and the North – a boy who’d wear the name ‘Stark’. Taxes would not be owed to the Crown until a full twelve moon-turns after the accord was signed – which would occur the morning of Sansa and Aemond’s wedding, which would occur in two nights when the moon was full (he did not want to give any of his relatives time to travel here for the nuptials).
There were some fists slammed on tables, some saliva spat on floors, and some curses yelled in Aemond’s approximate direction, but it struck him more as posturing than anything. As it always went with such matters, the squeaky wheel would get the grease. Whether the “grease” be an appointment as Sansa’s Head Steward while she and Aemond lived in King’s Landing, or Captain of the Guard, or one of the handmaidens to accompany them south, only time would tell.
For the rest, it was easy to see that the Northerners were tired of war. King Eddard had ridden out to quash a rebellion-in-the-making in what was expected to be an easy and quick military effort. Two years later, thousands of men had lost their lives, thousands more had lost limbs, acres upon acres of fertile land had been either burned or trampled or stripped bare to feed armies or left to rot when no able-bodied men were around to harvest them.
And, as the Starks liked to say, winter was coming. If these Northmen were only pretending to accept the situation, Aemond did not expect them to make their move until late spring. That could be years from now – years during which they’d forget what was so great about independence when Queen Rhaenyra, in all her self-vaunted benevolence, sent them wagons full of dried meats, southern wine, and pickled vegetables.
Hours of tedium later, Sansa managed to get her household to accept that they’d all be heard in the coming days, while reminding them that such marriages had been used to bring opposing factions together since the beginning of mankind’s history. “If any of you wishes to spend the winter fighting off dragons with an army of men on rationed diets, then say so.”
Of course, they were only addressing Winterfell’s household, all of whom ought to follow Sansa’s lead and execute her commands without challenge. Tomorrow Sansa would summon her major bannermen to Winterfell, and Aemond did not think things would go quite so smoothly. He would make sure Vhagar was quite visible once they began trickling in.
“What’s that?”
Aemond was startled at hearing Sansa’s voice on his blindside. He turned so he could see her and then set his gaze back on the parchment in front of him as he responded, “A letter to the queen.”
“Ready to call your mission a success already? Do you not fear I have some trick up my sleeve?”
Aemond snorted, “If I ask you to prove there’s nothing up your sleeve again, I fear I’ll be too distracted to finish this.”
“Is it so urgent?”
Aemond leaned back in his chair and looked at Sansa, who’d only just returned from the adjoining chamber where her maid had helped her out of the heavy dress she’d worn to address her household, “Well, being as my family expected this to be resolved swiftly—”
“A swift surrender or a swift destruction?” she asked teasingly.
“Either,” he answered honestly, “But my point is that if they do not get a raven within a week’s time, they’ll likely assume a dire fate befell myself and my uncle.”
“So what are you telling them?” she jerked her chin toward the letter.
Aemond lifted his shoulders, “Is this your way of asking how I’ll describe you? Worried I won’t adequately capture your radiance?”
She clicked her tongue, “No, just…” she lowered her gaze to her fingers, picking at one of the nails, “I… am not… I’m not eager to go south,” she finally blurted out, “And hoped for several weeks or… or even moons, of…” she gestured between them, “of this.”
“Oh. Well…” me, too.
“But I understand they may expect me there immediately to give my vows in person. Maybe after that we’d be able to return here though? I just...” she trailed off.
“We do need to give your bannermen plenty of time to travel here. Any that choose not to just send agreement by raven or refusal by army…”
She smiled cautiously.
“…So, I suppose I’ll tell them we have an agreement that will be enforced two nights from now, and plan to stay for at least another… two moons? To give your vassals time to assemble here and give us time to assuage any concerns.”
Sansa nodded happily, “That would be very nice, thank you.”
Aemond snorted, “Don’t thank me. I’m only even sending this so none of them will be tempted to fly up here to see what’s taking so long.”
“You wouldn’t want to visit with your family?”
Aemond picked up the quill and resumed his writing while answering, “My sister or little brother, I suppose.”
“Not your older brother?”
Aemond gave a half-hearted shrug, “It’s not that we don’t get along, just that we have nothing in common beyond our blood.” It was tempting to tell Sansa that Aegon spent all his time chasing skirts for nothing more than a bit of carnal satisfaction and the thrill of conquest. That the servants gave into his advances only because of who his father, mother, sister, and grandfather were did not bother Aegon any more than that the whores only pretended to like his company so they could get at his silver. How there was any sort of challenge to be found in pressuring some scullery maid into lifting her skirts in a supply closet was a mystery to Aemond.
He did not say any of that, though, because he was loyal to his family first and foremost. He would not lie and tell Sansa he was crazy about them, but nor would he divulge any of their dark secrets, like that Aegon was only twenty-three and yet had at least five bastards running around King’s Landing – and those were only the ones that Aemond and Ser Criston had been able to track down. Nor would he tell her that he would bet his life that none of Rhaenyra’s brats were sired by Laenor Velaryon. Half the bloody realm suspected it when none of their supposed sons had even a hint of Valyrian coloring, but while his family and his half-sister’s brood were tentative allies, he would not slander her to any outsiders.
Sansa hummed, “And I suppose it would be pointless to ask if you get on with your nieces and nephews through the queen.”
He did not look up from his writing, “It would.”
“And your uncle? The one who accompanied you, I mean?”
“You going to name everyone I share a drop of blood with? We might be here awhile.”
“Just curious,” she lowered herself into the chair perpendicular to his, “We’re to be wed.”
“In which case we’ll have the rest of our lives to talk about our families, won’t we?”
“No need to be snippy.”
“I’m not being snippy,” he mumbled.
“That’s what my little brother would say whenever he was being snippy.”
“Was that the little brother who abandoned you to go talk to crows at the Wall, or the one who abandoned you to fuck off with your sister who-knows-where? Worry about your own family, not mine.”
His words caught up with him too late, but when he looked to Sansa to see what sort of damage he’d done, she was only looking at him as if entirely unimpressed with his attempt to… he didn’t know what. To discourage her from talking about his family, he supposed, though it suddenly felt like more than that. Suddenly it felt like Sansa wasn’t the only one who’d surrendered. Only he didn’t surrender under threat of dragonfire, but because he was a good, obedient son and a good, obedient grandson and a good, obedient brother.
For the past few years, it had seemed all but certain that the moment his father breathed his last breath his family would be taking back their birthright. Well, Aegon’s birthright, but Aemond would be the King’s Hand after Grandfather passed, and he’d be Regent to Jahaerys if anything were to happen to Aegon. He’d make sure his nephew didn’t grow up to be a people pleaser, like their father, or a drunken womanizer who embarrassed his family daily, like Aegon.
Then suddenly they were all on the same side, and Aemond was sent to claim another kingdom for his half-sister who was just like Aegon: lazy when it came to anything but procreating. And all the North was quite a prize and quite a challenge. And he did not realize until an entire hall full of people mostly accepted him as their soon-to-be lord how much he’d been looking forward to the latter more than the former. He’d lost sight of it the past twenty-four hours spent with Sansa, but now that he was back to reality, writing this damned letter to his damned half-sister, instead of living in some sex-scented bubble with Sansa, he felt itchy with unexpressed energy.
“Are you being cruel because I’ve struck a nerve, or to provoke a reaction?”
“What?” Aemond barked.
“Are you trying to get me to lash out in the hopes it will escalate to me giving you a damned good reason to burn Winterfell to the ground?”
“No!” he replied quickly, perhaps too quickly, because it was eerie how she’d seemed to read his mind and – even worse – the revelation about himself was frightening. He did not relish in the suffering of others, but there was something about the idea of unleashing Vhagar’s full might on a fortress the size of Winterfell instead of some pirate ship or another… He only realized now, as Sansa stared into his eyes mercilessly, that he had come here with no uncertainty as to whether he’d be able to turn an ancient castle and ancient bloodline to ash, only as to whether he’d be able to force a woman to wear his cloak and share his bed.
“If you must know,” he spat, wondering if it sounded as defensive as his previous one-word disagreement, “I don’t particularly like speaking about my family. Of the lot of them, the only ones I give a fig about are my mother, sister, younger brother, and my sister’s children. My grandfather I respect, maybe even admire, but I have no affection for he who is about as affectionate as a spider himself. Truth be told, even my mother can be cold and at times narrow-minded. But my sister Helaena is nothing but light and happiness that she willingly shares with even the most lost of causes. And yet my father barely paid her any mind. He treated her like some child to be distracted with a pretty doll or sweet morsel, while he looked at Rhaenyra like she was all that was good in the world. He looked at all of us and saw one big, happy family – choosing to not see that his own brother got a fucking erection simply by imagining the Conciliator’s crown on his head. Choosing not to see that by breaking the laws of inheritance, he was pitting his family against itself. Choosing not to see how much his behavior and choices insulted his wife. Choosing not to—” Aemond remembered himself and smacked his lips shut. When had he stood up? When had he raised his voice? When had he become out of breath?
He tugged on the lower hem of his doublet and lowered himself back into his chair, dipping the quill and continuing where he’d left off.
A few minutes later, ink dry, parchment rolled, and wax hardened, he placed it in front of Sansa, “Here.”
He proceeded to the lord’s chamber he’d claimed the prior day and began undressing himself – it wasn’t like he’d invite some Northern lad to help him with the task.
When he got under the covers, he was not expecting his betrothed to join him, nor entirely sure he wanted her to.
When she climbed in and climbed on, he forgot that they’d had a spat, even if a small one.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his lips.
He shook his head, “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I was just…”
“Feeling snippy?” she guessed cheekily.
He ran his fingers into her hair, holding her above him where he could get a good look. It seemed he’d continue to be taken aback by just how exquisitely beautiful she was. And what kind of cur was he to be feeling cheated for not getting to burn something, when this proud, lovely woman had had to give up her crown to protect her home.
He swallowed, “Do you regret it?”
She gave him a smile and said, “Regrets are for tomorrow,” but the sparkling in her eyes said otherwise.
He couldn’t take anything back. He could only pray this strange start to their relationship wouldn’t fester and rot their entire marriage. That, and he could distract her.
That he could do.
<<<<>>>>
Like the morning prior, Aemond woke softly and slowly, not opening his eyes just yet as, lying on his side, he arched his back to stretch his spine. He straightened his legs and pointed his toes then went to lift his arms over his head, but something had one of them caught.
Suddenly very awake, his head whipped up to search for the cause of his limited motion.
He found his right hand – his dominant hand – chained to one of the cast iron rungs that formed the headboard, though they looked oddly like the bars on a prison cell’s gate at the moment.
His stomach sank.
Blood rushed to his limbs.
He stared at the metal ring around his wrist, and then…
“Oh, fuck,” he mumbled with a tongue that had gone suddenly dry.
Notes:
I know you're not (entirely) surprised.
A few things to say:
-With the North independent, the Faith would have significantly less representation (nearly none) in the North. Basically, a southerner marrying into the North would be expected to convert just like a northerner marrying into the South would. Ned is too kind to force his wife to convert, but knowing what his people would think if they saw Sansa or Robb praying in a Sept, or the girls being tutored by a Septa, means Sansa was exposed to MUCH less of the whole "bastards are evil" belief which so far as I know is a doctrine of the Faith of the Seven and no other religion in Westeros.
-Reminder that Aemond, in line with his book persona, can be a nasty little bitch and very touchy. Take everything he says about his family with a grain of salt. It might be true, or it might be an exaggeration due to his bias.
-I'm somewhat worried you'll go from "I hope the North wipes the floor with the Targaryens" to "Sansa is a duplicitous bitch and deserves to die". Your opinions and reactions are your own, but I hope you'll continue to read the story and give ALL characters a chance to prove themselves. Though be warned that not all of them will.
-Also be warned that the bigotry of North toward South and vice versa will continue in coming chapters. It is there by design and for the sake of realism. Just like how, in canon, wildlings are considered savages of no worth and the Free Folk consider everyone south of the wall to be spineless kneelers, we'll see some of the North/South hate being expressed along with sexism that is not OK by modern standards but that I believe would've been rampant in a medieval, patriarchal, feudal, and violent society. Sticks and stones, people. Sticks and stones.
Chapter Text
“Fuck,” Aemond repeated, fear occupying the space where anger and indignation would be residing if he was not so very alone, and so very helpless, and so very fucking naked, in a land that was as foreign to him as Norvos or Meereen would be.
He pulled with all his might, first with his wrist then by gripping the rung he was chained to with both hands and putting his entire body, including his feet, into the effort to pull it loose.
“I’d prefer you didn’t do that,” a soft voice drifted to his ears.
He twisted around while pulling the sheet up to cover his groin, already sneering at the she-wolf. When his eye landed on her he was already spitting out, “What the fuck is the meaning of this?! Are you trying to get yourself and everyone you know burned alive? Because when Vhagar feels my anger or my fear, she will come for me.”
“I had assumed as much,” Sansa Stark nodded placidly. Her chin was high and her eyes hard, betraying no hint as to her feelings. She was dressed in black from chin to ankle, her pale face looking ghostly white against the somber ensemble, especially with her wild auburn hair tamed into a bun so tight it seemed to be pulling her eyes to a slant. His gaze lowered to her hands… hands that had pulled his hair, stroked his chest, cradled his cheek, and felt his heartbeat. Now they were clasped in front of her belly, fingers laced all prim and proper.
He was so mad he could not even spit out a curse.
“For what it’s worth,” she spoke without quite meeting his eye, “such deceptions do not sit well with me, Prince Aemond, but needs must.”
“What needs?” he growled, curling all his fingers into a pair of tight fists.
“The needs of the North. The needs of the realm.”
Aemond scoffed, “I cannot fathom how chaining me to your bed does the North or the realm any good. Now—”
“Apologies, but I do not have time to stay and converse. I only wished to be clear that… that I’m aware such ruses are poor form.”
He snorted harshly, “And yet you use them anyway.”
“Yes, well…” she looked away from him and smoothed her hands along her skirts, “I do hope in time you will understand. Even more, I hope the North and the South can reach some sort of amity, or at least avoid the sort of enmity your uncle and you came here to deliver.” She tipped her head, even dropping into a half-curtsy, “Safe travels, Prince Aemond.”
He wanted to bark out a hundred questions – about why she was doing this, about his dragon, about his uncle, about his uncle’s dragon. He wanted to call her every vile thing he could think of and threaten rather colorfully painful fates.
He ended up stuttering in outrage and wasting his precious time with the Queen in the North until she was at the door, about to step out of the room. Desperation or anger or both unstuck his tongue, and he heard himself saying, “You will be sorry,” his voice a low growl so teeming with warning that it ought to have frightened even him.
Sansa’s steps paused and for a moment it seemed she would turn to face him, but her head stopped halfway, and he hated that even under these circumstances he couldn’t help but marvel at her bone structure in profile. The sharp cut of her jaw, her gently pointed chin, her arrow-straight nose, her gentle brow. Even her fucking ear was pretty.
“I know,” she said, barely loud enough for him to hear.
Then she was gone.
A few minutes later a half dozen men came in – some of whom had been among those who delivered Sansa Stark to him in her unders two days before. Then, they’d seemed strong of body yet simple of mind, even if crafty. Today they carried themselves with the bearing of distinguished fighters, the North’s equivalent of knights, Aemond supposed. Solemn and poised, though without the polish he was used to from court.
It had all been a ruse. A trick. A trap.
But to what end? Based on Sansa’s parting words – safe travels – and unless they’d been in reference to the afterlife, Aemond would not be losing his head. But what good would it do the people of Winterfell to keep him alive when he’d only go straight to Vhagar and do to their home what the Conqueror had done to Harrenhal?
A terrifying thought struck him… Had they killed Vhagar? But how? He’d seen no ballistae or other heavy weaponry on the walls when they’d circled the place before landing, not entirely trusting the white flags of their barbaric enemy. Could someone have been brave enough to deliver poisoned meat to Vhagar? But how could such a quantity of any poison exist in the world? How would they know which kind would be fatal to a dragon, and how much was needed for Vhagar’s size?
He was not one to show fear – hadn’t been since he was a little boy with two eyes and no dragon – so he only sneered at the men as they approached the bed. One unlocked the manacle while the rest effectively held Aemond at swordpoint. His clothes were thrown at him, and he dressed without any privacy. By the fact that he was naked and that the queen had been in a position to cuff him to the bed, there’d be no doubt about what transpired between wolf and dragon last night, and yesterday, and the night before. Aemond – once fully attired – decided to inflict pain with his words, since he had been relieved of all other weapons.
“Enjoy serving a whore?” he asked sharply of the man who’d done most of the talking yesterday. Sansa had referred to him by name at some point since then, but all Aemond recalled was that the given name ended in ‘-ric’.
The apparent leader looked entirely unaffected as he instantly retorted with, “Do you?”
Aemond couldn’t hide his dark amusement and saw little point in trying. He had no love for Rhaenyra nor any compulsion to defend her honor. He’d let the Queen of Dragons do so. Vhagar would settle this just as soon as she saw her rider being walked out of Winterfell at swordpoint. She probably was on her way now, perhaps having found some warm place to spend the night away from the humongous castle filled with pesky Northmen. He was certain that she and Caraxes were just fine; he would have felt her pain if she’d been in any, and he thought that he’d feel like his heart had been torn from his chest if she died. He didn’t feel anything from her, but he was certain she would feel his anger from wherever she was.
The smirk on his lips was a proud one as he eventually stepped out into the biting cold of one of Winterfell’s courtyards. Yesterday’s relative mildness was an unfortunately brief occurrence, but the place would be hot soon enough.
Just as soon as Vhagar got her giant arse over here…
There was nothing elusive about the way he tilted his head back and looked up and all around. Only a moron would not expect a dragonrider to rely on his dragon for protection, and these men were not stupid.
Ugly and ill-refined, but not stupid.
But he saw no sign of Vhagar, nor Caraxes.
Was the old bitch hibernating like bears did? Perhaps it was an unknown fact that dragons became lethargic in the extreme cold. Could she have found some giant, warm cave in which to bide her time? If so, he’d be having words with her. She should not be leaving him undefended in enemy territory. He’d have thought a veteran war dragon would know that, but perhaps the past decades had seen her become indolent and forgetful.
She wouldn’t have wandered off somewhere with Caraxes, would she? Of all the ugly dragons a queen could choose to fornicate with, if she settled for the one bound to Aemond’s whore of an uncle, he’d really be having harsh words with her just as soon as the matter of Northern independence was resolved and a certain redhaired temptress was put in her place.
(He didn’t like what it said about him that the only place he wanted to put Sansa Stark was his bed, with her wrist chained to a rung, but he would blame his cock for that, only some strange Northern sorcery that he hadn’t believed in as of an hour ago.)
He was led to the main courtyard just inside the North gate but still saw no sign of either dragon, nor his uncle, just the amount of activity and toil normally reserved for bee colonies. His hands were not bound, and he’d been told to don all the outerwear he’d arrived in, so he didn’t expect a quick beheading was probable, but he would not count it out, either.
“Word of advice,” the same guard grumbled in that painfully abrasive voice, “keep the whore comment to yerself. The dark wolf won’t appreciate it.”
Aemond rolled his eye, wondering how many nicknames Sansa had amassed, when he saw a young man, perhaps a couple years older than himself, do a double-take when his eyes landed on Aemond as he was walking with purpose across the muddy yard. Said eyes narrowed, and a long face became even longer as he stomped right up to Aemond, his gloved hand molesting a white sword pommel Aemond didn’t catch the details of.
They stood of a height, just about, with similar build in their leathers and furs. The other man had steel-grey eyes, coal-dark hair of jaw length tucked behind his ears, and a full beard that Aemond was almost tempted to be jealous of. He’d always wanted to grow a beard to hide his prominent chin, but unlike some young men he knew, he would not settle for something as sparse as the hairs on his bollocks.
“Am I supposed to know who you are?” Aemond finally broke the silence, ensuring he sounded and looked unconcerned.
And as soon as the words were out, he realized something…
The man had “the Northern look” as Sansa had called it. Tall, broad shouldered, with dark hair and eyes and pale skin.
Larence Snow.
It was utterly ridiculous to feel jealous of the man who’d won the heart of Sansa Stark, the duplicitous woman who’d used her cunt – several times – to keep Aemond distracted while her men planned whatever the hell this was. Larence Snow could have the bitch, so far as Aemond was concerned. It wasn’t like Aemond would still be marrying her, nor want to, now that he knew her true colors. The only relationship he and Sansa would ever have would be leaders of opposing armies, or more likely killer and victim, once Vhagar made her appearance.
The young man’s eyes continued to scrutinize even as he said to a white-haired bear of a companion who’d trailed him to where Aemond stood, “I’d expected him to look more… regal.”
“That kneeler talk fer fancy and delicate?” the bear-man asked.
“Something like that.”
“Well, yer a prince and y’ain’t fancy lookin’, har!”
Aemond’s teeth clamped together to have his suspicion confirmed. Prince consort, must be. Married Sansa. Took her name. Took her maidenhead. Took her heart. And let her whore herself as part of this scheme. Wonder what he’d do if I told him how many times my mouth was on Sansa’s cunt, how many times I put my seed in her belly in a twenty-four-hour period. How many times I made her peak. Unless those were lies, too.
The young man scoffed at his friend’s comment, “I’m not a prince, Tormund, and the North doesn’t kneel, remember?”
“Har! Ya kneel to yer sister, ya do!” Sister? “And not even in th’fun way! Har!” the man smacked the other so hard on the shoulder that he winced in time with a forward bounce.
It should not matter.
Aemond should not feel so relieved he almost went weak-kneed.
But it did. And he did.
Though at least he didn’t show it as he asked, “Jon Snow, I presume?”
The man lifted his chin in something like defiant confirmation, “Aemond One-Eye, I presume?”
“That’s Prince Aemond One-Eye to you.”
“Not in the North, it’s not.”
“Really? Hmm. Your sister called me Prince Aemond this morning. Twice, I do believe. Though she was much less proper in her address of me last evening. And the evening before. And all the hours in between.”
The man looked away, shaking his head and giving a dry snort of a laugh, then he was swinging his fist, just as Aemond knew he would. Aemond was already preparing to duck beneath Jon’s arm then rise with an upper cut when the bear of a man looped his fur-covered arm around the Stark bastard’s torso and pulled back.
“Now, now, I told yer sister I wouldn’t let ya kill ‘im.”
“I wasn’t planning on killing him,” Jon spat.
“Not s’posed to let ya hurt him, neither.”
Aemond frowned, resenting that Sansa would pretend to care about his well-being and having no one to direct it at but for the man doing her will. He sneered at the burly man, “I don’t recall asking you to intercede, Ser.”
The man’s blue eyes went wide as moons, “What’d he say to me?!”
Now it was Jon keeping the bear-man from swinging, and Aemond wasn’t ashamed to admit he flinched and jumped back a bit. The man wasn’t overly tall but he was as wide as two Aemonds shoulder-to-shoulder, with his deerskin coat covering biceps that were as thick as Aemond’s thighs.
After a bit more posturing, both men stomped away, the bear-man mumbling something that sounded like, “I’ll show ‘im in-ter-seeding”, and Aemond realized he was unlikely to get any explanations until, finally, his uncle was delivered to where he was standing in the midst of a courtyard full of people – of soldiers – obviously preparing for a departure.
“Thank fuck,” Aemond breathed as Daemon came close enough for them to converse, lowering his voice though no one seemed to care what the two Targaryens were saying to each other, which was as insulting as it was confusing. “What’s going on?” Aemond demanded.
Daemon shrugged his hands as his eyes darted around, taking in as much as he could, “You’re asking me? I was hoping you got answers from the Ice Queen herself.”
Aemond rolled his eye, “Only that she deeply regrets the deceptive manner of… whatever the fuck this is.”
“I’ll show her where she can shove her regrets, and just how deeply.”
Aemond rubbed at his eyebrow where a tightness was forming when he realized something was missing. “Shit,” he cursed, then he began heading back in the direction he’d been led out of the main keep, when one of his minders stopped him.
“I need my eyepatch!” he ordered the man.
“No time fer that. Besides, why’d you wanna hide that pretty gem?”
Aemond huffed, “Why is there no time? Where are you taking us? And where are our dragons?!”
“You’ll know all soon enough, I’d wager. Now stop whinging.”
Aemond ignored the insult, certain his voice didn’t sound like whinging, “Have they done something to them? Are they alive? Are they hurt?” He knew he would not trust any answer the man gave, but he had too much concern to suppress.
The man only pursed his lips and Aemond was prepared to curse him to all seven hells or perhaps shove the man out of his way – if they wanted him dead, he’d already be dead – when he was stopped short by the sight of the Queen in the North herself. With her back as straight as a spear, she descended a set of exterior stairs, wearing her modest crown for the first time Aemond was there to see. Regal and sure-footed, she crossed the courtyard, and all mumbling and shouting, laughter and banter, came to an abrupt end as all eyes went to her. Her bastard brother noticed the silence and turned, smiling instantly when he saw her approach – a small but genuine thing that brightened his previously somber face. She wore a slightly wider smile as she closed the space between them and wrapped her arms around her brother’s ribs, squeezing him tight while an entire castle watched on as if they’d never seen a merrier sight.
The siblings broke apart after a time, at which point a blue ribbon was tied around Jon’s left arm, to the friendly amusement of many as Jon made an exaggerated eyeroll, as if he was merely humoring his sister’s girlish whims.
Or his lover’s.
Aemond felt his cheeks heating. Who could say which of Sansa’s words were true, if any of them? Maybe there was no Larence Snow. Maybe she’d made the man up because she did not wish to admit to Aemond that it really was her half-brother who’d received her maiden’s gift. Maybe she thought it sounded better, more sympathetic, that some brave young bastard had risked his life to save his king. Certainly, better than some horny brother slipping into his sister’s bedchamber one night with a rose in one hand and his cock in the other.
Their smiles faded but the half-siblings continued to look at each other earnestly, as if having some silent conversation. Jon made another small smile before pressing it against Sansa’s creaseless forehead. She returned the kiss to his bearded cheek, then stepped back and gave a nod, and suddenly a horse was there, and Jon Snow was deftly pulling himself up and swinging his right leg over the saddle with the grace and poise of a king, while his sister once again looked like the frigid Queen in the North, the one who fed enemies to her pet wolves.
Except Aemond had seen no pet wolves, a realization which cast doubt on everything else he’d heard about the victory of House Stark over the rebels.
Everything except the rumor that Sansa Stark once kept a rose given to her by her half-brother on the night she let him pluck another flower…
Aemond turned away. He had no desire to see Sansa Stark, and much more pressing things to ponder than whether she would look in his direction.
And yet, as he and Daemon were prodded out of Winterfell like cattle, it felt just as tempting to look back as it did to look up. And when he gave into the compulsion, their gazes overlapped for half a heartbeat during which he had just started to look, and she had just started to look away.
<<<<>>>>
By the time the procession he and Daemon were unwilling members of made camp, the sun was low in the western sky and Aemond was so cold he had stopped caring about anything but getting warm. A simmered wine, a strong whiskey, a fur-covered featherbed or a fire-filled camp – he had been driven to apathy about his situation thanks to the biting Northern cold.
He’d come to learn that it was more than the marshy lands of the Neck that protected the North; more than its vastness, more than its millennia-old fortresses. The weather itself was a weapon for these men, at least during winters and presumably late autumns and early springs. While Aemond and Daemon shivered and yearned for a warm place to rest their heads, the Northrons around them laughed and jeered, cursed and sang and teased and argued.
The two Targaryens had received plenty of dirty looks from the men they marched amongst. Aemond could handle that and didn’t have much choice, outnumbered a few hundred to two as they were. Sneers and the occasional gob of spit landing close to his boots were easy enough to ignore, too. (Well, on the outside.)
It was harder to ignore the men who made kissing sounds, or asked if Aemond’s pretty mouth was any good at sucking cock, or if Daemon liked fucking his nephews as well as he liked fucking his nieces, or remarked that Aemond’s long hair would make a neat set of reins. The guards who were apparently tasked with keeping the two hostages, or prisoners, or whatever the fuck they were safe and in line silenced most of those taunts but weren’t particularly passionate when reminding the others that “the Southrons are under the queen’s protection”.
Given that the queen had been the one to make a prisoner of him, Aemond found it hard to believe her protection would extend very far.
Occasionally Aemond had caught sight of Jon Snow’s black curls at the head of the procession and would find himself wondering if the bastard wolf had been aware of his sister’s planned tactics to ensnare a Targaryen prince beforehand, and if he’d approved.
Mostly, he’d just trudged along in silence, thinking only about how cold he was and worrying about where Vhagar and Caraxes were. If the dragons had been killed or even injured, Aemond suspected at least one of the Northrons would’ve taunted him and Daemon with such information. That gave him some reassurance, but the relief was hardly absolute. In fact, his discomfort in the cold was probably the only reason he wasn’t going mad with fear over what could’ve befallen his massive, near invincible friend.
When the party made camp, he and Daemon were given some space – their own fallen log to share. They had eyes on them in every direction but no ears close enough to hear their words if they were spoken quietly enough.
“I count three hundred head, sixty mounted,” Daemon mumbled in High Valyrian while blowing warmth into his gloved hands. The nearest campfire beckoned them, but not so much as the dozen Northmen around it deterred them.
“Three hundred or three thousand makes no matter when Vhagar and Caraxes get here.”
“If they could get here, they’d be here,” Daemon shook his head, “something’s happened to them.”
“They’re not dead,” Aemond was quick to utter, whether to convince himself or his uncle, he wasn’t sure.
“I feel the same, yet I cannot… I can’t feel him.”
His uncle’s words had Aemond’s blood pumping better than a roaring fire or a strong wine could’ve. In all today’s wondering and worrying and trying to project his emotions into the space where dragon and rider could communicate without words, he hadn’t taken note of the absence of feelings from her point of view. Or at least, hadn’t thought it meant anything other than that she was sleeping, or further away than he’d expected her to go. But when had distance or slumber ever severed their connection? Whenever Aemond had reached out to her, Vhagar had reached back.
Until today.
“What do you think it means?” Aemond asked. Ordinarily he’d never seek advice from Daemon, or really any man save Ser Criston and Grandfather, but they were all the other had now – two weak dragons amongst a sea of hearty wolves. And, begrudgingly, Aemond could admit (to himself) that Daemon was no dummy. He might not have the mind of a maester, but he was clever and cunning and a good problem-solver. Then again, most of his problems were solved with his sword, but… well, at least it was something.
“I have no idea. I can only hope whatever trick or attack they used won’t work on the other dragons.”
“The other dragons?” Aemond frowned.
“Rhaenyra will come when she hasn’t heard from us. As will Rhaenys.”
Aemond realized his uncle was right, except…
In response to his pained groan, Daemon side-eyed him and asked, “What?”
“I… may have written a letter to Rhaenyra… Letting her know we plan to depart for King’s Landing… in two moons’ time.”
Aemond expected an outburst of rage along with some rather sharp attacks on his intelligence (and person).
In actuality, Daemon only blinked at him, yet it felt as painful as his insults and blows would’ve been.
Aemond squeezed his forehead, “I know.”
Daemond sighed, “Must’ve been one fine cunt.”
Aemond could only sigh. It had been a fine cunt, but since it was attached to a conniving bitch who’d lied through her pearly teeth and accepted their betrothal – a holy fucking vow! – only to betray him and not even grace him with an explanation… Well, he’d not be admitting that prior to this morning he’d have described Sansa Stark’s cunt as the eighth heaven.
Nor would he even think it.
“Well,” Daemon sighed again, “thanks to you thinking with your cock, I’d say we’ll be at the Wall before anyone in the capital thinks to look for us.”
“I wasn’t…! Wait… the Wall?”
“Mmhmm,” Daemond hummed affirmatively.
“Meaning, the giant wall made of ice? Where the North sends its thieves and killers and rapers and… Oh…”
“Mmhmm.”
“Shit… Fuck…” he switched to the Common Tongue seamlessly as he usually did to swear.
“Mmhmm.”
“You know they say dragons can’t fly over the Wall. Queen Alysanne tried it while on her campaign to win the North’s fealty through love, not war. Silverwing refused.”
“Mmhmm.”
“Will you stop saying that?” Aemond scoffed.
Instead, Daemon said nothing. The men sat in silence that persisted even when one of their minders was kind enough to bring each of them a skewer of charred goose and a waterskin to share.
Well, Aemond thought it was water until he took a sip and was delighted to taste the tartness of wine. Shitty wine, but wine all the same. After how little he’d eaten today the warmth spread through him like wildfire.
At his questioning look, the man shrugged, “The Lord Commander don’t want you southern flowers freezin’ in yer first frost.”
“Be sure to pass our thanks along to the Lord Commander,” Daemon flashed a cocky grin, “Perhaps he’d let me show my gratitude by offering to help him warm up, too – a good spar ought to do the trick. Live steel will be fine if there are no practice weapons to be found.”
The man let through a small yet highly pleased smile, “Mayhap, Prince Daemon, Commander Snow will accept yer generous offer.”
Daemon’s grin didn’t quite drop, but it was clear that he understood the man’s insinuation: that it would be a fight Daemon Targaryen would not win.
Daemon had leveled men for far less insult, but both princes were – without having discussed the strategy – committed to being a pair of good little hostages, or prisoners, or whatever they were. If the Northmen thought they were complacent with this plot or simply too afraid of the Northern wilds to chance an escape, then they’d eventually stop watching the pair so diligently. At least in theory.
In this particular case, it was easier for Aemond to hold his tongue than Daemon. While the Rogue Prince looked as shocked as if a pig had flown over them with the express purpose of shitting on his head, Aemond One-Eye was wondering if a duel between Jon Snow and his uncle wouldn’t be a win-win, for him. If Daemon won, the Northerners would have to release them and fix whatever they’d done with their dragons. If Jon Snow won, they’d be precisely where they were now, but Daemon would’ve been humbled quite a bit.
Though Aemond supposed he’d much prefer for Daemon to win. It would lead to their freedom and Aemond’s reunion with Vhagar. But if Jon Snow managed to injure Daemon before losing… Well, Aemond knew Daemon was a weapon for his family, only he was a weapon that could be used against the side of his family Aemond cared about, ever loyal as Daemon was to the woman who raised him up to be as close to the kingship as he could be without stealing the crown from his brother or his brother’s heir – both of which were beyond even Daemon Targaryen’s largely nonexistent moral threshold.
(Though if Viserys had named Aegon his heir as the entire realm expected, Daemon might’ve crossed that threshold. Unlike Rhaenyra, he couldn’t marry Aegon, after all.)
It was probably for the best that the guard pulled Aemond from his musings before they strayed too close to avunculicide. “That one’s for you two,” the man pointed at something behind the pair, and two silver-blond heads turned to find he was gesturing to one tent among many others. It was nothing like the spacious tents nobles and royals used when out on hunts or travels with a tall center pole and at least six shorter poles forming the perimeter, space enough for a double bed and small dining table, traveling chests and a small stove or brazier. This thing was a half-domed structure barely tall enough for an adult to sit upright in, barely long enough for a grown man to stretch out in, and barely wide enough for not one but two grown men to sleep side-by-side in.
Aemond turned back to look up at the man and frowned, “Is there nothing bigger available?”
The man heaved a great sigh, “Shoulda known a Southron man would be more needy than a Northern lady.”
“Are there any Northern ladies in this procession?” Daemond asked in all apparent seriousness, “Because if I must share a tent with someone…”
“Ya don’t like it, yer welcome to sleep outside.”
With that the man was off, clearly considering his duty done, and it was only then that Aemond realized the exchange had been seen (and heard) by others. A trio of hairy Northmen were looking at Daemon and smirking. The ugliest of them (which was saying something) called out, “I’ll keep ya warm, princey. Warm ya from the inside out, I will!”
His companions laughed, one so hard that he hacked up a gob of phlegm and spat it into the snow, where for a moment Aemond saw steam rising. It was nearly enough to make him gag but he was distracted soon enough by his uncle finally losing his legendarily short temper.
“You’re welcome to try, goat fucker,” Daemon shot back before tearing a hunk of charred goose off his skewer with his teeth, not looking up to see what damage he’d done.
Aemond groaned when, instead of laughing, the ugly man’s face went serious as the grave as he rose from his makeshift seat.
That had Daemon rising, too, then Aemond – though whether he meant to join the inevitable fray or be the voice of reason he did not know.
The man’s slow strides crunched snow and broke twigs as he approached. He never drew a weapon, nor even let his hand drift to the knife on his belt, but it was small consolation to Aemond. “You kiss yer sister with that mouth?” he asked gruffly.
“How original,” Daemon spoke in flat voice, “And no, I kiss your sister with this mouth. Only on the cunt though – it’s prettier than her face.”
That was all it took to have the ugly bugger lunge at Daemon. Daemon side-stepped it with ease and was about to gloat when the man used impressive lower-body strength to shift his mass to the right, grazing Daemon’s right hip and setting him momentarily off kilter.
Both men adjusted quickly but neither was able to get out of the other’s range and thus they embraced the inevitable – no hardship for either – and commenced with a fist fight, as if they were a pair of everyday knaves brawling over a dice game.
Before either could damage much more than the other’s pride, there was a shrill whistle, and a moment later a blur of white against the dark night that surrounded them, rushing toward the men.
“What the…” Daemon stumbled backwards away from the other man, who also backed away though without tripping over his own feet.
Aemond couldn’t blame his uncle’s sudden clumsiness. Not when he was eye-to-eye with a wolf the size of a small mare. A wolf with thick white fur and eyes that glowed red in the moonlight. A wolf that was baring fangs the length of Aemond’s thumb in a silent snarl that was somehow more terrifying without an audible growl.
“Good boy,” a smooth voice cut through what had become a deadly silence. It was Jon Snow, Aemond managed to pry his eye away from the wolf to see. The dark-haired Stark buried a hand in the wolf’s ruff, which was about even with his shoulder, and looked at Daemon. “Perhaps you two should retire for the night. I’m sure marching through snow is taxing to men of your southern constitutions.”
Jon Snow turned to walk away, and Aemond managed to unfreeze his tongue to say, “What is this about, Lord Snow?”
The bastard of Winterfell paused his strides but only turned his head enough to side-eye Aemond as he said, “We will walk together on the morrow, and I will give you what answers I can.” He cast his gaze to Daemon then, “Rest easy tonight. None of my men will bother you. Not while Ghost guards your tent.”
Aemond couldn’t help but let out a nasally chuckle after the bastard paced away. It was half anger, half hopelessness, and all frustration. He turned and walked to the tent that was to be his and Daemon’s, lifting the whole front side to crawl under and in while ignoring all the eyes on him, including the pair that was an eerie shade of red. He got under the blankets and furs fully dressed, too cold to think of removing even one article of clothing.
It was another few minutes before he felt a gust of cold as his uncle came crawling in, finding Aemond covered in blankets up to his chin, lying on his side and facing the entrance.
“If that wolf made you piss your pants, kindly find another tent to sleep in,” Aemond groused.
“Don’t worry, I only shit myself.”
Aemond snorted, no matter that he didn’t want to give his uncle the satisfaction.
“Roll over, will ya?” Daemon huffed as he began tying the tent flap closed.
“I’d rather sleep facing the entrance.”
“Me, too.”
“So…?”
“Sooo, I don’t wanna wake up to the feeling of your morning woody on my arse.”
Aemond sighed loudly and rolled over while staying under the blankets, but even his careful movements lifted them enough to blast him with cold air. He almost screamed in rage when Daemon lifted the blankets to put his cold body underneath.
It was absolutely miserable. Their thick clothing and stiff outer layers were not comfortable to sleep in, and the boots that protected their feet from snow and cold during the march were now trapping the cold in. With little space to move around they ended up kicking and elbowing each other repeatedly as they divested their boots and as much of their clothing as they dared. The clothing they laid atop their blankets but it slipped off whenever one of them shifted to get comfortable. They cursed each other, cursed the North and everyone in it. Cursed Starks and wolves and sorcery and snow and wind and tree gods and winter.
And when they were all cursed out, it was so quiet that Aemond figured his uncle must’ve fallen asleep, until he heard, “So just how fine was her cunt, anyway?”
Notes:
Do you know how hard it was to not tag this with 'sharing a tent' or 'huddling for warmth'? I resisted the temptation b/c I didn't want you to get mad at me - all of you except IG - when it was Aemond/Daemon sharing the tent instead of Aemond/Sansa.
Soo... Aemond is pretty steamed at Sansa (how DARE she fool the guy trying to conquer her kingdom!?), worried about Vhagar's AWOL status, colder than a witch's titty, and really jealous of Jon Snow's beard... I mean, that time Jon may or may not have slept with Sansa. AND he has to share a tent with his funny uncle and endure sexual harassment. If he was a girl he'd probably have learned how to deal with all that stuff by age thirteen, but this is new territory for our poor darling.
Chapter Text
Aemond woke with a gasp, stiff and achy and cold and disoriented, to the sound of a gruff voice shouting, “Stop fiddlin’ each other’s peckers and get a move-on! We ain’t got all day to wait for yer lily-white arses!”
“If they keep talking about our frontsides and backsides, I’m gonna take it as a compliment.”
Daemon’s voice came from just behind Aemond's ear and the younger prince jolted forward, not that there was far to go between his face and the animal hide tent wall.
He peeked over his shoulder and grumbled, “I thought you wished to sleep facing the tent flap.”
“I got so cold I stopped caring,” Daemon yawned, “And I didn’t hear you complaining.”
Aemond felt his cheeks flush with embarrassment and anger.
“What? Did you think I was that wolf queen of yours, holding you like a babe all night?” Daemon grinned.
Aemond scoffed and sat up, effectively removing the blankets not just from himself but from the uncle that he wanted to kill about as much as he wanted to kill every Northman in this entire damned camp. He began gathering his clothes, throwing Daemon’s at his face whenever he found an article he didn’t recognize as his own.
“Or was it that brother of hers you were dreaming of, hm? I can’t fault you for that – he’s the prettier of the pair, you ask me. She’s got a nice rack, I’ll give you that, but there’s just something about thick lips that always did it for me.”
Aemond swung his boot to smack Daemon in the belly, but the bastard blocked it with ease.
So, logically, Aemond used his other hand to swing the other boot. Daemon wasn’t able to block that one, which pissed him off enough to pry the first boot away and bring it down hard on Aemond’s upper arm. It fucking stung, but Aemond refused to show it.
It became a battle of who could inflict more pain with naught but a leather boot, and it surely would’ve escalated to fists very soon if not for the same voice outside their tent shouting that, “Ya had all night to bugger each other! Now get a move-on, or I’ll send the wolf in there to break up yer lit’l love fest, believe me I will!”
While Daemon was distracted thinking up a quip to lob back, Aemond shoved him down and put his knee into his belly to crawl over him to the tent flap, not realizing until it was too late that he’d be vulnerable after Daemon caught his breath and before he’d gotten all the ties undone.
By the time they emerged from the tent, more than a few fingers were pointing in their direction in time with more than a few mustached mouths cackling. The only saving grace for Aemond was that Daemon – what with his middle-aged bones and decades-old scars faring poorly in the cold, damp air – was the one walking funny.
<<<<>>>>
True to his word, Jon Snow sent a reedy young man to summon the Targaryen princes to walk with him a couple hours into their northbound journey that morning. The boy was Jon’s steward, apparently, and prettier than at least half the girls Aemond knew from court. So attractive, in fact, that it was hard not to look at him, and Aemond had never leaned that way. He, like Jon Snow, had what Sansa called “the northern look” – dark hair and eyes and pale skin – but unlike the Northmen all around them, he was on the short side and slight of build. His tight curls were sleek, not frizzy, and his eyes and mouth were set in a way that made him look kind and approachable. He wore the blacks of the Night’s Watch, or so Aemond had gathered based on seeing Jon Snow and a few others sporting such duds while the rest were garbed in the North’s version of motley – dozens of shades of grey, brown, and white because it all came from animal hide or fur, and they didn’t seem to believe in dye.
“You’re from the south,” Aemond said as they walked beside the steward to the front of the procession, having noted the man’s accent was very similar to that of Mother and Grandfather, even if his diction was not quite so refined.
“Around Oldtown, yes,” the young man replied. By the crinkles around his eyes, Aemond would assume he was a good five or six years older than himself, yet he had the voice and build of a boy not yet finished puberty.
“My mother is from Oldtown,” Aemond informed, hoping to make a connection with at least one member of their otherwise hostile traveling party. His house was flush with gold, but it would be easier to bribe a man if he didn’t curse the ground Aemond and Daemon walked on.
“I know,” the man cast Aemond a smile to reassure that he wasn’t being smart.
When Jon Snow thanked “Satin” for delivering the princes a few minutes later, Aemond blushed. Clearly the lad was or had been a catamite to be going by such a name. That made sense given he was from Oldtown, where men of certain persuasions pursued careers as maesters to escape the pressure to marry and make heirs.
It was bad enough that he and Daemon had made a ruckus in their tent this morning; now everyone would wonder why Aemond had been making light conversation with a boy-whore. If he survived this excursion with his arsehole as virginal as it presently was, he’d feel just about as lucky as if he survived it with all his fingers and toes intact and without frostbite. Maybe more so, since he had enough fingers and toes to spare a couple, if need be, but he only had one arsehole.
Satin took the reins of Jon’s horse and walked a scant few paces behind the trio of men.
Unsurprisingly, Daemon was the first to speak, “You’re taking us to the Wall, aren’t you?”
Jon Snow stared only straight ahead, his gloved hands relaxed and not hovering near the pommel of his longsword, which Aemond now knew to be a wolf’s head. He was either very stupid or very confident in his ability to stop Daemon or Aemond if either made a go for the sword in hopes of threatening his life in exchange for their release and the return of their dragons.
(Aemond didn’t like to admit it to himself, but Jon Snow did not strike him as stupid.)
“I understand this must be confusing, and frustrating, and maddening, and even frightening,” Jon responded without answering Daemon’s question.
“Do we look frightened to you?” Daemon asked cockily.
Jon continued as if the interruption hadn’t been heard, “I can only tell you that, when we reach our destination, you will have no room in you for anything but the latter. You will not resent me for marching you along like prisoners – which I admit you are, in a sense, though only because we had no other options—”
“We?” Aemond asked, even knowing damned well who Jon's co-conspirator was.
“Nor will you resent my sister for her part in all this. You will not think of Northmen as barbaric, as some brutish people that must be conquered. You will not be angry at the men who’ve given you dirty looks during the entire march. In fact, every one of these men – even me, even Danric, even Tormund, even Hugo – every single one of us – you will love like he’s your own brother—”
“You’ve never met my brother,” Aemond and Daemon harmonized, then scowled at each other and looked back to Jon Snow.
“I promise you, on my honor as a Stark by blood if not by name, that when you see what I am bringing you to see, you will not be asking about your fate, about why my sister and her people deceived you, why I and my men kidnapped you, for lack of a better term, why we stole your dragons—”
“You what?!” Aemond and Daemon harmonized again.
“You will only have two questions worth asking: how many are there, and how do we kill them?”
A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold went down Aemond’s spine, but Daemon reacted only with a smirk.
“Trying to scare us into going along with whatever the fuck this is?” Daemon gestured vaguely ahead of them without pausing his strides, “Because it seems to me the only reason you could have for stealing our dragons is to use them against the South, against House Targaryen. You figured Caraxes and Vhagar together are worth five of any other dragon. That would help level the field a bit, wouldn’t it? That ice cold bitch you call a sister has men trying to figure out how to command a dragon as we speak, while you’re taking us far away from Winterfell so you can use us as hostages against our family if things don’t go your way.”
Jon let out a dry snort, “Sure, I’m marching a few hundred fighting men away from where I expect the fight to be. Sure, I’m leaving my sister alone to figure out how to tame a pair of animals who make Sansa look as insubstantial as the bit of meat I pick out of my teeth after supper. Sure, I went to all this trouble when I could’ve just done what Brandon Snow did. Actually, I went to all this trouble because I was just dying to have the company of a pair of spoiled Southron princes who think ‘cold’ is that thing you feel when your servants weren’t quick enough hauling up your bathwater.”
“Try us and you’ll see how spoiled we are, bastard.”
Jon rolled his eyes at Daemon’s taunt even as he spat, “Anyone can swing a sword when he’s covered head-to-toe in steel armor, facing an opponent or even three who are just like him: destructible. Anyone can swing a sword when the worst he has to fear is a quick death. But when you’ve faced an opponent who won’t kill you quickly, but over the course of days or weeks of agony if you lose, let’s see how tough you are. When you’ve faced an opponent that does not hurt, that does not tire, that does not bleed, let’s see how tough you are. When the price of failure is an eternity of—”
“Commander!” a voice called out from behind them, making Aemond flinch. He’d been entirely absorbed in Jon’s words as they became increasingly heated, wondering what sort of foe the man could be hinting at.
He’d get no chance to ask – not yet.
A man was hurrying to catch up with them. He reached them and fell into step long enough to tell the Lord Commander he was needed.
Jon Snow did not look at the procession behind them as Aemond did then, expecting to find a fight had broken out, or a horse had broken a leg, or a sled had lost its track. Aemond startled again at realizing the white wolf was only a few steps away, watching with an alert yet oddly ambivalent red gaze. Jon Snow only looked up, squinting against the bright sunlight. If the sky was not so blue, Aemond might’ve thought the Northron smelled snow and was about to call the march to a halt.
And then, Aemond heard it.
He whipped around to face the east and saw them gliding, wing-to-wing, toward the procession.
“Vhagar, to me!” he called out in High Valyrian as Daemon shouted similar commands to Caraxes. Aemond’s eyes threatened to water at seeing his girl, alive and unharmed, soaring like the majestic creature she was. Many of the men in the procession dove to the ground or yelled or otherwise showed their fear, but Aemond was nearly blind and deaf to all of it as he frantically called to Vhagar.
She and Caraxes only flew right over them, barely higher than the trees, and Aemond could feel nothing of her spirit, of her thoughts and emotions.
His eyes wanted to water for a different reason, and Aemond did not think it through before he was lunging at Jon Snow, knocking the other man to the ground and managing to land one punch before a wide set of fangs and glowing red eyes were so close they were all he could see.
Self-preservation instinct had Aemond throwing himself back then stumbling to his feet while holding one hand out protectively and reaching for a dagger that wasn’t on his hip with the other. Jon Snow popped up nearly as quick, wiping a drop of blood from his lip with the thumb that wasn’t buried in his wolf’s thick cowl.
Aemond had hardly found his balance before a group of Northmen were approaching, ready to either clap chains around Aemond’s wrists or beat him into oblivion by the look of it, but Jon Snow had a dangerous smirk on his face when he held up his hand to stall them.
“Leave him be,” Jon said simply, then he jerked his head toward the rear of the procession.
The men backed away, a few looking uncertain but more smiling like madmen, including the white-haired one Aemond had sort-of met the day before. Tormund, he thought. Most surprisingly though, the wolf slunk away after casting Aemond a final, unreadable look.
Jon Snow, as if an entire army procession hadn’t come to a halt just for this, took his sweet time about unbuckling his fur-mantled cloak and handing it to a wide-eyed Satin, before repeating the process with his sword belt and the sword and dagger nestled in it. A smaller dagger came out of his right boot, then another from his left, until the skinny steward’s arms were rather full. Last but not least, he unbuttoned his leather coat and shrugged it off, adding it to the pile and then placing on top the twin dirks made of some black stone that had been strapped to his back under the coat.
“Hm,” Aemond hummed, a sly smile of his own forming, “Now I know I wasn’t wrong to assume your sister might have a weapon hidden up her sleeve. She didn’t, though – and I did a very thorough search of her person.”
Jon’s smile widened the way a man’s does when he’s deciding whether to kill his opponent or just maim him. He nodded to himself as if having made up his mind, and then he lunged.
<<<<>>>>
Aemond learned that there was one benefit to snow – and he was referring to the white, icy substance, not the name given to bastards north of the Riverlands.
He hissed as Daemon – a bit too forcefully – pressed a snow-filled handkerchief against the left side of his mouth.
“Stop whinging already,” Daemon offered his unique brand of avuncular comfort.
“Whinging?” Aemond asked, though it pained him to move his mouth, “You sound like a proper Northman, talking like that.”
“What can I say? The North’s charming ways have grown on me.”
Aemond shook his head and reached for the handkerchief to hold it himself. He’d prefer not to touch the ice-cold thing, even through his warm gloves, but he didn’t need anyone seeing Daemon fussing over him like a mother would her son (or a lass her sweetheart).
Daemon lowered himself to sit next to Aemond on the stump he’d claimed earlier. Jon Snow and some of the other men had stools or camp chairs but most of the others took whatever improvised seat they could get or simply stood all evening until they were ready to crawl into their tents. That happened fairly early – all the bonfires a camp could fit couldn’t stop the wind from biting a man’s face, especially if it carried little flakes of snow.
“You didn’t embarrass yourself too badly,” Daemon groaned as he took a load off.
Aemond snorted, wondering what he’d have to do to ever earn a compliment that actually sounded like a compliment from the man. Probably he’d have to fight off the warrior with one hand while pleasuring the Maiden with the other. For that, Daemon might actually shrug and say, “Not bad.”
Not that Aemond needed or wanted his uncle’s approval. He certainly didn’t need the man to tell him he’d done just fine against Jon Snow today, even if he’d never completely gotten the upper hand. They were simply too well matched in every way – height, reach, weight, strength, and even skill. Though Aemond could admit that if he hadn’t been almost obsessive about training his body for combat and instead only put in the same amount of effort as the average southern squire, Jon would’ve swept the forest floor with him. The Stark bastard was good, fighting with a sort of raw rage that somehow did not lack finesse. They’d traded blows and took turns wrestling the other into submission that lasted anywhere from two seconds to two minutes. Rolling and tumbling, kneeing and elbowing and headbutting until the man on top was the man on the bottom. It was during Jon Snow’s first time pinning Aemond to the snowy ground that he put his forearm to Aemond’s throat and hissed, “If you think I won’t kill you the next time you speak of my sister like that, then you’ve grossly overestimated my honor.”
By then, Aemond had forgotten that what set Jon off wasn’t being tackled out of the blue, but what Aemond had said about searching Sansa for weapons, but he remembered soon enough to give Jon a red-toothed grin and say, “You almost sound jealous, Snow,” then capitalize on Jon’s surprise and rage to gain the upper hand.
In the end, it was exhaustion more than pain that brought an end to the fight. Jon Snow had been on top, and Aemond was certain he had no more strength to change that, when Snow lowered what had been a primed fist, continuing to straddle Aemond while his chest rose and fell until he seemed sure that Aemond would not take advantage of Jon’s truce, or whatever it had been. The dark-haired man rolled off, lying on his back and staring up at the blue sky while breathing as heavily as Aemond was. Perhaps to those watching it was an act of mercy on Jon’s part. Perhaps some others wondered if it wasn’t surrender on Jon’s part, no matter that he’d had the positional advantage at the time.
Perhaps most knew what Aemond understood: that Jon Snow had no love for silver-haired princes, especially those who’d fucked his sister, but nor did he wish to make a permanent, personal enemy of one. Not when the man had spoken so earnestly, so passionately, about some greater enemy that was so frightening it could heal centuries-old rifts, end decades-long wars.
Aemond was thinking of that more than anything as he sat on the log pretending bruised ribs and a busted lip were his only troubles. It was less hurtful than thinking of Vhagar, coasting right past him. It was less hurtful than thinking of Sansa, the way she’d acted the morning he woke chained to her bed, like none of it had meant anything to her. Of course, it didn’t mean anything, he rebuked himself. As evidenced by his present status as prisoner of a Northern host, none of it had been anything more than a ploy, or perhaps a diversion. While he was grunting Sansa’s name, her brother was doing something to Vhagar and Caraxes, perhaps while snickering about how easily fooled Targaryen men were. While Sansa was humming him to sleep, making him feel safer and warmer than he’d felt since leaving the womb (or so he must assume), someone was putting Aemond’s dragon under a spell, using Northron magic or black magic or blood magic or—
Aemond felt his already stiff frame freeze.
He glanced around to see if anyone was within earshot, but all the men kept a wide berth of the presently dragon-less dragonriders except to deliver a raunchy taunt, which Jon Snow seemed to have silently discouraged at least for tonight.
“Do you recall the stories of how the Starks beat the rebels?” he asked under his breath, hiding his lips behind the spout of the wineskin, just in case someone in this camp knew some High Valyrian.
Give Daemon some credit, he did not look up or react in any way but with a questioning hum.
“The part about bears and wolves and eagles fighting for the Starks?” Aemond clarified.
Daemon’s silence was confirmation that he’d heard the tales that – like Aemond – he’d probably dismissed as grossly exaggerated rumors or even yarns spun by Stark loyalists to make it sound as if their Queen’s side was the one favored by their nature-loving old gods.
“I never thought about this, but…” Aemond shifted the handkerchief to his other hand and cheek, turning to further block the view of anyone who might be able speak High Valyrian and read lips, “But in the histories about the First Men, there are claims that many of them possessed a certain… ability. The ability to enter the mind of an animal. To control it.”
It took a long time for Daemon to respond, “I’d tell you that you’ve lost your mind…” but Caraxes flew right over my head without so much as a glance went unspoken.
“If I recall these claims, the ability was… hereditary. Common in certain families, in certain tribes or clans, but all but unheard of in the rest of the population.”
“In certain families like…?”
Aemond gave a subtle nod, “Perhaps.”
“The bastard?”
Aemond gave another glance around before answering, “I don’t think so. I would think there must be one person – a skin-changer, they’re called – for each animal. But I’m now thinking about just how strange it was that this pack of wolves all splintered apart. Perhaps Jon Snow’s presence wasn’t the only thing kept hidden from us. Perhaps the sister or brothers or all three were there at Winterfell the whole time.”
Daemon snorted, “Aye. They lied about everything else, why not that?”
Aemond hummed, “But if the history is true, then the power only works if the skin-changer is close enough to see or hear or otherwise sense the animal he wishes to… inhabit. Once in the animal’s mind I think he can make it travel a great distance away from where his body lay – the story told of some Wildling clan that used eagles to scout enemies miles away.”
“But not hundreds of miles. Meaning the brats – or whoever it is – are probably in this camp.”
Aemond nodded, “Needless to say, we can’t be obvious that we’re looking.”
No more was said. Daemon was not a man many would call ‘subtle’, but he could be as sneaky as needed to accomplish his mission – whatever it might be on any given day – and he did have this way of deflecting suspicion by making his enemies focus on his insults or any of his various and sundry annoying habits. Rumor was he once decapitated a man who never saw the blade coming because he couldn’t stop watching Daemon’s left hand persistently scratch a shaving bump even after it started bleeding. That any witnesses would’ve known what had Daemon’s victim so distracted was dubious to Aemond, yet the story seemed far too specific to be entirely false.
“You remember every book you ever read so well?” Daemon asked wryly.
Aemond shrugged his lips, “If they interest me enough.”
“And First Man mythology is interesting to you?”
For one of the few times in his life, when this subject came up, Aemond did not feel a compulsion to lie.
So he didn’t.
“I thought I’d always be too small to claim a dragon, and wanted to find out if there was any other way for man to control beast.”
That shut Daemon up, as Aemond had thought it would. There were very few incidents that, Aemond suspected, his uncle ever felt something like remorse over. For one of Harwin Strong’s bastards to take the eye of a trueborn Targaryen and never face any punishment was one of those incidents. Daemon’s protectiveness over Rhaenyra made it difficult to say, but sometimes, through the hazy memories of pain and pride and fear and too many people shouting, Aemond thought he remembered Daemon looking at his niece as if she was demented when she screeched her demands that Aemond be interrogated over his use of the word ‘strong’ while ignoring the much worse act her precious Luke had committed.
Still, he did not delude himself into thinking that Daemon’s disapproval of Rhaenyra’s behavior that night translated into concern for his small, newly maimed nephew. Daemon had never been close to his brother’s children through Alicent – how could he when they had the blood of Otto Hightower in their veins? To say Aemond’s uncle and grandfather hated each other was an understatement. It used to make Aemond question his uncle’s character (he had long before stopped pondering his morality). Lately, though… Well, to see Grandfather trembling with rage when Rhaenyra called the entire family together – the side that had been referred to as ‘greens’ along with her own ‘blacks’ – to lay out her plans to conquer the far south and far north… Well, when having Aegon potentially as Warden of Dorne and Aemond as Warden of the North did not move him, Aemond had wondered just how much Otto truly cared about establishing a legacy for his grandsons, and how much more he cared about preventing Rhaenyra from ever having her own.
Yet for all he wondered, he couldn’t pretend to be bothered by Grandfather’s priorities. When Aemond occasionally imagined himself standing atop the sword-lined stairs, it was never the cheers of his courtiers that gave the fantasy its appeal, but the looks on the faces of all those who thought they deserved the throne more. Jacaerys, Lucerys, and all the rest of Rhaenyra’s brats. Rhaenyra herself. Daemon, who was so desperate for a crown that he’d once named himself King of the Stepstones and the Narrow Sea. Even Rhaenys, who’d inherited the Baratheon temper along with the Baratheon coloring.
Even Aegon.
Then again, if Aemond ever made that ascent, none of those people would be around to see it, but reality did not stop him from imagining Jacaerys and Lucerys with their matching expressions of idiotic bewilderment, or Rhaenyra shrieking for someone to do something, or Aegon finally prying his eyes away from whatever pair of teats had entered his field of vision to gape at his little brother with a look of utter shock and betrayal.
Yes, it was fun to think about.
Daemon was still quiet when Aemond dumped the half-melted snow out of the handkerchief – he wasn’t even sure who it belonged to and just pocketed the damp fabric. He swallowed a wince at the pain that shot through his muscles when he stood up, and refused to walk funny even though his feet had gone numb.
It was later that night, lying back-to-back under multiple blankets and most of their clothing, that Daemon finally spoke again.
“It was bold. What you did. With Vhagar. I remember thinking you must take after… Well, it was just bold.”
No more was said, and Aemond was too proud to ask Daemon to elaborate. He eventually fell asleep to the sound of his uncle’s teeth chattering, and a pair of dragons chirping happily in the distance.
<<<<>>>>
It was almost disappointing how easy it was to spot the large, covered sledge that was not like the others.
First, because it was the only one Jon Snow ever climbed into.
Second, because it was the only one that Ghost ever looked at and wagged his tail.
Third, because – no matter how subtle they tried to be – it was the only one that several of the guards never let out of their sight.
In truth, it had been harder to find excuses to fall behind to where they’d even be able to see the sleds, but after a few days of trudging through snow, Daemon and Aemond did not have to pretend to be road-weary. Both were in good enough shape to walk leagues each day, but walking on ground that was either snowy or slushy or icy seemed to use different muscles than walking on packed soil or cobbled streets. The top bones of Aemond’s feet were killing him, as were the muscles just above his knees and the ones just below his arse. It helped with the cold but not with the exhaustion that he and Daemon had been given furs to wrap over their boots. It was probably necessary to keep all their toes, but it added weight to their feet and made their steps feel and look clumsy for the first few days – which of course had given the Northrons plenty to point and laugh over. Once more they were accused of being soft and weak – their muscles compared to veal – or pillow-biters on account of their funny gaits.
Before they’d enacted their plan to get eyes on the covered sleds, they’d spent days trying to get eyes on all the hundreds of men in the party to see if any of them resembled either Sansa Stark or Jon Snow, or proved to be no petite man but a not-yet-grown boy, as either Bran or Rickon Stark would be, or a young lady, as Arya Stark would be. When their visual inspection of all the other men earned them nothing but more accusations of sodomy, they realized that slipping into the skin of a dragon would not leave a person able to walk and talk and act normal on two human legs. Thus, they turned their attention to the baggage train and readily enough identified the sledge that was most likely to be carrying a pair of skin-changers that were probably also Starklings.
Getting close enough to the sledge to have a peek inside would be a significantly more difficult prospect, especially with the ever-diligent white wolf around more often than he was away. Aemond didn’t like the queer thing one bit, though it seemed about as obedient of its master as the finest hound he’d ever met.
And of course, breaking whatever connected the boys, or the boy and the girl, to Caraxes and Vhagar might prove difficult. Especially since, unlike Daemon, Aemond would prefer not to murder a pair of assumed children (it had absolutely nothing to do with them being related to Sansa). It might be easy enough with the older boy – he had to be fifteen or sixteen now – but that he was a cripple who’d earned his debilitation when coming to his sister’s aid. Unless that was a lie, too.
Oh, and they’d have to do it all without being seen or heard, or else the Northmen would be on them like flies on shit before they could sever the connection between the Starks and the dragons – one way or another – and wait for the dragons to come to their rescue.
Daemon had proposed that Aemond pretend to be making an escape attempt to distract enough guards (and the wolf) to give himself the chance to slip into the sledge and kill the Starks. Aemond had counter-proposed patience; that they try to look inside the sledge first then come up with a plan only after knowing which of the Starks were in there, and if there were any guards in there with them.
Daemon accused him of being cuntstruck and pointed out that their “look inside” might be their one and only chance to get close to the sledge, let alone inside it.
Still though, his uncle relented, and together they decided to bide their time and hope the guards became lax in their duties the further north they traveled (and the longer Daemon and Aemond proved to be well-behaved prisoners).
Or Aemond thought they were in agreement, until one night he woke up to the sound of men shouting and a distant, blood-curdling scream, only to realize he was alone in the tent.
Notes:
In line with my comment after yesterday's chapter, if I had provided a summary that went "In this chapter, Aemond has a nice time with Satin, Daemon spoons Aemond, Jon straddles Aemond, Aemond sits on a log, and Aemond checks out a bunch of brawny Northern dudes" you'd probably have formed the wrong impression, then been mad at me for making you waste time locking the door and lighting the candles and getting out the lotion and tissues and/or feminine wellness device, all for NOTHING. So, you're welcome.
Also, the number of half-written or existing only in my brain Satin-centric stories is a bit alarming. And Aemond is not alone in recognizing Satin's physical perfection, by the way! In canon, Jon can't think of Satin without referring to the steward as pretty, or thinking about his soft hands or his curly hair. You Jonsa shippers who worry that our girl won't get her brooding wolf don't need to worry about Dany being the one to pussyblock Sansa. My money is on Satin. He will teach his recently revived lord commander all the things he learned in Oldtown while subtly curing Jon of his complicated feelings toward Ygritte, who would be called a rapist if she was a man.
Sorry, hate to break it to you, but Jon's endgame is Satin.
Of course, if GRRM let me write the books that were promised, it would all work out because Satin swings both ways and LOVES being fought over by a pair of wolves. ;)
And yes - if you're new to my fics, I'm always this way.
Sooo... What was your big takeaway from this chapter? That Daemon is a lip-man?
Chapter 7: Of brothers and sisters
Notes:
Caution for descriptions of past war and violence including torture (not of a main character). Nothing worse than what you read in ASOIAF or saw in GoT. Reminder that, despite the moments of levity, this is a dark fic, with each of the main characters carrying trauma and baggage, even if they don't realize it.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Aemond ran out of the tent in only boots and the clothes he’d slept in, donning his leather coat as he hurriedly walked toward the rear of the camp where he could see a crowd assembling.
He got more dirty looks than usual as he pushed his way toward the apparent center of attention to find his uncle on the ground, hunched over and cradling his left elbow with his right hand while one or both body parts dripped blood into the snow. On his left side a grey wolf about the size of Ghost stood sentry, its lantern-like eyes fixed intently on Daemon. To his right, a skinny youth had an even skinnier sword pointed at Daemon’s right eye. Poetic.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t Shaggy,” the youth spoke flatly, “He’d have taken that arm clean off. Nymeria has some self-restraint. Listens better, too.”
“You’re fucking crazy!” Daemon shouted up at the person that Aemond realized was a girl only by her voice. Her hair was cropped at the jaw, she was wearing pants instead of skirts, and the expression on her long and angular face was grim.
“Might be,” admitted the young woman who Aemond figured must be Arya Stark, just as Jon Snow ambled into the circle. “Took you long enough,” she addressed her big brother without taking her eyes off Daemon.
“I knew you had it handled.”
Arya snorted, “Want me to kill him?”
Jon let out an overblown sigh, “What I want and what we’ll do are not the same thing.”
She snorted again and took a step back while deftly sheathing the sword through a belt worn over her long suede surcoat. Then she went down to one knee, angling her head to look up at Daemon’s face, “If you’re stupid enough to try it again, I won’t tell her to stop. I’ll only tell her to savor her meal nice and slow-like, and share it with her brothers. Got it?”
“Fuck off,” Daemon spat. Aemond could swear he heard tears in his uncle’s voice, but knew that if he did, they were surely tears of pain.
“Aye, you got it,” she said knowingly before pushing herself up and striding toward the nearby covered sledge, the wolf on her heels. A guard lifted the heavy tarp that covered it and the girl pulled herself up and in gracefully, disappearing behind the fabric that dropped back down, while the wolf chose to stand vigil outside.
“Someone take him to the healer. Looks like his elbow’s dislocated and he probably needs stitching up,” Jon ordered in a flat voice, even yawning at the end.
Daemon, prideful as a man could be, pushed up to his feet though still clutched at his elbow as he turned to say to Jon Snow through clenched teeth, “What are you fucking people?”
That seemed to wake Jon up more than all the preceding commotion had. Suddenly his bleary eyes were clear and alert as he said, “We’re the fucking people that you and yours should’ve left alone, but since you so kindly invited yourself and your living, breathing, flying, war machines to our home, intent on claiming our lands and our sisters, we decided to get some use out of you.”
Jon seemed to have no desire to draw out the conversation. He jerked his chin toward some of the nearby men. One went to pull Daemon along by his unmaimed elbow, but Daemon leaned away and stomped off in the direction of the main camp.
Little by little all the others trickled away until it was just Jon Snow and Aemond Targaryen, though Aemond wasn’t sure why he lingered. He was about to head back to his own tent – he felt no compulsion to go see how his uncle was faring, given Daemon apparently snuck out of their tent tonight to go kill some little Starks – when something caught his eye in the nearby wood line before disappearing again.
His heart’s thud-thud became frantic with a distinct and bone-deep feeling of being hunted.
“Come, Grey Wind,” Jon Snow called out. After a few moments during which Aemond didn’t breath, the thing he’d spotted moved again. Slowly, out from the shadows, approached a wolf that resembled the one that had slunk away after Arya Stark. As the beast padded toward Jon, Aemond could see a long stripe of missing hair from shoulder blade to hip on the left side. The other wolf – the one Arya seemed to be referring to when she said the name ‘Nymeria’ had some nicks on her face as well, but nothing so grizzly as what ‘Grey Wind’ sported.
“You too, shy girl,” Jon called out as he ruffled Grey Wind’s scruff. Just as slowly, another grey wolf appeared out of the dark of the nearby wood, smaller than Grey Wind by a noticeable margin and with her hind end dropping low with each step because, apparently, her right leg was missing below the thigh.
The female wolf eyed Aemond warily until Jon’s petting distracted her, at which point she was all tail thumping on the ground and smiling lips. It was a strange thing to see a wolf’s face look so happy when a scar ran from her forehead down to snout, having cut but not taken the right eye judging by the white orb there. He’d seen men with eyes like that, the lens nothing but milky-looking scar tissue even if everything else was intact and presumably still functioning. Sometimes he’d even been jealous of them. Their white eyes could see no better than his sapphire, but at least they had something of flesh and blood instead of a dry, hard gem.
“Don’t be fooled by Lady,” Jon spoke as he leaned forward and down to press his forehead to the wolf’s, “She can run nearly as fast as her siblings. It’s only walking and standing that she’s clumsy for.”
“She’s… she’s Sansa’s wolf, isn’t she?” Aemond asked quietly, uncertain why his chest felt tight and his nose tingled so badly it burned.
Jon hummed affirmatively, “All the wolves were in the field with us for the battle. Even Summer, whose boy stayed in Winterfell, and Shaggy, whose boy was off in Skagos, and Grey Wind, whose boy was long gone by then. I insisted Lady stay with Sansa. A last line of defense, just like One-One and Mag were. Sansa thought she should be in the field with her packmates, helping to protect me and Arya. Well, I won that argument – a rare feat against Sansa,” Jon smiled softly down at the she-wolf he’d never stopped petting. “And good thing… When Sansa let Roose Bolton and his men in, it was more than the guards in that courtyard could handle, even with One-One and Mag helping after they got the gate closed. The Bolton men formed a thick circle around their lord, and it was Lady who eventually broke through. Probably killed more men than each of her siblings in the field did, and I know why. She—”
“Could feel Sansa’s anger. For Roose Bolton. It was a wolf’s deadly body and a woman’s deadly rage rolled together.”
Jon turned to face Aemond, “Is that how it is for you? With…”
Aemond shrugged, “Is that where the story comes from? Lady killed Roose Bolton and his men in the heat of battle and the minstrels thought it was done up on the parapets to frighten his men into surrender?”
Jon shook his head and turned back to the wolf he’d never stopped petting, while the larger one that had apparently belonged to Robb Stark nudged Jon’s other hand for attention.
“No. Lady dragged Roose Bolton to her mistress, her own leg dragging, too. Sansa had her men stand him up on the parapets with a noose around his neck, though it didn’t have the intended result of dissuading his armies. No more than it dissuaded his son,” the last two words came out like a curse, and Aemond could imagine Jon took a moment to pray that Ramsay Snow was burning in some hell as they spoke.
“So she didn’t lie about that, at least. Either that or you’re lying now.”
A small, sad smile twitched Jon’s cheek, “I doubt Sansa lied to you about much. She never could stand it. Wasn’t very good at it, either. Not like Arya and later Rickon. But I suppose we all learned how to, since the war. Killing, lying, cheating, stealing - none of them came easy to any of us, but especially me and Sansa. But when it’s that or die? Well, you learn quick enough.”
“She lied about plenty, I’m sure. She lied about what mattered,” Aemond kept his voice level, not wanting Jon to know that her deception had wounded more than his pride.
“Well…” Jon said by way of changing the subject away from Sansa, “Lady won the day over the Flayed Men, but at the cost of one eye and one leg.”
Aemond almost laughed, “A fair price to pay for vengeance.”
“Is it?” Jon asked blithely, yet Aemond detected a bitterness beneath, “When vengeance never satisfies the way we think it will? It’s a shiny apple gone mealy on the inside, yet look how many men – and women – have died for it.”
“Then what is worth dying for, if not revenge and justice? Let me guess – you’ll say freedom, or independence, or pride… but is it really?”
To his immense surprise, Jon Snow shook his head, “No. Only one thing’s worth dying for, based on my experience.”
“You going to tell me?”
For the first time since he arrived out there that night, Jon Snow looked Aemond Targaryen in the eye. His mouth quirked into an almost-smile and he lifted his shoulders in a lazy shrug. “Life,” he answered.
Then he bid Aemond goodnight and left him there.
The commotion and then conversation had distracted him from the cold, but as soon as he realized he was outside alone but for the guards who had night watch and a bunch of giant wolves, he felt chilled down to the bone and so damned sad for reasons he could not name.
With Jon gone, Grey Wind seemed to see no point in lingering. Wherever the wolves laid their heads at night he seemed eager to return to, padding away with impressively silent steps for such a heavy creature.
Lady did not follow him.
After what might’ve been minutes or hours, Aemond extended his hand toward the she-wolf whose ears would come up to the tops of his shoulders, whereas the other wolves stood about head-to-head with him.
She sniffed it rather tentatively, her breaths warming his numb fingers.
Aemond smiled.
“Goodnight, Lady,” he whispered, daring to give her left ear a scritch before he turned to go back to his tent, wondering how he’d sleep without Daemon’s body heat pressed to his side (or back). Daemon would probably be spending the night in the healer’s tent, assuming Jon Snow considered him valuable as a hostage even if not as a man.
He ought to have been startled when he lifted the tent flap and was almost knocked over by Lady, who let herself in and promptly lied down near the far “wall”. Aemond only blinked at her for a long time before deciding to just go with it. He’d probably be accused of beastiality on the morrow just as he’d been accused of sodomy and incest each of the past mornings, but he was too cold to care and reasonably certain she would not kill him in his sleep.
He tied the tent flap then took off his boots and leathers and climbed under the covers. As soon as he’d settled though, she decided to rearrange herself, draping her upper body over his legs and feet, her heavy head resting low enough on his belly to not restrict his breathing. He almost moaned for how good her warmth felt but did not want to give any merit to the inevitable beastiality accusations.
“Good girl,” he said instead, in hopes of encouraging her to stay on his lower extremities which needed her heat the most.
And before he knew it, he was waking up warm and content the next morning, though all his outer clothes were covered in an obscene amount of hair.
<<<<>>>>
Daemon was in a foul mood and had lost his ability to make light of their dire situation with his biting humor. He looked at every Northman as if trying to commit murder with his eyeballs. He trudged along miserably because he wasn’t given a choice not to, and even if Jon Snow told him he was free to go on his merry way, a man with one arm in a sling wouldn’t last long in the northern wilds during winter, especially without a knife or bow or spear or dragon, blankets or tent or weeks’ worth of food, which Aemond doubted the Stark bastard would be kind enough to provide. Their dependence on their captors was frustrating to them both, but more so Daemon now that injury had been added to insult.
Daemon’s spite was not reserved for the Northerners, however. He snapped at Aemond if Aemond dared to talk to him, such as to ask what the hell he’d been thinking, trying to peek into the sledge without Aemond creating a distraction elsewhere in the camp. Though Aemond knew damned well why he did it; Daemon was planning on doing more than peeking. He’d hoped to have opportunity to kill whoever the skin-changers were and knew that Aemond would not approve of such a plan and might even thwart it.
It was not that Aemond had embraced their fate, or even accepted it, only that he knew there was no point in fighting back and no benefit in brooding. He still caught glimpses of Vhagar and Caraxes, alive and well, and still believed whoever controlled them was in that sledge with Arya Stark – assuming Arya Stark was not one of them – but apparently, even when they couldn’t be seen, an entire pack of wolves was watching over that sledge, in addition to a handful of guards. It was pointless to think about how he might steal a dagger or sword off a sleeping man when such a weapon wouldn’t make a damned bit of difference against even Lady, the smallest and presumably least dangerous of all the wolves. These stubborn creatures apparently wouldn’t stop fighting until they were dead, and judging by Grey Wind and Lady they were damned tricky to kill. A man with good skill and strength and a long, sharp sword had a fighting chance against one of them at a time, Aemond must assume, but wolves were called ‘pack animals’ for a reason.
Besides, Lady had slept in the tent with him all the nights that Daemon slept in the healer’s tent, which was spacious enough for Daemon to rest his re-set elbow at a comfortable angle. And he often felt her watching him during the day. He considered it might be Sansa in Lady’s skin, assuming his theory about skinchanging Starks was correct, but rather than perturb him, he found the notion surprisingly… comforting. So much so that one of the nights he found himself talking to her as if she was Sansa just before he dozed off, too sleepy to be embarrassed (that came the next morning).
Surprisingly, the expected wolf-fucking japes didn’t come, and Aemond found that somehow more disturbing than the taunts would’ve been. The first time he crawled out of his tent behind the much peppier she-wolf (who promptly trotted away with her strange three-legged gait), he looked around and found the men giving him a queer look that held more fear and bewilderment than judgment. The only one to comment was Tormund, who seemed to view Aemond as a threat to his self-appointed status as Only Man Brave Enough to Fuck a Bear and Virile Enough to Live to Tell the Tale – since it was apparently a well-known fact that she-bears would kill and eat their mates if they were not satisfied during the mating.
Aemond’s mind had gone to Sansa then, and he felt a perverse swell of pride to think that if he hadn’t satisfied her, she might’ve stolen his dragon and killed him.
The pride must’ve shone on his face, because Tormund grinned at him and smacked a heavy hand down on his shoulder.
It was only after the man walked off toward his mates – none of whom accepted Aemond like their burly companion did – that Aemond realized Tormund might’ve thought he was recalling his nights with Lady, not his nights with Sansa. Other than shouting ‘I didn’t fuck the wolf, only her mistress’ across the entire procession, he could do nothing to clarify the situation, so he settled for irritably grumbling to himself about Northerners and wildlings and cold and snow and bland meals.
Beyond the futility (and likely death or dismemberment), and the strange kinship he felt with a wolf the size of a donkey, the final reason Aemond did not fight his captors or try to escape was quite simple: curiosity about what lay at the end of this journey – a curiosity that was inflamed every time Aemond recalled Jon Snow’s cryptic words about an enemy that neither tires nor bleeds.
The North’s ways may be strange and mysterious to most south of the Neck, but that did not mean its histories were unknown. From Brandon the Builder to the Barrow Kings and their thousand-year war against the Kings of Winter; from the Marsh Kings to the mountain clans to the wildlings beyond the wall to the War Across the Water, the North’s major historical events were well documented just like any other kingdom’s, though most in the South did not bother learning it.
One particular event, however, was widely known even in points south of the Neck. How could it not be, when it was the event that led to the construction of one of the seven man-made wonders documented by Lomas Longstride? Thus, whether one believed the ancient event was true history or lore, nearly every literate man and woman in the realm knew the legend of The Long Night, and presumably a good number of the illiterate, if they asked enough people about the far away ice wall their son or cousin or neighbor had been sent to instead of the gallows.
Aemond had not been particularly interested in the tale, dismissing it as either grossly exaggerated over the millennia, or an incident of mass insanity brought on by a particularly long and brutal winter. Despite his skepticism, however, it had always itched his brain a bit to think of the gargantuan undertaking that the Wall’s construction must’ve been, and why men would’ve bothered if not for some dire and unprecedented reason. Three hundred miles wide and seven hundred feet high, such a project would’ve taken decades and required the collaboration of men from previously opposing factions. Common belief in the South was that the Wall was built to keep the North safe from those to the Far North, but then why weren’t there walls all over Westeros, wherever enemies shared a border? Along the coast, to prevent Ironborn raids. Throughout the Vale, to prevent mountain clans from attacking noblemen and their tenants. In the south, to keep Dornishmen out of the Reach or vice versa. Sure, not all of them could be made of ice, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that eight thousand years ago, thousands of men had banded together to build a structure so tall, so impenetrable, that it stood to this day. Why go to all that trouble to keep out other primitive men, when a hundred-foot wall would’ve done the trick just fine? So, while Aemond was too practical-minded to believe in things like the strange, almost-human Others, and ice spiders, and grumkins, and any other creature of lore, he was also too practical-minded to believe man would’ve gone to so much trouble against a foe as infallible as other men.
Indestructible, was what Jon Snow had alluded. Never tiring, never bleeding.
At this point, a fortnight into their journey and despite his curiosity, Aemond was half terrified of arriving at the Wall – if that was their destination – and seeing hundreds or even thousands of some monstrous, inhuman creatures, and half afraid he’d see nothing of the sort and come to conclude that every fucking Northerner had lost his or her mind and that there’d be no reasoning with them for his and Daemon’s release, along with Vhagar and Caraxes.
With Daemon such poor company, Aemond had taken to walking with Jon Snow some days, Tormund other days. Sometimes he even walked with Satin the catamite, unbothered by the taunts as the Northmen themselves got tired of making them and had already cycled through all the clever ones in the first days.
Satin was surprisingly well-spoken and admitted that he even knew some of his letters and numbers. How a whore would’ve gotten any education was a mystery that Aemond was curious to unravel, but it was far from the most beguiling. That honor went to the woman who Aemond had spent less than two days with and yet whose scent and taste were still fresh in his sense-memory, whose touch still ghosted his skin at random times throughout the day, whose voice still soothed him to sleep at night. He wanted to know all there was to know of her, because too much of what he’d deduced was based on behavior he now knew had been an act. A cruel act, though genius. Somehow, she’d known just what he wanted. Somehow, she’d been all that he wanted. Brave but not unafraid. Hardened but not unfeeling. Beautiful yet flawed. Kind but not soft. Warring with his fear and curiosity about what he’d find at the far boundary of the continent were his fear and curiosity about Sansa Stark.
He needed to know how much of it had been farce.
He needed to know if she’d used some sorcery to beguile him.
He needed to know if she was in love with her half-brother, or anyone else.
He needed to know if there’d ever been a blue rose, and if so, who had given it to her, and what had he taken in return?
The last two should not matter. No – none of it should matter, yet it did.
He’d seen the softening in Jon Snow’s expression as he stroked Lady, proudly telling of how the least intimidating of his pack could be just as deadly as any other, and Aemond knew he was referring to the two-legged woman as much as the three-legged bitch. He’d seen the smile that passed between the siblings, back in Winterfell’s courtyard. He’d seen the blue ribbon tied to Jon’s arm – Jon had since moved it to his sword’s handle just before the cross-guard. He’d seen the fury in Jon’s eyes when Aemond alluded to his intimacies with Sansa.
And yet he’d also heard the emotion in Sansa’s voice when she spoke of Larence Snow, her first and possibly only love. Aemond hated the bastard, which was rather unfair considering the man, if he ever existed, had probably been a casualty of war.
As he trudged through increasingly deep snow, through increasingly cold forests, Aemond had too much time to think, and all his thoughts were dangerous and dizzying. Eventually, he became convinced that Larence Snow and Jon Snow were one in the same. Sansa had merely switched the first name, made up the part about him being a ward of House Glover, son of Lord Hornwood. Other than that, it was the same. A tale of young, forbidden love between a bastard and a princess. A tale of the bastard’s bravery in warning his king of some plot he’d somehow uncovered. A tale of the bastard fighting bravely for that king, then the next king. Except there the story would diverge again. Perhaps the Boltons captured him and sent him to the Wall – a cruel fate indeed for a man honorable enough to uphold his vow to take no wife, father no children, and not involve himself in the wars to the south of him. Except Jon Snow only honored two of those promises, fighting to protect his sisters and brothers and avenge his father and other brother, then returning to the Wall to fulfill his duty, knowing Sansa could never marry him without inspiring a revolt. Baseborn, half-brother, and sworn to celibacy – Jon Snow would only doom Sansa if he was ever so much as caught in her bedchamber.
Had she been pretending I was him? Is that how she was able to enjoy it? Even when her eyes were open, they were seeing dark hair instead of light, thick lips instead of a cruel line of a mouth, two eyes instead of one.
He knew it was ridiculous, but he couldn’t help but blush at the possibility that Jon Snow was better endowed or more skillful between the sheets. Aemond was quite possibly marching to his death, eternally cold and achy and hungry, and his dragon was ignoring him and probably under the control of his enemy for reasons no one would tell him, and here he was wondering if he fucked better than Sansa’s half-brother. Ironically, he considered that Daemon would be able to relate, arrogant slut that he was, but he wasn’t exactly eager to confess that he was hung up on the woman who’d betrayed them. Besides, Daemon was quite committed to brooding and being generally snippy.
Snippy, she’d called me. And damn it, I was being snippy that night.
And so, as he walked with Jon Snow today, which the man seemed to do every other day as if to remind his men that Aemond was their captive but also something of a guest, he found the courage to ask, “Was there ever really a Larence Snow?”
Jon froze mid-step, turning to look at Aemond as if he’d seen a ghost, his gray eyes so wide and spooked that it made Aemond feel uneasy, like one dog sensing another dog’s fear and reacting without knowing the cause.
And then Jon had Aemond’s collar in his fists, staring at Aemond with barely enough space for a hand to fit between them. “Who spoke that name to you?” Jon asked in a low growl through teeth that never separated.
“What? Sansa. Who else?” Aemond pushed against Jon’s chest until the dark-haired man released him with a hard enough shove that Aemond would’ve fallen on his arse if not for Satin, of all people, grabbing him by the sleeve.
If Jon cared that his loyal steward hadn’t let Aemond fall to the snowy ground, he didn’t show it. He had eyes only for Aemond as he sneered, “You’re lying. Who told you about Larence Snow?”
“I told you,” Aemond clenched his jaw, “Sansa told me—”
“Sansa would’ve never spoken to you about him!” Jon yelled, uncaring that they were attracting wary glances from all his men.
“Well, she did,” Aemond spat back, not liking that he was being scolded like some naughty tike when he’d done nothing wrong and had – in fact – been an almost exemplary captive thus far.
Jon shook his head, his lips moving over and over again as they seemed to form words he could never force out.
Eventually he pointed a finger right at Aemond’s face and said, “All you need know about Larence Snow is that he was worth a thousand of you.” With that, he spun so abruptly his cloak floated up behind him, and stomped away.
“What the fuck was that about?” Aemond asked Satin.
Satin sighed loudly as he watched his lord commander disappear into the throng of marching men, a sad and almost longing look in his dark but kind eyes. “You don’t want to know,” he said enigmatically, before tugging on the reins of Jon’s garron and continuing the march.
Somehow, without knowing him all that well, Aemond believed the steward.
Yet he still wanted to know.
<<<<>>>>
It took another sennight before Aemond would get his answers, when he’d just about given up on ever knowing the truth. A sennight during which Jon Snow scowled at him from afar, Daemon from up close.
Daemon’s elbow was still sore but now in a sling only so he’d not be tempted to over-use the arm and prevent the joint from fully healing, not because it was so delicate that the wrong motion could have the bone popping out of its socket again. Thus, Daemon had returned to their tent, but was hardly pleasant company. Not that he’d ever been, really, but at least Aemond could find (reluctant) amusement in his uncle’s caustic wit.
(He’d much rather share the tent with Lady, no matter that she made the whole tent smell like wet dog, but he knew better than to say that to Daemon.)
His uncle had turned in early this evening, before the sun had even set, as was his wont these days, though Aemond just figured he couldn’t stand another minute of being exposed for everyone to see the infamously deadly Rogue Prince following his captors like a hungry stray, one of his arms still in a sling after having the elbow re-set because a wolf the size of a small horse had bitten his forearm and shaken its head as if Daemon was naught but an overgrown rat.
Aemond sat alone, wondering about what he’d find at the end of this journey, wondering if Vhagar would be released to him then.
Wondering if he’d ever feel the heat of the summer sun again.
Wondering if he’d ever see his mother and sister and little brother again.
Wondering if he’d ever see Sansa again.
Wondering why, in the case of the latter, he wanted to.
Morose as he felt, he’d hardly sipped from the wine he was afforded each evening, and a much older man-at-arms that he’d noticed always had quite the thirst was suddenly there, standing over Aemond saying, “Ya gonna drink that or just cuddle it?”
To keep the peace Aemond was about to offer to share when he realized he could get something for his generosity instead.
“Might be willing to part with it, if you’d oblige me…”
“Think ya can stop me if I decide to just take it?”
Aemond sighed, looking at the axe on the man’s belt, “No, I suppose not.” He handed up the wineskin and was surprised when the man didn’t snatch it right away. After a few moments passed, Aemond looked up and scowled, “Are you expecting a ‘thank you’, too?”
The man rolled his eyes and grabbed the wineskin rather roughly. He drank deeply then re-corked it and said, “Wha’d ya want? And if ya say fer me t’polish yer knob, I’ma knock out every last one a’yer teeth, boy.”
Aemond rubbed at his eye and groaned, “You Northerners are the ones who are always thinking about men fucking other men, yet we’re the deviants?”
The man snorted, “They say those things ‘cause everyone knows how you Southrons are.”
“And how is that?”
“Fuckin’ anythin’ with a hole. Yer knights fuck their squires. Yer holy-men fuck their accy-lytes. Yer maesters fuck their pupils. Ya even keep lit’l boys in yer brothels.”
Aemond frowned not in insult but because he feared the man wasn’t entirely wrong. He knew that many brothels employed young men, and he’d always suspected that maesters took liberties with their novices. In hindsight, he always did feel uncomfortable around Septon Eustace. Before he became the so-called High Septon of King’s Landing, he’d served the royal family in the Red Keep, and he had an annoying habit of pinching Aemond’s cheek and sometimes swatting his bottom in a way that felt far too familiar. And while Ser Criston and all the knights Aemond knew had never done anything untoward, it was widely rumored that both Ser Joffrey Lonmouth and Ser Qarl Correy had been lovers to Rhaenyra’s first husband.
Still, whatever this man and others believed about sexuality in the South was grossly exaggerated, “Not all Southerners are as you claim,” he provided, deciding not to add his belief that sodomy must occur at a similar rate in the North, even if it was better hidden by those participating.
“Fair enough,” the man conceded then let out a long breath as he lowered himself next to Aemond on the log he’d claimed for himself an hour ago. “So wha’did ya want?”
“Only a story.”
“Got lots a’them. Y’ever heard the one ‘bout the lord who got s’fat he couldn’t find ‘is—”
“I meant a specific story. I want to know if you know anything about a young man named Larence Snow.”
Like Jon Snow, the man became dead serious at hearing the name. He turned to face Aemond, no levity to be found in his deep lined face as he asked, “Why’d ya wanna hear about him?”
“I understand he was a… friend to House Stark. Did he not survive the war?”
The man snorted bitterly and took a deep sip, “Shoulda died at the Hills with ‘is friend, like he wanted. Him and Prince Robb was thick as thieves, they was. Planned to be goodbrothers when the war was done, and everyone knew it by then. Knew Hornwood’s bastard had it bad for the princess. Then again, lots of lads did. Took after her mother, that one.”
Yet another inconvenient flare of jealousy rose inside Aemond, but he forced himself to focus on the other aspects of the story, “What was the Hills? A battle?”
The man took a sip and nodded, “Mm. Bolton’s former goodfather cut a deal with some Ironborn cunts,” the man spat on the ground at that, “routed the prince’s- King Robb’s army. Few survived and even fewer escaped and made their way back to another camp or friendly castle. Among those captured alive was the Hornwood bastard.”
Aemond now knew this was the battle Sansa had described; the one Robb Stark had rushed into because of the letter sent by Ramsay Snow. The one he might’ve won if not for the temporary alliance between the Boltons and certain Ironmen.
The one she’d called ‘a slaughter’…
The man’s tale had hardly begun and yet all the pieces clicked into place, leaving Aemond’s skin feeling hot and his belly feeling sour as he thought on more of Sansa’s words.
“The queen told me that the Boltons were… cruel to their prisoners of war,” he half asked, half stated.
The man gave another snort at that, “Boy, you ain’t know the meanin’ o’the word cruel ‘til you met a Bolton. Some says they weren’t even men, just wore the skin of ‘em to hide the fact they was monsters,” the man shrugged and took another sip, “don’t believe it meself, but don’t discount it, neither.”
Aemond nodded, swallowing to moisten his parched throat.
“Well, one thing y’can say ‘bout the Boltons – they were clever in their own way. The Bolton bastard was still angry that he didn’t catch his self a pup to force King Robb's surrender. Figgered he might could do it with the Hornwood bastard, instead. He knew ‘bout 'im and the princess Sansa somehow. Might be one a’the Stark soldiers confessed it to buy his self mercy. Who knows. They says Roose Bolton told ‘is son – if you can get Winterfell t’surrender, I’ll legitimize ya and name ya my heir. So Ramsay brought his prisoner to Winterfell. Right there beyond the south wall he strung ‘im to a cross and—”
“Stop!” Aemond found himself shouting. He knew what came next in the story and was already picturing it; picturing it being done to some young man who, for reasons unknown, looked like an amalgamation of himself and Jon Snow. But to hear it… He’d never been one to shy away from gore, yet he was sure he’d lose his paltry supper if the man continued.
The man was merciful enough, drawling out an, “Aye,” then giving Aemond a brief respite before continuing, “Well, you know what he done. Demanded Princess Sansa come out for a parley. She agreed. His terms were this: surrender Winterfell, herself, and her siblings, to House Bolton, and he’d release Larence Snow. She countered ‘im: herself for Larence, even swap. Even sufferin’ as he was, they says he screamed at her not to be stupid. Ramsay Snow didn’t accept so she tried again. Herself and Winterfell, Larence to go free, he and her siblings to be given safe passage to White Harbor and across the Narrow Sea. He still din’t accept. And they say every man in her honor guard didn’t breathe the whole time, sure their lady’d hand over the North’s seat and her whole family to save ‘er beau, soft-hearted as girls can be. But she told him there would be no deal. Rumor says the bastard told her she was a fool, and for wastin’ his time, she’d find herself facin’ even worse after he took her castle. Said next time he saw ‘er, she’d be on her knees beggin’ for ‘is mercy. And you know what she said back?”
Aemond jolted when the man turned to him to ask his rhetorical question. His heart was threatening to rip out of his chest, but he found the willpower to shake his head.
“She said,” the man offered a wide grin that revealed more teeth missing than present, “The next time he saw ‘er, it’d be him on his knees. Then she turned to her man and said, ‘And if I grant him mercy, I command you now, before these witnesses, to put a sword through my heart’.”
Aemond closed his eyes, irrationally hating the man who told this story for exhibiting some sense of pride over his lady for her bravery, when Aemond knew that on the inside, it must have killed her. To see her lover being tortured so gruesomely. To know it was in her power to stop it, but that it was a price she could not pay, for what would the Bolton bastard have done to her little brothers, her little sister, not to mention herself. And what would’ve become of Winterfell and all the North with such a disgusting family leading it?
He felt overcome by awareness of his own weakness. Would he be able to see someone he loved suffer so terribly and not do whatever he could to ease their pain, even if he knew he meant transferring their pain to another that he loved?
“All you need know about Larence Snow is that he was worth a thousand of you.”
And so is Sansa Stark.
It did not soothe the sting of her betrayal, but Aemond found the part of him that had tried so hard to hate her was fading away. How could he hate someone he admired? And it suddenly made sense, precisely why they had crowned Sansa Stark: because she had put her people and her family before herself, standing as sturdy and proud as the great oak in the face of an absolute monster.
“She went back into ‘er castle,” the man continued, “an ordered ‘er men to lock ‘er siblings in their rooms, afraid that if they heard about th’offer, they’d take matters into their own hands, fer they loved Larence Snow like a big brother. Then she went back outside to watch ‘is last days from the ramparts. Listened to ‘is screams…”
The man got quiet for a spell after that, eyes going unfocused, not even sipping from the skin as he seemed to only just then realize how tragic the tale was.
“Or so I heard,” he shrugged, “Used to be all anyone talked about, afore the Dark Wolf overheard someone sayin’ the queen was a heartless bitch, lettin’ ‘er man suffer like that. Some says he gifted ‘is sister the man’s tongue. Others says he fed it to ‘is wolf while the bugger watched on. Others yet says he shoved it up the man’s arse. Ask me, I’d bet on the second.”
Another silence fell over them, colder than the winter air, during which the man drank more wine and Aemond couldn’t tell whether he was thinking of everything or nothing.
When he eventually decided he needed to know the ending of this horrific tale, all he could think to ask was a question he already knew the answer to, “He died? Larence Snow, I mean.”
It took a beat for the man to nod, “Aye. And they says when he died, the Queen in the North was born. Cold as ice and hard as steel. Never to shed another tear – she spent them all on Larence Snow. There’s a song about it, but no one’d dare sing it in earshot a’the dark wolf.” The man jerked his head vaguely toward the direction where, far on the other side of camp, Jon Snow sat and ate with his men.
Aemond turned to face his informant, “And… Ramsay Bolton? Er Snow?”
The man let through a small, humorless chuckle, “Well that’s where I can’t help ya, lad. None knows what became a’him.”
“What do you mean?” Aemond frowned, “I heard he was captured after the Battle of the Bastards.” Sansa herself had told him that.
“That he was, but after that? The Queen din’t let her brother take ‘is head as custom dictate, and no one blamed her that. She had 'im thrown in the dungeons, and no one’s seen hide nor hair a’him since. Some says she spent two days skinnin’ ‘im alive, like he done to her Larence. Others says it was two weeks, or two moons. And others yet says he’s still down there. No tongue. No eyes. No teeth. No feet or hands, cock or balls. Just a bag o’bones gettin’ skinnier every day, but never quite skinny enough to die. Some says the queen goes down now and then and takes another piece of’im." The man let out an indulgent sigh, "Aye, people says lots of things about the Bolton bastard, but they all agree on one thing…”
Aemond swallowed, “And that is?”
The man took a deep swig and a deeper breath before answering, “That whatever she done to ‘im, he deserved it.”
With an unexpected smack to Aemond’s shoulder the man rose, handed back the nearly empty wineskin, and ambled away favoring his right leg.
And Aemond did not sleep a wink that night.
Notes:
I know that last scene was a bummer, so I will leave you with this: how DID medieval people get wolf/dog hair off their clothes without sticky lint rollers? 🤔
Also, shout out to mimi_elizabetha who after last chapter said, "So is Daemon about to get his ass whooped by a tiny faceless man with a skinny sword?" White technically Nymeria did the ass whooping (er, arm whooping?), Arya was present, willing, and able.
Also, also, I love the idea of the Stark wolves having their battle scars. Just about every wild animal does, and these were wild animals who also fought in battle, so...
Alsox3 - the level of mystery / unknown elements is intentional since this is being written entirely from Aemond's POV. Tempting as it is to offer explanations for what's going on, I hope the intrigue is part of the appeal of this story and not just a source of frustration.
Chapter Text
Aemond thought he would piss himself during the shaky ascent in the winch cage.
Even Daemon looked nervous. Hells, some of the weathered men of the Night’s Watch looked nervous, and they’d presumably done this hundreds of times.
In the hours since their arrival at Castle Black, Aemond had come to appreciate the amount of effort that went into maintaining a castle in the far north, where, per Satin, the sky could open up and dump down a half foot of snow with hardly any warning. Where it was so cold that the preceding month of travel seemed balmy by contrast. Where it was so bleak that Aemond thought the men could learn a thing or two about cheer from the terminally-ill living out their days in one of the Faith-operated sickhouses of King’s Landing.
Where the food was so horrible that it made Winterfell’s venison stew seem as exotic as the meals served on one of the Reach’s pleasure barges.
Where the men were so defeated, so tired, so ragged, that they made the men who’d traveled north with Aemond look as hearty and handsome as Ser Criston.
Where the sun set so early that Aemond wanted to curse at the moon. It’d be full tonight, precisely one month from the night he’d thought he’d be saying vows to Sansa Stark in front of her strange holy tree.
The black-dressed men had been bustling about, barely slowing down to notice the two silver-haired princes or greet their onyx-haired Lord Commander. They were fletching arrows. Filling barrels with pitch and oil and loading them into the winch cage to be hoisted up. Dumping ashes out of braziers and refilling them with coal. Sharpening daggers and spears and swords, tightening each other’s leather armor. Some were slapping each other on the face as if doing a pal a favor. Some ran around barking commands while others ran around mumbling curses. Some threw gravel and sawdust down on walkways and stairways, others set fresh torches about the place.
Aemond had never been in a battle, but he realized that was what he was watching: men preparing for an attack.
Meaning, men preparing to be attacked.
Daemon, who’d been quiet and truculent for the second half of their journey, looked alive for the first time since a direwolf had gnawed on his arm as he forced himself into Jon Snow’s path to ask, “Is it wildlings you face? How many? Do they try to scale the Wall, or do they pressure the gate? They can’t have tunneled under, can they?”
Jon had begun to answer when Tormund lifted his bearded lip and said, “Aye, tis wildlings we face. Or they was wildlings.”
“Please,” Jon cut in, “I must help my men with the preparations while we still have some daylight left. I will see you both at nightfall.”
He’d left then and Aemond had only seen him from afar as he and Daemon tried to make sense of what was happening around them. Mostly they tried to stay out of the way, but even that was hard until they finally gave up and found the dining hall, where Brothers in Black were scarfing down bread and soup then bundling back up to face the elements and their toils.
It was Satin who eventually came to retrieve them just as the sun was painting the sky orange and pink. Neither prince thought to ask questions, cold and confused and pensive as they were, until the cage was jerking up with them and several others inside.
“We’re not going all the way to the top, are we?” Aemond blurted out.
Satin, entirely nonplussed, nodded, “Yes. Seven hundred feet. Surely, you’ve climbed to greater heights on your dragons?”
The other men in the cage gave them scrutinizing looks, as if only then noticing that they were in the presence of a pair of Targaryen princes.
“Yes, but this doesn’t feel quite as—” Aemond paused to clench his arse when the cage experienced a particularly hard jerk, “secure.”
“That always happens around a hundred feet…” Satin explained the reason, but Aemond didn’t hear him (nor want to) as he looked down and his knees instantly went wobbly. He had to brace a hand against the inner wall.
One hundred feet down, six hundred to go.
He traveled those feet while going out of his mind; refusing to look down or out, refusing to acknowledge that he was in a rickety old cage whose maintenance and repair was handled by men who presently were running around like headless chickens.
It was only when he forced his trembling legs to step out of the lift that he realized the one thing Castle Black had going for it: it was not very windy down there, what with the Wall being quite an effective barrier. By contrast, the top of the Wall was very windy. So windy it burned his real eye and made the fake one so cold he was getting an instant headache. So windy that he stepped closer to Daemon, no matter what ridicule he’d face for it.
As a pleasant change of pace, Daemon said not a word as he stared straight out to the south, his jaw dropped open in awe. Aemond had never seen his uncle look thusly, and when he followed his eyes’ path he understood why.
Aemond gasped as he looked over the land, his vision unimpeded by any natural or manmade structure, just his eye’s inherent limitations. Satin was not wrong when he said they’d flown this high before, but there was something strange about standing on one’s feet looking out over the world. On Vhagar, Aemond felt as if he was the one flying, as if he was no man but an eagle or raven or dragon (or god). But atop the Wall, he felt only like a man.
A man in total awe of the world he was a part of.
A man who was small and insignificant in comparison to the grand scale of that world and of… life. That was not a feeling one could get while riding and commanding the largest and most dangerous predator in the known realm.
And he found, it was not an unpleasant feeling. There was a strange sort of relief in feeling… trivial.
His eyes began watering, and it had nothing to do with the cold.
“Princes!” a familiar voice rang out over the howling wind.
Satin stood more or less where they’d left him, but now Jon was standing next to him with a scrawny but scrappy looking lad on his other side and a step back.
Aemond nodded and moved toward Jon only to find his eyes couldn’t help but look to the North – the sight not yet seen.
The snow was gold where the sun’s last rays touched it, but that was only in the places it looked relatively… undisturbed. Much of it was stained dark colors, but Aemond was too far above to see if it was brown like mud or red like blood or black like pitch.
“There was a battle here,” Aemond called out over the wind.
Jon nodded while keeping his eyes on the northern horizon, his pale skin crinkling into a sunburst around his eye, “There’s a battle here every night. Mostly they try to overwhelm the gate. Well, I should say gates. There are five spaced evenly under the wall in the tunnel, each a portcullis.”
“Going up into ice?” Daemon asked skeptically.
“I’ll explain the mechanics some other time,” Jon spared Daemon a fleeting, sidelong glance, “As I was saying, there are five gates. They almost always get through the first two, only once have gotten through the third. And yes, I shat myself that night.”
Aemond was too disturbed to laugh. “Who’s they?” he asked, but his question was subsumed by Daemon’s, “You say every night. Why do they attack only at night if most of the fighting is in a tunnel, anyway?”
“They are only active at night. By day they enter a sort of… stasis.”
Daemon groaned, “Are you back to trying to scare us, Snow? The monsters that come out at night? I’m fairly certain if these mythical monsters had been around all these thousands of years, we’d have heard about them even in the South.”
Jon shook his head resolutely as his jaw bulged, “They have kept to the far north until recently. We don’t know how, but it seems the magic woven into the Wall began weakening some years or mayhap decades ago. But I don’t have time to explain all our theories, nor to try to convince you the threat is real when you’ll see it for yourself soon enough. As I was starting to tell you, in addition to pressuring the gates, they also try to scale the Wall. They use pickaxes or climb upon each other, a ladder of bodies. Even if they lose thirty for every one that makes it to the top, we cannot leave it unmanned up here,” Jon outstretched his arms to either side. “We need men to pour oil and shoot flaming arrows down at them, and to kill any who make it all the way up. They’re smart enough to make us split our resources. Or smart enough to know how much time and manpower it takes to raise and lower the cage when we need to swap out men with reinforcements or bring up more arrows or oil.”
Daemon grinned cynically, “Ah, so they’re intelligent monsters with military experience. Sounds like it’ll be a fun challenge.”
Jon’s nostrils flared, “If every man weren’t so important, I’d throw you off this wall, you know that?”
Daemon snorted, “Well, you’d try. Where’s Wolfie, by the way?”
Jon shook his head but refused to stoop to Daemon’s level, instead explaining some more about the tunnel’s dimensions and which fighting formation had proven best, which was five men high and five men low, falling back every few minutes so ten fresh could step forward, keeping no less than four sets in the tunnel at a time.
And then night fell all too suddenly, too soon for Aemond’s liking, and darkness surrounded them.
Well, there were torches spaced evenly atop the Wall, and the full moon and white snow made everything around them seem almost unnaturally bright, but the sun had sunk below the western horizon, and no amount of wishing could make it reverse its course.
Jon Snow faced the north and looked through a far-eye for several minutes while Daemon glared at him, arms crossed and lips downturned, and Aemond wondered if he was about to be terrified to death or find out that Jon Snow and everyone else in the North had gone mad.
And then, all too suddenly and too soon for Aemond’s liking, Jon reared his head back and said, “They’re here.”
A stone sank in Aemond’s belly.
“Give me that,” Daemon demanded, scowling and huffing as he grabbed the contraption and brought it to his eye, moving it around and adjusting it until—
The far-eye fell from his hand and Aemond snatched it out of the air on instinct, because his mind had gone strangely empty.
“Mother, Maiden, and Crone…” Daemon said breathlessly, stumbling back a step from the north side barrier made of ice. “Gods have mercy,” he added, eyes still fixed to the north.
Aemond had never heard his uncle’s voice sound like that, not even when his face was inches away from a wolf’s slathering maw. He was tempted to chuck the looking device over the edge of the Wall so he’d never know what had frightened his uncle so. Instead, he raised it to his left eye with a set of shaking hands and looked until he found something looking back. Something that could not possibly exist. Not upright and seemingly alive as it was! Not when it was very clearly not just a corpse but a mostly decomposed corpse!
Compulsively he angled his gaze through the long lens to the right, hoping that thing was a single anomaly even though he knew it wasn’t. To his despair, he found it was surrounded by more of its unholy ilk. Some were barely more than skeleton, others looked like fresh corpses.
Then there were the bears, and wolves, and wild cats, and foxes, and snow leopards, and… mammoths… and men who stood closer to twenty feet than six. Giants. And something that looked like… like a spider! A white spider the height of a horse that sparkled in the moonlight like snow or ice, and when Aemond raised the glass, he realized there was a man straddling the spider’s round back… and he did not look like the other men, the corpses, but like…
The far-eye fell from his hand and landed right between his boots, and Aemond took a step back, then another, and another, until he bumped against the southern barrier. His knees wanted to fold. His spine wanted to melt. His bladder wanted to empty. His stones wanted to hide inside his belly. His eyes wanted to close and not open again until those things were gone. His feet wanted to run all the way home, all the way to Mother’s chambers, so she could kiss his brow and stroke his hair until he forgot all about dead things and things he feared would never die; until he forgot cold and fear and loneliness and pain and knew only sunshine and grass and blue skies and brown eyes.
“No,” he shook his head as he looked out over the land and realized the scale was nothing like what he would’ve imagined if he’d bothered to imagine. Those things were marching out of the wood by the thousands, formed up in battalions of twenty rows of twenty, or twelve rows of eight, or ten rows of ten, and the host seemed never-ending, as if the rear of the procession would not emerge from the tree line until Aemond was old and grey. If I live beyond this night.
“No,” he repeated, still shaking his head, uncertain whether the world had gone mad, or just him. “No, no, no, no. No. No. No…”
“Prince Aemond,” Satin started, a hand extending toward him, but Aemond was stepping into the cage, back-first, finding it not scary at all this time.
“No. No… That’s… No,” he couldn’t stop shaking his head.
Jon stepped into the cage facing him, “I know what you’re thinking right now. Same as I felt when the corpse of a fallen Ranger tried to kill Lord Commander Mormont right before my eyes. When its hand, after Ghost severed it from its body, still crawled across the floor…”
Aemond bent forward, leaning his hands on his knees and trying not to pass out or vomit.
“What do you mean a detached hand kept moving?” Daemon stepped in to ask.
“I mean precisely what I said.”
Aemond looked up to find Daemon close his eyes in forlornness… then open them in resolve. “But they can be killed…” he stated with conviction, the unspoken question clear: how?
Jon eyed Daemon intently, “Fire for the undead. Or obsidian, or Valyrian steel.”
Aemond watched Daemon’s eyes flick down to his belt on instinct.
“The sword will be returned to you, Prince Daemon. If you promise to fight for the living.”
“You say fire kills them,” Aemond heard himself mumble. The other two men looked down at him like they’d forgotten his presence entirely, “That’s why you stole the dragons.”
“We need them,” Jon spoke desperately, “and we could not assume you’d have agreed to come here to see this threat for yourselves, to offer the services of your dragons. Not after all our pleas for aid have gone unfulfilled.”
“What pleas?” Aemond straightened and asked.
“To your late father, the king, and your half-sister, the queen.”
Aemond’s eyes narrowed, “My father was not one to deny anyone aid. He had sent criminals to the Night’s Watch for—”
“It was the Hand who replied. He said that the Night’s Watch protected the North, and the North chose not to be one with the other Kingdoms, thus the Crown did not recognize the Night’s Watch as an institution eligible for its aid, only as a penal colony for its criminals.”
“And the queen?” Daemon asked.
Jon looked at Daemon and curled his upper lip, “The queen said she’d be happy to send a delegate to assess the situation if I convinced my ‘stubborn, traitorous sister’ to kneel to, marry into, and breed for house Targaryen.”
Under any other circumstances, Aemond might have blushed to know that he was the one meant to marry and breed Jon’s sister, or perhaps he’d have jutted his chin and told Jon that he hadn’t made Sansa kneel for him, but there was still time.
As it was, with doom approaching in a slow and steady march, Aemond only ran a hand through his hair and stepped out of the cage back onto the walkway, the wind hammering him instantly. He looked out and down at the massive host, the front of which had crossed almost a third of the distance to the Wall.
A moment later he felt warmth at both sides, and in his peripheral, he could see Jon on his left, so Daemon must be on his right.
“How many?” he asked, his voice steady, to his surprise.
“We counted over a hundred thousand at the start. That includes the undead of all species. And fifty of the Others…”
Aemond did not need to ask which were the Others. The sight of that thing atop the spider was branded into his mind’s eye, and he was sure it would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.
“…We’ve held them off but not dented that number by much. Might be ninety thousand now. Or they might have a reserve of another hundred thousand. Bran scouted north in a hawk, but the lands beyond the Wall are vast. Perhaps as big as all the rest of Westeros. And what Bran did, it was not without risk.”
Aemond almost asked what the risk was before realizing he didn’t care, and it didn’t matter. His curiosities about the skin-changing Stark siblings hadn’t been even remotely satisfied during the journey, and now that they’d reached their destination, he couldn’t bring himself to wonder how it worked. Not when he’d seen what he’d seen.
“Sometimes…” Jon continued in a low voice, his eyes fixed on everything and nothing in the distance, “I think they’re toying with us. Not the wights – they’re nothing but mindless thralls – but their masters.” His bearded jaw bulged, “They feel, much like man does. Satisfaction, triumph, pride. But all of it is a dark, twisted version. There is no love in them, not even for each other. No mercy in them. No joy in anything but another’s suffering and death. No grief when their thralls die by the droves. No grief when one of them dies, only insult and rage, to have been proven mortal. To have been bested by something as weak and pathetic as a man… something that exists for their sick amusement. We are not to them what a rabbit is to a dog, but what a mouse is to a cat. Sometimes…” Jon’s voice had become a numb murmur, and Aemond knew he was talking to himself more than the men to his right.
Aemond also knew that Jon had never shared this with anyone else. Not his younger siblings whose fear and hopelessness would cripple him. Not his men, save perhaps Satin and this other one who might be his squire of sorts; not when his men needed to look to their commander and see only strength and conviction, no matter how terrible the foe and how small the odds of victory. Because if they had looked at him and seen only despair, would they have stayed here and fought for a society that had condemned them, a king or lord who had banished them, a father who had failed to provide a future for his second or third or fourth son?
“Sometimes,” Jon repeated, “I think that by fighting back, we’re giving them precisely what they want. Mankind is the stone on which they are sharpening their sword. We are the jester at their icy court. The whore to their dark lusts. And I’m sick of it. I’m sick and tired of dancing to their melody, and yet how can I stop?”
Finally, Jon turned to face Aemond and Daemon, who were staring at him rather than the hopeless sight to the north, neither so much as breathing for fear of missing a single word he said.
“How can I stop defending this Wall, when it is all that prevents the entire continent from becoming one of them?” he tipped his head in the direction of that unholy army.
“Jon…” Aemond started, not sure why he felt the need to reach out to him with words if not touch, only knowing that it felt akin to throwing a rope to a comrade who’d fallen overboard into the sea.
“Do you know how disheartening it is, to forever be running uphill yet never reaching the summit? To tumble backwards every time you think you’ve made progress? Do you know that this entire march, some part of me almost wanted to find it had fallen when we got here? Because then I could just run,” he gritted, “instead of fighting. I could gather what family and friends I have left and ride for the coast, board a ship to someplace warm. And do it without feeling like a coward and a deserter, because there was no more point in courage and no more Watch to fight for. Do you—”
Aemond jolted at the cracking sound that coincided with Daemon’s gloved hand appearing in his field of vision to slap Jon Snow on his left cheek.
The twiggy young man several paces away went to unsheathe his sword but Satin stopped him with a calm hand to the wrist.
Daemon grabbed Jon’s fur mantle with the same hand, reaching around Aemond’s right shoulder to do so, and growled out, “You don’t think about that now. You don’t think, period – that’ll get you killed, sure as shit. You don’t wonder about right and wrong. You don’t picture some warm place a thousand leagues from here. You just keep swinging your sword, Jon. You just keep shouting your orders and leading your men. You just keep fighting until you’ve won or died. You hear me?”
Slowly, Jon nodded.
“Good,” Daemon clapped his hand on Jon’s cheek, though it seemed less like a slap and more like an embrace this time, “Now you said fire, obsidian, and Valyrian steel kill the thralls. What kills their masters?” he asked, dropping his hand and turning to face the enemy again.
“Just obsidian and Valyrian steel. They’ll walk right through fire, and it’ll be the flame that loses.”
“How well can they fight?” Aemond asked.
Jon’s eyes flicked to him, “The undead – the wights – are graceless but rabid in their attack. Imagine being relentlessly hacked at by someone with a rusty old axe who is not afraid of your counterstrikes and not mortally wounded by your hits, and thus wastes no time trying to block them. The Others, though… Well, I’d bet on them over the fifty best knights in all the realm.”
“That’s because there aren’t fifty of me,” Daemon countered cockily. Aemond didn’t even bother rolling his eye, instead moving right along to his next question.
“What of the other castles? Are they also attacked nightly?”
“No, thank the gods,” Jon let out a desperate, half-maniacal burst of laughter, “Whatever power they used to lift the protections here, they must not have had enough of it to do the same elsewhere on the Wall. But I will not count on it staying so forever. We mean to eradicate them before they can gain more power or learn new tricks or whatever the case may be.”
“Then release the hold you have on our dragons!” Daemon raised his voice, “That’s what this was about, wasn’t it? Getting us and our dragons here where we could see the threat with our own eyes and be compelled to fight by your side? Well, you’ve succeeded,” Daemond snorted caustically, “I’m scared shitless; you happy? I want nothing more than to burn those dead cunts before they get within spitting distance of this hunk of ice.”
Jon winced, “I’m afraid it isn’t that easy.”
Now Aemond was the one to snort, “Nothing is with you Northrons.”
Jon turned to him with a surprisingly genuine smile, “Well, you’ll agree with me on this one, unless you want to face Vhagar when she becomes one of them,” he pointed toward the North.
“Becomes one?” he asked, aghast, Daemon’s voice his echo.
“If they kill her, they will turn her. That is how the Others have amassed this army of man and beast, of beings great and small, and I cannot assume it won’t work on a dragon.”
“They have heavy weaponry that can kill a dragon?” Daemon asked skeptically.
“No, but they will within a night or two of finding out we have dragons. And you’d best not underestimate how far a Giant can throw a spear; might be further than your dragon can throw flame.”
“You say they will build weapons to kill the dragons as soon as they realize you have dragons…” Aemond stated, his blood warming with possibility.
Jon nodded, “Aye. Hence, we should not use them until we have devised a strategy on how best to use them, and how best to protect them.”
Aemond bit his lower lip then let it slip out slowly to say, “Tell me you think all the men of the Night’s Watch plus Vhagar and Caraxes can end all of them in one night.”
Jon looked warily out to the North then turned back to Aemond, shaking his head regretfully, “No. No, I think it will take a few nights. Maybe a few weeks. Like any men would, they’ll scatter when they feel the flames, even if they have to re-congregate to some degree along the parts of the Wall where the magic is broken. You will not be able to stay low enough to reach them with your flames for long without risking injury or death to yourself and your dragons. Or the sight of the dragons will be the incentive they need to figure out how to break the magic along the entire length of the Wall, in which case we’re fucked. And I mean fucked.”
“But what if we had…” Aemond shrugged, “Eight dragons?”
Jon frowned in confusion then scoffed, “You expect me to believe your family will come willingly? That your queen will order it of them?”
“I believe I can convince them.”
Jon ignored that, “It doesn’t matter. We’re running out of time. We can only repair the gates so many times, and it gets colder every night, and the nights keep getting longer, and it’s only a matter of time before the winch cage breaks down, or those fuckers decide to stop toying with their prey, or… No,” Jon shook his head, “We can’t afford to wait for your sister to take her sweet time to come see, then return to convince—”
“Fuck that,” Aemond grabbed Jon by the shoulders, “I don’t plan on getting her to come here to survey the threat, but to arrive with the full might of our dragons to hit them so hard and so fast that their frozen heads will spin.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” Jon asked skeptically.
“By scaring the piss out of the queen. Can you get me one of those dead things? Will it survive a roughly four-day flight to the capital?”
“Are you mad?” Daemon hissed, moving to stand perpendicular to the two younger men, “You want to waste eight days minimum?! The Watch might not even be here when you get back, then you’ll be trying to hunt these things down across all the bloody North!”
Aemond asked of Jon, “How long have you been holding these things off?”
Jon closed his eyes and sucked air through his teeth before breathing out, “Months, but my men—”
“Need to hold another eight days.”
“Easier said than done,” Jon grumbled.
“Jon,” Aemond said earnestly, “Look out at that field and imagine two or three dragons covering the North side, another two or three on the South side, and so on. Imagine how hard it will be for those things to scatter when there is fire in every direction. Imagine how hard it will be to throw a spear at one dragon when another is diving down to kill the spear-thrower while he’s distracted. Imagine it.”
Jon did – staring out into the distance, his dark eyes sparkling moonlight – then turned back to face Aemond, “If this is a trick. If you betray me… If you detour to Winterfell and threaten my sister—”
“I would never hurt her,” he said quickly, honestly.
Frighteningly.
Jon stared right in his eye, looking for the slightest hint of deception.
He’d find none, because Aemond had none to give.
Finally, Jon nodded, “I believe you. But just in case I’m being a fool, know that if you use this as an opportunity to claim the North, to steal it from us when we’re at our weakest… Well, I’ll open the gates beneath this Wall. You want the North so badly, you can have it then. If I’m going to lose, so are you.”
Aemond felt himself taken aback, then morbidly amused, “Good to know you’re not afraid of fighting dirty.”
Jon snorted, “I’d be dead a hundred times over if I was.”
Aemond held out his hand, and after a few seconds of deliberation, Jon clasped his forearm.
Daemon held up his hands as he interjected again, “Wait, wait – I should be the one to go. Caraxes is faster, and if it comes to us needing to use a dragon before the others get here… Well, it should be Vhagar. She can blow flame a hundred feet to Caraxes’ sixty.”
Aemond glared at his uncle, “He’s not that much faster. And besides, if Rhaenyra doesn’t choose to come here out of the goodness of her heart, I plan to tell her you’re being held hostage at Castle Black. She’ll make it here in three days.”
Daemon rolled his eyes, “I could tell her that you’re being held hostage if it came to that.”
Aemond pursed his lips and lifted his brow.
Daemon shrugged, “Fine. Point taken.”
<<<<>>>>
After a month of being dragged along against their will, of being sneered at and spat at and taunted and teased, of feeling helpless and vengeful and wronged, suddenly Aemond and Daemon were on the same side as the wolves of the North. No knees were bent, no vows offered or demanded, no implication that the North would be folded into the other kingdoms in exchange for the dragons’ aid – nothing but a Northern handshake between the so-called Dark Wolf and Aemond One-Eye, then another between the Dark Wolf and the Rogue Prince. In thinking that the moment might become a legend in years to come, Aemond wished he had a better nickname. His was not just uninspired, it wasn’t very intimidating.
It was decided that he should rest since he planned to fly for as much of the next days as Vhagar could handle, while Daemon could not be kept from the fray.
Since fighting in the tunnel was about jabbing a spear or sword between the bars of the gate as many times as possible, Daemon’s sword skills were wasted down there. Rather, he volunteered to fight atop the wall. It was less of a barrage but challenging in its own right due to the cold and wind and the fact that there was no iron barrier between a man and his undead opponents, for those that managed to make it to the top.
Even with his left elbow only recently healed from being dislocated, the Rogue Prince fought with a ferocity and finesse that Black Brothers would recount for years to come, laughing in the face of the most terrifying foe mankind would ever know, taunting his lifeless opponents over their ugliness as he ended them. His witty jibes against creatures unable to register insult enlivened the men fighting around him such that some of those men would say they forgot to feel cold or fear as they instead had a friendly competition: a silver moon to whoever slew the ugliest wight that night, just as soon as Jon Snow returned the Rogue Prince’s coin purse.
“The Queen in the North has your coin purse,” Jon Snow shouted over the whistling winds and the sound of his Valyrian steel sword slicing through bone.
“You entrusted my money to a woman?! No doubt it’s all been spent!” Daemon Targaryen shouted back, earning laughter from those around them.
Even when undead crows and hawks and other birds joined the battle, clawing and scraping and going straight for the face, the men’s courage flagged only briefly. Prince Daemon shouted, “Pair off! One high, one low!” and the men took heed, surviving the aerial assault though one lost the better part of his right ear and another three lost eyes. It didn’t hurt that the wolves had their own sort of game, acting like giant kittens chasing flies as they leapt up and snatched crows straight out of the air, giving a swift shake until the bird’s hollow bones were shattered, then casually whipping the broken things over the side of the Wall and moving on to the next target.
And when the sky began to lighten, the dead suddenly eager to return to their dark forest before they lost their vigor, two were subdued instead of killed.
It was mid-morn when Arya Stark and an exhausted Jon Snow led Aemond south a ways to the place a pair of dragons were nesting. The prince’s horse dragged behind it a small sled bearing cargo as precious as it was stinky.
Prince Aemond could feel the moment Bran or Rickon Stark left Vhagar’s skin, returning his consciousness back to his own body safe and warm in Castle Black. The Queen of Dragons snapped her eyes to him, momentarily confused and agitated, but Aemond soothed her as only Aemond could, and before long he was clasping arms with Jon Snow again (who stood with his sister a fair distance from the dragons).
With shadowed eyes and newly scratched cheeks, Jon gave Aemond a tired smile as he held tight the other man’s forearm and said, “If you get back here to find we have fallen… Don’t try to fight them. It will be a lost cause if they’ve gotten past the Wall. Just help as many…” Jon stopped himself, swallowed audibly, and restarted, “Just go to Winterfell. Drag Sansa out kicking and screaming if you must and fly her to Pentos or the Summer Isles or… or anywhere far away from here. And tell her that I said… that it’s alright to be happy. That I’ll be cross with her if she’s not,” he attempted a weak smile, but it was crooked and stiff, perhaps a result of Jon’s knowledge that, in such a scenario, he would not be around to be cross with her, nor to witness her happiness.
And with that, the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch turned his garron back in the direction of duty and death, needing no confirmation from the southern prince who was his captive and enemy this time yesterday.
It was Arya Stark who eyed Aemond queerly and waited until her brother was out of earshot before asking, “You trust your family?”
“Some of them,” he answered honestly.
She jerked her head in something like a nod of approval before saying, “Good,” and turning her mount to follow her brother.
The prince shrugged, loaded his cargo, untied the sled from the horse and smacked its rear end to send it after its friends, and climbed up a belly bigger than the average commoner’s house.
<<<<>>>>
Some say the prince’s mighty mount flew straight over Winterfell on the way to King’s Landing, and that the prince looked down in time to see an auburn-haired woman standing on a stone bridge, looking up at him as the wind whipped tendrils of her hair around like flames licking at its victim. But most know such a tale could not possibly be true. The Queen in the North was, as ever, busy running her depleted household, which was comprised mostly of women doing men’s work, as she had sent every man and boy she could spare to Castle Black for what she knew would be the North’s last stand.
Mayhap, life’s last stand…
Notes:
Sooo... I heard that Ewan Mitchell said Vhagar could solve the Long Night in an hour. I get that the comment was likely hyperbole to educate viewers who weren't familiar with canon on just how much bigger Vhagar was than every other dragon living at that time, but I must call bullshit anyway. Dragonfire is a powerful weapon but as Dorne proved, and the West/Reach coalition ALMOST proved, it is no atom bomb. If it was, then Aegon and his sisters wouldn't have needed land armies and navies to conquer the other kingdoms. Dragons must get close enough to their target to be in range of spears, arrows, scorpion/ballistae bolts and projectiles shot by catapults and trebuchets. A big dragon like Vhagar won't be hurt by an arrow or spear any more than you'd be hurt by a gnat, but as Dorne proved, a good/lucky shot CAN kill a large, hard-scaled dragon. Aim for the eyes, mouth, maybe other delicate areas. Isn't easy for sure, but it's possible. Also, with snow on the ground it's not like the dragons could start a massive fire that would spread and kill most of the wights. Nor can they risk directing the dragonfire at the Wall where the wights are climbing, because, well, the wall is made of ICE.
So, as much as I'd LOVE to write Aemond and Daemon and their dragons solving the Long Night in an hour, or even a day, I cannot disregard reality to such a degree. I know in many fics I ask you to suspend your disbelief for a scene here or there, but I try not to do it for an entire war, or against all laws of physics.
Sorry not sorry, but Vhagar and Caraxes need backup!!
Chapter 9: Of ice and fire
Notes:
This chapter is written partly in Aemond's POV and partly in the semi-omniscient tone that chapter 1 had. Warning for character death (does that need to be said if you're reading an ASOIAF/AWOIAF fic?) though not in main pairing and nothing you aren't going to see in HotD. IF I ever post a fic in which one/both members of the main ship die, I would tag it like crazy. I know it spoils things and that we read books all the time (books we PAID for) which have sad or bittersweet endings, but I guess that's just something I would like to know in a fanfic I'm reading so that I can decide whether to read or not, or whether to read when I'm in the mood for something happy as opposed to melancholic.
Anyway, that's all I'll say for now.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Eight days, I told him.
Aemond felt as if he’d barely eaten since he left Castle Black. Seventeen days ago. How could he, when every hour that passed was another hour closer to the Wall being overrun, if it even still stood? How could he, when he awoke vomiting from dreams in which Daemon, Jon Snow, Arya Stark, Satin, and a thousand other men dressed in black were surrounding Sansa and a one-legged, one-eyed wolf, their skin purple and black, their eyes bluer than sapphire, as they closed the circle and were upon her, tearing her apart while she screamed for Aemond, who could never reach her in time and could never have saved her anyway.
Other times it was not a hoard of friends-turned-wights, but a single man – a single thing – making Sansa his while one of her hands was chained to the bed. Dream-Aemond had searched a dark keep whose corridors were a literal maze, crying frozen tears as he followed the sound of Sansa’s screams, finally running through a door and seeing nothing of her but her calves and feet where they scrabbled against the legs of a man whose skin and hair were whiter than snow. When Aemond reached the bed and tried to pull the man’s shoulder back, the skin was so cold it burned Aemond’s fingertips black. The man turned to him slowly, wearing a smile full of teeth like tiny, sharp icicles, his eyes so bright they blinded Aemond temporarily. When Aemond could see again, the man was burying his fangs in Sansa’s neck, shaking his head like a dog as his hips never stopped rutting, and Aemond watched as all color drained from her until she was as white as the creature above her, and her screams were no longer of pain but rapture.
In another dream Aemond had flown toward Castle Black with only Daeron at his side, never reaching their destination because they flew over a melted and still smoking Winterfell surrounded by hundreds of thousands of wights. He somehow knew that Sansa had burned the keep and all the people in it, including herself, to keep them from being added to the army of dead.
In another she was dragged to King’s Landing behind Daemon’s horse, naked and bloody, so that Daemon could present her as a gift to Rhaenyra along with the contents of a sled he uncovered with flourish to reveal the corpses of Jon and Arya Stark and an entire pack of direwolves.
Others were not terrifying until he awoke from them punching his pillow and cursing the stubborn girl for how she’d acted in his dream – entirely intractable when he’d gone to Winterfell to save her and spirit her across the Narrow Sea as had been Jon’s wish. She clung to her chair in the great hall and somehow made it impossible for him to drag or carry her out no matter how much stronger he was, all the while screaming, “Wolves don’t kneel!”
Needless to say, Aemond wasn’t sleeping much better than he was eating.
The wights he’d brought had done their job – that was not in doubt. Rhaenys and – surprisingly – Jacaerys were ready to mount up and fly North halfway through Aemond’s tale. And, of course, Daeron looked resolved even if nervous as he promised his older brother that he would follow him anywhere on the blue queen. And Laenie… Aemond didn’t want his sister anywhere near those dead things, but Dreamfyre was one of the most experienced war-dragons they had.
But Rhaenyra did not want to risk any dragons or riders in war without having something to show for it. Grandfather, of all people, agreed with her. Even Mother, though likely only because she feared sending all four of her children so far away to face such a formidable foe, though it would likely only be three. Aegon had found it fitting that the Northern heathens would be invaded by some army of walking corpses, a sort of just punishment for their treachery all these years. Aemond pointed out that they could not be traitors since they’d never given oaths to House Targaryen, and that if anyone were traitors it was every Targaryen who’d ever tried to conquer the North – himself and Daemon included, and Rhaenyra for commanding it – since it was a breach of the peace accord signed by Aegon I himself.
Rhaenyra had gasped at that, but Aemond only stared at her, a silent dare to disagree with his sound logic. And he felt she was at the point of breaking when Aegon tried again, with a huffed out, “Then they’re getting what they deserve for their duplicity and trickery.”
Aemond hadn’t told anyone how Sansa had distracted him while her brothers did whatever they did to Vhagar and Caraxes, but his letter had been received, so he couldn’t minimize his interactions with the Queen in the North entirely. He’d admitted that she and he spent two days negotiating, reaching what Aemond thought was an agreement, before she conspired to have Aemond and Daemon whisked away to Castle Black to see for themselves the threat. He had stressed that the Starks and their men had treated their “prospective allies” well, and that the dire and inhuman threat facing the continent justified the subterfuge, but hearing that the Starks had the power to control the dragons even more completely than the dragonlords of old with their horns and sorcery put all but Helaena in a bit of a rage.
Rhaenyra cautioned that this all could be a ploy to get the rest of the dragons within reach of the skin-changers’ powers, no matter that Aemond had been the one to propose the solution of more dragons to Jon Snow. Even Rhaenys and Jacaerys and Daeron seemed to be considering the possibility that Aemond had been made an unwitting accomplice in some clever war strategy devised by their enemy.
Referring them back to the wights had helped ensure he never lost them all completely, but he’d decided not to claim that Daemon was a hostage of Jon Snow, realizing it was more likely to hurt his and the North’s cause than help it. If Rhaenyra went north for Daemon, it would probably be to rain fire on Winterfell or otherwise do something to force Jon Snow to release his captive.
In hindsight, he ought to have lied about everything, claiming he and Daemon went north willingly, adragonback, to see the threat described to them by Aemond’s intended and her siblings. Except there was no guarantee of success with that method, given Rhaenyra would ask the obvious: why hadn’t he included such a vital detail in his letter?
He could do nothing differently now and could see no solution other than making sure they didn’t go a day without hearing his pleas and looking upon his disgusting his evidence, but with each day that passed he was growing more concerned about the fate of the Night’s Watch. Frankly, he was growing concerned that when he went to leave, he’d be stopped by a small army of Hightower or Targaryen guards, given the way Grandfather had stopped arguing and instead just watched Aemond warily, as if suspecting him of madness just as Aemond had done of the Northmen during much of the journey from Winterfell to Castle Black. And so, at yet another futility of a meeting, Aemond sighed as if in surrender, complained of a headache, and gave them all a curt threat of continuing this discussion on the morrow before he walked out of the council room and all the way to his chambers, where he gathered his belongings and donned his hood and walked out at the next guard shift change. He’d not get to the dragonpit without his departure being reported to Rhaenyra or Grandfather, but a head start couldn’t hurt.
There might be nothing left of the Night’s Watch, of Castle Black, of the entire bloody Wall, by the time Aemond reached it, but he could not waste another moment. If there was anything left to fight for, he would. He’d fight and die for it. He’d fight and die for life.
And if there was nothing left to fight for, he had a different promise to fulfil.
<<<<>>>>
“Truly, don’t trouble your highness, it’s only mankind’s survival at stake.”
Those were the words that Aemond directed at his half-sister as he prepared to depart for the far end of the continent and quite possibly the end of his life. Daeron, Helaena, and Princess Rhaenys were there in the dragonpit with him, readying their winged steeds and – in some cases – trying not to snicker at the look on the queen’s face as her half-brother “refused to see reason”.
“It could be a trick or trap!” Rhaenyra barked, not for the first or even fifteenth time in the past several days.
“It’s not,” Aemond answered levelly. He knew now what he could not have anticipated when making haste back to King’s Landing: that seeing two wights out of their element was frightening, but not the sort of frightening that lit a fire under one’s rear end. Not the sort of frightening that made prideful people set aside centuries’ old feuds. Not the sort of frightening that made a queen leave the throne she’d only so recently inherited and still so tenuously held.
Any who joined him would see the magnitude of the threat and be moved to act – of that he was sure – but there was nothing to be done for those who refused to join him. Not for Rhaenyra, who could only see the risk and not the reward, and not Jace, who was still very much stuck in his mother’s wide shadow, and not Aegon who was forever smirking as at some joke at Aemond’s expense. Likely he thought his little brother had been fooled by the Northerners. Perhaps he thought this was some sort of cry for attention from the child who’d received the least of Viserys Targaryen’s affection.
Fuck them all.
Rhaenyra let out a long breath that sounded like an attempt to pacify Aemond, reaching for his shoulder and saying, “I believe you, Aemond, that there is a true threat up there. But what’s to stop the North from maintaining its independence after you’ve saved them?”
“Nothing,” Aemond shrugged, “but you ask the wrong question, your grace. All you or any of us should be wondering is, what’s to stop hundreds of thousands of undead soldiers and their near-invincible masters from killing every person on this continent, if the largest defensive structure ever built cannot stop them?”
With that, he began his climb up to the saddle of the Queen of Dragons, but before commanding the centuries-old war-dragon to take flight, he looked down at his half-sister and said, “Though I suppose you might also worry that the minstrels will get it wrong. What if they misinterpret your political strategy for cowardice or spitefulness? Ah well, you’re only the first Queen Regnant in the history of the Iron Throne; surely the people weren’t expecting much from you.”
…
By another, less credible testimony, Prince Aemond speculated aloud that the queen was known to spend more time riding cock than dragon, and none would blame her for being unwilling to test her nascent skills against such a deadly opponent.
Regardless, when Princes Aemond and Daeron and Princesses Rhaenys and Helaena made camp that night somewhere in the northern Riverlands, they were not entirely surprised to be joined, a few hours later, by Queen Rhaenyra and Prince Jacaerys. Princess Baela trailed after them by an hour or so, angry at having been left behind, but her mount was little larger than a warhorse and her stepmother promptly sent her home. For the same reason, Prince Joffrey had been ordered to stay behind with Tyraxes, who was larger than Moondancer but too small and too untested for battle against an enemy that could re-animate a dead dragon and add it to its own army. Likewise with Prince Lucerys and Arrax, the largest of the drakes but not yet trained for combat.
(Of course, some would say the real reason Tyraxes, Arrax, and Moondancer – and their riders – were left in King’s Landing was to ensure Prince Aegon, who refused to join the others in their northbound journey, would face a challenge if he decided to use the opportunity to steal his half-sister’s crown.)
Four days after leaving King’s Landing, six dragonriders arrived at Castle Black, and not a moment too soon. The Wall had stood twenty-five days when Jon Snow hadn’t expected it to last another sennight, but it would not make it another minute.
Rhaenyra Targaryen arrived at the bleak place to find her husband’s dragon blasting fire at a tunnel in the base of the massive ice wall where creatures that had once been living men and women and children and animals came pouring through. Her husband, however, was not on Caraxes’ back but standing along with another dozen men who formed a wall of flesh and blood and steel to protect a structure that seemed to exist to lift men and supplies up or bring them down the great monolith of the North. What they were protecting it from was a hoard of undead that must have made it through the tunnel before Caraxes’ arrival. A separate group of men was protecting the dragon’s flanks from two other hoards so Caraxes could focus on blasting the tunnel with fire, but dragons could not expel fire in a continuous, unending stream, and the queen knew what must be done.
“JACE!” she shouted over the wind, then pointed toward the lift his stepfather guarded. “DAERON” she screamed again while pointing toward the tunnel. The queen herself swooped as low as she dared, blasting as many of the undead as possible without letting the flame get too close to the men who bravely surrounded Caraxes, fighting and dying to protect a creature that in any other circumstance they’d have shot out of the sky.
And as she guided Syrax to ascend so she could survey the results, she felt as if it wasn’t air on which her dragon floated, but the heartened cheers of the men below. The queen couldn’t help but smile, and in that moment her happiness had nothing to do with the hope that the Northerners she saved would petition their Stark queen to join the South. It had nothing to do with thoughts of the songs that would be sung about Queen Rhaenyra, First of Her Name. It had everything to do with the exhilaration and uncorrupted pride she felt to use her power to do an unequivocal good. She had saved a group of brave men from a group of literal monsters. Mayhap, she had saved the entire realm from suffering a cold and hopeless death. She and her family. Her family and its dragons. This is what we were born to do. To lead. To save.
The queen trusted Caraxes and Tessarion, under Daeron’s command, to ensure not another of those foul creatures made it through the tunnel, and she trusted Jace and Vermax to protect her husband and all the men he fought beside. She decided to head to where the fighting was presumably thickest: the north side of the Wall.
But the smile on Rhaenyra’s face faded instantly as she crested the ridiculously tall structure only a half minute behind Aemond on Vhagar, Rhaenys on Meleys, and Helaena on Dreamfyre. She had never seen anything like the host of undead that marched unrelentingly toward the Wall. The composition of it. The scale of it. The knowledge that even if Syrax could blow a continuous stream of fire nonstop for the rest of the night, it would hardly make a dent in the enemy’s numbers and – based on Aemond’s warning – this enemy could and would fight back against the dragons.
She wept then for a different reason, knowing deep in her gut that this would not be an easy victory, a complete rout of their unholy enemy.
Perhaps only one side would burn, but both sides would bleed.
<<<<>>>>
The War of Ice and Fire, sometimes referred to as the Second Long Night, or the War for the Dawn, or the Last Stand of the North, lasted twenty-seven nights before ending not in a complete annihilation of the Others, but by killing enough of their undead thralls to force them back to the Lands of Always Winter whence they came. If they ever try to break through to the south again, it will be markedly more difficult for them – the Wall at Castle Black no longer has a tunnel through it; ice had been melted by Caraxes and Tessarion only to re-freeze later, creating what was estimated to be a five-foot-deep ice barrier on the southern end of the tunnel.
Even months later there would be no accurate count of how many men of the North, the Night’s Watch, and the Free Folk gave their lives – only that it was in the tens of thousands after months of nightly attacks.
What was well documented was the death of any dragons… or their riders.
Princess Helaena was killed five nights into the battle when Dreamfyre was struck down by an ice spear. Luckily, Princess Rhaenys kept her composure enough to burn the dragon’s corpse before it could be turned, but it took all the other dragonriders combined – including Prince Daemon, who had taken to the skies that night to execute a coordinated attack that they all hoped would make a significant dent in the wights’ numbers – to keep Princes Aemond and Daemon from getting themselves killed in their blind rage. Luckily, dawn was nearly upon Westeros when Dreamfyre fell, giving everyone time to compose themselves before another night of battle in what felt like a war that would never end.
Four nights later, Prince Jacaerys’ Vermax flew too close to the ground and was hit in the right side by a small boulder thrown by a pair of undead giants. Disoriented and injured, the dragon used the last of its energy to fly as far as it could before landing, never to rise again. Prince Daeron had to forcibly drag his nephew away from the dying dragon and onto Tessarion’s back, getting off the ground just moments before the she-dragon would’ve been swarmed by wight bears and wolves. Prince Aemond swooped down at the same moment to finish Vermax with Vhagar’s incinerating fire before the dragon could be killed and turned by the Others.
The final casualty for the House of the Dragon was one that proved to be surprisingly devastating to the Northmen.
Prince Daemon, whose sword (and sword skills) were wasted adragonback, had spent most of each night atop the Wall, fighting off the wights and Others who scattered out and scaled the Wall in growing numbers since breaking through the tunnel gates was no longer an option. It was on one such night that the Rogue Prince met his end at the hands of one of the Others, who laughed its icy laugh over the Targaryen’s dying form, scaring off any who might dare to avenge the prince.
Any but one.
It would seem to the men fighting in the vicinity of the Rogue Prince that Arya Stark came out of nowhere, ducking and sliding under the Other’s icy sword, picking up Dark Sister, and driving the Valyrian steel sword into the Other’s belly in one smooth movement. She then leaned her ear to the dying prince’s lips and heard his final words, backing away and nodding before closing his eyes for good.
When many of the wights in the area vanished into thin air at the same moment the Other had been struck, it became known that killing an Other would result in the instant deaths of any wight it had made. The men felt a sense of renewed hope. Rather than running from the Others, they began to target them, forming protective circles around one or two or three brave men who would face the Other, preventing the wights from protecting their masters.
Jon Snow, Tormund Giantsbane, Aemond Targaryen, Dacey Mormont and others would also gain notoriety for killing one or more of the Others before, one night, no one would get another chance.
No attack came that night anywhere along the Wall – and Princess Rhaenys and Prince Daeron flew the three hundred miles from coast to coast to be sure.
Nor did an attack come the next night. Nor the next. Nor the next. Nineteen out of fifty Others and an estimated two-thirds of their thralls of any species had been eliminated, and the Others had seemingly retreated into their dark and frozen lands to lick their wounds. Perhaps to plan another offense, or perhaps to ponder a different way to achieve their objective. Some speculated they would build boats and sail down the coast of Westeros, though most dismissed that notion as preposterous. Others speculated they’d freeze the ocean itself and simply walk on its surface around the Wall, but everyone knew that saltwater could not freeze.
What all agreed on was that the threat could not be ignored nor forgotten by future generations, and thus Queen Rhaenyra promised to do all that she could to influence lords from each kingdom to recruit men for the Night’s Watch rather than only sending a small portion of their criminals. This and more she and Jon Snow negotiated during those many pensive days during which everyone held his or her breath, certain the attacks would resume if they ever let their guards down, if they ever dared to declare victory.
But the attacks did not resume, and based on Prince Aemond’s scouting after the sixth night of peace, the wights were nearly thirty leagues north of the Wall and continuing in that direction. On his way back to Castle Black, he noticed a small group waving him down. Since wights didn’t wave, he confidently landed Vhagar and was greeted by a group of children ranging from age five up to fourteen – survivors of a massacre at a place called Hardhome whose parents had hidden them from the wights and Others. The children had been living off the land since then, but the deep snows meant they were all far too skinny. Thus, Vhagar alighted just south of Castle Black with her princely master and a dozen other passengers who were promptly taken in by the Free Folk, though the oldest boy wished to pledge to the Night’s Watch, or “crows” as he called them without the disdain that such a term once implied.
It was decided that the negotiations should continue at Winterfell, where the royals would find more comfortable accommodations (and tastier fare) and since many of Rhaenyra’s proposed ideas fell under the purview of the Queen in the North, not the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, as Jon Snow constantly reminded the queen, to the latter’s mild annoyance.
And so the Targaryen family departed adragonback with Prince Jacaerys riding Caraxes as his stepfather would have wished, with only Princess Rhaenys staying behind in case their enemy’s retreat had been a feint. They brought with them Arya and Rickon Stark, who hooted and hollered during much of the ride on Vhagar’s back. So much so that Prince Aemond couldn’t help but smile, remembering his first few rides and the pure exhilaration and freedom he’d felt. Some say he even hooted along with them, though everyone who knew the solemn prince knew he’d never do such a thing. Certainly not when he’d so recently lost his beloved sister, a pain that he kept brushing off, a grief that he kept postponing until the next day, and then the next, and the next. Those in his family who had gleaned Aemond’s true feelings for the Queen in the North thought that he would finally let himself mourn only when he was lying in her arms, but they dared not suggest such a thing to the touchy, war-weary prince.
Eagerly the dragonriders looked forward to their arrival at the North’s seat, but such anticipation only turned to blood-curdling dread when the ancient fortress came into view – its grey stone charred black, its direwolf flags singed or in some cases gone altogether.
Fear barely had time to fill Prince Aemond’s heart as he flew close enough to investigate, for a moment later Vhagar was listing hard to the right to avoid a scorpion bolt that missed her left wing by a few short feet.
Notes:
I doubt many won't have pretty good ideas about what happened at WInterfell.
Hope you don't mind that I provided an abbreviated version of the War for Dawn or whatever we want to call it, but I have written the 2nd long night enough times that I can't always bring myself to give it the detail it deserves. When that happens, rather than short-shrifting such an epic war like the show did, I give a summary version that I *hope* captures the enemy's power and fearsomeness and the desperation and resilience of men without providing 20 chapters worth of snow and hardship and death.
We will be getting back to our main characters soon and there will be a lot for them to work through apart and together. That trauma tag and that dark tag ain't there for nothin'.
Thanks for reading!!
Chapter 10: Of pride and principle
Summary:
Picks up where last chapter left off and *maybe* will feature a certain reunion...
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
After having convinced Vhagar not to finish what someone else had started, Aemond stood with his hands up innocently even though he’d left his dagger and swords with Daeron a half mile to the north where they’d all landed their dragons after being met with a rather cool welcome at Winterfell.
Only Aemond and Arya would approach Winterfell’s gate, it had been decided, though getting Rickon to agree to stay behind until they knew what had transpired at the fortress wasn’t easy. Jace and Daeron ultimately capitalized on his desire to look mature around older boys, and Rhaenyra had given him a very motherly glare followed by a pat to the top of his nest-like curls.
“Jeyne?” Arya called out toward the small group walking out of Winterfell’s northern gate a few minutes after guards atop the wall must’ve identified the approaching pair as including a Stark. Aemond recognized ‘Jeyne’ as one of Sansa’s handmaidens, though she must be of higher standing than that to be chosen to partake in a parley, or whatever this was.
An instant later Aemond felt the blood drain from his face as he realized nothing less than severe injury would keep Sansa from venturing out to greet her sister.
“Arya!” Jeyne let out a sob as she began running toward them, lifting her already stained skirts.
Arya hesitated, seemingly surprised, before sprinting forward and catching the crying girl as if she wasn’t the shorter and younger of the two.
“Arya, gods,” Jeyne began babbling, “We got Jon’s letter about the dragons fighting with our men at Castle Black, and we thought a peace accord had been reached—”
“It was,” Arya gently pushed the older girl back so she could look at her, “Jeyne, what happened here?”
Jeyne’s eyes, already filled with tears, began leaking, “It was horrible.” She glanced at Aemond with a scathing look, “He came in the night. We heard screams before we even heard that beast.”
“Who?” growled Aemond in time with his forward step.
Jeyne’s eyes darted between Aemond to her left and Arya straight in front of her, still holding her forearms, “Sansa… The queen ordered men to the scorpions, but it was so hard to see, and we only had the two of them.”
Arya turned to look at Aemond, “There were six scorpions before, but months back we sent four to the Wall. Jon thought, angled down, they could be used against the giants or mammoths, but it was damned near impossible to hit the target, what with the winds and the distance. It was a waste to even put obsidian tips on them, so we stopped trying.”
Aemond shook his head dismissively and looked to Jeyne, “Where is Sansa?” he asked through gritted teeth, certain she would say that her queen was dead, and even more certain that his wrath would make Aegon the Conqueror and Maegor the Cruel look gentle by contrast.
Jeyne’s entire frame was trembling, her brown hair whipping around her face, as she answered, “He took her.”
“Who?! Where?!”
She swallowed, “Your brother. To King’s Landing.”
Aemond closed his eyes.
Jeyne continued, “She was going to go out alone to speak with him, but Ellum and Gareth wouldn’t let her. They flew the parley flag, trying to get him to stop the attack. He did. He landed far out of range of the scorpions and archers on the west side, and they walked to him.”
“She surrendered Winterfell? The North?!” Arya asked, clearly shocked and perhaps even angry.
Jeyne shook her head, “Only herself. He said that wasn’t good enough, but… she was smart. She…” Jeyne paused there and turned, looking questioningly toward the small group that’d walked out with her, to whom Aemond had paid little mind.
One of the men stepped forward, his face deeply lined by age, his left arm missing just below the shoulder.
So these were the sort left behind to defend the Queen in the North and her home after she sent every able-bodied man and boy to the Wall.
And Aemond had told his brother, his entire family as much, when they did not immediately agree to fly to the Wall and fight alongside their recent enemy. He had hoped to use Sansa’s sacrifice to appeal to Rhaenyra, to tap into the part of her that wanted not just to be a queen, but a queen like Visenya or Rhaenys had been. But clearly all Aegon had heard was that Winterfell was near defenseless, its fighting men gone far to the North, many to never return.
“The queen was clever as always,” the man who was presumably an Ellum or a Gareth spoke grimly, as if he wished she hadn’t been, “she said t’the prince that he could burn Winterfell and go home t’brag about it, but who’d care about some foreign castle so far from th’capital? Or he could go there with the Queen in the North ‘erself, proof a’his conquest. Might be ‘cause he din’t have men to hold the place once he flew away, he figgered she had a point. Figgered it’d be better t’have her as hostage, get her kin to kneel.”
Aemond looked away, turned bodily from the Northman who was clearly so proud and yet saddened by his queen’s sacrifice. Perhaps the old man thought Winterfell could have survived Sunfyre’s attack. That someone would have eventually landed a fatal strike against the dragon, or that they could all have bunkered in the underground dungeons or crypts and emerged days later after the fires had burned out.
But Aemond knew what Sansa must’ve known: that the odds of one of her remaining men making that shot were slim to none. No doubt the best marksmen had been sent north. As for hunkering down and waiting it out, assuming their exit wasn’t blocked by fallen stone or other debris, they’d emerge to find all their animals burned to death, their foodstores and clothing and bedding reduced to ash, some of their buildings uninhabitable, and with snow and wind and all of winter’s cruelty ready to be unleashed on them. Sansa might take that chance before surrendering her kingdom and home, but she would not take that chance with only her own life on the line. Had she not proven so already, back when her enemy’s name had been ‘Snow’, not ‘Targaryen’?
“He liked that idea,” the man concluded tiredly, “went on and on about how he’d be the one who caught the wild red wolf, the heathen queen; how none a’her tricks’d work on him like they worked on ‘is…” Ellum shot Aemond a look that was between chastising and apologetic, “…brother. How he’d be the one t’do what even his namesake couldn’t. He’d go down in history as the true conqueror. The man to finally bring the Northern barbarians and Dornish sand rats to their knees.”
Jeyne grimaced in anguish as she took up the storytelling again, “Arya, she made me swear on the gods to tell you and Jon not to surrender the North, no matter what they threaten to do to her. But you won’t just leave her to them, will you?” She turned to face Aemond imploringly, clearly not understanding the dynamic between North and South, the comradery that had formed in the past weeks through shared pain, shared loss, and shared victory. She probably thought Aemond had come here to negotiate some terms with Sansa but would just as soon fly to the capital where Sansa Stark was being held hostage, knowing the North would have to meet their demands if they wished to ever see their queen again.
He had neither the time nor inclination to explain that, in the choice between Aegon and Sansa, he’d choose Sansa every time. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but it was. It wouldn’t have been two months ago, but it was now and would be forevermore. Jon Snow and Satin and Tormund and even fucking Jace were more brother to him than Aegon, because they all shared something that ran deeper than blood – an experience that none but the men (and women) who fought at the Wall during the Long Night would ever be able to comprehend nor fully appreciate.
There was nothing for him to say, and nothing more for him to hear. He turned on his heels and began walking north, toward Vhagar. He could not think straight. He could not focus or plan. His vision was naught but fire and smoke, his mind a whirlwind of grizzly images of what he’d do to his brother and any who stood in his way.
He was not alone in his blind rage. He half-heard Arya Stark tell his family, waiting back with the dragons, what Jeyne and the old man had relayed to them.
Aemond brushed off Rhaenyra when she tried to offer words of reassurance, and Daeron as he reminded him not to do anything he’d regret, that Vhagar could burn the Red Keep in a matter of two minutes if he did not rein in his rage before getting there, and that there were people in the Red Keep he cared about. Probably Sansa herself.
When he took to the sky a few minutes later, it was with Rhaenyra on Syrax and Daeron on Tessarion flanking him, and Rickon Stark behind him on Vhagar’s back. Jace volunteered to stay behind to help the desperate survivors at Winterfell, or to defend their Northern friends should Aegon decide to return and finish what he’d started. (If Jace was also eager to spend more time with Arya Stark, Aemond didn’t have the mental energy to wonder or care.)
Aegon had left Winterfell on Sunfyre, a complacent Sansa Stark behind him on the saddle, a fortnight ago.
Aemond could not let himself wonder what she’d suffered in that time.
He could not let himself wonder if she still lived, or if Aegon (or Grandfather) thought a dead wolf was safer than a caged wolf.
As if to answer the unasked question, a voice shouted from behind him, “Shaggy can feel Lady and Grey Wind running south. Lady’d feel it if Sansa was dead. They’d be going back toward home, or toward their pack at the Wall.”
Aemond nodded, urging Vhagar to fly faster.
<<<<>>>>
It was said that the she-dragon Vhagar landed so heavily in the Dragonpit that all of King’s Landing shook, even the Red Keep on the far side of the city and up the highest hill. Prince Aemond and his brother and half-sister and their strange Starkling marched straight to the Red Keep from there. The queen was worried for the children and stepchildren she’d left in the city, uncertain if Aegon’s move against the North might’ve coincided with a larger power grab by the Green faction. The children had been heavily guarded and had their dragons nearby, but Aegon’s attack had struck a chord of fear in the queen’s heart.
Half the city caught glimpses of the foursome as they trekked from the Dragonpit and saw for the first time what an eyepatch ordinarily covered on Prince Aemond. Odd that some would swear it was no sapphire but a ruby that glinted in the sun, others an amethyst. Others saw it for the sapphire it was but admitted that the prince radiated so much rage that day that the stone took on a blood-red hue.
Straight into the throne building they marched, ignoring both sycophants and genuine friends who tried to greet them along the way. The herald, as unprepared as everyone else for their arrival, called out, “All hail the Queen Rhaenyra, Lady Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, and her brothers, the princes…” he trailed off as the small and clearly irate group was already at the base of the stairs.
To the Queen’s Hand sat upon the throne, two questions were volleyed simultaneously.
“Where are my sons and daughters?!”
“Where is Sansa Stark?”
Otto Hightower attempted to make a courtly greeting, but it made even less progress than the herald’s introduction as his grandson was up the throne steps in a few rapid strides, holding his grandfather by the collar so tightly the man could barely breathe. All of court gasped, and some of the Lord Hand’s personal guards moved to advance but with a flick of the wrist, the queen halted them.
The Hand’s startlement never turned to fear. “So, it’s true then?” Otto asked, the words coming out strangled but still audible to those closest to the confrontation.
“Is what true?” the one-eyed prince growled back.
Loud enough only for his grandson to hear, Otto Hightower scolded, “She seduced you, hm? That was the deception you described to us? The distraction? I thought you were better than that. Better than your brother and your father and your uncle, always thinking with their cocks, or in Viserys’ case his heart. I taught you to think with your brain, and still you fell for the oldest trick in the book.”
“Where. Is. She.” The prince said through gritted teeth.
Otto Hightower shook his head, “For your own good, and for the good of the family, I will not tell you. I suggest you go visit your mother, perhaps accompany her to the castle sept to pray. She’s been distraught since learning of her only daughter’s passing. A passing that could’ve been prevented if you hadn’t been bewitched by some Northern cunt,” the last words were spat out angrily, the Hand’s patience finally snapping.
But his grandson’s patience had snapped the moment he saw grey walls turned black and direwolf flags burned away to nothing. He pivoted and pushed, sending his own grandsire tumbling down the stone steps, incurring scrapes and scratches from the odd sword tip along the way.
“I suspect your Hand has been plotting against you,” Prince Aemond said to his half-sister after walking down the stairs in all calmness, stopping just behind where his grandfather landed, his pride more injured than his body as evidenced by the sneer he shot up at his grandson. “Perhaps your men should question him. Sharply.”
The queen’s cheeks darkened in anger she fought to contain, “Perhaps someone close to him would have evidence of such plotting.”
“And perhaps they’d share it, in exchange for assurances from the Crown.”
“Like?” Queen Rhaenyra arched a brow.
“The North shall be left in peace. And I won’t be stopped or impeded in getting her out of this pisspot of a city.”
“My men will not interfere,” the queen agreed, then offered a jerky, distracted jut of her chin, “Go. Find her.”
“Can you handle this on your own?” the prince’s violet-blue eye darted around the assembly. All present owed their allegiance to Queen Rhaenyra before any other, but most hailed from the Reach or had been in Otto Hightower’s pocket for years. Who they’d publicly break faith from was anyone’s guess.
A shriek came from nearby, one those who spent much time in the Dragonpit would know belonged to the queen’s own mount, Syrax.
The queen grinned, though it did not quite reach her eyes, “Don’t worry for me, little brother.”
Prince Aemond gave his southern queen a courtly bow before setting off to find his northern queen, his true queen, with his younger brother and Rickon Stark hurrying to keep up.
And in his wake, the whispers were already starting. For though the prince owed his fealty to his sister-queen, all of court knew the truth of it: Aemond Targaryen had always been Green.
Aemond Turncloak, some called him.
The Rogue Prince Reborn, others murmured, noting the sword worn at his hip as he marched out of the throne room, in combination with his sudden chumminess toward Rhaenyra Targaryen.
They did not know it was a different queen entirely who had Prince Aemond’s loyalty and heart. For though their acquaintance had been brief, it takes but a moment for soul to recognize soul.
Yes, Aemond Targaryen left the throne room that day with two new monikers.
Before the day was out, he would earn a third.
<<<<>>>>
Aemond had to pry his mother off his person to get into Aegon’s apartment, leaving Daeron and Rickon in the main corridor. It gave him no joy to see her so distraught, her eyes red and her voice hoarse from crying, but he could not stop to mourn with her, not when Sansa needed him, just as he could not stop to mourn weeks ago, when all of mankind needed him.
If Sansa no longer needed him because she no longer was, then he feared mourning would not be enough. He feared he would burn all of King’s Landing, even knowing that his mother and little niece and nephews were in the city. Perhaps Daeron would be able to get them out on Tessarion’s back, them and Rickon Stark, because Aemond did not think he’d be able to temper himself long enough to give them a chance for any other form of escape. Already the blood in his veins felt like molten flame. Already his heart was pounding in his belly and Vhagar’s wishes were echoing inside his skull, asking if it was time to burn.
Not yet, he kept telling her, and the ‘yet’ was starting to feel like a promise.
Aemond made his way into Aegon’s bedchamber despite his mother yanking on his arm, demanding answers about Laenie’s death which had already been provided in letter.
He found his brother sound asleep and bare naked, face down on his luxurious bed, snoring.
Aegon Targaryen woke to the feeling of flying then falling, as his younger but bigger brother lifted him out of the bed only to drop him onto the rug.
“Aemond!” Alicent gasped, and in his peripheral vision Aemond saw her trying to get to him yet again but Ser Criston, of all people, was holding her back. Likely Ser Criston thought Aegon needed some tough love but didn’t know that love had nothing to do with the confrontation between brothers.
“Where is she?!” Aemond demanded, staring down at his brother’s face, ruddy from sleep and too much wine.
Aegon squeezed his eyes shut then opened them a crack, holding up a hand to block the sunlight filtering through the curtains. “Uh?” he managed to utter, a grunt intoned like a question.
Aemond crouched down and grabbed a fistful of his brother’s hair, pulling him until they were almost nose to nose, “Is this how you plan to conquer, Aegon? Burn Winterfell by night, when all its men were gone north to defend the realm? Steal its lady and then fuck off here just like you’ve done your whole damned life!?” Aemond released his brother with a shove. “You smell like wine and cunt and piss. Some conqueror you’ll make.”
No doubt due to a hangover, Aegon didn’t bother trying to get up, instead rearranging himself to lean his back and one arm against the nearby cushioned chair. “What the fuck’s up your arse?” he grumbled, pressing his fingers into his eyeballs (even Aegon’s angry side was lazy), “I was waiting for you to return, brother. Thought you’d like to help me with Dorne, share some of the glory.”
“I don’t give a shit about Dorne, nor about glory.”
“The redhead then?” Aegon shrugged, “Figured you’d want a chance for payback after she got one over on you.”
Aemond, still crouched, shot his arm forward and grabbed his brother around the back of the neck, “Where is she?” he hissed, his chest feeling like a war drum during the march to battle.
He only let Aegon go so he wouldn’t have to smell his rancid breath. Aegon pulled himself all the way up onto the chair this time and waved off his brother, “Fuck, that’s who you meant? How should I know? I told Grandfather I was tired of her. Told him to put her somewhere for safekeeping ‘til you could get back and deal with her.”
“Tired of her?” Aemond felt the blood in his body become ice, yet still he thought if he opened his mouth and screamed, flames would come out. Instead of burning, they would freeze. Just as deadly.
Aegon rubbed at his neck, a sour glare pointed up at Aemond to show how much his grip had hurt.
Aemond had watched a hoard of corpses ripping a ranger apart with their bony fingers, and Aegon was whinging about a little rub-rash.
“She’s a pretty bitch, but a total wet blanket.”
“What?” he heard himself ask – his mouth stalling to buy his brain time to figure out what Aegon meant.
Or, rather, to learn Aegon didn’t mean that. Because, if he did…
“You know,” Aegon blinked tiredly, “Quiet as a mouse and about as passionate as a corpse.”
Somewhere far away, Aemond’s mother gasped. Aegon looked around Aemond and gave an eyeroll as if to say, ‘what did you expect of me?’
Indeed, what did I expect?
A tidal wave of fury was what moved Aemond’s arm. Not a command from his mind, not a conscious notion, not a desire for vengeance or justice or anything else. In the span of a heartbeat the rage swelled, and his body had to let it out.
Dark Sister worked as well on the living as she did on the dead.
Ser Criston drew his sword, Aemond could hear the steel scraping the scabbard.
Mother screamed a few moments later.
Aemond stared at his brother, slumped against the chairback, his head hanging onto his neck by a thread.
It felt surreal. Simultaneously unexpected and long overdue. Simultaneously right and wrong.
Part of Aemond felt he’d just irrevocably altered the fate of everyone in Westeros. Another part thought Aegon’s death would be no more impactful than when a common knave went to the gallows.
For a few moments he just stood there, staring down as his mother ran over and collapsed against her eldest son’s body, clutching his head and holding it to her neck while sobbing wretchedly.
Aemond turned around and wiped his blade on his brother’s bedsheet, waiting to feel some remorse for his action, but only able to feel remorse for the pain it caused his mother. He supposed, if nothing else, he should have spared her that sight. A woman would always love her children, no matter how horrid they were as adults.
He lifted his head to look at Ser Criston across the expanse of Aegon’s bed, and found the knight’s face slack, his eyes disbelieving, though his well-trained body was at attention, sword drawn. After a few moments of staring at each other, Ser Criston took a few careful, sideways steps, putting himself closer to Alicent. His eyes never left Aemond the whole time, looking wary. No, frightened – though Aemond didn’t know what had scared him so. Surely the man had seen violent deaths before.
Ser Criston took another few careful steps and then pivoted, facing Aemond, with a hysterical Alicent oblivious to everything else as she cradled her son’s body against her chest, rocking him like a babe, murmuring reassurances even as his blood soaked down her entire dress bodice.
The knight had put himself between Aemond and his mother, as if Aemond would ever hurt her.
Aemond cocked his head, then remembered he had just done something rather out of character. Ser Criston didn’t know if his killing Aegon – did that really happen? – was an isolated event or the start of some pattern of violence.
It hurt that he could think of Aemond that way, but not so badly as it hurt to not know where Sansa was, nor whether she even lived, nor what sort of torment Aegon had put her through.
Yes, I have to find Sansa. That’s what matters now. But Rhaenyra may be moving against Otto as we speak. I cannot let Helaena’s children, nor Mother, become collateral damage.
He nodded to himself, making a decision. When he spoke, the words sounded as if they were someone else’s, coming from faraway, “Perhaps you should take my mother and her grandchildren to Oldtown for a holiday, Ser.”
Ser Criston did not respond, but Aemond knew he’d heard.
“Are you going to tell me where they took her, or must I go extract the information from my grandfather?”
Ser Criston shook his head and responded in a trembling tone, “She corrupted you with her Northern sorcery. You’re not thinking straight, my prince. You’re not thinking for yourself but doing her bidding. That’s what you’ll say, and you will not have to die for this. Your mother will not have to lose a third child.”
Aemond looked back toward his brother’s corpse, which his mother was still doing her best to hold against her bosom.
It hadn’t even occurred to Aemond that he would have to face justice for killing his brother, though he supposed it would seem that way to Ser Criston. Ser Criston had not seen the dead marching. He had not crossed blades with those blue-eyed abominations that seemed to view all of humanity as a ship captain views rats. He had not fought beside thousands of men, some mere pig farmers a year ago, who – each and every one of them – were better than Aegon Targaryen, more worthy of the breath in their lungs than Aegon Targaryen. How many brave men died at Castle Black the night Aegon burned Winterfell? How many Northern women became widows while Aegon was abducting their queen?
And, Ser Criston did not ride Vhagar. Death sentences were for men who didn’t have a fire-breathing monster to protect them, avenge them, or fly them away to the farthest corners of the world.
“I won’t die for this,” Aemond said flatly, “I need not lie and say she corrupted me when, if anything, she opened my eyes to the truth of what matters in this world. In this life.”
Ser Criston’s jaw bulged, “You think so because she has already twisted your mind! This is not you, Aemond! You’d never have murdered your own brother, threatened your own grandfather. You’d never have put your mother through this.”
Aemond hummed, “Perhaps not. Now, where is she?”
Ser Criston shook his head, his eyes creased in despair.
“I asked,” Aemond stepped closer to the knight, lifting Dark Sister and examining the pretty ripples in the steel, “where Sansa Stark is.”
Ser Criston took a long breath then averted his gaze as he answered, “At the old sept. But if you truly care for that girl, I beg you: do not go there and interfere with the work of the gods. It’s all for her own good, you see. Your grandfather is merciful. He is giving her a chance to cleanse her soul of sin. To renounce her savage beliefs, confess her deviance, and atone for her unnatural and adulterous actions.” He brought his gaze back to Aemond, his eyes gleaming with sudden resolve, “She tried slandering you! Tried to dishonor you! But the High Septon himself proclaimed it is no prince or princess growing beneath her heart, but a demon. Half human, half wolf. An abomination born of beastiality and blood magic.”
Aemond cocked his head to the side, “Beneath her heart?” He knew what the phrase meant but couldn’t make it fit neatly with all he’d learned about Sansa and all he’d acknowledged about his own feelings for the woman.
Ser Criston shrugged jerkily, momentarily looking at Alicent. The longing in his eyes was so clear to Aemond. The man wanted nothing more than to comfort his queen.
Well, his former queen, to any who asked.
Aemond had the information he needed – Sansa’s location. The rest… the rest he’d have to think on later, as it was feeling particularly taxing to think at all. He would stop thinking and just go find Sansa. He would leave, so his mother could take comfort in Ser Criston’s arms.
Or perhaps she’d scream and rage and order every man in this city who answered to her or Grandfather to hunt Aemond down. He deserved it, he supposed. Certainly from his mother’s point of view. She had just lost her only daughter, and Aemond had just stolen her firstborn son. Aegon had caused her more grief than joy over the years – by far – but he was still her son.
Well, she could have her revenge someday, but not today.
“Aemond,” Ser Criston called out when Aemond had almost reached the door.
He turned, out of habit more than anything.
“If you don’t care for your own soul, then have a care for your mother’s heart. Do not fall for the she-wolf’s tricks. Those who refuse to embrace the light of the Seven are doomed to an eternity of hellfire. Those who worship false gods are heretics, and heretics like nothing more than to convert others to their godless—”
“Ser Criston?” Aemond interrupted the knight’s increasingly emphatic words.
The knight’s cheeks darkened with apparent embarrassment, “Yes, my prince?”
“Leave the preaching to the septons. Why don’t you just worry about your own soul, hm? I believe you swore a vow of celibacy in front of the Seven once upon a time. Perhaps try working on that.”
With that, Aemond left his brother’s apartment, certain he’d never see the inside of it again.
“What happened?” Daeron asked while ushering Rickon Stark to keep up. If the boy was going to reach the height of his eldest sister and half-brother, it would be by sprouting late. Like I did.
“I’m sure you’ll hear soon enough,” Aemond answered, “Even more sure you’ll not shed a tear.”
“Fuck,” Daeron muttered under his breath. “Did you find out where Lady Sansa is?”
Aemond hummed, “Grandfather was kind enough to spare her the executioner’s block. He entrusted the salvation of her soul to the Faith.”
“The Faith of the Seven?” Rickon peeped.
“The one and only.”
“I heard their holy men are all swindlers and creepers.”
Aemond sighed, “Not all of them.”
“The maesters, too,” Rickon continued, undeterred, “They make their students suck their wrinkly old cocks.”
Aemond stopped walking and turned to look down at Rickon, “Where did you hear that?” The boy was far too young to know that cocks were things that even could be sucked. Granted, Aemond knew about cocksucking by age ten, but having Aegon as an older brother was to blame.
Aegon.
My older brother.
Rickon shrugged, “So’s it true?”
Aemond groaned and resumed his walking, ignoring the occasional servant they passed and soon, when they were out of doors, the guards they passed. Many froze when they saw him, and whether it was because he looked like a man on a mission or because they’d heard of his confrontation of the Lord Hand, he didn’t know and didn’t care. He couldn’t rule out the possibility that they stared because they’d never seen him without his eyepatch.
Only when they were mounted up and beyond the castle gates did Aemond turn to his brother, who was riding pillion with Rickon Stark, to give a command, “I’m heading straight to the old sept. Get Tessarion and meet me there. Have Lord Rickon here help with Sunfyre, in case he’s ornery.”
Daeron groaned, “And why would Sunfyre be ornery?”
Aemond hesitated, knowing he should tell Daeron about Aegon but also knowing he could not risk losing his brother’s support in this mission. He’d do nothing to jeopardize his ability to get Sansa out of the old sept and out of this cesspit of a city, and Daeron and Rickon were like to be his only allies in that. He dared not command any of the Green-aligned guards or men-at-arms, knowing Grandfather was the one who they ultimately obeyed and he may have already given them orders to stop Aemond if he tried to go to the ‘heathen queen’. Nor would he ask to borrow some of Rhaenyra’s men – she probably needed every last one of them if she was moving against Grandfather and, besides, she might have proven not to be entirely heartless, but Aemond would not assume her honorable enough to not order her men to take Sansa into custody, a valuable hostage to use against the North. Or me.
“Just hurry,” Aemond said, then he dug in his heels and sent his courser in the direction of his love.
<<<<>>>>
The old sept was so named because, for a time, it was precisely that: the older of the two major septs in the capital. Set on Visenya’s Hill, its construction during Aegon I’s reign, funded by the High Septon of Oldtown, was meant, no doubt, as an insult to the king who had recently commissioned a small, plain sept made from a sunken cog in the Blackwater Rush. Not one to be outdone, the Conqueror commissioned a larger, grander sept – the Sept of Remembrance – to be built atop the Hill of Rhaenys in his sister-wife’s honor. A few decades later, King Maegor used Balerion to incinerate the Sept of Remembrance during the Faith Militant Uprising, then ordered the construction of the Dragonpit upon the once-hallowed ground. But during those decades, the Sept of Remembrance was called by that name, while the unnamed sept was colloquially referred to as “the old sept”, either because it was built first (by less than a year) or because it was associated with the center of the Faith in Westeros: Oldtown.
So it was to the old sept, which also happened to be the only major sept in the city, that Aemond rode his courser, his mind flooded with so many thoughts, his heart flooded so many fears, that both felt strangely numb. He expected an arrow to pierce him, or for Caraxes or Syrax or Sunfyre to incinerate him, or for his horse to stumble and throw him head-first into the cobbles because he’d pissed off the gods.
Instead, he arrived at the sept in one piece, unbruised and unbloodied but completely alone – as he’d be until Daeron arrived which would take some time since he had to first go in the opposite direction, to the dragonpit where Tessarion lived.
“Prince Aemond,” a septon greeted him halfway up his ascent of the exterior stairs, the frail-boned older man out of breath from the relatively mild bit of exertion.
“I am here to see the High Septon,” Aemond spoke in stride.
The man wasn’t the true High Septon – that one could be found in Oldtown’s Starry Sept – but the High Septon of King’s Landing, a title he conveniently abbreviated.
“Of course, Septon Eustace is always eager to meet with your grace, but he is otherwise occupied hearing confessions. Perhaps you might…” the septon’s voice became nothing but distant murmuring as he fell behind, unable to keep up with the young prince’s pace. Aemond didn’t care – he knew the way to the High Septon’s office; Otto Hightower wasn’t the only one to ensure the Faith’s loyalty to the Green camp in recent years.
“Your grace!” the winded septon all but shouted at Aemond’s back, rousing the attention of congregants at supplication in front of this or that statue, some of whom wore the robes of the Faith because they were either septas or septons or Silent Sisters or Holy Brothers. Aemond ignored them all, striding surely across the shining marble floor and through the archway that brought him to the long corridor that led to the High Septon’s personal apartment. A few moments later, Aemond burst into the man’s solar without knocking, disgusted yet not displeased (or entirely surprised) to find the holy man on his knees, pulling his stunned face away from the arsecrack of a boy of about fifteen namedays, who, upon the intrusion, instantly stopped fisting his cock over the septon’s desk and bent down to pull up his breeches. The latter action had his arse cheek bumping into the septon’s nose rather comically.
As if he could salvage the situation, the High Septon pushed up to his feet and barked toward the young man running past Aemond while lacing his breeches, “Don’t forget – ten prayers to the Father every hour, and a day and night of fasting! Eh, Prince Aemond, I was not expecting your visit.”
“Clearly,” Aemond pursed his lips and shut the door behind him, “Though it did give me quite a rare opportunity to see your holiness at work. What an interesting way to encourage a confession...”
“Eh, I… It is not man’s place to question the gods’ will, only to act as the gods’ hands on this mortal—”
“Hands, tongue, cock; whatever the gods command of you, hm?”
The septon scurried behind his desk to his chair, as if being in it gave him some power or righteousness, “The Faith and House Hightower have long been friends, each occasionally looking the other way when the other must make choices for the good of the realm and the Faithful, even if those choices may seem to conflict with a teaching of the Seven-Pointed Star.”
“Relax, Septon Eustace. I am not here to cause trouble for you…”
The older man visibly relaxed.
“…unless, of course, you cause trouble for me. It would seem an error was made that I came here to rectify. A young noblewoman was delivered to your care some days ago. I’m sure you know of whom I speak. Release her to me now, unharmed, and I will forget I saw you supping on the arsehole of Ser Garibald’s nephew and squire.”
“You- I- You saw no such thing!” Septon Eustance stammered.
“Well, then,” Aemond went to turn and wasn’t even facing the door when the septon cried out for him to stop.
When Aemond looked back, smirking, the High Septon’s cheeks became as dark as a pomegranate, “It is for her own good, your grace. She is not completely irredeemable. The girl’s mother was quite devout, you know – raised in the light of the Seven. There is goodness in her, and the power to see the light, if only the malice inherited from her father’s line is vanquished!”
It took only three swift steps and Aemond was standing against the desk, the tip of Dark Sister under the High Septon’s sagging chin. “Allow me to rephrase,” he spoke coolly, “turn Sansa Stark over to my care immediately, and I won’t stick you like a pig and burn this entire sept to the ground.”
Septon Eustace gasped, “Prince Aemond, your mind has been poisoned by her sinister charms; you have been seduced by her Northern sorcery! I had feared—”
“Shut up!” Aemond pressed the tip forward enough to prick the man’s papery skin, “If I have to hear how she corrupted me one more time, I fear I won’t be satisfied with burning this sept, nor even the entire city.”
The man’s eyes became resolute, and he opened his mouth to argue some more, but all Aemond heard was Tessarion’s screeching coming straight through the main doors and echoing around the cavernous worship area.
Aemond smiled, “You were saying, Septon?”
<<<<>>>>
“Confess.”
Aemond heard the word for the sixth time just as he approached the only cell in the underground prison with an open door.
And for the sixth time, the word was followed by a light slapping sound that curdled his blood.
Every instinct told him to run, but he crept down the dark corridor on silent feet, unsure how many would be in the cell with Sansa, and if they’d be armed. He would not give them a chance to use her as a human shield against the dragon’s wrath.
As he finally stepped in line with the doorway, he saw the tiny, torchlit cell was empty but for two occupants – one nude, one dressed in robes; one lying on the stone, whimpering and shivering and hugging herself, the other crouched over her, scourge in hand.
The scourge came down on a bare thigh, hard enough to sting but not hard enough to break skin.
“Confess.”
It was the last word the woman would ever speak.
“Sansa!” Aemond sheathed his blade and dropped to his knees, shoving the septa’s corpse away and going to pick up Sansa but she screamed so loudly when he tried to wrap his hands around her shoulders that he flinched back.
He was so startled that it took him several heartbeats to try again. “Sansa,” he repeated, more gently, “It’s me, Aemond. I’m here to get you out of here. I’m going to take you home, alright? But you need to let me pick you up. Can you do that?”
“Arya did it,” she croaked, “It wasn’t my fault.”
“What? Sansa, did you hear me?”
“She broke it. I swear it wasn’t me,” Sansa turned her head, pressing her forehead into the stone floor and sobbing.
“Please, Sansa,” he whispered desperately, “listen to me.”
“It’s his! I’m telling the truth!”
“Sansa!” he became more insistent, knowing they didn’t have time, but when he touched her arm she recoiled again, curling tighter into herself and hissing.
“I lied to him,” she spoke into the floor, “but I’m not lying now.”
“Fuck,” Aemond growled. He tried to come up with a solution beyond leaving here with a naked woman thrown over his shoulder, screaming for everyone within a half-mile radius to hear. And he only thought for a few moments, but in that time Sansa seemed to fall half sleep, her body relaxing somewhat as her eyes fought to stay open.
“Sansa,” he spoke as quietly as he would to a newborn babe, “I came here to rescue you, and I’m not leaving without you. I’m going to pick you up now. Please don’t scream or fight me.”
He watched her eyes flutter shut even as she asked, “Jon?”
It shouldn’t have hurt, the hint of hopefulness in her otherwise exhausted, rasping voice.
He shouldn’t have wasted time wishing she’d say his name the same way.
He definitely shouldn’t have spent the past days looking forward to hearing it, though he hadn’t realized such until another man’s name fell from her lips.
But he was too desperate and she was too important to not take advantage of this misunderstanding.
Aemond sighed, “Aye, sister. It’s me.”
“Jon,” she said again, the name coming out gusty with relief, “I didn’t let him take it.”
Aemond rested his hand carefully on her shoulder, and this time she did not scream.
“I know, Sansa. You did good. Now, go to sleep and I’ll get us out of here.”
It did not surprise him that she did, almost instantly, proving his suspicion that they used sleep deprivation to try to extract a confession from her. What they wished to hear, Aemond didn’t know. That she was some sorceress? That she was an agent of evil? That the North was a land of savages that the Southerners had every right to conquer or, better yet, exterminate? Or did they expect her to renounce her worship of the Old Gods as a sin so they could parade her around as evidence of the Seven’s powers of salvation and reform?
Then Ser Criston’s words came back to him. “The High Septon himself proclaimed it is no prince or princess growing beneath her heart, but a demon. Half human, half wolf. An abomination born of beastiality and blood magic.”
Aemond slid his hand carefully down to her hip, letting his thumb explore the texture of her skin on her low belly, even knowing he was not likely to find it protruding just yet. Her womb would not have quickened even though the babe would be nearly three months old, nearly a third of the way through the cycle from fertilization to birth.
Assuming she was even with child. Might she have fabricated a pregnancy, hoping to stave off any harm Aegon Targaryen (or Otto Hightower) might’ve otherwise planned for her?
If so, it hadn’t worked, and perhaps had even been the reason she was tossed into the sept’s underground cells rather than a comfortable guest room in the Red Keep. Whether truth or lie, Sansa must’ve come to wish she’d never uttered it. Had Otto been so enraged by the idea of a Northern savage carrying his great-grandchild that he paid his dear friend, the High Septon, to decry the unborn babe as some demon-spawn? Or did this have nothing to do with the potential shame on Aemond’s houses and everything to do with Otto trying to turn the people against their northern neighbors? Or did Otto simply hate all that the North represented – a kingdom too stubborn to be conquered and too barbaric to accept the light of the Seven – and want to hurt Sansa for the prideful people that she ruled?
Or – most alarmingly – did Otto actually believe this nonsense and think he was doing Sansa a favor by giving her a chance to confess what he believed were her sins?
Aemond could not worry about it now. Only the High Septon’s fear of being outed as a sexual deviant (and Tessarion’s proximity) were staying the man’s hand. If the man was stricken by a bout of bravery, Aemond did not want to be down in this underground prison when it happened.
Aemond looked around for something with which to cover Sansa. The septa’s robe would do, but he did not wish to wake Sansa to put her arms through the sleeves. He spotted a ratty blanket in the corner – the only comfort the good people of the Faith had afforded her. It would have to do.
He draped it over her carefully, then just as carefully lifted her with one arm looped over and around her knees, the other beneath her shoulders with his hand cradling her head against his chest. The aromas of blood and sweat and filth were sour in his nose but more offensive to his mind, which was spinning with images of vengeance and violence and fire and blood.
He was not physically barred from leaving, but some of the septons and septas tried to convince him that he was wrong, that he’d been duped, that the Mother was looking down and weeping, that the Father would judge him harshly for this.
He ignored them for Sansa’s sake, knowing he had to get her to a healer sooner rather than later.
It was when he stepped outside that he realized he’d have to deal not just with narrow minds but sharp swords. A group of soldiers of the Faith waited on the steps to block his way down.
In his arms, Sansa whimpered and buried her face into his armpit, the sunlight obviously paining her eyes even worse than it pained his.
Above him, two dragons circled close, a third much higher up. Aemond knew that Daeron would not act until his older brother gave a command, and Rickon Stark was probably chomping at the bit but smart enough to know his sister was too close to the enemy, and Sunfyre too large to use with any precision in such tight quarters, as the soldiers closed around Aemond and Sansa in an increasingly tight semi-circle. They were smart enough to know that getting close to a Targaryen was the best way to spare themselves of dragonfire. As if they have practiced precisely this sort of attack.
Tessarion wasn’t much smaller, and Daeron’s daring only went so far. Vhagar’s stream of flame would melt the entire stairway, and part of the sept and street for good measure – and she was hardly small enough to land on the street so Aemond could climb atop her – her belly would get stuck between buildings.
Aemond did not want to let Sansa go – not today, not for the rest of his life – but knew he must.
He backed up a few steps quickly then turned, lowered her down to lie on the step three above him, then turned back around, drawing Dark Sister as he did. It was fourteen to one, but that was their only advantage.
“Well,” Aemond said when none stepped closer, “come on, then. There must be one pair of stones among the lot of you.”
The verbal incentive seemed to work as two of the men made to move forward at the same moment, then promptly froze a moment later, their eyes and faces tilting up to see whatever was casting them all suddenly in shade.
“Shit,” Aemond turned and dropped, covering Sansa’s body with his own, and waiting to feel heat or even flame, but he counted five heartbeats without being incinerated.
When he dared to look up it was to see the Blue Queen diving toward them, and Aemond promptly pressed his head down against Sansa while listening to the screams of fright coming from behind him. He chanced a peek over his shoulder to find the men had scattered, running and in some cases falling and rolling down the steps, certain they were headed to safety until Sunfyre appeared seemingly from nowhere, riderless but not masterless, to scoop up a pair of men in his mouth only to drop them from about forty feet up. The bodies crunched against the cobbles and within a matter of minutes there was not a soul in the vicinity of the Old Sept, except for those presumably hunkered down inside their homes or the sept itself. Aemond’s horse had also fled or been commandeered, so he would have to carry Sansa to safety – however far that might be.
He looked back down at her and found her blue eyes open but swirling around, unable to focus on his face or anything else. Her over-exhausted mind was trying to hold onto consciousness while it heard and sensed danger, but it was a losing proposition.
“It’s alright,” Aemond said quietly, brushing hair back from her temple, “Go to sleep, Sansa. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Her chapped lips parted to say something in reply but before they could, her eyes closed again.
<<<<>>>>
“You can sleep, you know.”
Aemond’s head snapped up and he was out of his chair, sword drawn, before his eye could identify a single familiar aspect of his surroundings.
Eventually it landed on the madame and he let out a long breath, sheathing his blade and rubbing at an eye that felt as big as a plum. For a change, it wasn’t his fake eye giving him grief, but his good eye, as it protested too many days without sufficient sleep.
“Believe me,” the middle-aged woman spoke as she rounded the bed and placed a gentle hand on Sansa’s forehead for a moment, “You’ll be the first we wake if the Hand’s men come lookin’ for ya. If any men come lookin’ for ya.”
Aemond lowered himself into the chair he’d hardly left since arriving here, one of the few places in the city he was familiar with that would also be able to tend to Sansa’s hurts discreetly. One thing he’d noted over the years was that whores seemed to know more about women’s health than the average maester. Whenever Helaena was pregnant, the whores would bombard him with questions about the beloved princess, like whether she had the sour stomach in the morning, if she was carrying low or high, if she had dropped yet (whatever that meant), whether she wept a lot or cursed a lot (the latter hinted at a son, the former at a daughter), and whether she craved savory foods or sweets. They didn’t seem to care that talking about his pregnant sister didn’t exactly put him in the mood. Then again, a bit of insider information about the beloved princess was more desirable to a whore than yet another cock in an endless barrage of cocks, Aemond supposed.
But Aemond did not want to think about Helaena, his Laenie. Not yet.
Of course, the women who lived and worked at Jala’s were less than thrilled to be hosting criminals or fugitives or traitors or enemies of the crown – whatever he and Sansa were. Some made the sign of the Seven over their hearts when Aemond had carried an unconscious Sansa in while the madame led the way to a private room with an actual door and lock, cursing nobles and dragons and men in general the whole time. The healer who tended to girls whose patrons had been overzealous and presumably saw to any unwanted pregnancies was sent for and arrived with impressive haste. Aemond was surprised when a mousy little man showed up instead of some white-haired wisewoman, but the man seemed knowledgeable enough about the female body to know that Sansa had no broken bones and that, so far as he knew, her unborn babe, if indeed there was one, was likely unharmed unless she’d taken a forceful blow to the belly or been starved. Indeed, Sansa looked too thin, but the healer said she showed no signs of starvation after he looked at her fingernails, eyeballs, and mouth.
“Starvation is generally considered too cruel to be sanctioned by the Most Devout. Isolation, sleep deprivation, and scourging are the Faith’s preferred tools.”
Aemond had felt he might vomit, but the man seemed entirely unaffected by his own words even if not unsympathetic to those who suffered such fates. It made Aemond wonder just how many times this man had treated those who’d been “questioned” or “converted” by the Faith. He hadn’t asked though, because he needed no new fuel for his fury.
The healer had told Aemond to let Sansa sleep as much as she wished for as many days as she wished, keeping her plied with cream, animal stock, and honeyed water and not to worry if they couldn’t get solid food into her. Cream would sustain even an expecting mother well enough for a few days; sleep was more important.
Aemond and the whores had done just that, no matter how much Sansa whined whenever they woke her enough to swallow whatever they were forcing her to drink. Only twice had she woken up enough to tinkle in the chamber pot, seemingly unaware and uncaring that she was in a brothel, being tended to by strangers, while a man she barely knew watched on helplessly with clenched fists and gritted teeth. Aemond had considered it a bad sign that she’d urinated so little, but the madame had her own wisdom to share: Sansa’s body retaining more fluid than it was passing meant she’d been dehydrated. When she woke more often with a need to relieve her bladder, it would mean she was on the mend.
And Aemond just watched. To the distant rhythm of women’s moans and men’s grunts, he watched Sansa sleep, wondering at all she’d been through and wondering if it was all his fault. He reached out to Vhagar now and then, just to be sure the she-dragon would be there when he was ready to leave with Sansa. He’d already asked Daeron to return Rickon to Arya Stark at Winterfell and to stay and help the Northerners repair their keep or to return if his and Tessarion’s help was neither needed nor wanted (though given the hostilities in the capital, he hoped his brother chose to prolong his visit).
He’d asked Daeron to assure Arya that her sister was alive and relatively well and that Aemond would bring her home soon. To ask that she let Jon know the same, assuming he’d been notified of his sister’s abduction to begin with. (Aemond wouldn’t be surprised if Arya feared her brother would march on the South if he learned the truth and thus kept it from him.)
Rumor that made its way to the brothel was that there was something of a stand-off in the Red Keep. Otto had the men, Rhaenyra the dragons. Neither wanted to turn the capital into a battleground, but nor was the queen willing to abide Otto’s duplicity any longer. Otto had been spending the past several months, probably years, gathering promises from various lords to fight for King Aegon II when the time came, but with Aegon dead at the hands of some mystery assassin that Otto claimed had been hired by Rhaenyra, and with Aemond and Daeron seemingly choosing to distance themselves from their family, the lords and ladies were wary of siding with the Greens. Most men agreed with Otto that it was wrong of Viserys to name a girl as his heir when he had three healthy sons, but most of those same men had accepted Viserys’ decree years ago – to rebel against it now would seem as if they’d been disloyal to their king all these years.
Apparently, Otto was now trying to rally everyone around Jaehaerys, but that was viewed as reaching on Otto’s part, since surely the man would name himself regent over his great-grandson, whereas he’d never have the same level of authority even as Hand to the Queen.
That Rhaenyra hadn’t killed him yet was a testament to her fear of the Reach’s military might but also a testament to how much Grandfather had taken over the capital in the past two or three decades. So many of the so-called queen’s men were loyal to houses of the Reach and devoted to the Faith, which had never endorsed the traditions of Valyria, just as Houses like Targaryen and Velaryon had never completely subscribed to the tenants of the Faith. Rhaenyra likely felt that at any moment some Hightower men would try to seize Joffrey or Baela or little Viserys, just like Grandfather probably feared that at any moment Rhaenyra would call Syrax and all the dragons bonded to one of her brats to burn the tower of the Hand, or any other place where they might be able to isolate Otto Hightower from other high lords whose families she did not wish to piss off, or the nephews and niece she did not wish to kill.
And for all this whore or that whore babbled at him about these details shared by their equally talkative customers, Aemond could not bring himself to care overmuch. He feared not for his niblings through Helaena – Rhaenyra would not stoop to kinslaying, certainly not of babes or toddlers, and Mother and Grandfather probably had a small army outside the nursery every hour of the day. As for the rest, while he no longer wished a painful and embarrassing death on Lucerys, nor did he particularly care if his nephew lived or died. Likewise Joffrey, and even Jace up north. In fact, it seemed fair that the Strong bastards should perish and Rhaenyra’s eldest through Daemon could rule after her. If she was smart, she’d betroth little Aegon to Jaehaera. Aemond had never cared for the sour-faced, brooding boy, but after spending time with Jon Snow he no longer thought such a disposition indicated a dark nature, only one who took life’s many offenses too personally. Rather like me, though I never realized.
Why he was thinking of such an unlikely possibility he didn’t know, except that keeping his mind active made it easier to stay awake, though the longer he sat at Sansa’s bedside the harder it was to maintain his consciousness. Sometimes he nodded off unaware of his own slumber, waking up some time later and continuing his mental machinations but wondering why he hadn’t made more progress in the amount of time he knew had passed from the sun’s position.
He was stuck in such a cycle when Sansa finally woke enough to look around the room, her eyes eventually settling on Aemond and widening.
He straightened from what had been a deep slouch, “Sansa, how are you—”
“Where are we?” she asked as emphatically as her weak voice could.
“Eh… a place that ought to be safe. A place that has been safe for us, thus far.”
With perfect timing, the muffled sounds of pleasure in the nearest room reached a crescendo.
“A house of ill repute?”
He shrugged his hands, too tired to defend his choice of harbor.
She hardly looked scandalized, instead nodding and letting out a steady yet obviously fraught, “My family?”
Aemond understood the question she was asking, “Arya safe at Winterfell. Rickon headed there adragonback with my brother Daeron; mayhap they’ve arrived already. And Jon and Bran safe at Castle Black, as far as I know.”
She gave another nod, almost a dismissal, before asking, “And Winterfell?”
Aemond sighed, “The damage I saw was nothing that can’t be repaired. And Aegon… he will not bother your people anymore. None in my family would, and Jace stayed there in case any others would think to take advantage of the weakness. Some secret Bolton sympathizers or…” he trailed off, realizing he had started rambling.
“Are we in the capital still?”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t stop me from going home?” though weak and raspy, it was obvious she was trying to put some hint of a threat in her tone, as if he might think her capable of growing sharp claws and long fangs if he admitted that she was his prisoner.
It was as saddening as it was inspiring to see a wolf so wounded and weak and alone refuse to reveal its vulnerability, but Aemond had seen Sansa’s mask for what it was back on their first night together. He knew now – hadn’t known then – that he recognized it because he knew it from the looking glass. The flat mouth, the hard stare, the high chin... Her façade of indifference was built to hide pain and fear. Aemond’s was built to hide resentment and self-consciousness. The substance hidden by them was different, but their masks were near identical.
But it was not the steel-spined Queen in the North he needed now. It was not Sansa in a black dress, her hair twisted into a too-tight bun, her footfalls chasing all the fun out of Winterfell’s courtyard, to be replaced by reverence. He had no interest in the Ice Queen, did not want to borrow from her well of imperviousness.
It was Sansa he needed. The girl who’d trembled when first delivered to his room. The girl who’d shaken off her nerves and opened her dressing gown to him, for him. The girl who’d cradled him in the tub, who’d collapsed against his chest, who’d called him ‘snippy’, who’d hummed a haunting melody, who’d told him more than she meant to say, who’d extracted from him more than he’d wished to reveal. He wanted the girl who’d warmed his memories during that long, cold march. He wanted the girl who had been the single greatest motive for his perseverance when all hope seemed irrevocably lost.
He wanted confessions and featherbeds, not lies and ice.
Did it mean anything to you at all?
I thought of you so much. Did you think of me?
What did my brother do to you? What did the septas and septons do to you?
I feel like I’m drowning, but I can’t bring myself to scream for help.
I think I’m losing it. I’ve seen too much. I want to unsee it. Is there a way to unsee it?
If I go mad, would you like to go mad with me? I don’t think I’d mind it so much, with you for company.
I killed my brother, why doesn’t that bother me?
Are you really all they say? Have you bewitched me? I don’t mind, really, as long as you never lift the curse, and as long as it can be like it was for those two nights. I just want to escape there. Do you know that’s where I went sometimes, during the battles?
Was it you in Lady?
You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Could you love me like you loved Larence Snow? Would it help if I died for you?
Something’s missing in me. A piece broken off. I don’t know if I miss it, but I fear I’ll need it.
I need you. If you push me away now, I’ll shatter. If you don’t want me, don’t tell me now. Don’t tell me ever. Just let me believe. I’ll protect you with my dragon, my sword, my name, my life, if you just let me have this.
Aemond reached across the bed and grasped her hand gently, “I will fly you there myself as soon as you’re well. I promise it. I swear it.”
She nodded again and silence but for the not-distant-enough sounds of sex blanketed the room. He wanted to apologize but Sansa hardly seemed to care, and why would she? Being in a whorehouse was hardly the worst thing to have happened to her in the past few… years.
“You were right,” she said weakly, after a spell.
“About what?”
“I was sorry.”
He knew what she referred to even though he had previously forgotten the exchange…
“You will be sorry.”
“I know.”
“Sansa…” he started, and ended when he realized tears were rolling down her cheeks.
She was not made of ice, after all.
He slowly, carefully, crawled across the bed, turning her to face him only so he might kiss her forehead and show all he could not say.
She melted then, throwing her arms around his neck and sobbing into his shirt.
He laid them down, face to face, unsure who was holding whom, nor whether the wetness on his collar was from her tears or his.
While the city of King’s Landing braced for war, the Queen in the North and Aemond Turncloak lied in each other’s arms and wept for the better part of a night.
When they awoke the next morning with puffy eyes and red noses, both felt as if the other’s tears had cleansed them. They laughed at themselves and rose together to meet the day.
To meet the rest of their lives.
Notes:
Yes, canon Septon Eustace (who is only the castle sept, not the high septon in king's landing which is a title I made up), thought Northmen were savages, and that was with the North being one of the seven kingdoms. Imagine what he'd think if the North had remained independent!
I know this chapter covered a lot, much like the Long Night chapter. Hence it will probably feel like there are a lot of plot holes or things that don't add up. I have thoughts beyond what made it to print, but as I don't want to further drag out what was meant to be a shortish, maybe 20K word fic, I haven't gone into detail on everything. Please just go with it. :)
Chapter 11: Of tears and truths
Summary:
A chapter that will cover various conversations between Aemond and Sansa in the weeks following their departure from KL, plus a time jump to bring us forward.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“What was it like?”
Her hands were cold in his, clasped between their beating hearts, beneath their trembling chins.
“It was…”
He thought of the Wall. Tall and gleaming and ominous and yet oh, such a lovely sight to one who knew what dwelt beyond it.
He thought of the snow. White snow, another lovely sight that he’d not have appreciated, sheltered Southron ingrate that he was, if not for how tired he’d grown of seeing grey snow, black snow, brown snow, yellow snow, and red snow.
He thought of the undead host, the sheer size of it; how from atop the Wall and with only one’s own eyes it could be mistaken for ants marching from some discarded biscuit back toward their colony.
He thought of seeing them up close for the first time, those terrifying yet pitiable creatures he lugged to the capital, and thinking that he’d rather endure a thousand deaths than an eternal lifetime of that.
He thought of the sight of them streaming through the tunnel when he arrived back at Castle Black not a moment too soon, the way it had made the stuff in his bowels liquefy such that it was only willpower and clenching that kept him from messing himself. How, by the stench in the courtyard later, he knew others weren’t so lucky.
He thought of the cut-off screech of Dreamfyre, in that half-heartbeat between life and death, how the sound had traveled down his throat and twisted iron fingers around his stomach.
He thought of Jon Snow, pressing a kiss to his little sister’s forehead before stepping into the lift, eyes going hard and dark as basalt as he shuttered away his human thoughts and desires so he might survive another night of fighting.
He thought of Daemon’s mournful, prideful gaze upon Rhaenyra as she spoke to the men of the Night’s Watch just after dawn the morning after the dragons’ arrival.
He thought of fire, and how after a night of flying and burning it was all he could see when he closed his eyes.
He thought of the emptiness in Jace’s eyes the day after he lost Vermax, and how it was not his mother nor stepfather nor great-aunt nor uncles who could get through to him, but Arya Stark, by sliding an ale in front of him on the table and sliding herself into the space next to him on the bench, sipping from her own tankard and not saying a word, not even looking at him or reaching for his hand or patting his shoulder.
He thought of the tears that’d slipped through the seams in the shroud of numbness he’d donned after Laenie fell; of how they had soaked into his pillowcase and shaken his entire body even as he refused to make a sound, unlike Daeron who sobbed occasionally as his own tears dampened the same pillowcase.
He thought of the cold ache in every bone, in every muscle – including his heart.
He thought of how he’d been both hungry and nauseated for the entire month.
He thought of how the most beautiful thing he’d ever see was the sunrise, casting a pure golden haze over the site of pure carnage and signaling to the men and women at the Wall that they could rest for a little while.
He thought of every face he’d seen. Most grim and scarred and too thin, with eyes devoid of humor and hope and sometimes even a will to live.
He thought of how, by pure happenstance, he’d looked over to one of the pyres just in time to see the corpse of the man who’d told him about Larence Snow being tossed on top, and how he’d almost asked someone for the man’s name, but felt in his throat that the question could not be breathed into the air without a sob slipping loose with it.
He thought of how empty Daemon’s eyes were the day after Danric Snow, their once gaoler, had died taking an Other’s ice spear to his gut while covering Daemon’s back.
He thought of how Jon had raged when he found Satin in the infirmary, grimacing and sweating through the pain of having a gashed calf sutured because he refused even a drop of strongwine, wishing to save it for those with burns or amputations.
He thought of the time he locked himself in the privy and screamed into his balled-up coat, rocking back and forth and wishing someone would come and make all the madness stop.
He thought of the terror that seized his heart every time one of those shimmering spears flew through the frigid air, narrowly missing its giant target.
He thought of the sound the Others made, a noise designed by some evil god (or were the Others themselves evil gods?) to drive men completely mad. How it mocked and taunted without words, how it traveled over the wind like a gull and straight into a man’s chest like a hammered nail. How it never stopped.
He thought of that first time he’d spied one of them through the far-eye, and how he’d thought flying to Sothoryos might be the only way to escape the burning itch of its gaze on his skin, which he still felt to this day.
He thought of how terrified he was the first night he fought on the Wall instead of in the air, knowing that Dark Sister’s magic was wasted in any hand but his, as was his uncle’s dying wish. Terrified that he would die, and the last thing he’d see would be a pair of those eyes. Terrified that, without his guidance, Vhagar would fall. (Bran Stark proved to be a grand help with that, as Rickon Stark had been with Caraxes at times.)
He thought of how, in spite of all the cold and fear, all the bruises and cuts and cramped muscles, all the near misses, all the friends and family and brothers-in-arms lost, it was that first night of no attacks during which he was most scared. In that, he hadn’t been alone; he wasn’t sure a single word was breathed atop the Wall for at least an hour after dusk until Arya Stark approached her brother, waved her hand in front of his thousand-yard stare, and whispered, “Did we win?”
He thought of how he’d hung on Jon’s response, but one never came, because what surer way was there to jinx all of mankind than to say, “We won”? (Jon never did answer, nor did anyone else who’d been at the Wall ever declare victory, so far as Aemond knew. The months of fighting at Castle Black had been but one battle in the Others’ war, which would span millennia.)
“…a nightmare,” he finally responded conclusively, swallowing before adding, “one I fear I’ll never wake from.”
Even in the dark tent he knew there was understanding in Sansa’s eyes. There always was, he had found. There was no pain she could not relate to. He could confess the darkest, foulest hate within his heart and she would nod, her eyes saying, “I know”, and he knew that she did.
Four hands stayed knotted together for the rest of the night; two foreheads kissing, two hearts dancing to the same haunted melody.
…
“Aegon.”
His brother’s name fell from his lips, a statement that lilted like a question, proof of a masochism he hadn’t known himself to possess.
“Was a scared little boy clinging to that which gave him the illusion of power without needing to possess the courage that defines most powerful men,” Sansa answered immediately, as if she’d already considered it at length and was just waiting for someone to ask her.
Her words could have sounded like a defense of Aegon’s character, a diminishment of his sins and flaws, like a mother might make excuses for her misbehaving son, but by the way she spat them out, Aemond knew Sansa did not forgive Aegon, nor set him in a different category from other cruel men she’d known. At least, not in terms of guilt. Aemond was beginning to think that Sansa hated all monsters equally, but, if anything, she had some respect for the ones who put some of their own skin in the game as opposed to those who used their titles or dragons to do their dirty work.
“Do you think spreading my legs for him pained me in some way?” she asked challengingly when he did not respond. “Do you think it put new scars on my soul? New cracks in my armor?” she gave a breathy snort, just a tad bit too bitter to sound like true amusement, “I let him do as he wished so he wouldn’t change his mind about leaving Winterfell intact, and for the minutes it lasted I found inspiration in thinking of all the ways I would someday show him that a cage cannot take the wilderness out of a wolf.”
He knew by her tone that it was no lie but also knew, by the same tone, that some part of her had been hurt: her pride.
Wolves did not like to kneel, not even for a few minutes, and Aegon had made her kneel.
Perhaps she’d have hated Aemond for doing the same, except they both knew now that he had never been the conqueror. That had all been an illusion, a mummer’s stage built by the good people of Winterfell. (And by his own silly, boyish insecurities.)
…
“Why the show?” he asked. “Why not have Bran and Rickon take over Vhagar and Caraxes the moment we flew within range of their… powers?”
Sansa yawned. They had just woken up on what would be their last day of flying to Winterfell. She was re-braiding her hair while Aemond took down their tent.
Her cheeks were always rosy in the morning, but he thought they were an even deeper shade of pink than normal as he alluded to the way the Queen in the North had distracted her soon-to-be captive in such a very erotic way.
“They’d never done it with a dragon before. It took some… practice.”
Aemond snorted and pushed up to his feet, wrapping the twine around the rolled-up oilcloth, “And did your little brothers know how you were spending every minute of their practice? Did Jon, for that matter? Or Arya? Or the whole bloody castle?”
She pursed her lips, “We all must make sacrifices.”
“That’s what it was?”
Her jaw squared, “Was it more than that to you? Did you not bed me by your sister’s orders?”
It took only two steps to be in reach of her arms and he grasped them, staring down at her with his upper lip curled, “You damned well know it was more than that for me, though gods know why I should feel any sort of affection for such a stubborn, prideful, duplicitous woman as you.”
“Then you have your answer!” she spat, “for only the gods know why I’d have wasted a moment worrying over such a stubborn, prideful, covetous man as you.”
“You haven’t seen my covetous side,” he growled against her mouth, forcing her head to tip back to keep herself aligned with him, eye-to-eye, breath-to-breath, soul-to-soul.
Always soul-to-soul.
Always too proud to be the first to press their lips forward – the one who wanted the other more.
Always too proud to be the first to turn away – the one too craven to hold the other’s heavy gaze.
As futile as it would be for two equal-sized dragons to fight fire-stream with fire-stream.
But the next night, when Sansa wore a dress with two snarling wolves facing off over her chest, snout-to-snout, he thought it was a fairer representation of them.
He was not ashamed of his sigil, nor did he have any notions that wolves were the superior creature to dragons, but so much of what he felt for Sana was instinct, not logic; base desires instead of something rational and intelligent.
And yet, all the more genuine for it.
…
They’d been in Winterfell for a sennight now, Jace having departed for the capital to support his mother and siblings in what might be war by now, for all Aemond knew. If he stopped to think about it, worry gnawed on his stomach, but he had chosen to stay out of it and could not afford the distraction it posed. He had to trust the promises Rhaenyra gave him when he’d spoken with her just before his departure, which he’d intended to go unnoticed. When the queen herself arrived at the brothel, hood over her white-blond hair, and bid her plain-clothes guards to wait outside, Aemond had chosen to give her the benefit of the doubt.
They hadn’t talked about the simmering hostilities in the Red Keep. The silent stand-off between the Blacks and the Greens. The waiting game ongoing, since neither wished to be the one to surrender, nor the first to draw blood (or start a fire). They’d only talked about a future which was guaranteed to neither of them, in which Rhaenyra sat on an uncontested throne, with no scheming Hightowers in her court, and Aemond sat beside the woman who sat in the high seat of the Kings of Winter.
“Will I have the North’s support, brother?” Rhaenyra had used the term ‘brother’ like a shield, or perhaps a sword, though it was neither to him.
“You’re asking the wrong person, your grace. And if ‘support’ is not precisely what you mean, then figure out what you do mean, before asking the right person.”
He’d taken her to meet Sansa then, for the first time ever. Sansa, dressed in a plain frock Aemond had sent one of the whores to procure, somehow looked every inch the queen. She stood in a room in which countless men had fucked a more finite number of women, a hand’s width taller than Rhaenyra, her eyes as still as glass yet as seeing as a hawk’s.
“So…” Rhaenyra stated, looking the other woman up and down in curious observation, “You’re the Queen in the North.”
Sansa said nothing to that, and silence was the only thing between them for a long time, until Rhaenyra shook her head as if to clear a fog from her mind, “So young…”
A lifetime of experience that Aemond was only recently starting to realize had been planted by his mother and grandfather told him Rhaenyra was being patronizing.
A recently developed wisdom born of months of cold and fear and seeing even the strongest men crumple told him that Rhaenyra was not a queen in that moment, just a mother. She was looking at Sansa and seeing Baella or Rhaena, perhaps. Or Jacaerys. Or herself. She was seeing a child who’d been thrust into a role that buckled even the hardest, wisest, most capable men.
“The North will not kneel, no matter what leverage you think you have in me.”
Rhaenyra cocked her head, “Why, may I ask, are you so opposed to joining the other kingdoms?”
“Because of precisely what is going on now,” Sansa gestured vaguely in the direction of the Red Keep, “An old man fighting to put a child on the throne against a woman fighting to put herself on the throne.”
“The throne belongs to me; this fight is not of my making.”
“Then you should have convinced your father to change the laws of inheritance rather than breaking them.”
Rhaenyra’s eyes narrowed, “The realm would not have stood for a change in that law.”
Sansa arched a brow, “Yet you ask them to accept a breaking of the law.”
“I did not break anything!”
“No, your father did. And it is his legacy, his word, his wish, that is your entire claim. But I care not, your grace. It is yours to fight for if you wish. Yours to die for if you wish. But you will ask others to fight and die for it, and I want no part in that.”
“As your family asked others to fight and die for its right to keep the Northern crown!” Rhaenyra was, unsurprisingly, the first to let her emotion bleed through.
Sansa showed nothing, “Indeed. The Northern crown. And they fought for good reason, as my family has proven capable stewards of a vast and harsh land, of very diverse peoples, for thousands of years. The North is a different world, your grace. My people are proud, but they are also weary. In the North, we fight a war every time winter comes. A war against cold, against fever and wet lung and grippe, against scarcity, against snow and ice. We face war every time the Ironborn raid along our Western coast. We face war – or at least we did until very recently – every time a band of Wildlings raids one of our settlements, killing our men and stealing our girls. We just faced a war against death itself – as you know. And the dead will rise again, if not in my lifetime than during my son’s, or my grandson’s, or my great-grandson’s, or perhaps when the name ‘Stark’ means nothing. But when that day comes, it will not do if the people of the North have forgotten about the real threat to our lives – to everyone’s lives. It will not do if they are embroiled in a war over an iron chair.”
“And yet it was our dragons that won you the war. The South came to your aid.”
“Not willingly. Not at first.”
Rhaenyra huffed in impatience, “We came. We fought. We bled and died, same as you. House Targaryen lost more than House Stark, as I recall.”
“House Stark paid in advance; for, I assure you, if a Bolton had been king, the Wall would have fallen moons ago.”
“And yet we still fought with you, and you will not even consider—”
“Indeed. You fought with us, not for us, because the Others were a threat to all of Westeros. A threat that our combined effort managed to hold off only because my ancestors built such a formidable structure. But I digress. What I mean to say is that we can be allies, your grace. Two kingdoms that aid each other when they can and when it is the right thing to do. But the North will not be paying taxes so the royal family can sleep on imported silk bedsheets and drink wine from the Arbor and hold tourneys to stave off the boredom that any Northman would consider a luxury. The North will not be beholden to do your bidding. We will not be beholden to fight your every war, nor to invite your so-called holy men into our homes so they can poison our children’s minds with their quackery and corrupt our children’s innocence with their deviance.”
Rhaenyra gasped, “Lady Stark! I know you’ve had a rough few weeks, but I cannot let you decry the Faith.”
“Why not?” Sansa asked placidly, “They’ll do worse to you and your sons now that Lord Hightower is not at least pretending to be your friend.”
Rhaenyra’s eyes flashed to Aemond, but he gave her nothing.
“Or has it already started?” Sansa asked knowingly.
It took Rhaenyra’s mouth a few failed attempts before she was able to whisper, “How did you know?”
“Do you think the septon only wanted to hear me say that I’m a heathen who lays with beasts?” Sansa’s chin jutted, her eyes hardened, “Or that I would yield my home? He said my torment would end if only I confessed to being in league with you. A pair of scheming bitches trying to break the good, wholesome world that men have selflessly built. First, by claiming crowns only men have the right to wear. Second, by corrupting our bloodlines, sabotaging the future of our houses, by passing those crowns down to our demonspawn bastards – yours Strongs, mine wolves. You ensnared countless men with your cunt, including Prince Viserys’ brother, who might have been an agent of good if not for your influence; your seduction of him, which started before you had your first blood.”
Rhaenyra’s jaw bulged, “It was not like that. And who told the High Septon what to make you confess, hm?”
“How would I know? But I’m sure you could venture a guess. All I can tell you is that Prince Aegon’s men delivered me to your former Hand, who was not moved by my insistent that I carried his great-grandchild. The next day I was delivered to the sept. When I did not agree to play along, they locked me in a dungeon cell with a septa whose job, apparently, was to break my resolve, presumably so I’d be more amenable to testifying against you. And myself, of course. Just like you used your twelve-year-old cunt to seduce your uncle, I used some foul sorcery and good old fashioned feminine wiles to ensnare the prince whose dragon can scorch entire castles within seconds, entire cities within minutes. Cities like Oldtown, Duskendale, Maidenpool, Lannisport, Seagard, Storm’s End… Just think how much damage you and I could do to the Faithful nobility of Westeros,” if Prince Aegon, and Lord Hightower, and the good men of the Faith did not uncover and put an end to our treachery. I think you are smart enough to know that, had I agreed to confess such a plan, you’d find yourself rather abruptly friendless… perhaps even abruptly headless.”
Rhaenyra had averted her eyes during Sansa’s speech, and Aemond felt sick wondering what part he’d have been made to play if the High Septon (and Grandfather) had gotten his way. It all appeared before his mind’s eye like a mummer’s show. Sansa on the stairs of the sept, admitting her sins and crimes before a crowd of hundreds, implicating Rhaenyra and her sons and who-knows-who-else in the process. Perhaps making a walk of atonement to demonstrate her guilt and her remorse. Or perhaps just walking to the gallows, martyring herself to the Stranger, because the story would fall apart if, six months later, she gave birth to a child with silver-blond hair, violet eyes, and no tail.
It was frightening that he did not think Grandfather would’ve let the murder of his own great-grandchild stop him. Not when that child would be half-Stark, meaning half-heathen. He’d by then convinced himself he was doing Aemond a favor, saving his soul, even. But did he even really care about Aemond’s soul, or only Aegon’s arse and the throne it could’ve been warming for months already?
“What do you want?” Rhaenyra asked, her eyes still not meeting Sansa’s ice-blue gaze. She did not sound eager to be in the she-wolf’s debt, but nor did she sound unwilling to pay up. Resigned, perhaps, to see no way to add the North to her clutch so that war might be avoided when Grandfather and whoever else remained Green realized the Queen’s numbers exceeded their own.
“I want my people to be left in peace,” Sansa responded, “I want my child to grow up in Winterfell.”
Aemond realized with startling clarity that he wanted the same.
If he hadn’t fought in a war for life itself, he’d be with Grandfather right now, planning their next move against the Blacks. Or perhaps he’d be on Vhagar’s back, fighting Syrax and Caraxes. He’d be fighting to put Aegon on the throne, if only so that Jacaerys would never sit it.
But he did not want to be doing any of that. Not anymore.
“Your child is a prince or princess of House Targaryen,” Rhaenyra tried.
Aemond looked to his half-sister.
“My child is a prince or princess of House Stark,” Sansa countered steadily, “But aye, your grace, our houses are blood-bound now. More than that, our houses have fought together and bled together, which is something the North will not forget. But that will have to be enough for you. If it’s not… then I suppose it will be war. But know this: in eight thousand years, House Stark has never lost a war. As the first Queen in the North, I am highly motivated to not be the one to break that perfect trend.” She took a single step closer to Rhaenyra, making the height difference even more noticeable, “Are you willing to be the woman who brought House Targaryen to its end? Dead dragons and unfulfilled dreams will be your legacy if you bring war to my doorstep.”
The women held each other’s gaze in a moment so tense Aemond was afraid to breathe.
It was Rhaenyra inhaling through her nose that broke the silence, then her words, “You are somehow precisely what I expected and not at all what I expected.” She shook her head, “No, I do not want war with you. I do not want war with anyone, truth be told, but nor can I step aside. Our kingdoms were allies in the War for Dawn. We may have need to be allies again before either of us leaves this world. But in the meantime, let us be… friends.” She held out her hand, and much like Jon Snow had when Aemond made the same gesture, Sansa contemplated the other woman for several seconds before clasping forearms.
“Friends are free to offer each other advice, are they not?” Sansa asked.
Rhaenyra pursed her lips, “Let’s hear it.”
“Men will die to put you on the throne, whether it be five or five thousand or fifty thousand.”
Rhaenyra rolled her eyes, “I will not step—”
“Don’t let them die in vain,” Sansa hurried to say, “You want the crown, then do something with it. Make this world a better place than you inherited it. And if you can’t or don’t want to do that, then do not fight for it. Not for your father, not for your sons, and certainly not for yourself. It is nothing but a source of a stiff neck unless you make it something more.”
Rhaenyra pulled her arm away but nodded, “I understand. I didn’t always, but… but I do now.”
Aemond hadn’t recognized it fully at the time: his absence of resentment, envy, jealousy, toward his half-sister. He’d felt no desire to run back to his grandfather and mother, to offer to fight for the Greens if they promised him a place on Jaehaerys’ council, or even the role of Regent or eventual Hand, or the title of Prince of Dragonstone. A place at court held no more appeal to him. The veil over the entire city had been lifted, and he knew now it had only ever been a false promise, a shiny apple gone mealy on the inside, as Jon Snow once described vengeance.
Aemond was not so naïve as to think the North didn’t have its own politics, its petty squabbles, its pissing contests, its backhanded compliments and its honeyed lies. But he dared to believe it was to a much lesser degree and perhaps at an all-time low after the war they’d just faced.
Nor did he think he’d be honoring his late sister by putting her son on the throne. Of all of them, Helaena had been the least power-hungry. She had seen how mealy that apple was years before Aemond did. All Helaena ever wanted was for everyone to be happy and safe; her children most of all.
And so that had been all he demanded of Rhaenyra, in the end. After she and Sansa struck their peace accord, Aemond told his half-sister that he and Vhagar would not be fighting for the Greens, but that if Helaena’s children were victims of this war that seemed to be a pin-drop away, his vengeance would be fiery and absolute. He demanded that Rhaenyra make all attempts to get Alicent and her grandchildren to Oldtown and to let them live unmolested. Likewise for Daeron, who Aemond still feared might become entangled in Grandfather’s plots now that Aegon and Helaena were dead and Aemond had taken himself out of the game.
Only when Rhaenyra was gone did Sansa’s true feelings show. With a hand to the nearby bureau her entire frame sagged, and he knew, like he’d known once before, that she had not been unafraid – only unwilling to show her fear.
She didn’t respond with any tenderness when he moved carefully in front of her, pulling her close with his right arm around her waist, his nose pressing into her temple and breathing her in, yet he could feel the reassurance his embrace gave her, could feel the way she leaned into it, trusting him to support her weight.
“I want to go home,” she said, her voice small and pleading.
He nodded, “Tonight.”
That had been ten nights ago.
He closed the distance between himself and Sansa, walking slowly toward the desk where she toiled. His Northern Queen had dove right back into her duties upon their return to Winterfell.
She was presently scribbling out a letter with her right hand while the left rubbed at her eyebrow. He knew the gesture from when he had a headache, and he knew his timing was awful, to say this to her when she was busy and in discomfort, but…
“I believe you owe me a marriage.”
Sansa looked up from her work, frowning in confusion, “I’m sorry?”
“You agreed to marry me in two nights’ time. It’s been more than three moons.”
“You… want to marry me?”
Aemond snorted, “Do you think I’m here because I like the weather?”
“I think you’re here in asylum. Or had you forgotten that you killed your brother in cold blood?”
“He deserved it.”
“Aye, I know it more than anyone,” she set her quill down sharply, “But some in the capital might not agree.”
He huffed at her, “If all I sought was asylum, then why have I slept with you in my arms every single night since we left King’s Landing?”
“Sometimes you slept in my arms,” she responded drily.
“Hardly the point,” he blushed, “Do you think I plan to spend the rest of my life as your bedwarmer? The Queen in the North’s mistress?”
“I think you are taking some time to consider your options.”
“There is only one option that interests me.”
She scoffed, “Then you’re a fool.” She went to pick her quill up, but he pounced forward and grabbed her wrist.
“Do not tell me you don’t want it.”
“Don’t want what?”
“Me,” he growled, “Us. Do you think I mean to edge my way into your rule? Are you afraid I will use my authority as Prince Consort to undermine you?” he snorted, “Then don’t give me the title. I can help carry your burden without it. I need no credit, only acknowledgement.”
“As what, if not Prince Consort?” she asked skeptically.
His hand left her wrist to grasp her chin as he lowered himself to one knee to look her in the eye, “As your husband. As the father of your child.”
She jerked her head out of his hold and rose on the opposite side, moving to the sideboard and pouring herself a cup of water before turning to stare at him, unflinchingly, as she asked, “And would you want the one if not for the other?”
Aemond frowned, “What exactly are you asking me?”
She shrugged one shoulder – a poor attempt at looking uninvested in this conversation, “If I did not carry your child, would you have come for me as you did, at the sept? Would you be here now? Would you be asking for my hand?”
He stalked toward her, half glad and half annoyed that she did not shrink even when he grasped her cheeks, even when the water in her cup sloshed between them, wetting the front of his tunic, “I flew from here to King’s Landing without hardly a rest, not even suspecting you were with child. I have told you how I feel for you. Back in the brothel…” his cheeks warmed as he thought of his confession, which was akin to admitting he was her dog, happy to follow her to the ends of the world for nothing but the pets and scritches she’d give on occasion.
“Barely a month after fighting in a terrifying war. Not even two months after losing your sister. Barely a week after finding out I was with child, that I’d been wronged by your brother and your grandfather. You were looking for something solid to hold onto then, and you’re still doing it now. You don’t know what you want.”
She tried to step away. He did not let her.
“Don’t tell me what I want or don’t want.”
“Well, you most certainly don’t want me! Of that much, I am sure!”
“Why wouldn’t I want you?”
“Ugh!” she turned out of his hold and put her cup down, leaning her hands against the bureau and panting as if she’d run a mile.
“Well?” he probed, resisting the desire to pull her flush against him, to feel her plump bottom against his groin and kiss her long neck and settle this with actions instead of words.
It was so damned tempting, and yet he knew it would be akin to smearing salve on an axe wound.
“Because you’re fire, and I’m frozen,” she eventually answered.
“I’ve seen frozen things, Sansa. You’re not one of them.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know enough.”
She shook her head then turned so suddenly he flinched back.
“What exactly do you think you know?” she asked on a darkly amused chuff.
“That you care for your people. That you love your siblings. That there is warmth in you, and passion,” he reached for her neck, and she let him cup it but stopped short of leaning into it, the stubborn woman.
“Perhaps,” she said flatly, as if conceding without really caring, “But that is not all there is to me. For every person I love, there are a dozen more I hate. And the warmth in me… the passion in me… They are so fleeting. More often I feel that all there is within me is darkness,” she pressed a fist to her breastbone, “And do you know what? I don’t even mind. I feel sorry for anyone foolish enough to think the good in this world will ever outweigh the bad. That life will ever be fair. That every day they live is not merely one day closer to the grave.”
“Do you expect to scare me off with this admission?” his lips pursed to withhold a smirk as he realized he wanted her whether she was darkness or light, ice or fire, laughter or tears, love or hate. He just fucking wanted her. So fucking strong and yet one poke away from crumbling. He wanted to drink her into his veins, breathe her into his lungs. He wanted to keep her safe, deep inside himself, so she’d never know pain again and he’d never know weakness.
Or perhaps he wanted to climb inside and never leave. Make his home in this ice queen who was as ancient as the Wall itself, and just as formidable. He only knew it was not enough to touch, to kiss, to fuck. Would that he could melt them down like a pair of longswords, reforge them into a single greatsword.
“Do your worst, she-wolf. Let me see this darkness. Let me see this hate.”
Her eyes betrayed surprise for a fleeting moment before becoming resolute, a challenge accepted even though he had not yet voiced it.
But he would…
“Tell me what you did to Ramsay Snow.”
Her brows furrowed, “You already know what I did to him.”
He shook his head, “I don’t. I’ve heard that he may very well be in your dungeons right now, albeit a toothless, cockless, handless, tongueless, footless version of himself.”
She snorted faintly, “Would that he was, but no matter how much I wanted to do all that, I couldn’t bring myself to; nor even to watch it being done by someone with the stomach for such affairs.”
“So it was not you who—”
“The man who passes the sentence must swing the sword,” she lifted her chin, which his thumb was still stroking as his palm and fingers curved around her neck, “So, no, I did not ask another to do what I could not. I locked him in the dungeons without so much as a candle, instructed those who brought his food and water to speak not a word. Nor did I speak a word when I went down to… visit him. He, on the other hand, spoke plenty. He called me every foul word I’d ever heard and quite a few new ones. Told me all the parts he’d cut off or out of me. Told me about his dogs back home. The male’s only job is to breed; the females are the ones who hunt. He told of how he’d use them on me for those same purposes. Said I’d finally know what all the wolves’ victims felt like. Asked if I already knew what it felt like to be taken by a beast – if Robb’s wolf and I kept each other company,” her cheeks darkened, and she turned away but did not put distance between them. His hand had no choice but to lower to his side, knowing she needed space now, or perhaps did not wish to be touched.
“He taunted me about Larence. About his final… his final moments. That is Ramsay Snow. Chained to a wall, on the losing side of a war, he did not spend his time praying for absolution or contemplating his life’s choices. For weeks he sat in the darkness and spat out cruel words meant to hurt the way his hands never again would. For weeks, and then months… but not forever. He broke eventually. Instead of spitting out insults and threats he spat out tears and snot. He begged for my mercy.”
Aemond wondered if her days spent in the sept’s underground cells had reminded her of her time on the other side of the equation. Had she thought she was being punished for once demonstrating the same lack of mercy, lack of compassion? Probably. That’s the way her mind worked, no matter that many thought she had become calloused to the point of being inured to the feeling of remorse. She wasn’t, he knew, because she felt bad for duping him, deceiving him, taking advantage of him; letting him lay with her on the basis of a possible betrothal when her family’s plan would more likely see him die in the far North.
(If he had died, he’d have been only glad to have those days with Sansa to recall in his final moments, the recollection of her touch to sooth him when he spent an eternity in the hells.)
He wondered, but did not ask, instead saying, “As you’d told him he would. During the parley.”
She seemed surprised that he had heard about that but did not ask his source, instead offering a slight shrug before continuing in a voice with renewed calmness, “I made him beg for his freedom a few more days. He was so desperate he cried, prostrated himself, clasped his hands together; reached through the bars to grasp my skirts and bring them to his lips. Please, my queen. Just let me see the sun. I will do whatever you say. If you order me to walk to the gallows, to put the noose ‘round my neck and jump from the platform, I will. Just please, let me see the sun. Less coherently, of course. He was half mad by then. Offered to betray his father, who was months-dead by then. I listened to him beg and sob and whine, watched him tear out his hair and rock himself back and forth like a babe, laughing at jokes that existed only in his mind. I listened to him call out for his mother, for his father, for someone named Reek. And when it grew boring, I decided to give him what he wanted.”
Aemond nodded, “You killed him.”
The smile that formed might’ve frightened him on any other person’s face, “I let him go.”
“You… let him go?” Aemond asked dumbly.
“I opened the cell door. I told him to run. If he made it to the sun, he could leave Winterfell, and none of my men would follow him.”
Aemond’s heart was pounding to think the bastard could be lurking somewhere in the North, plotting his revenge, yet he could not bring himself to ask anything but, “And he ran?”
“Not very far,” she answered flatly, though not without some measure of amusement.
“What… What happened?”
“I’ve already told you.”
Aemond shook his head, “I don’t remember.”
She snorted in what seemed to be genuine amusement, “Well, let’s just say that Lady and Grey Wind ate well that night.”
“Fuck,” Aemond turned halfway away, remembering now, indeed, that Sansa had cheekily told him she’d not fed Roose Bolton to the wolves, only his son. He hadn’t believed it at the time, and subsequently thought any rumor of wolves eating anyone was a misinterpretation of how the beasts were used in battle, and particularly how Lady had given eye and limb in her fervent attack on Roose Bolton’s shield circle.
“Disgusted?” Sansa asked, her voice caught between pride at thinking she’d been right and disappointment in the same.
“Not even close,” he answered honestly, then he turned to face her and kissed her hard on the lips before she could protest, though he doubted she would have, if her response was anything to go by. Heated, urgent, hungry, desperate. They both took what they wanted and gave nothing in return, yet it was alright. It was genuine.
She was sitting at the edge of the bureau, taking him as deep as he could go, before either of them thought to speak again.
“Why did you keep it?” he asked in a breathless growl before returning to his plunder of her mouth.
“Moon tea… isn’t… without risks,” she managed to get out whenever he gave her tongue a momentary respite.
“Why did you keep it?” he demanded.
“You know why,” she gritted back, annoyed.
“Tell me.”
She pulled herself somehow even closer, burying one hand in his hair, the other grasping his arse cheek hard enough to bruise and pulling him tight against her.
“You can’t distract me so easily, not even with this lovely cunt,” he pulled back then slammed into her hard, using a hand on the back of her thigh just below her arse to lift her up until the bureau was mainly there for each of them to brace a hand on, and in case his muscles gave out and he had to set her down. She was mostly in the air, clinging to him with two legs and one arm and bucking against him, doubling the pleasure of every thrust. Sweat was dripping down his neck, down his sides, down his inner thighs – damn the heated walls.
“Tell me,” he repeated, more plea than demand, more whisper than shout, as his encroaching peak made it hard to even pretend to be angry or in control.
For his honesty, she gave her own.
“Because I wanted it.”
“Why?”
“Fuck,” she cursed him, “because it was yours, and I didn’t know… You mightn’t have survived, and it was the least I owed you, to let part of you… live on.”
“Sansa…” was all he managed to stutter out before he dissolved like a snowflake on the tongue, becoming light as vapor and free of all pain, all regret, all sorrow, all fear.
Such feelings did not last long. Soon enough he was all too aware of his feet on the floor, his racing heart, the dull throbbing in his right eye socket, the sweat rolling from armpits down to hips, the smell of sex wafting up to him, the mild discomfort of all the places his skin was stuck to hers.
“It was disappointing,” Sansa whispered.
Aemond pulled his face back from her shoulder to look at her, prepared to be rather insulted.
“Watching the wolves… with Ramsay… I thought it would make me feel…” she shrugged, “Better? Like a debt had been paid? Less sad? But nothing felt better. And I realized that was as good as it was going to get. I had no more ideas as to how to stop hurting.”
Aemond hummed, “Jon once told me vengeance is always disappointing.”
She nodded absently, “I thought seeing it would heal something in me. But how could it be healing if it only brought me further from the girl who Larence Snow and Robb Stark and Eddard Stark all loved?”
“Perhaps it’s wrong to expect to heal. Perhaps there is no healing. Perhaps there is only… adding another layer of callous to our skin, so that we’re not so easily wounded the next time we lose something we care about.”
“Mm. Perhaps. And yet I feel no more ready to lose than I did then. If you… If Jon or Arya hadn’t survived… If Rickon or Bran had been lost to me... Hells, even if Satin or Tormund had perished, I’m not sure I could take it.” Her eyes filled with tears, “Some days, I feel like the slightest wind will knock me down and break me into a million pieces. Some days it’s all I can do not to scream.”
“Then scream. And break. I’ll be here when you’re ready to be put back together.”
“Do you know how?” she asked on an amused snort, though perhaps it wasn’t an entirely rhetorical question.
“I’ll figure it out, however long that may take.”
She nodded, “Perhaps.” It didn’t sound overly confident, but she would see.
He would show her.
…
“It’s definitely mine?” he asked, while she worked him over slowly and all he could stare at was her belly, the way it curved out much more noticeably than even a week ago.
The question had slipped out on its own, because it was tired of waiting to be voiced, though he did recognize the shit timing.
Today they’d announced their decision to wed just as soon as Sansa’s siblings arrived. Well, Rickon was here, a near-constant source of vexation or amusement for Aemond, and nothing in between. Bran had remained at Castle Black with his brother, trying to figure out how to repair the magic at the Wall. Arya was with them – having been delivered there by Jace before he left for King’s Landing – her crippled brother’s companion and guard, especially important since Summer had perished in the final days of the war. Jon had written to Sansa that Bran was itching to go north of the Wall, certain it would lead to him learning how to perform the sort of magic that had protected the structure for millennia, mayhap even learning spells or other methods to weaken or kill the Others. With Rhaenys also back in the capital, it would be a journey by horse and sled. Aemond would gladly provide the escort by dragon but was hesitant to volunteer himself for what might be weeks of flying beyond the Wall, or even months, to find what Bran Stark was looking for when the lad himself didn’t even know. Frankly, Vhagar was the last dragon that should be flying to the Lands of Always Winter for more than a one-day surveillance mission. The amount of food she needed to consume each week was not easy to find in a tundra. During the war, she and the other dragons had sustained themselves on seals and bearded mountain goats, but north of the Wall there wasn’t thought to be much wildlife left.
But that wasn’t the main thought on his mind as he saw the evidence of Sansa’s state so plainly after a month of simply taking her word for it and he… panicked. Soon she’d be showing even in her flared gowns. Soon everyone would know their queen was with child, and they’d rightly assume that Aemond was the sire. Except what if it wasn’t rightly, after all?
He did not truly doubt it. Rather, he did not think Sansa would lie to him about this. Only… a woman could be wrong, couldn’t she? Besides, he occasionally had to exhibit something other than blind trust so that Daemon’s ghost couldn’t call him cuntstruck. And Sansa ought to appreciate his need to have time to prepare himself for the possibility of seeing a dark-haired babe at her breast.
(And by that he meant to prepare himself to not kill every man in the North with dark hair.)
She stopped rolling her hips and became far too rigid, “There’s no one else it could be, your grace.”
She went to climb off, but he caught her right thigh before she could swing it over his body to join its mate.
“I wasn’t accusing,” he gritted out.
“No?” she asked archly.
“No,” he answered resolutely, “I just wished to know if… if you’re absolutely certain.”
She tried to move off him again, so he pressed his hands down on her thighs. He suspected she had enough strength and leverage for her legs to overpower his arms if she so chose, but she didn’t.
“I’d not be showing yet if it happened a month and a half after our acquaintance began.”
It shamed him that he hadn’t even thought in that direction, but he realized now why he’d struck such a nerve: clearly, she thought he was bringing up Aegon.
He hadn’t been, but now it was all he could think about.
Fuck, why couldn’t I have kept my fucking mouth shut?
“And before?” he asked in a growl, more to distract himself from the unpleasant place his mind had wandered.
“Before?” she seemed genuinely insulted and resumed her attempts to dismount which was just as well. He was losing interest enough to slip out of her on his own, anyway. She scrambled off and grabbed for her robe, hastily bringing it around her shoulders as she replied, “I don’t know what kind of harlot you take me for—”
“I take you for a woman who might’ve thought she’d be consumed by dragonfire the next day,” he huffed as he pulled the sheet over his groin, “and decided to pass her last night in a… celebratory fashion.”
She gave him a rather loud harumph, “And who do you think would have considered that to be a celebratory act if done with me, the ice queen? Don’t you know I’m as cold as a crypt? My fire went out when…” she snapped her lips shut and turned away.
Aemond sighed, “When Larence Snow died.”
A bitter snort left her as she fingered the ebony-handled comb he’d seen her use on her lustrous locks several times now. “Aye. Nevermore to shed a tear; I spent them all on my true-love dear. Though the braver ones will say it isn’t just my cheeks that will never again get wet for another man.”
He rose from the bed with no shame for his nudity and brought himself behind her, hands on her arms, firmly yet gently, “Do you want their tongues, or their heads?”
(She laughed faintly.)
(He didn’t know what was funny.)
“It’s yours,” she eventually whispered on an exhale, “there’s been no other. And do you know why?”
He gathered his resolve before asking, “Why?”
“Because I never wanted to find out if they were right or wrong. I was terrified of finding out…” she trailed off there.
“You… you didn’t seem terrified…” he said carefully, his hands stroking up and down to comfort himself as much as her.
“I was at first,” she admitted, and he remembered then how her hand had trembled around her mug of cider that night when they were first alone together. He’d realized she was not mad at him but afraid of him. He’d been sure of it, until moments later she opened her robe a mere arm’s length from his face, and then he figured she’d only been afraid of the situation and the possibility that instead of being given a choice he’d have forced his lust on her.
“And then I reminded myself why I was doing it. That you weren’t some husband or lover I’d taken to bed but… but an enemy, of a sort. An enemy we needed as an ally. I thought of all the North might lose. Thought of my brother and sister fighting those… those things so bravely. Thought of my little brothers, willing to spend a month in the minds of creatures no one has ever attempted to enter, so far as we know. I thought of my pack and my people and realized that my battle was not to be fought in the fields beyond Winterfell, nor atop the Wall at Castle Black, but in my bed, and at the high seat. And then I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
“And what if that hadn’t happened?” he asked with a tight throat, “Would you have gone through the motions anyway or abandoned your plan? Would you have laid there, trembling in fear while the enemy fucked you? Would you have made a raper of me?” He only realized that truth as he spoke it, and he found himself turning away, his stomach souring at the idea that all the regret and fear and hurt he’d felt in regards Sansa Stark would’ve been infinitely worse if he’d not at least been able to tell himself that she’d enjoyed their interactions, no matter her motive in participating.
“You mistake me,” she caught his forearm, turning toward him just as he was trying to turn away, and for a moment it felt like a dance.
He was naked, he belatedly remembered only when her eyes roved downward. There was appreciation in her gaze and yet still it made his skin itch rather than tingle. He reached hastily for his night shirt and pulled it on, then searched the bedsheets until he found his smallclothes and pulled them on, too.
When he turned to face her, her eyes were already locked to his. “Aemond,” she said softly, sweetly, and oh how he loved to hear it. It was so rare that she addressed him by given name only. In front of all others he was “my lord”, or, if introducing him to a new person, “Prince Aemond Targaryen”. In bed his name came from her lips often enough but usually in a frantic sort of way – two syllables that she used to convey that she was close and he’d better not stop.
He looked at her, waiting.
“I wasn’t afraid of not being able to enjoy it, Aemond. I was afraid that I would.”
He felt himself sag with instant relief but, more importantly, instant understanding and empathy. He nodded slowly, “I don’t want to be happy. It would be wrong to be happy after…” losing Laenie.
He should add killing his brother. Hurting his mother. Hurting Ser Criston. Betraying his grandfather. Losing his uncle.
But to do so would be disingenuous. He did not relish in those other events, but nor did they haunt him as the experience of losing his sister did. Men were supposed to protect their sisters from all things dangerous. Aemond had invited his sister to the most dangerous place in the world. They might have won without her. Rickon could’ve been inside Dreamfyre while Helaena stayed safe within the walls of Castle Black or even Queenscrown or Mole’s Town. Why hadn’t Aemond—
“And yet… I’ve seen too much to think I won’t reach for it whenever I can,” she added, and truer words had never been spoken yet it was her tone that gave away her true meaning: she would reach for happiness, yes, but never grasp it, nor keep it, because she did not think she deserved it.
They’d seen in the other the key to that which they’d been denied, and both had reached for it with both hands, but what did they plan to do with it? What had they done with it? They’d swapped secrets. They’d held and been held. They’d shared pleasure. They’d committed to matrimony. And yet there was a badge of somberness they both wore with pride. They did not laugh uproariously. They did not tickle each other’s sides and share smiles under the sheets. They didn’t talk with excitement about the day in the near future when they’d welcome their child into the world. They did not boast about their accomplishments, celebrate their victories. They didn’t make plans for spring, because they both were afraid it would never really come, only tease.
This was not what it looked like when two people lived for each other.
This was what it looked like when two people clung to each other for fear of drowning.
Yet he knew they had it in them to be happy together. It was just on the other side of the gloaming, a giggling child running around corners, evading capture by his loving siblings in their little game of hide-and-seek.
“Jon…” he started, then had to pause to swallow, because he missed the bastard! “Before I left for the capital, he told me that if the worst should come to pass… if I should return to the Wall to find it overrun, I should make haste to Winterfell, drag you onto Vhagar’s back, and fly us to somewhere the dead can’t reach. And that I should tell you… that it’s alright to be happy.”
“Easy for him to say,” she turned to the left, rubbing her hand over her lips, “He wasn’t the one… he didn’t… he didn’t see it.” Tears flooded her blue eyes, making them sparkle in a way that should not look so beautiful.
“He lost something, too, Sansa. He hurt, too. And yet I think he’s… finding what happiness he can.”
If she was curious about where her brother was finding happiness, she did not show it.
“Yes,” she nodded dismissively, eyes unfocused, “We all lost something. We all lost more than our fair share. But none of them have to live with the…” her lip wobbled and she turned further yet, until he was looking at her in profile as she jabbed her index finger between her breasts. “It was supposed to be me,” the last small word came out like a growl, and in any other context it might’ve frightened him.
And wasn’t that just the crux of it, too? Men were the ones who went off to war, women the ones who stayed home, safe in their castles. Yet who was the luckier – the man whose suffering lasted a minute, or an hour, or two days? Or the mother or wife who mourned for the rest of her years?
And why should either need to suffer? If there were gods, they should be making things fair and just. When they needed to yank a soul up from this mortal realm, why could it not be one whose heart was all darkness and anger and fear and hate, not one who was all light and love and loyalty and honor, as he somehow knew Larence Snow must’ve been for the Stark brood to care for him so, for Sansa to fall in love with him.
Still, without ever having met the man who had suffered that unfair end, Aemond knew his next words to be true, because they were how he’d have felt, strapped to a cross, in unimaginable pain, but able to see in the distance the woman he loved hale and hearty and safe. He knew it because not an hour passed when he didn’t wish he could swap places with Helaena, if only he could guarantee that someone else would’ve succeeded in rescuing Sansa from the sept.
“I don’t… I didn’t know him,” Aemond said, “but I am sure that if he could have chosen, he’d have chosen to spare you—”
“I know that!” she yelled as she turned to face him, “And that’s why it should’ve been me! He was so good! He was too good! Ramsay was supposed to take me. If he had, he wouldn’t have needed him!”
Aemond held his hands up, “And then where would you all be? Wouldn’t your brother Robb have traded his life for yours? What do you think Ramsay would’ve done to him? Would he have surrendered Winterfell? Your siblings? Things might’ve been—”
“Stop making sense!” she shouted, “It isn’t supposed to make sense! It’s not supposed to be four of us here,” she held out her left hand, palm up, “or one of him there,” she held out her right. “It was supposed to be…” both hands started to go together but instead went to her hair, grasping it desperately as her shoulders fell. Aemond did not hesitate to reach out, to pull her by the small of her back into his embrace.
“It was supposed to be all of us, together,” she concluded in a trembling, gusty whisper against his breastbone.
It was the first time he was seeing this side of Sansa. The naïve side that just wanted the world to be a place free of strife and pain, where the good guys always won, where honor was always a virtue, never a weakness.
(Where love was never a weakness.)
“How can you not be angry?” she whispered, “You told me she was the best of all of you. That she and Daeron, and her children, and your mother, were the only ones in your overgrown family you ever loved,” she snorted at her own weak attempt at humor, “but that she in particular was the light in your family. How can it not drive you mad, to survive when she perished?”
He blinked his tears away, but not out of shame, “Because I’ve been thinking, of late, how easily things could have been different, and how… how Helaena,” her name broke his voice, spoken for perhaps the first time since her death, “would have chosen that end if it guaranteed her little ones down in King’s Landing would never see the horrors she and I and all the others faced up there. And she’d also… without even knowing you, she’d have chosen that end to guarantee that I survived to save you from whatever they had planned for you. That’s who she was. And it’s not fair that she’s gone and I’m here. And sometimes it makes me feel like I’m suffocating to think about just how unfair it is. But it would’ve been even more unfair if we’d lost, which we might’ve done if she’d stayed behind where it was safe. I cannot say. Maybe the gods can’t even say. But…” he realized he was rambling out thoughts that had only just coalesced in him in recent days, as he finally had the time to reflect on the war.
He'd come to the conclusion that he was both blessed and cursed to have experienced it firsthand. Cursed for obvious reasons – that it had branded his memory with images he’d never unsee – but blessed for less obvious reasons. He did not consider it a blessing that his name would be recorded as a hero of the War for the Dawn. He was blessed because the experience had given him something he’d never had before: perspective.
By contrast, Sansa was still stuck on the injustice of losing her family, losing her lover. Sansa was still frozen in place by guilt that could never be assuaged because those whose forgiveness she sought were dead.
Perhaps Sansa ought to have seen what he’d seen at the Wall, lived what he’d lived. Because he realized with quiet clarity that he was ready to take what happiness he could, to savor every joy he’d be allotted in this life, no matter how many hurts he had to pay. He was ready to fall into step with this woman, walk the path of life with her. As his wife, the mother of his child, his friend, his confidante, his partner, his queen.
But he knew he would not have been ready if he had never known how close the world came to being an even uglier, crueler place than it was. If he’d never been dragged north, he’d still be sore about his lack of a crown, about the unfairness of his father’s favoritism toward Rhaenyra and Aegon’s habit of constantly disappointing all those he should only seek to make proud and the eye Aemond would never grow back, the titles he’d never wear.
Living at the cusp of true darkness was what it took to make him fully appreciate the light.
And so he told Sansa about it, as he never had that night in the tent when he could only manage to describe it as a nightmare.
He told her of his actual nightmares, in which those eyes stared at him, all bright blue and shimmery with sick amusement as they hurt her.
He told her of the dead man whose name he still didn’t know, who’d told him a tale of suffering and strength, of true evil and true sacrifice.
He told her of the sounds. The smells. The sights. The pain and cold and terror.
He told her of it over the course of several nights, and by the end of each it’d be her holding him.
Do you see this, Uncle? The Queen in the North is holding me like a babe and I don’t give a fuck. Don’t tell me Rhaenyra never wrapped you in her arms, rocked you against her bosom.
Weeks’ worth of horror and suffering and loss he managed to distill down into just enough to fill seven nights.
It was pure coincidence that his final word, spoken on a yawn, came sometime around dawn on the eighth day… a day that turned out to be so warm and bright (for winter) that the world around them was noisy with the sound of dripping.
The next time they woke, when Sansa caught him watching her, she smiled and flushed.
A week later, she presented him with stacks of parchment, all of equal size. The sort that could eventually be bound in leather. She handed him a new quill and a fat inkpot and said, “Write. This is one story that mankind cannot afford to forget.”
And so, he wrote.
And, little by little, he smiled. And laughed. And grieved. And loved.
And Sansa did all those things, too – even if usually only in the privacy of their bedchamber.
And a few months after that, he was there to see his daughter sliding into the world, reddish-purple coated in white, eyes screwed shut as she screamed her outrage for the whole world to hear.
“Laena Stark,” Sansa scolded with a smile as her daughter was handed to her by the wisewoman, “Young ladies do not yell.”
Arya snorted from where she stood with one hand leaned against the headboard, “You used to yell at me all the time.”
“I did not yell.”
“Did, too!”
Sansa sighed, clearly too tired for that game, then lifted her eyes to Aemond, “Are you going to hold your daughter, or make me do all the work?”
He rolled his eye at his wife as he reached for the bundle and lifted it – her – into his arms, settling her in the crook of the left so he could see her better. Light as a feather he stroked a finger down her plump little cheek, the tiny little bumps he knew would disappear in a few weeks, “I’d be yelling too, but I promise the world is not so bad as it surely seems.”
Strangely, Aemond meant it.
Notes:
The final chapter (which may end up being 2) will essentially be an epilogue with lots of family feels and good times and of course some updates on what has transpired with many of the main characters. I hope you stick around for it/them.
Chapter 12: Of dreams and spring
Notes:
Sorry it's been a minute but work is busy, and life in general. Drafted chapters of all my fics are collecting dust but I NEEDED to post something because next week is not likely to be better and I couldn't let October arrive without updating something!
Finally we will see a non-Aemond POV in the later sections. Actually, TWO POVs!!
Unlike the preceding chapters, this one is entirely upbeat and even at times a bit ridiculous. If you like the tone, the humor, you may want to check out some of my modern fics like "The Mistake" (Jonsa) or "Hate the Game" (Jaimsa) or "A Harmless Addiction" (SanSan). There are more, of course, but that's enough shameless self-promotion for one day!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Happiness was not a destination. It was not an immutable state, a reward for those who’d committed noble deeds; theirs to keep for as long as they lived wholesome lives and maintained positive attitudes.
Happiness was a tide that rolled in when it wished, and rolled out without warning, maybe days later, or only minutes.
Aemond could ride the tides of his wife’s mood like a pirate born and raised on the sea, though few who looked upon the Queen in the North knew how choppy her waters could be beneath the glass-like surface. She was eternally poised, at times solemn. Even when in a playful mood, allowing her people to see the affection she had for her daughter or husband or one of her siblings, it was always restrained. Held in check just so.
Sometimes he thought it was because her love had been used as a weapon against her before, and she was loathed to let anyone know that she had such a fatal weakness.
Sometimes he thought it was herself she did not trust with her heart.
Another husband might be insulted that his wife was always composed with everyone else and only ever unleashed her rage or her tears on him.
Another husband, but not Aemond Targaryen.
Happiness was the morning after Sansa had cried herself to sleep in his chest, to see her smile in a way that said the storm had cleansed her skies.
Happiness was the rush he felt when she went from clawing at him in anger to clawing at him in desire to clawing at him in ecstasy.
Happiness was her legs around his waist.
Happiness was his own name tickling his neck.
Happiness was his hand cupped under her belly, waiting for the next kick.
Happiness was lazy mornings when there was not a single thing demanding their attention.
Happiness was Lady’s tail thumping on the floor when one of her humans approached.
Happiness was bringing new life into the world.
Happiness was when a small procession approached from the North led by a man in black.
Happiness was flying.
Happiness was the deep groan that Grey Wind made when his ear was scratched just right.
Happiness was Laenie’s unfettered giggles.
Happiness was the snort Sansa couldn’t hold in no matter how hard she tried.
Happiness was being alive.
Happiness was the clumsy way the pups tackled each other.
Happiness was the gust of warmth that drifted down to Winterfell when Vhagar flew overhead, keen eyes scanning for any threat to her human and his people.
Happiness was brushing his wife’s hair, braiding his daughter’s.
Happiness was Tessarion’s chirp alerting Aemond to his brother’s imminent arrival.
Happiness was waking from a dream of Helaena and smiling indulgently rather than crying secretly.
Happiness was the warmth in Rhaenyra’s eyes when she watched her newest niece practice her curtsy.
Happiness was getting Arya Stark to admit some event or activity had been fun.
Happiness was Rickon’s blushing pride after receiving Aemond’s praise.
Happiness was serving a people who had given so much.
Happiness was yellow flowers popping up in the most unexpected of places.
Happiness was watching his wife teach his brother a northern dance.
Happiness was watching Laenie practice braiding on one of her uncles, and knowing Aemond wasn’t the only man who could refuse that little girl nothing.
Happiness was loving and being loved.
Happiness was living, and knowing just how lucky that made him.
Happiness was having hope for the future, instead of anger for the past.
<<<<>>>>
“Oi,” Tormund groaned, “ya must be eatin’ all yer veggie-tubbles, lit’l one. I can hardly liftcha no more! Soon it’ll be you carryin’ me around. Har!”
“I’ll train Stormy to carry you!” Laena announced proudly.
“Har! Just ‘cause me white hair ya think me a dragonrider, hm?”
Laena rolled her eyes (a habit she’d picked up from Arya and Rickon, much to Sansa’s dismay), “I know your hair’s not white ‘cause you’re a dragonrider. It’s white ‘cause you’re old.”
“What?” Tormund bellowed, all but dropping Aemond’s firstborn as if she’d lost the right to her perch on his burly forearm.
“Laena, is that how we are supposed to talk?” Aemond forced himself to scold, no matter how much it lacked bite. He understood the need for highborn girls (and boys) to learn manners, but as he’d rarely seen them put to use in the North, it was hard to get as passionate about discipline as his wife was.
“Sorry, I meant BE-cause!” Laena annunciated.
“That wasn’t… never mind,” Aemond sighed when he realized that Jon and Satin and all the rest were smirking at best, guffawing at worst.
It was no small traveling party that Aemond had greeted about a half hour’s stroll past the North Gate with Laena. What would’ve been about a dozen upon departing Castle Black was nearly a hundred upon arrival at Winterfell. Other parties had joined at Last Hearth and various other settlements along the winter road to accompany Jon Snow on his pilgrimage to Winterfell for two special occasions. Jon had informed Aemond of this as they began the final leg to Winterfell, which was about when Laena lost interest in what her uncle had to say and jumped from Jon’s arms to Tormund’s, practicing skills she was learning from her aunt. Sansa was surprisingly supportive of their daughter training her body to do more than dance and curtsy, but hated that Laena never stopped to think about whether she had pantaloons under her skirt before jumping or rolling or cartwheeling around a courtyard or other public space.
Even if Sansa and Aemond wished to raise a more modest child, it couldn’t be helped. At the conclusion of the War for the Dawn, noble and common men alike returned to their wives (or decided to find a wife after such lonely months spent at the Wall) and did what hopeful people do. A few months after Sansa began showing, so too did many of the other women in residence at Winterfell or the Winter Town, so much so that Jorelle Mormont japed that Sansa had started a fashion trend. This meant that Laena got to grow up with plenty of playmates whose parents weren’t royalty and in some cases not even nobility, and how were such children to entertain themselves if not by traipsing through the godswood forest or climbing trees or playing increasingly inventive games that involved hiding and searching and fake swords and play-acting and kicking balls around in the mud and… Suffice it to say, Laena stood no chance of growing up with an interest in embroidery or reading that outweighed her interest in frolicking.
Laena Stark had been born the same day the Chief Dreamgazer, a strange little man from the boglands, proclaimed the arrival of a spring that would last a half-year that would be followed by a half-year of summer, a half-year of autumn, and a half-year of winter. He predicted the pattern to continue indefinitely, which had put all the North in a bit of a tizzy. A council was convened at Winterfell, which Aemond had to preside over since Sansa was only a month out of childbed and stricken by a bout of melancholy so intense she cried every minute of the waking day. The council’s purpose was to prepare for the potential ramifications of shorter seasons, namely on agriculture and food preservation but also on commodity pricing, trade, and economics. Secretly, Aemond had thought it quite ridiculous to heed a man who ate certain mushrooms to make himself just delirious enough to receive visions and “green dreams”, until the man looked straight at Aemond and said, “He told you that it was bold of you to claim the dragon, though he never did tell you who such boldness reminded him of. But he told you,” the man’s hazel eyes had swept to Arya, “didn’t he?”
Arya had nodded slowly, clearly discomfited by the man’s abilities even as she’d previously tried to convince Aemond to heed his warnings and prophecies.
“Aye,” Arya answered slowly, “He said you reminded him of… him.” The last word had had an echo – the Dreamgazer’s voice.
Aemond hadn’t known whether to be insulted or flattered that Daemon looked at Aemond and saw himself, though he now leaned toward the latter. In the final weeks of his life, Daemon had proven his usefulness, his value, his talents. He was a brilliant fighter and a natural leader, a natural commander. He could inspire men to keep up their bravery because his never waned, not even in the face of a most terrifying enemy and inescapable death.
Aemond hadn’t known then and still didn’t know why Arya had not told him that, just handed him Dark Sister unceremoniously and said it was his uncle’s wish that he wield the blade. If he had to guess, she’d felt bad that Daemon’s final words had been spent on Aemond, not Rhaenyra or any of his children or stepchildren. Aemond, now knowing both marriage and fatherhood, liked to think that his uncle had spoken his piece to Rhaenyra and Jace long before that night, and perhaps had drafted letters for his children, but no doubt it took dying to humble Daemon enough to offer any praise to one of Viserys’ sons.
Alas, Aemond believed the Dreamgazer from then on and so took seriously his role in hosting the Spring Council, as it became known, and contributing to the discussions and plans for adapting to a world that saw all four seasons in only a two-year span. He also sent a summary of their concerns and ideas on matters like trade and agriculture and animal and bird migration to Rhaenyra, with Arya’s blessing, since Sansa had been despondent still.
In reply, Rhaenyra had sent Jaecaerys to Winterfell to discuss the matter with his uncle in person, though Aemond was certain that Jace had petitioned to be sent north so that he might spend time with Arya again before he was married. Aemond had never asked and didn’t want to know, though after Jace’s departure, at a family supper once Sansa was back to her old self, Rickon had accused his sister of “giving moon eyes to a Southron”. Arya had, quite maturely, told Rickon to stuff it, then rubbed her knuckles against his scalp while keeping him in a headlock. Aemond had, also quite maturely, asked what was wrong with Southrons. Rickon had sheepishly conceded that it probably wasn’t all Southrons that were so horrid, just the highborn ones.
Now, listening to Laena explain to Tormund that she hadn’t meant offense by calling him ‘old’ and that he probably wasn’t even as old as Old Nan, Aemond realized that his daughter had inherited her youngest uncle’s sense of tact. Which was to say, no tact whatsoever.
“Enough, little wolfbird,” Tormund sighed, “speaking of old, how old are ya, now?”
“Four,” Laena drawled, as if it should be Tormund Giantsbane’s greatest priority to remember her age when he didn’t even know his own.
“Is it better this time?” Jon asked in a low voice meant only for Aemond.
Aemond side-eyed his goodbrother, “Hm?”
“After… birthing little Neddie,” Jon blushed. The man had fought supernatural ice-monsters but was uncomfortable even alluding to his sister’s child labors. (Aemond suspected that thinking about child labor made Jon think about child conception, which led to his thinking about Aemond putting his you-know-what in Sansa’s you-know-where.)
Aemond nodded, “Ah. Yes, much better. The wisewoman said all the stress and fear during the early part of Sansa’s first pregnancy built up and then had to be purged after the babe was purged. Since there were much fewer reasons for worry and stress this time around…”
Jon nodded quickly, “Good. I had worried that if she was… troubled… our presence would only make it worse.”
Aemond snorted, “Are you kidding? Last time, I was half-tempted to ask if we could swap places for a while until it passed. Defending the realm of men is child’s play compared to comforting a woman with the weepies.”
Satin inserted himself into the conversation with a roll of his long-lashed eyes, “How sympathetic you both are, my lords! It’s not their fault some of them get that way! In Oldtown, I saw some of the toughest women you’d ever meet reduced to blubbering messes after being delivered of a babe. One of the maesters who bothered to take an interest said a woman’s body feels the loss and doesn’t know what her mind knows: that the babe still lives, just on the outside now. The womb has to go through that sorrow, just like a mother seeing a son off to war.”
“So the one’s who don’t get s’weepy must not love their babes s’much, hm?” Bertrus asked with his trademark smirk. Aemond had first met the man during the Long Night and found him as entertaining as he was vexing. He’d seen himself to the Wall, allegedly, for seducing the wrong man’s wife and knowing his days were numbered. Handsome and quick-witted as he was, it was no surprise that he was a charmer, though it was disturbing that he used to spend an inordinate amount of his charm on Princess Rhaenys, who was old enough to be his grandmother, until the princess quite boldly told him that her late husband was called the Sea Snake for more than his prowess on the water, and that she had no interest in Sea Worms. Bertrus had looked quite proud of himself for spitting back, “I’m more like a Sea Horse, if ya catch my meaning…” until some Black Brother who hailed from Maidenpool held his fingers an inch apart and said, “Aint’ seahorses about yea big?”
“Aye, Bert,” Grenn nodded in all seriousness, “That’s why yer mum cried so many tears after you were born…”
Bertrus smiled, pleased with himself.
“…Tears of joy,” Grenn added. That led to him and Bertrus punching each other’s arms the rest of the walk back, which luckily wasn’t far.
Soon enough the flags of Winterfell were close enough to be heard whipping in the wind, which was about when Aemond heard gasps and nervous sounds coming from the rear of their procession not to mention those who worked the fields on either side of the road.
A moment later he was blinded by sunlight glinting off golden scales as a dragon landed just to their right, about forty yards away if that.
Jon let out a very long sigh.
“Still can’t shake him?” Aemond asked, keeping his tone one of innocent curiosity.
Jon groaned, “It’s like a stray dog I made the mistake of sharing my supper with.”
“Mm,” Aemond hummed, saying no more in this company, though he remained very curious.
Sunfyre’s appearance in the North had been at first attributed to either a desire to be closer to Vhagar or a residual bond between him and Rickon Stark from the brief time Rickon spent inside the dragon’s mind. They were sure of it, until Jon Snow, who’d been at Winterfell for the Spring Council, departed for Castle Black.
And Sunfyre flew above Jon and his men for the entire march.
It was then assumed that Sunfyre was following some trace of his mate’s scent, hoping to find Dreamfyre in the strange, cold lands. That had bothered Aemond greatly, to think that Sunfyre didn’t know his mate was dead and might spend the rest of his life searching for but never finding her.
But the dragon never bothered flying over the Wall, at least not for any length of time; instead, he found himself a warm cave five days’ ride from Castle Black (Jon had dispatched Ghost to find out where the dragon was laying his head at night), and occasionally paid the Black Brothers a visit.
That Jon had since ridden the dragon was a secret among the Stark family, of which Aemond was a part. Well, he supposed Satin and perhaps Grenn and Samwell knew. Sansa and Arya were satisfied to conclude that their bastard brother’s unknown mother must’ve had some distant Valyrian ancestor, but Aemond wondered if it was not so distant... He remembered how, after his one and only scrap with Jon Snow, he had found they were almost uncannily well-matched. Same build, same height, same strength, same skill. And Sansa liked to point out that they both made an artform of scowling and often reminded her of petulant little boys (Aemond knew as well as anyone that such was true of Jon Snow, but surely Sansa was exaggerating such tendencies in her husband just to tease). Regardless, Aemond couldn’t help but wonder if Jon Snow’s Valyrian ancestor could be less distant, and Targaryen, specifically. Then again, what Targaryen woman might’ve had an affair with Eddard Stark roughly twenty-eight years ago then birthed a babe without her family finding out about it? Aemond couldn’t exactly investigate – at the time Eddard Stark had been in the Riverlands to wed Catelyn Tully after his elder brother got himself killed in a duel.
Ah well, it was quite possible that Jon’s blood had nothing to do with the (reticent) bond between himself and Sunfyre. Per Jon’s ever-taunting friends, the dragon must simply be a vain creature who wanted a rider nearly as pretty as himself. Jon responded by affirming that he was not ‘pretty’. When that proclamation was met with nothing but poorly contained laughter, he asserted that he was handsome, not pretty. Since then, his friends teased him for being pretty and vain and found the similarities between the Lord Commander and the dragon rather uncanny. (Aemond had refrained from teasing his goodbrother over the years, but Jon’s friends were not wrong.)
“Somebody take this grumkin ‘fore I throw ‘er up in the nearest tree!” Tormund bellowed.
Laena giggled quite hysterically when Tormund made like he was going to throw her a great distance then at the last minute passed her to Satin with the ease and casualness that a man might toss a friend an apple.
“Finally deign to say ‘hello’ to me, Princess?” Satin spoke with mock offense.
“Hello!” Laena giggled, “I know what satin is now!”
“You do, do you?” Satin asked.
“Mmhmm. Daddy bought mummy new dresses. Had them im-por-ted!”
Satin played dumb, “What’s im-por-ted mean?”
“It’s what you do with things that are im-por-tant!”
(Aemond and Jon snorted.)
“Well, what’ve your mum’s new dresses got to do with my name?”
“They’re made of silk and satin! I asked mummy if that’s where your name came from, like how my name came from Auntie Helaena, who’s dead, and Uncle Rickon’s name came from Grandpa – no, Great-grandpa Rickard, who’s also dead, and how Neddie’s name came from Grandpa Eddard, who’s also dead. Oh! And Uncle Bran’s name came from lots of Brandons – they’re all dead, too! And—”
“And what did mummy say?” Satin – bless his soul – finally interrupted.
“Oh! She said she didn’t know and that… uh-oh…” Laena ducked her head.
“What-oh?”
“She said I shouldn’t ask you because it would be rude.”
Satin sighed, “Well, it isn’t that rude, but I’m sorry to tell you I don’t know how I got my name, but yes, I was probably named after the material satin.”
Laena didn’t find that odd at all, instead nodding, “I bet it’s ‘cause you were soft and smooth like the satin dresses when you were a babe. Neddie’s head is so soft! I told mummy and daddy that the next baby should be named Petal. Like a flower petal!”
“Har! Only if it’s a girl-baby, little wolfbird!”
Jon glared at Tormund, but the large wildling was – as always – both oblivious and shameless.
“Why only for a girl-baby?” Laena’s big, guileless eyes traveled over every man in the immediate vicinity, searching for an answer.
“Because—” Bertrus began.
“No,” Aemond shook his head.
“Was just gunt’a say—”
“No.”
“That Petal sounds like a girl’s name!” Bertrus blurted out quickly.
“Oh. Right,” Aemond shrugged, ignoring Jon’s smirk.
“So?” Laena asked tartly, “Satin sounds like a girl’s name, and Satin’s a boy!”
Aemond groaned and reached for his daughter, plopping her up onto his shoulder and saying, “Laena, why don’t you tell Uncle Jon and his mates about Stormshrike?”
“Well…” And with that, Laena launched into a detailed recounting of all the drake’s recent shenanigans.
The dragon eggs had been hand-delivered by Rhaenyra a month before Laena’s birth. They were Dreamfyre’s eggs, the clutch having been laid in the Dragon Pit about a month before her death. Rhaenyra’s Syrax had produced several clutches around the same time and continued to produce them at a steady rate since she and Caraxes were a pair of horny buggers, apparently. Dreamfyre’s eggs had been delivered to Aemond since Vhagar was unlikely to lay eggs at her age, whereas Daeron’s Tessarion was only just approaching her reproductive prime.
Point being, there’d be no dragon shortages in the near future.
Per recent Targaryen tradition, one of the eggs – an opalescent white that Sansa deemed the prettiest of the lot – had been placed in Laena’s crib at her one-month birthday, and it hatched around her fourteenth month. The hatchling was white as snow but for black accents on its wingtips, tail-tip, claws, snout, and eyelids. Frankly, the thing was as beautiful as it was frightening – the black around its eyes making it seem to be watching Aemond wherever he went even as Sansa and Arya and Rickon described the same feeling when they weren’t even directly near each other at the time.
Apparently, the coloring was reminiscent of a northern bird called a snowshrike, which had a brutal but effective hunting method of impaling its prey (insect or small vermin) on a thorn so it could take its time eating them. Feeling ‘snowshrike’ would be unoriginal, Arya and Rickon came up with Stormshrike and the name stuck. (It was certainly preferable to whatever name toddler-Laena might’ve chosen).
It had been strange for a while there, being a relatively new father to a human baby and then the main caretaker to a dragon-baby, since no one at Winterfell wanted the job (except Rickon, who Sansa insisted focus on his lessons, and Arya, who tended to sleep until about midday and throw things at anyone who tried to wake her up any earlier). Aemond had a portion of the abandoned First Keep converted into a dragon nursery of sorts, though with no other hatchlings for company, Stormshrike, or ‘Stormy’ became a fixture in the family wing of Winterfell. Rickon, Arya, and little Laenie thought it was grand; Sansa, Lady, and Grey Wind were less pleased with the new living situation. Not that the wolves often visited the family keep, let alone the lord and lady’s suites, but it did happen on occasion. After nearly five years of living at Winterfell, Aemond still found it unsettling to see a wolf the size of a small horse lying in front of the hearth or begging for scraps in the great hall like an everyday hound.
It was even stranger to see a pack of giant wolves trying to corral a dragon hatchling a few weeks later, when Stormshrike first attempted to fly, looking very much like a deadly (and frustrated) chicken. The wolves didn’t know what to make of the odd creature but were as fascinated by the hatchling’s movements and sounds as a kitten is by a butterfly. They’d get bored eventually, but the novelty would renew itself after the wolves spent days away from the castle on a hunt and returned to find the creature bigger and less clumsy than when they’d left.
Aemond worried for the poor old canines, and the poor young canines (Nymeria and Lady had both whelped multiple times since the Long Night ended, though most of the pups were raised in the woods and never saw the inside of the castle). Neddie’s egg would hopefully hatch soon, having been warming in the crib for three months now. It was an earthy shade of green with pale bronze accents that reminded Sansa of the North and of her father, Neddie’s namesake, she’d told him wistfully.
They’d considered taking efforts to hatch all the eggs at once, knowing that if the Others returned it would behoove them to have as many full-grown dragons as possible, but Bran remained convinced that the next Long Night would not come in any of their lifetimes, so there was no need to break tradition.
Finally, just as Laena was finished telling the men all about her first time riding with her daddy on Vhagar’s back while Stormshrike, who was now about two horse-lengths, tried to keep up, Aemond’s other child came into view through the open North gate.
He lifted Laena off his shoulders and set her on the ground so she could run ahead as she liked to do, and she did – sprinting across the moat’s drawbridge and straight for her mother and four-month-old sibling.
Little Neddie was being held by Sansa, who stood a small step in front of all the others in the greeting line but for her siblings. Arya was solemn and straight-backed at Sansa’s right. Rickon, who now stood of a height with Sansa even though he likely had a couple more years of growing to do, was on her left. Jeyne, Maester Corvin (a long story), Jory, Lady Lyanna, Lady Jorelle, Lord Cerwyn, and Lord Hornwood made up the rest of the party (formality was not something Sansa could abandon during special occasions, and she considered this one).
Jon blushed at being one of the guests of honor (today, at least; by tomorrow he’d be just Jon – fair game for sibling hijinks and more likely to be found drilling with the guards than luncheoning with the lords).
“Lord Umber,” Sansa greeted the other Jon in their party first, no matter that the Smalljon was the last who’d stand on ceremony, “Be welcome.”
“My queen,” the auburn-haired half-giant beamed, showing off his shockingly white and straight (and intact) teeth through his bushy beard, “You grow more ravishing every time I see you!” he approached and gave a deep but unpolished bow, his smile never fading.
“That’s ‘cause every time y’see ‘er, she’s got the milk te- OW!” Tormund barked, “Damn yer pointy elbows!”
Aemond did not bother turning around to see who had chastised Tormund. Nor did he bother getting angry that the wildling had noticed (and commented) on Sansa’s breasts being thrice their normal size. Just like he didn’t get angry that Smalljon was trying to charm his wife.
He used to get angry about such things. And jealous. And sometimes a little homicidal. In fact, he used to consider killing every man who ever spoke casually or improperly to Sansa until he realized that would leave the North dangerously low on inhabitants. It didn’t take long to learn that even the noble lords and ladies of the North were much less focused on propriety than those Aemond knew back at court in King’s Landing. Northmen could be serious – gods, could they be serious – but most saw no benefit in biting their tongue, censoring their thoughts, or using verbal embroidery to obfuscate their meanings. In the North, it was perfectly normal for a pair of men to call each other names, then have a fist fight right in the middle of a formal feast, only to share a bench and an ale twenty minutes later, getting schnockered and swaying back and forth as they harmonized a Northern ditty through split lips and fleshy gaps where teeth used to be.
The lords who lived further to the south, such as the Manderlys, the Flints of Widow’s Watch, what was left of the Dustins, and even the Tallharts, were more reserved and refined. The rest were all rather unvarnished, though there was quite a range even within that category. Some, like the Flints up on the Mountain, the Umbers, and the Mormonts, could be downright boorish and had no sense of propriety whatsoever. Lady Mormont and her daughters, Lord Umber, young Lord Flint, would show their loyalty by dying for House Stark if the need arose, not by ‘your gracing’ Sansa all day long or agreeing with her every decision. Others, like young Lord Glover, were quiet and thoughtful and partook in customs of courtesy out of genuine desire. Lord Glover would no doubt seem rough and unrefined if someone plunked him down in Highgarden or the Hightower or the Red Keep, but in Winterfell’s great hall he seemed almost a prince himself. Unlike Smalljon, he’d have greeted Sansa with a kiss to the knuckles and a very polite, “Your grace, it warms my heart to see you recovered and looking so well.”
And speaking of Sansa, she had somehow sidestepped Smalljon’s flirtation and Tormund’s crude commentary and was smiling as her half-brother approached with a warm but reserved smile.
“Lord Commander,” Sansa greeted playfully, “I trust your travels were uneventful?”
Jon blushed but rolled his eyes, “Ha ha. Now hand over that pup to Uncle Jon, or I’ll be forced to resort to kidnapping.”
Sansa let out a breathy laugh, extending her second born to Jon, “Jon, meet Eddara, or Neddie as we’ve taken to calling her. Neddie, meet your Uncle Jon.”
Aemond had been surprised to learn that Jon was a natural with babes back when Laena was a newborn, though in hindsight he shouldn’t have been. Jon was the oldest of the Stark siblings. He and Sansa were only three years apart, but he was five when Arya came along, seven when Bran was born, and twelve when Rickon was born; he’d had plenty of experience holding youngsters even if he mainly did it when Queen Catelyn was not around.
Neddie began fussing instantly to be handed from her mother to a stranger, but Jon knew not to feed into it. He just bopped Neddie up and down while talking to her in a bemused but soothing tone, “Hey now, none of that. No need to be sad. The sky’s blue, the air’s warm, and you’re about as pretty as a sunrise. Almost as pretty as your big sister,” he threw a wink at Laena, who smiled back from where she stood next to Rickon, clasping his hand tightly.
The rest of the greetings were made over and around the sound of Neddie’s crying, which gradually faded as she realized that the result of her tears would not be an immediate return to her mother’s arms. She became fascinated by all the new faces and voices and even smiled when Smalljon held her high overhead as if she were flying, though began crying again when Tormund made the wide-eyed face he thought children loved (in truth, it terrified children and adults alike). Aemond groaned as he gently pried his daughter away from the confused and insulted wildling. Because both his daughters had now offended the man, he felt the need to soften the blow. “Don’t mind her; she’s probably just hungry.” It was half a lie. Yes, this was Neddie’s hungry cry, or at least the cry that didn’t stop until a nipple was pressed to her lips, but he knew that Tormund’s “funny face” had been the catalyst of her upset.
“I don’t blame ‘er,” Tormund jerked his head subtly (or what he thought was subtle) in the direction of where Sansa was speaking with Jon and one of the Free Folk chieftains, then looked at Aemond and wiggled his eyebrows conspiratorially.
Aemond made a fist of the hand that wasn’t holding Neddie and then counted to ten while repeating the chant that had proven quite effective over the years at quelling his temper (with Tormund and many others): He’s harmless. Crude and boorish and born without a shred of self-awareness, but harmless. At his core he’s a good man. Er, not a bad man? He’s loyal. We’ve broken bread together. We’ve fought side-by-side. We’ve bled together. We’ve endured together. Someday our sons will do the same. And if you kill him, Sansa will be cross with you. And you might even come to- Dammit, Sansa, stay over there!
“Jeyne can handle getting everyone settled,” Sansa smiled as she arrived at Aemond’s side a few seconds after her teats, reaching for Neddie.
He didn’t care how it looked; he pivoted himself to block Tormund’s view before handing over their daughter.
Her smile dropped instantly, “It’s not like I can help it,” she mumbled at him without moving her lips.
“I know,” he mumbled back, “Just…” he couldn’t rightly tell her to keep to their rooms until all the guests had departed and to absent herself from all festivities, could he?
No, probably not.
“Shall I escort you back to the family wing, sister?” Rickon appeared as if heavens-sent, speaking at a normal volume until he stood in a tight triangle with Aemond and Sansa, at which point he adopted their mumbling to say, “No more hosting any Black Brothers until those things go back to normal. You know they go years without seeing—”
“What are we whispering about?” Tormund whispered – very loudly – as he positioned himself perpendicular to Aemond and Sansa. “Is there a threat? Is it that Lil’ Jon? Never trusted gingers. ‘Cept you two. And this lit’l one now.” His eyes did a rather commendable job of staying fixed on only their faces until they flicked down to Neddie, who was still crying and being held against Sansa’s bosom.
They never went back up.
Aemond groaned and used a hand each on Rickon and Sansa to turn them and push them in the direction of the family keep, to the confusion of some but the amusement (or disappointment) of more. He cast a scathing look at Bertrus (he didn’t have to see to know where his eyes had spent the past twenty minutes), who had the decency to shrink and turn away.
“Right. Now that yer woman’s gone somewheres safe, what’s our move? Does Lord Crow know to be ready? What about the she-wolf?” Tormund asked in all seriousness while resting his right hand on the head of his axe.
Aemond sighed very loudly, “There’s no danger, Tormund, except of me feeding you to Vhagar if you cannot summon the self-restraint to not look at or comment on my wife’s… appearance.”
“But they’re—!”
Aemond held up a finger sternly, “Stop.”
“But—!”
“No.”
Tormund huffed in frustration then narrowed his eyes and moved his hands to his hips, “That dragon of yers is a she-beast, ain’t she?”
Aemond brought the finger between his brows and pressed, “Tormund – because I’m never entirely sure whether you’re japing or not – please, do not try to fuck my dragon. It will not end well for you.”
“Har! But it’ll end well for her, won’t it?”
“That’s… I…” Aemond scrunched his face and held out his hands, “What?”
“Oh, you’ll see,” Tormund grinned and sauntered away.
“Gods, I hope not,” Aemond mumbled after him.
Arya arrived at his side with a snort and an evil smirk.
“What?” he growled at her.
She shrugged, “Just wondering if a dragon the size of Vhagar would even notice if he succeeded.”
Aemond grimaced, “He hasn’t really fucked a bear, has he?”
“Pretty sure he hasn’t.”
“Pretty sure?”
She teetered the hand that wasn’t resting on her sword’s pommel, “Fifty-fifty.”
“Wonderful,” Aemond rolled his eye.
She rolled her eyes back, “Fine, eighty-twenty.”
“I’m really only going to be satisfied by a hundred percent on this one.”
“I’m not 100% certain that Tormund’s not a bear, so that’s not going to be possible.”
With that she sauntered off, heading for a group of Umber men-at-arms she’d grown close with during the Long Night.
Aemond knew he should go make small talk with one of the visiting lords, but when Lady hopped over for her afternoon scritch, he decided he preferred the company of creatures who couldn’t speak.
<<<<>>>>
“…I take this man.”
And that was that.
Northern wedding ceremonies were rather simple, if not downright transactional. No sermon about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of fidelity, trust, and respect. No horseshit about men and women complementing and balancing one another. No songs, no prayers. All told it was wrapped up in about one minute, not including the time it took to walk to and from the heart tree.
Just like that, Aemond’s little brother and Sansa’s little sister were married.
To each other.
Mother had not made the journey, and for that Aemond was sorry. His little brother had done nothing that Alicent should be bothered by.
Nothing but choosing to be friendly with his brother, the kinslayer, and his brother’s heathen family.
Daeron was not unwelcome in the Hightower, like Aemond supposedly was, but he did not feel comfortable there, either. It sounded like Mother poured all her attention into her grandchildren and gave her own child little more than cold courtesy. At least, after Daeron proved to be unwilling to conspire against his only living sibling, such as by assassinating Sansa or abducting Aemond from Winterfell and delivering him to the Starry Sept, where the High Septon could purge him of his sins and remove the yoke of Sansa Stark’s heretical influence.
Daeron had thus spent most of his time in Winterfell when not in the Red Keep. He’d visit Oldtown to deliver nameday gifts to his nephews and niece, but that was about it.
Rhaenyra had been as good to Daeron as she could be, creating a position for him that also appeased those in the capital who thought the rebellious North got off too easy. To ensure the North was seen as a separate but equal kingdom allied with the Crown, she made Daeron Maester of Interkingdom Affairs. Basically, he brought to Rhaenyra’s attention any issues Northros might need support with and vice versa. He was meant to act as intermediary between the two queens but given the frequency of letters between either Aemond or Sansa and Rhaenyra, it wasn’t truly necessary for Daeron to play messenger.
While Rhaenyra honored Daeron with an appointment, Sansa honored him with a home. After catching Daeron and Arya in a rather indelicate position a few months ago, she decided it would be best that they wed. Arya of a few years earlier would’ve sooner cut off her hair and run away to some foreign land. Arya of today had shrugged and said she was thinking of marrying him anyway. Sansa had been hurt that her sister didn’t confide such things in her. Unsurprisingly, it devolved into a heated debate between the sisters while Daeron hid himself under the bedcovers hoping Sansa would forget about him entirely.
Aemond had only been concerned that Daeron might be taking something that Jace – married and with a son as of two months ago – thought belonged to him. Arya immediately set him straight about that, saying that Jace had fancied her but never so much as kissed her. In fact, during his final visit to Winterfell shortly after the Spring Council, he’d taken Arya aside and apologized for leading her on, explaining that he was promised to another and had let grief and a sudden appreciation for his own mortality make him act as he had toward her. Arya, not even realizing he’d thought he was doing something untoward, had accepted his apology then laughed about it with her friends after he left. Apparently, she had found Daeron rather appealing from the first time they met but knew her siblings would give her hell for “wanting some prissy Southron with golden hair and wildflower eyes” and thus ignored the attraction until “the pretty bugger wore me down”. Daeron hadn’t known whether to be offended or flattered. Nor had Aemond, when Arya’s response to Sansa pointing out that her husband had the same coloring was, “aye, but yours ain’t pretty”.
Truly, between Arya and Rickon, it was a miracle that Aemond hadn’t developed a complex.
All in all, Aemond was simply happy for his brother. With the marriage, he’d become Lord of what used to be called the Dreadfort, as it was being granted to him and Arya to establish a new branch of House Stark. What the new branch would be called remained a topic of debate. No one liked Sansa’s suggestion of ‘Stargaryen’ (they’d blamed pregnancy for addling her wits), and Arya refused to simply turn her surname into a suffix as the Karstarks and Greystarks had done, which was for the best because otherwise they might go with Rickon’s suggestion of Tarstark.
As for the castle itself, Ary’s ‘Wolf Fort’ and Daeron’s ‘Dragonfort’ had both been shot down, and Sansa redeemed herself by suggesting Northfort, which not only rolled off the tongue but fit the plans she had for the place.
The Dreadfort had been held by a garrison of Stark-loyal men, with Lord Vayon Poole acting as castellan and steward, since the Bolton line was extinguished. Sansa’s original plan had been to give it to Rickon, along with unofficial sovereignty of everything north of Winterfell – which included Last Hearth, Bear Island, Karhold, the island of Skagos, along with about forty mountain clans. Sansa would remain Queen in the North, but Prince Rickon would have the authority to decide on most matters normally under the queen’s purview for the houses and lands in his territory, only keeping her informed by meeting or letter or escalating the matter to her if it potentially affected houses beyond those who called him liege.
Thanks to Rickon falling in love with Lady Lyanna Mormont – three years his senior – such would not come to pass. Lyanna refused to live anywhere but Bear Island (though she’d been a staple of Winterfell since about a year after the Dawn War concluded). Rickon refused to live anywhere but wherever Lyanna was. Lady Maege thought it would be good for her island home to finally have a lord, not that she and her brood of daughters had seemed weak without a male at the helm.
Of course, as a queen, Sansa couldn’t match her princely brother to a fifth daughter (third now since two of her sisters were deceased) unless there was to be some significant benefit to House Stark – that much was no different than in the South. So it was decided that Lady Maege’s current heir, her seven-year-old grandson Danner, would wed Rickon and Lyanna’s eventual firstborn daughter. It would put a bit of an age gap between the pair, but certainly nothing unheard of. And if Rickon and Lyanna never had a daughter, or didn’t have one until so far in the future that it would make the match inadvisable, then oh well – they’d look for a match in the next generation. Really, Sansa just needed to make sure it didn’t look like she was giving Rickon away for free to avoid insulting those of her bannermen with unwed daughters. There weren’t many of them, though. Erena Glover, Rickon’s junior by three years, was a simpleton and would only inherit if her elder brother Gawen died before her and without issue. Gawen had been betrothed to a Free Folk girl after the rebellion, one of the many marriages or betrothals Sansa encouraged her people to pursue to ensure plenty of common cause beyond survival was shared between the kneelers and the wildlings. Alys Karstark had been another. She hadn’t participated in her father and brother’s treachery against House Stark and ended up inheriting Karhold and taking a strange but civil enough Free Folk man as her husband.
Those were the most prominent matches between the once enemies, but there were plenty occurring among the petty nobles and commoners, particularly in the far north where the Gift and the New Gift had been essentially leased out by the Night’s Watch to the Free Folk. Some, of course, had returned north of the Wall to their largely nomadic lifestyle, taking comfort in the fact that they would always be allowed through at any of the manned castles – which was all but three of them, thanks in part to Rhaenyra’s generosity, but also owing to the number of Free Folk who settled there, with the Lord Commander and Queen in the North’s blessing.
As Aemond walked with Sansa’s hand wrapped around his forearm to the great hall, he thought it might be for the best that Arya and Daeron would effectively be the stewards of all lands north of Winterfell. It wasn’t that Rickon and Lyanna wouldn’t have done a good job, but that Arya and Daeron had been very visible during the War for the Dawn, which earned them the respect of men like Lord Umber. Lyanna had had nothing to do with the war her mother and elder sisters fought in (which claimed Dacey and Lyra before the end), instead staying behind to care for Bear Island’s people, including her nephew and niece. Yes, Rickon had been inside the mind of Caraxes at times, and had been critical to getting the dragons to the Wall to begin with, but even in the North skinchanging was an ability that few understood and many feared. Its utility in times of war was appreciated, but Aemond got the impression that few men would want Rickon Stark as a goodson, for fear they’d be spied on in their own castle by birds, dogs, or cats, or that if their goodson was eager to take the lordship, he could easily have the lord’s horse throw its rider. The ladies of House Mormont, on the other hand, had no such qualms. In fact, Jorelle had joked that Rickon could slip into the skin of a bear to consummate his and Lyanna’s union, since it was a tradition of Mormont women to let bears sire their babes.
(Aemond still didn’t know if anyone had actually fucked or been fucked by a bear, but the number of people who claimed to have done so was disturbing. Even more disturbing was the way Lady Lyanna seemed to take her sister’s jape as a valid suggestion. Even more more disturbing was that, when Aemond expressed his concerns to Sansa, she reassured him that Rickon would never use his powers in such a way but that, if he did, he would surely use a small bear.)
(He’d never admit so, but those who called Northerners barbaric weren’t completely wrong…)
“I say you’ll be an aunt in precisely nine moon-turns,” Jeyne sidled up to Sansa on the opposite side of Aemond, smiling impishly.
“Eight,” Sansa countered without missing a beat.
While Jeyne pretended to be scandalized Aemond said, “Seven. Shall we bet a silver moon on it?”
“Deal,” the ladies harmonized.
<<<<>>>>
“You’re drunk,” Sansa accused when they arrived at their bedchamber after the long walk from the great hall.
“I am,” he admitted. He felt no shame in it. He wasn’t a lush – far from it – and tonight had been a special occasion.
“You’re happy,” Sansa smiled teasingly, steering him to sit on the edge of the bed.
“I am,” he admitted, though less readily. It was one thing to be happy, especially when only a select few ever saw the proof of it in the form of a smile on his face or a chuckle slipping past his lips. That all felt safe. Humble. Like he was making what he could out of life without taking more than he was due. But to go around smiling like a loon, slapping men on the back congenially, complimenting the ladies on their jewelry or embroidery, complimenting the servants on a job well done, felt like it would be pushing his luck.
He liked to think his wife knew that he was quite content in this life of theirs. No, he knew that she knew. But for her to see evidence of it presented so blatantly as opposed to something she caught a glimpse of when Aemond didn’t know she was looking was new.
But he was drunk, so he didn’t mind.
He put his hands on her lush hips and pulled her to stand between his legs, “Very happy,” he added in a low voice.
Her hands came to his shoulders as his name drifted out of her mouth, spoken for no reason other than to hear herself say it.
“Mmm,” he hummed contentedly as he leaned forward, resting his forehead just above her decolletage, his nose right in the crevice of it.
Sansa snorted in amusement. Whether because her normally stoic husband was proving himself as silly as all other men or because he was so drunk that he didn’t feel compelled to do anything more than rest on his favorite pillow, he didn’t know.
“Aem, come on,” she patted his shoulder, “Let’s get you to bed. I need to go to the nursery and hope Amara hasn’t fed Neddie in the past hour or else I’m going to burst.”
He shook his head between her ample breasts, his mind a bit too slow to figure out why the idea of her ‘bursting’ didn’t bother him. “Let’s both go to bed,” he suggested.
“Aem, come on,” she pushed him away by the shoulders and he let her, because he needed to see what he was doing. He started with the wide belt made of hammered silver in the front that connected to wide silk panels on the side which were tied in the back. He reached around and pulled one end of the bow then pulled the silver plate free and tossed it behind him with his right hand. He must’ve missed the bed for he heard it clatter on the floor, followed by another of Sansa’s snorts. Perhaps she was a bit drunk, too.
Next, he untied her dress at the front, the point of the V-neckline. The silk fell away and exposed his wife’s shift and bodice, but he still had to contend with the inner side-ties of the blasted dress. Why was women’s attire so bloody complicated? It didn’t help that it was mostly dark in the chambers – no need for a hearth fire on a late Spring eve in a castle warmed by hot springs. Nor did it help that he couldn’t focus on the tiny knots because his eyes were as drunk as the rest of him.
Eventually the dress fell away and Aemond set about his next task: the bodice. He loosened the ties enough to be able to slip it over Sansa’s hips, then tugged her shift down and finally her unders.
She hadn’t objected to being undressed, which was a good thing. Sansa had learned weeks ago that none of the marks motherhood left on her body could make him want her less. The extra skin on her tummy, the squiggly lines there and on her hips and thighs. The way her thighs and other parts jiggled rather violently when he fucked her. He had never before found himself attracted to a more matronly figure, but he supposed that was only because he associated matronly figures with women who were carrying other men’s children. To see Sansa fill out in places that would never return to their original size or consistency due to carrying his children… Well, it did things to him.
It wasn’t that she’d gotten plump, and he assumed that, as with Laena, she’d lose much of the extra weight she carried now four months after giving birth, but that her tummy and thighs and breasts would likely never be described as ‘taut’ again, unless she never fell pregnant again, which he didn’t think was a realistic prospect. He wanted her all the time, and she wanted him back (most of the time).
“You’re staring worse than Tormund did.”
Aemond looked up, “They’re mine to stare at.”
She lifted a brow, “I believe Neddie has more right to them than you do. I believe I have more right to them than you do.”
Just for that, he grabbed both orbs of flesh – they were heavy and swollen from going hours without nursing – and pressed his lips against the inside of the right one.
“Aemond,” Sansa pushed against his shoulders again, “Stop or you’re going to make me leak!”
He growled and flicked his tongue against the nipple.
“Oh…” was Sansa’s response. It was all the permission he needed. He thrashed the swollen bud rather violently with his tongue, flicking it, then circling it, then flicking it again.
“Gods,” Sansa gasped, then she was the one being violent in the way she shoved Aemond away from her breast so she could tear at his jerkin (literally – one of the buttons popped off and landed somewhere on the floor), then his tunic, then the laces of his breeches. Other than lifting his arms or rump when needed, he didn’t help too much. He even let her deal with his boots though normally he’d be too proud to let his wife and queen lower herself to such a task.
He ought to be too proud to let her lower herself to the task she did next, but he didn’t possess that much self-restraint sober, let alone drunk.
He rested his weight behind him on his palms and let his head drop back while Sansa took him in her mouth with no licks or kisses to warm him up.
“I need you hard as a rock,” she explained before dipping her head to lick his sack, making him twitch from head to toe. Her tongue stroked the loose skin over his right stone, then his left, then she was sucking the left one into her mouth while pulling her head back, tugging him lightly until she released gently, letting her spit-slick lips glide off.
He brought his chin to his chest and watched his wife feast on his stones while her left hand held his cock loosely out of the way. The fervor with which her tongue slathered him and her mouth sucked either his skin or an entire stone into her mouth would leave an observer to believe he was as tasty down there as the finest delicacy.
She brought her lips to his cockhead and pushed down, moaning in arousal to find him even harder than rock, or so it felt to him.
“Scoot,” she commanded him, rising to her feet only to kneel on the bed and arrange the pillows stacked up against the headboard. When he failed to understand her intent, she bodily moved him until he was half sitting, half lying against the pillows, his long legs stretched out before him.
Then she was climbing aboard and sinking down while leaning her palms on his chest. It put her arms close together, which pressed her breasts together, which was to a horny man what ringing a dinner bell was to a hungry man.
He brought her right breast up to his mouth – it didn’t have far to travel – flicking his tongue against the bud his hand aimed at his mouth. The left breast he caressed more softly with his right hand – or he thought it was soft until he pulled his mouth away to catch his breath and realized each hand was cupping a teat and squeezing.
“You’ll speak of this to no one,” Sansa commanded in a voice equal parts husky and intimidating.
He didn’t know what this was but nodded anyway. He’d never been one to brag about his bedroom exploits and certainly wouldn’t do it when those exploits involved the Queen in the North, the mother of his children.
Soon enough he got the clarity he was seeking when Sansa cupped her left hand around her left breast, used her right hand to grasp the back of Aemond’s neck, and brought her nipple to his mouth. All the while she never stopped slowly rocking on his cock, which was fine by him – he did not want this night to end and the pace and motion she set was far from the most efficient.
He circled his tongue around her nipple until he heard Sansa make a clicking noise then say, “Suckle it.”
A rush of warm pleasure filled his cock.
Fuck, he cursed inside his head, then he closed his lips around his wife’s nipple and sucked, just as he’d done hundreds of times before, albeit never when she was nursing.
He thought he was doing just fine until Sansa made another clicking noise, “You’re not doing it right. Do it like the babes do.”
That made him blush, because men were not supposed to know how, precisely, babes sucked at their mother’s teats, or so he’d always believed, but it was another thing that was markedly different in the North. Noblewomen here, apparently, nursed if they could and only used a wetnurse to ensure their babe did not go hungry if they had to be away for part of the day or night. So far as Aemond knew, Southern ladies used wetnurses as a default, though it was such a base subject to speak about that he’d never have found out if that was true or not. If Southern noblewomen nursed their children, it was not talked about or even alluded to in mixed company. Aemond wasn’t even sure if women talked about it with other women.
Here in the North, he’d heard lords talk about the subject! Not idly, of course, but if there was some practical reason to do so. A man might excuse his wife’s absence from a special event by telling Sansa (with Aemond right next to her!), that his wife was indisposed, tending their infant child. Sansa would inquire into how mother and child were doing. The lord might give a generic answer, or if he was one of the friendlier ones he might smile and say, “My boy’s got an appetite that’s keeping my poor lady wife up all hours of the night!”
On another occasion, he’d heard one lord tell another, who’d inquired about his wife’s health after delivering their second babe a few months earlier, that his wife hadn’t been able to make milk and was feeling down about it. As if the average Northern lord had all the knowledge of a wisewoman, the inquirer had given the other lord a sympathetic smile and told him that his sister had had the same problem with her thirdborn and that there was no fault to be placed at the mother’s feet.
In short, the North was much less proper about matters such as childbirth and childrearing and childnursing. Even though she’d had a dreadful melancholy after Laena was born, Sansa did not leave their daughter’s survival to a servant. Aemond could still remember like it was yesterday the first time he’d witnessed the intimate act. It was just after Laena’s birth. Being in the birthing room was strange enough, though not entirely unheard of even for men of the South. Aemond had been holding Laena without her making a peep for several minutes when she began fussing and squirming and crying. The wisewoman took her and Aemond had figured she’d do whatever it was that older women seemed to be able to do to calm children. Instead, she handed Laena to Sansa, uncovered Sansa’s right breast, and moved the breast around to rub the nipple against Laena’s open, crying lips, until Laena instinctively closed her lips and began sucking so forcefully it was audible even several steps away.
Aemond, stunned, had turned away to give his wife privacy, mumbled that he’d return later, and bumped into a chair on his way to the door.
To make a long story short, laughter had followed him out of the room and just about everywhere he went for the next fortnight. Jeyne had to curl her lips into her mouth every time they crossed paths, and Arya had brazenly asked him if he was the only man who didn’t like seeing a big titty being sucked on. When the story somehow made its way to Lady Jorelle Mormont’s ears (the young lady truly was a thorn in his side), she had laughed uproariously over the fact that Aemond had managed to stay upright and conscious through the entire delivery but nearly fainted when he saw his child feeding.
There was nothing he could do to redeem himself – he’d sound like a ponce if he reminded everyone that things were done differently in the South – but he made sure to never flee the scene of one of his feeding children ever again.
Thus, he knew that babes sucked on nipples rather differently for nourishment than men did for entertainment.
“Are you trying to make a fool of me?” he asked, because while he didn’t mind the idea of doing what Sansa said, it did strike him as a strange request. Perhaps Arya and Rickon had just made him paranoid about being the subject of practical jokes, but he needed to be sure.
“No,” Sansa shook her head assuredly, and Aemond knew this was no trick or jape – his wife wasn’t the type to do such a thing, nor to look into his eyes and lie (their earliest encounters notwithstanding).
“Gods,” he mumbled under his breath, realizing he was about to drink from the teats that half the men of the North drooled over… the teats that he drooled over. A queen’s teats. Royal teats.
His cock was so hard he was sure he’d be bursting before Sansa did.
He closed his fingers around the flesh, closed his mouth around the nipple, and closed his eye against the embarrassment. Then he sucked like he would if he was trying to draw maple sap through a tapper, caving in his cheeks and sucking in bursts rather than in one continuous breath. And while he sucked then relaxed his mouth in a continuous cycle, he squeezed and relaxed his hand, trying to draw the milk forward into his awaiting mouth.
And finally he felt it, a brief but noticeable splash of warmth on his tongue, and after another few moments of sucking it flowed in what seemed a near continuous stream.
“Gods!” Sansa growled, working her hips frenetically and holding his head against her chest tightly. “Gods, Aemond, don’t stop. Don’t… don’t… oh fuuuuck,” she groaned, low and throaty, as she peaked almost instantly.
The place they were joined was sopping wet, hot and slippery and coating his entire groin and even inner thighs. If not that he knew it had rubbed off her intimate skin onto his own rather than gushing out in a stream, he might’ve thought she wet herself, and yet he wouldn’t have cared because her inner muscles were flexing intermittently, milking him like he was milking her.
“Other side,” she commanded breathily, almost sleepily.
He pulled his mouth away and cleaned up what little milk dribbled out after with his tongue. Then he rolled to his right side without dislodging from her cunt, until she was half on her side, half on her back. He locked onto her right breast and sucked with the same technique he’d used on the other one until milk flowed. He swallowed down every precious drop while Sansa cried out in delirious pleasure, holding his head against her bosom. He fucked her at the pace that would get both of them off, and sure enough Sansa’s praise of the gods repeated until she was gasping through another orgasm, her twitching channel bringing him with her. He spent inside her but never released her breast – and she didn’t seem to want him to. He just rolled to his side, lying front-to-front with his wife, and suckled at her breast until there was nothing flowing out.
They didn’t talk about it afterwards, which was convenient for both of them. He didn’t want to be made to admit that something about suckling like a babe at a working breast was not just arousing to his cock but comforting to his heart. And certainly Sansa didn’t want to be asked if she always found it so pleasant when her milk flowed.
But he was certain they both knew the truth of it, because sometimes – not always, but sometimes – after feeding Neddie, Sansa would seek Aemond out, already ready for him. And sometimes Aemond fell asleep with his mouth latched around a nipple and his cock soft and dry in his smallclothes.
No, they never spoke of it at all, but starting right from the day after it happened for the first time, Tormund somehow intuited that Aemond had drank from his wife’s teats.
Intuited and approved.
Which was about as disturbing as everything else about the man, but at least Aemond could say that life in the North would never be boring.
(Who was he kidding? He’d pay a small fortune for just one week of ‘boring’.)
<<<<>>>>
Jon’s fingers tickled his waist and Satin couldn’t help but smile even as he grabbed his lover’s hand and pushed it away.
“I’m trying to sleep,” he insisted.
“You’ll sleep like a babe, after we…”
Poor man still couldn’t say it. Satin wanted to roll his eyes, but Jon was a sensitive sort. Moreover, he actually was in the mood. He hadn’t been, at first. After a month of travel then over a week of helping Jon prepare for everything from formal meetings to casual luncheons to elaborate feasts (and, of course, a wedding), Satin had expected to return to his chambers and fall asleep before his head hit the pillow. He expected Jon to do the same after spending the night fending off the ladies of the North and even those who’d come up from the South to witness Princess Arya and Prince Daeron’s nuptials.
It had once bothered Satin, the way girls and women looked at his lord commander, even though he’d had no right to be bothered.
It had bothered him until the day his commander knocked on his door, eyes shadowed and bloodshot, new scrapes and bruises littering his beautiful face, his wavy hair a tangle of impossible knots… and yet his expression saying that the worst part of that whole long night business was the loneliness.
Satin had let him in, made room for him in his narrow bed, and held him until it was time to awaken for the afternoon reports, then the meal, and then, of course, the never-ending fight.
The same repeated now and then until one day Jon asked, “Satin…?”
And Satin answered, “Yes.”
Satin took Jon by surprise, rolling over to hover over him, forcing Jon onto his back in the process. (Well, he couldn’t force Jon to do anything but that which he wanted to do anyway.)
“Why don’t you just admit that you can’t sleep unless you’ve had my cock, hm?” he asked in a purr against Jon’s lips.
He didn’t have to put space between them to know Jon’s cheeks were pink.
“Well?” he asked when his lover remained mum.
“Satin…” Jon threatened, though it never sounded very threatening to him.
“Don’t take that tone with me, Snow, or the next time you go down to the baths your men will wonder at the red handprints on your lily-white arse.”
Jon reached for his hip, trying to pull him down against Jon’s thigh.
Satin pulled away, kneeling beside Jon and twirling his index finger in the air until Jon – albeit with a flash of indignation in his stormy eyes – rolled to his stomach.
“So obedient,” Satin praised wickedly, knowing the stubborn, proud wolf beneath him hated to be called ‘obedient’.
(But also knowing that he loved to be called obedient.)
He ran a hand down Jon’s long back, just about the most beautiful back he’d ever seen. Taut muscle, straight spine, a smattering of scars that proved just how resilient the back’s owner was.
“If you want me to make you feel good, take off your unders.”
A huff came before Jon lifted his hips enough to comply, pushing his unders down his legs until they were only covering his calves.
And the moment he was done, Satin cracked his left hand on Jon’s left cheek, earning a hiss of surprise and pain. “Huff at me again, see what happens,” he growled.
Jon nodded – a stilted, reticent thing.
Satin had at times been tempted to push things further. To make Jon call him ‘master’, perhaps, or to make him say ‘thank you’ every time he was spanked, but he thought it was better that Jon’s preferences were not so extreme as to wish to be truly submitted. For Jon, the pleasure was in giving in to his temptations, though without ever abandoning his reservations completely. For Satin, the pleasure was in knowing how much Jon wanted him that he could not resist that temptation, no matter that society was not particularly kind to men of their persuasion.
Though Satin wasn’t entirely sure it was either of their persuasions. His own sexuality was established for him at such a young age: to like whatever his customer was, whatever his customer wanted. Man or woman didn’t matter. Whether they wanted to pleasure him or be pleasured by him didn’t matter. Whether they wanted to hurt him or be hurt by him didn’t matter. Certainly, there’d been acts that Satin preferred over others, but it had never occurred to him that he only liked men, or only liked women. He figured Jon was in the same boat, given he’d fucked women in the past.
No, what was between them wasn’t a case of a pair of men settling for the other because there weren’t better options to for satisfying their unorthodox desires, but because they had those desires only for the other. Once Satin realized how he felt about his commander, no other man or woman appealed to him. And he’d never asked, but he was certain Jon felt the same.
Satin rubbed at the place where Jon’s cheek was smarting, then slowly let his fingers dawdle to the right until they were pressing against the skin between Jon’s arse and his stones. Jon hissed and writhed at the way Satin tickled him with ghost-light touches.
“Is this where you want me to touch you?” he asked, then waited for Jon to answer.
When an answer didn’t come he paused his ministrations, “Well?”
Jon’s answer came through gritted teeth, “Higher.”
Satin hummed and brought his finger to Jon’s rosebud, “Here?” he asked with exaggerated innocence.
“Fuck, Satin, just…”
“Just what?”
“You know what!”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Dammit, just…” Jon trailed off with a growl.
Satin smiled, “How about I try different things, and you tell me when I do the thing you want?”
A grunt was Jon’s response.
First, Satin circled his dry finger against Jon’s hole. It’d been weeks since he’d taken him, so he did not dare try any penetration without something to slicken his finger, just the hint of some.
Jon did nothing but shiver.
“Hmm,” Satin brought two fingers to his lips and spit on them, then returned them to Jon’s crack, circling the rim in slow, dawdling movements.
Still Jon said not a word.
So, Satin shifted so he was more behind Jon than next to him, dug his fingers into those glorious arse cheeks, and spread him. He leaned in and down, sticking his tongue out as far as it could go and licking a stripe from Jon’s stones up to his arse. Immediately Jon jolted up until his back was arched like a cat’s.
“Don’t stop,” Jon whined.
“Don’t stop what?”
“Dammit, Satin!”
“I’m not a mind reader, Jon.”
“I swear, one of these days…”
“You’ll what?”
Jon grumbled something inaudible then took a deep breath and finally said, “Don’t stop… licking me.”
“Licking you where?”
“Dammit, Satin!”
Satin chuckled, “Fine, Jon. But only because I plan to fuck this pretty little cunt, and it’ll be easier to do if you’re nice and ready for me.”
With that, he set to work.
…
“I’m close,” Jon breathed.
As if Satin couldn’t tell. Jon had lost all sense of rhythm atop him, his hips looking jerky and desperate as he tried to move in a way that stimulated his arse just right on Satin’s cock and his cock just right in Satin’s hand. He went from back and forth – ideal for his cock – to grinding and rocking – ideal for his arse – and back again. Over and over. It was such a pretty sight: Jon Snow losing control, trembling and sweating through the intensity of the pleasure even if the completion remained evasive. Satin could lie back and watch such a display for the rest of his life. It didn’t hurt that Jon’s muscles were tight and bulging from all the effort and all the pent-up pressure waiting to be released. Nor that he could look down and watch Jon’s one-eyed snake appear then disappear in his hand, his grip loose to keep things from ending too soon.
Jon used to hate fucking this way. No doubt being on top made it seem like it was all his doing. Perhaps lying on his belly, pressed between his mattress and Satin’s body, he could pretend it was being forced on him. The first time Satin told Jon to either get on top or leave, the steward had half-expected to lose his life. Jon didn’t kill him, but he did leave. And stayed away for a fortnight then came back horny and humble but not humble enough. Satin again told him to get on top and Jon again refused. But instead of issuing another ultimatum, Satin lied back on his mattress and freed his already hard cock. His strokes were long and slow, bringing his skin all the way up over the head then all the way down to his bollocks, letting his reddish head peek out to salute the lord commander.
Jon deserved credit for how long he watched without rubbing at the bulge in his breeches before springing forward to take Satin in his mouth, getting him nice and wet with the good, extra-slippery spit from the back of his throat before dropping his pants and climbing on.
“Shouldn’t be surprised, for all the times I’ve seen you ahorse, but you’re a very good rider, m’lord.”
Jon’s pale cheeks had gone an unhealthy shade of red.
Now those same cheeks were red from exertion and pleasure and Satin found himself unable to hold in a bark of laughter.
Jon stilled, giving him a chastising look, “What could you possibly be laughing at?”
Satin ran a hand down his face, “You won’t get it, but I was just thinking, ‘oh, if your sisters could see us now’.”
He realized how it sounded when Jon went to climb off. Satin clamped his hands on Jon’s thighs, “I don’t mean literally! It’s just that… well, I found out today that they think I’m the rider.”
Jon was too strong and too pissed for Satin to hold him in place. He swung off too abruptly, yanking a fur off the bed and covering his waist with it.
Satin closed his eyes and sighed. He’d forgotten that their relationship was a secret even to Jon’s beloved siblings, who he’d trust with any other matter including his life.
Or Jon thought it was a secret. Or at least he thought his siblings had nothing more than suspicions, if even that. It was hard to tell because he refused to talk about it. Really, he refused to talk about what they were to each other even to Satin. It wasn’t like it mattered, they were men sworn to the Night’s Watch, not a pair of teenage lovers (of the male and female variety) thinking to elope if their parents didn’t agree to let them wed. They’d live and die at the Wall no matter what other choices they made.
What Jon didn’t know because he was willfully oblivious was that, not only did most of their brothers in black know – men fucking men when there were no women to be had was neither surprising nor scandalous as long as it wasn’t spoken of – but Jon’s siblings did as well. Likely Aemond, too. Maybe Daeron. All of them were nothing but happy to know that Jon had someone to love and be loved by, but if any of them ever tried to say as much to him, he’d probably turn around and march all the way to Castle Black and never travel south again.
“You told them,” Jon accused through gritted teeth.
Satin sat up while shaking his head, “No, never. But your sisters aren’t stupid.”
Jon buried a hand in his curls, “Who else knows?”
Satin sighed, “Probably everyone at Castle Black suspects it. Just like they suspect Clay and Randall, Jarvis and Dale, Oryk and—”
“Fuck,” Jon hissed, “Forget about our Brothers. What exactly did my sisters say to you?”
Satin pulled one of the blankets over his rapidly deflating cock, “Mind you, she was a bit tipsy, but it was just me and Sansa and Arya talking and Sansa told Arya, ‘You’re officially a dragonrider now. Welcome to the club’”
Jon frowned at him, “The club?”
Satin shrugged, “Like I said, she assumed that I’m the rider and you’re the steed.”
“But what does that have to do with dragons?”
Satin rolled his eyes, “Sansa married a Targaryen, now Arya married a Targaryen, and I’m with you – who Sansa is convinced has some Targaryen blood.”
Instantly Jon’s anger became disgust. He rubbed his fingers into his eyeballs and groaned before plopping on the end of the mattress, “I really don’t like thinking about that, and you know it.”
“So what if you have a little Targaryen—”
“Not that. I don’t like thinking about Sansa or Arya… you know…” Jon lifted his shoulders in a whole-body cringe.
“Riding their dragons?”
“Stop!” Jon whined.
Satin smirked, “They say your sister Arya is one of the best horsewomen in the North…”
Jon glared at him from beneath his dark brows, “That’s not funny.”
“And doesn’t Aemond have the biggest dragon that ever lived?”
“Gods,” Jon cringed. Satin might need to stop – it looked like his lover might actually be ill.
“Alright, enough japing,” Satin sighed, “I do believe you weren’t finished with your ride…” he leaned forward and squeezed Jon’s bare shoulder. It was so damned meaty he wanted to take a bite out of it. “Come on, love. Let me distract you,” he added when Jon didn’t move.
Jon glanced at him, stared at him, really, and suddenly the lines in his forehead softened and he went from grimacing to grinning.
“What?” Satin asked.
“They think you’re the rider…”
“So?” Satin shrugged.
“They look at you… and look at me… and think that you’re the… the woman.”
Satin scoffed, “That’s not what it means.”
But that was precisely what it meant, wasn’t it?
And yes, he was the smaller of the two. Yes, Jon was the better swordsman. But Satin was far more poised and level-headed, less likely to get emotional and to show his emotions. He was far less sensitive. Far less sensitive!
Where did Sansa get off, thinking Satin was the one taking it? Did she truly think he was the feminine one? He liked to think neither of them were feminine, thank you very much! Even when he was a whore, he wasn’t that kind of whore, wearing kohl around his eyes and rouge on his cheeks, swaying his hips or even going so far as to wear skirts instead of pants!
Jon’s low chuckling brought him out of his musings. Satin scowled at him. Jon – cocky bugger – reached for his cheek.
Satin swatted his hand away, “I’m not in the mood anymore.”
He flopped down and rolled over, pulling the blanket up to cover him entirely.
“Aw, don’t be sore,” Jon leaned down to whisper in his ear in a patronizing tone, “I think I know what you need.”
“Oh, piss off!”
Jon was undeterred, “I think you need my cock…”
So he could say it when offering his own but not when begging for Satin’s? Pathetic.
Satin snorted, “That puny thing? Think I’ll pass.”
Jon nuzzled against his ear. Damn, he was really fighting dirty.
“Are you sure? Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to… ride a dragon?”
“Hmpf. Well, the dragons are rather handsome…”
Jon squeezed his hip bone painfully.
“And I’ve seen one of them take a piss. I wouldn’t say he has the biggest dragon, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of, either.”
Jon grabbed his shoulder and rolled him to his back, pinning him against the bed.
“And mine’s far from puny,” Jon growled before pressing his lips hard against Satin’s. He held there until Satin couldn’t help but reciprocate – how could he not kiss such luscious lips every chance he got? – and then tore himself away, “and you’re taking it for a ride tonight.”
With that he dropped to his back, pulling Satin with him to land straddling his hips. To be handled like an object by Jon’s strong hands, well, it ought to be embarrassing.
Ought to be…
Satin stared down at him, “As you wish, commander.”
Jon growled up at him, and it gave Satin an idea. He leaned down until his face was hovered over Jon’s, “But it’s not a dragon I’m riding…”
“Oh?” Jon quirked a brow, “Then what are you riding?”
“A wolf,” Satin winked.
<<<<>>>>
“My wife,” Daeron nuzzled against Arya’s neck before laying a soft kiss there, never stopping the roll of his hips as he pressed into her as deeply as he could, wishing he didn’t have to pull back to push forward again.
“Mm,” was all she managed, but Daeron had learned months ago that Arya was not very vociferous in bed. Not until she was getting close, and then she mostly just repeated his name in tempo with his thrusts.
The first time, he’d expected the she-wolf to mount and devour him by the way she threw herself into the kiss. She’d mumbled curses at him for being so handsome (and at herself for falling for a Southron twat). He’d been too aroused to be insulted, what with her hands tugging on his shoulder-length hair and her teeth making a meal of his lips.
And then her lips were gone, and she was turning to face the bureau while ripping off her tunic and lowering her breeches, baring a pale and shapely rump to him as she leaned forward slightly at the hip.
It had surprised him but not so much that his hands weren’t unlacing his waistband at record speed then leading his cock to the place it had been wanting to explore for months.
In truth, he’d had rather limited experience with sex prior to that, so he wasn’t quite sure what ‘normal’ was. His inclination was to just pound away and find his completion but, afraid of failure as he was, he forced himself to pull back on the reins and, afraid he’d never get another chance, tell Princess Arya all he’d never been able to say to the somewhat intimidating girl.
“Gods, you’re so pretty. I’ve wanted this for so long. Never dreamed you’d want this, too.”
“Mm, say it again.”
“I’ve wanted this, wanted you, for so—”
“The other part.”
“Um, you’re pretty?”
She’d nodded.
“Eh, you’re not just pretty. You’re beautiful. The most beautiful lass I’ve ever seen. All the more beautiful for how strong and determined and brave you are.”
“Fuck. Keep going.”
It hadn’t been easy. Inexperienced as he was, he’d been trying to hold back his peak nearly from the start, and that didn’t leave much brain power available for thinking up compliments.
So he let his mouth unleash all that it’d held back nearly since their first meeting, not worrying over how smooth any of it was.
“I love the color your eyes get when you’re angry. I love how your hair shines in the candlelight. I love how you look astride a horse. Fuck, I really love how you look astride a horse. I love the way you twirl your sword. Makes me want to see you twirl my sword. I love how you look when you’re trying not to laugh at a joke. I love how pale and smooth your skin is. I want to see it all over. Kiss it all over. Kiss your little tits which I bet are just as pretty as your doll face. I… Fuck… Ungh…”
His climax was still going when he started apologizing.
With his fifth ‘sorry’ he dropped his forehead against her shoulder.
“Did you just finish from thinking about kissing my tits?” Arya asked, her voice uncharacteristically perplexed.
Daeron had groaned, “I’m sorry! But I’ve been thinking about them for so long and—”
In a fluid motion Arya had slid off his cock, turned, and thrown her arms around his neck, going to tiptoes to press her lips to his.
Both of them were still clothed everywhere but their groins and thighs, but they made it to her bed and divested their clothing before getting under the covers together, but not before Daeron got to see all of Arya…
See it and love it.
Now, as they made love on their wedding night, he could say he’d seen her nude a few dozen times, yet the novelty had yet to wear off. His wife was beautiful. Petite but sturdy frame, muscles taut but not hard or masculine. She had feminine curves though they weren’t as extreme as her sister’s. Not that Daeron looked at his goodsister that way! Only, well, it was impossible not to look. He’d never even cared for full breasts, but gods be good even Satin hadn’t been able to keep his eyes on her face during the feast, and Daeron was pretty sure that when Ser Ormund tripped and fell into a servant carrying a tray it was because Sansa’s bosom had come into his line of sight.
Still, he’d not trade Arya’s firm, high breasts for those monstrosities that bounced with each step, and not just because he didn’t know how Aemond (Aemond!) hadn’t gone on a killing spree, starting with Tormund and Smalljon, by now.
“So pretty,” he murmured, picking up his pace when Arya’s strong legs came up to wrap around his hips, “and all mine now. There’s no giving me back. I’ll follow you like a hungry stray.”
“Mm. Daeron,” she moaned, tilting her head back into the pillow so he had better access to her throat.
He brought a hand to her right breast and squeezed, “All mine.”
“Faster.”
“What my lady commands…” he said as he accelerated even more.
As lovely as it felt to stay close, he had to put some space between them to move the way she needed him to. So he went up on his knees, his spine more or less straight, and lifted her hips off the mattress. Holding her tiny waist, eyes locked on her adorable tits as they thrashed back and forth, he rutted like a beast.
He wanted to last long enough for her to finish but he didn’t stand a chance with the visual buffet she presented. When she started teasing her own nipples he couldn’t hold back, didn’t even feel the climax creeping up on him and thus could do nothing to discourage it. He felt his mouth go slack as his muscles all melted.
“Sorry,” he muttered when the pleasure faded enough for self-consciousness to return.
“Don’t be,” Arya said as she lifted her legs even higher and tightened them, holding him deep inside her. Her middle finger went to her nub and circled it rapidly for all of half a minute before she was gasping in bliss, her grey eyes looking black and thoroughly enthralling as they locked onto his, locked onto her.
“Damn but you’re pretty when you peak,” he said plainly since it was a plain truth.
She rolled her eyes but he knew she liked the praise by the way her lips tried to curve.
Her legs relaxed so he backed out then strolled to the bureau and retrieved a bit of cloth for her to wipe herself clean. He watched her as she did, and his cock twitched at the knowledge that it was him that had filled her. That it was his seed, his little dragons, that had planted itself inside her.
It was enough for his cock to want to go another round, but after all the food and wine and dancing he was rather tired. They both got under the covers and fluffed their pillows then came together, Daeron wrapping himself around Arya’s back.
“You danced a lot with my sister tonight,” she said after a spell.
Daeron groaned into her hair, “You hate dancing, and Aemond hates dancing. It’s only prac—”
“I know. I didn’t mean it that way. I wondered if she said anything to you. About us.”
Daeron sighed, “That if I hurt you, I won’t live long enough to fly away on Tessarion’s back. She’ll set the wolves on me.”
“Really?!”
“Don’t sound so excited, wife.”
She clicked her tongue, “I’m not. Just… that’s… ya know…”
“Sweet?”
“Eww, no!”
“Protective?”
“Aye, that’s it.”
Daeron rolled his eyes, not that she could see.
“Don’t give me that look.”
He frowned, “What look?”
“When you roll your eyes. That’s my thing, you know.”
“I thought it was Rick’s thing.”
“And where’d’ya think he got it from, huh?”
“Stand down, she-wolf.”
“Hmpf.”
He smiled against her hair.
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop making that face like you’re some lovesick sap. You need to lose it before you’re the lord of Northfort.”
“How’d you—Wait, we’ve decided on ‘Northfort’, then?”
“Aye, I can’t waste another minute thinking about names for the castle when we need to come up with a name for our house. Sansa said if we haven’t decided by the time we depart she’s writing up the contracts as ‘Stargaryen’, and that’s that.”
“It’s actually starting to grow on me.”
“You’re just drunk.”
“On love!”
“As I said,” she huffed.
“I’m just saying that Daeron Stargaryen has a nice ring to it.”
“Well Arya Stargaryen doesn’t—Wait… that was kinda fun to say…”
“Right?! And I just realized my surname almost has your name contained in it.”
“Mm. So we should go with Targaryan, then.”
“How about Tardaeron?”
“Tarya?”
“Staeron?”
“Starya?”
Daeron laughed, “I propose a compromise: Tarstark.”
“Rhymes with Karstark.”
“And gods forbid…”
“Hey, Alys is alright, but all her kin were horrid.”
“Fine,” he sighed, “How about we don’t try to combine our names at all? What if we just picked a word or phrase that represents us in some way?”
“House Fucksalot?”
Daeron snorted, then fortified himself. Arya was his wife now, she couldn’t throw him away just because she didn’t like one of his ideas.
(Or so he hoped.)
He took a deep breath, “I was thinking… House Summer. Then we can call the castle Summerfell.”
It was quiet for several moments and he began to believe that Arya wouldn’t shoot down his idea, that she actually liked his idea.
Until she laughed so hard, the air rushing through her teeth, that he was sure she got spit on the bedsheets.
He snatched his arm back – she didn’t deserve to use it as a pillow – and rolled over.
“Sorry!” she giggled as she rolled after him, putting her hand on his shoulder.
“No, you’re not.”
“I am,” her voice shook with suppressed laughter, “Truly, I am!”
“I didn’t laugh when you suggested the Wolf Fort.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Well, I didn’t laugh as hard as you just did!”
“I’m sorry! It’s just… Why would a castle north of Winterfell be called Summerfell?”
“Oh, shut up!”
“But I think you’re onto something. Maybe not Summerfell for the castle, but Summer for the surname? It’s not… horrible.”
He let out a dramatic sigh, “Yes, it is. Perhaps if we were inheriting land in the Reach, but here? Gods, everyone would laugh at us.”
“Alright, so not ‘Summer’. But what about…”
Daeron rolled over and narrowed his eyes, “What?”
She shrugged one shoulder, propped up on the opposite elbow, “Dawn.”
“House Dawn,” Daeron said slowly, trying it out.
It wasn’t bad, actually.
Except…
“Daeron Dawn?” he scrunched his face.
Arya groaned and flopped back onto the pillow, “We’re going to be the Stargaryens, I know it.”
Daeron got comfortable again himself, “Maybe we should just go with it. It’ll make your sister happy, and I do feel like I owe her.”
“For what?”
“For letting me marry you—”
“Like she could’ve stopped me!”
“And for marrying and loving my brother, even after what my… other brother did to her. Even after what Aemond and Daemon would’ve done to your home…”
He thought that would pull some earnestness out of Arya but she only rolled her eyes, “Boo-hoo,” she said sarcastically, “my sister was addicted to riding that dragon right from the start.”
“Um, eww?”
“Gods,” Arya spoke in a high-pitched, airy voice while angling her eyes up and fluttering her lashes, “he’d put some horses to shame!”
“Eww!” Daeron backed away, “Stop!”
“And don’t even get me started on his tongue! I never knew tongues could move so fast!”
He covered his ears, “I mean it, Arya, stop!”
She rolled her eyes, “Now you know I feel.”
“But he’s my brother!”
“Yeah, and he’s porking my sister.”
“Ugh! And what do you mean he puts some horses to shame?”
She glared at him.
“I mean… she was exaggerating, right?”
“I dunno, want me to ask for measurements?”
“Eww, no! Just forget I asked!”
She winced, “I have to be honest. That’s…” she let her head roll on her neck, “gonna be really hard.”
“Ugh! Figures Aemond would get that, too. Biggest dragon to ever live. One of the best swordsmen in the realm. Has the cock of a horse and the tongue of a god.”
“Well, he did lose an eye.”
Daeron held up his hands, “Oooh, one eye!”
“And you’re waaaay better looking.”
“You’re just saying that,” he pouted.
Arya snorted, “Um, no I’m not. All the Mormont girls and Wylla and Jeyne think you’re the prettiest man south of Castle Black.”
He rolled his eyes, “Satin or Jon?”
“A tie. And they voted three times.”
“Voted? What- Neve mind, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to be pretty! I want to be handsome.”
Her lips curled into her mouth.
“Shut up,” he grumbled, “And don’t mock me. How would you feel if Sansa was prettier than you and better than you at everything you set out to do?”
She lifted a brow, “Um, is that sarcasm?”
“What do you mean?” he frowned.
“Sansa is prettier than me and she’s better than me at everything. Well, except fighting. And riding a horse.”
Daeron grinned, “Damn straight you’re the best rider.”
“I meant literal horse riding.”
“Oh,” he straightened his lips and shrugged, “Right. But she’s not prettier than you. I mean, don’t get mad at me for saying this, but I’ve never been crazy about red hair. And she’s a bit too…” he pursed his lips as he tried to think of the least insulting way to say it. He ended up holding his hands out and moving them as mirror images in rounded arcs.
“Buxom?” Arya asked skeptically.
“Yes. And she’s too tall. Perhaps for Aemond that’s alright, but most men are barely a finger’s width taller than your sister, if that.”
“Sooo… you weren’t being sarcastic? You actually = think I don’t know what it’s like to be jealous of my sibling…”
“Why would you? Sansa’s great and all – don’t get me wrong – but you’re like…” he had to gesture with his hands again, not knowing what word to use to encompass how amazing Arya Stark was.
Apparently, it wouldn’t be needed.
He was mauled by a she-wolf who fancied herself a dragonrider for only the second time in their relationship.
And all the while he told her how perfect she was, and she told him how perfect his dick was.
That made things end too soon again, but for as often as they went at it, he’d build up some stamina in no time.
He laughed to himself, thinking of Arya’s earlier jape.
House Fucksalot, indeed.
Notes:
Sorry if you'd been rooting for Jaecarya, but if Arya eloped with a married or betrothed crown prince it would be too much like the Lyanna story. What Lyanna did at 14 I don't think Arya would do at 18+, I like to think. Too often in fanfic, and I'm guilty of this!, every little adolescent crush becomes a marriage and that's just so unrealistic. Arya and Gendry don't have to be endgame! She's like 10 during their association in canon. And yeah, I actually think they fit together so sometimes write them as a couple but... IDK, just rambling.
So we had some kink discovery and/or exploration in this chapter.
-Yup, I totally see second son Aemond having a mommy kink of sorts. Don't tell me Alicent had much time for him, what with being the queen and presumably pouring all her attention into troubled, difficult Aegon and then her cute grandbabies and the cold war between her and Rhaenyra and tending to her sickly husband's needs. (He may not have had some flesh eating disease in canon, but he did have injuries that didn't heal and general ailments as I recall).
-Double yup, Jon Snow gets off on breaking the rules. SO in line with what he does north of the Wall and at CB. He spent 14 years keeping his toes in line under Catelyn's shrewd gaze, he is totally gonna get off from sticking his hand in the cookie jar. Either that or the opposite end of the spectrum, being the perfect well-behaved, rule-abiding sub. IDK, I guess the scene with him and Satin was a bit of both.
-Don't tell me Arya wouldn't slime up her panties by someone telling her she was prettier and better than Sansa. Do. Not. Tell. Me.Finally, think what you will re: Jon's parentage, just remember that in this fic they have no reason to believe he is not Ned's son, so they aren't quick to thinking he is a Targ bastard b/c it's harder for a highborn woman to hide a pregnancy than it is for a highborn man to hide an affair. You readers may think what you will. Maybe Daemon or Viserys or Viserys' brother (WTF is his name again?) or the Sea Snake himself sired Jon. Or maybe Jon's Valyrian blood dates back a few generations. Or maybe he has no Valyrian blood whatsoever since that's not a prerequisite for dragonriding. Maybe Sunfyre is jealous of Ghost's bitchin' white coat and all the time Jon spends petting it. Whatevs.
And my public service announcement of the day: no dick-shaming intended here!! It's fun to write fanfic characters as big dick-obsessed but really, bigger isn't always better. Hope no guys read and got a complex! You're perfect just the way God made you!
Chapter 13: Of love and laughter
Notes:
This chapter is written very much in the tone of the previous chapter. Fun, funny, a bit ridiculous and a bit heartfelt.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Six years later
“Satisfied?” Sansa asked Aemond through a tired but playful smile.
“You make it sound as if I was dissatisfied before.”
“Every man wants a son.”
Aemond looked down at the child sleeping in the crook of his left arm. The child who was about an hour old.
Soon the girls’ nurse wouldn’t be able to keep them from breaking down the door to see their newest sibling. Well, Laenie and Neddie would be breaking down the door. Yana and Nisa, short for Aryana and Minisa, were a bit too young to care that a new pup was being added to their pack. Nisa was only two and Yana only four, which was just a bit too young to maintain an interest in something as abstract as a sibling she could not see except as a swelling of her mother’s belly.
“I’m not like every man,” Aemond answered belatedly.
Sansa snorted.
Aemond chose to ignore it. “Are we sticking with Jonos?” he asked instead.
Sansa hummed an affirmative. ‘Jonos’ was a Stark family name but in their case an homage to Sansa’s half-brother, who Aemond also counted on the short list of men he called ‘friend’.
“Since Arya stole ‘Robb’ and Rickon stole ‘Eddard’, aye,” Sansa added, her tone more tired than sore, but it had not been so when her nephews were born about two years ago. Eddard was Rickon and Lyanna’s firstborn. Rickon defended that Sansa had already named a daughter after Eddard Stark, and it would be stupid to name a son after the same. Indeed, even though they always called their second-born either Neddie or Ned, it felt a little too… Targaryen… to have a daughter named Eddara and a son named Eddard.
But a month later when Arya gave birth to her second child, first son, and named him Robb, short for Robbard, Sansa was devastated. It didn’t help that she’d recently delivered Nisa and was having a bit of the weepies, though nothing like she’d had with Laena, but she confessed that she’d wished to right the wrong of her brother’s one-month tenure as King in the North by ensuring the next King in the North would have the same name and (gods willing) rule for much longer.
Arya had shrugged the whole thing off, telling her sister that she figured Sansa would never have a son and that if she did, she’d want to name him Larence.
That had led to more weeping, as Sansa laid in Aemond’s arms one night and confessed that she hadn’t thought about Larence in so long she could not remember when it was, and that when she tried to recall his face, his voice, his smile, she couldn’t.
Because she was who she was, Sansa was not appeased by Aemond’s assertion that Larence would have wanted her to someday forget him so that she could focus on her living family and friends. Nor was she grateful when he told her that if she wished to name a future son of theirs ‘Larence’, he wouldn’t mind. Rather, she became quite cross with him for being so supportive and “perfect” (her word, not his) because it only made her feel more flawed by contrast. She yelled at him for still having his slim figure and hard muscles while she was eternally plump from carrying his children – children he consciously and strategically (also her words) put inside her just when she had finished losing the weight from her previous pregnancy.
He had learned over their decade of marriage not to argue with Sansa during the first months after she had given birth. Or in the last two months of her pregnancy. Or in the first three months of a pregnancy. Or in the days leading up to her moontide, during those brief periods when she actually had one before he impregnated her again. Which, by the by, had nothing to do with wanting to make her plump and everything to do with wanting to make her pregnant. He confided it in no one, though figured Tormund or Satin would be a safe enough confidante next time he saw either, but he felt the same swell of self-pride every time Sansa told him she was with child as he had once imagined he’d feel if he ever sat upon the Iron Throne.
It was ridiculous, really. Like he was no more evolved than a rutting dog. Yet every time Sansa spoke those magic words he felt like pumping a fist in the air and declaring victory over an opponent that did not exist, as if he’d won a tournament only he had been competing in, yet for which the purse was a life-changing sum.
But he also knew that Sansa’s mother had perished in childbed after easily passing five children, so Aemond planned to train himself to withdraw before spilling his seed. He’d done it a few times at Sansa’s exhausted prompting that she was not ready to have another child, but she enjoyed the feeling of him finishing inside her too much to go without it for very long.
Then again, Sansa’s mother had been something like thirty-seven when she died, meaning Aemond and Sansa had enough time to squeeze in another babe or two, even three if they went at the speed with which they’d had Neddie, Yana, and Nisa.
Well, he wouldn’t worry about that now. He’d leave it up to Sansa. Perhaps she’d want to try for another son so Jonos would not be so outnumbered, though at least he had his cousins Eddard and Robb, and as the heir it was custom that he foster for several years of his youth with one of their vassals – Lord Glover or Lord Manderly being the likely candidates. When the time came to arrange it, he’d go to whichever castle housed other lordlings his age so that he could form bonds with those who’d someday be his bannermen.
Aemond recognized he was getting ahead of himself again, thinking of something that wouldn’t happen until at least nine years in the future. He took a minute to thank the Gods for giving him another healthy child and letting his wife get through the ordeal unscathed.
It was hard to tell so early, but Aemond thought that Jonos would have his mother’s mouth and his father’s nose. Aemond had never cared much for his mouth, so he considered that a good thing. His nose… well, better their son have it than any of their daughters. Not that he could tell with Nisa and Yana, but he was at least confident that their older girls took after their mother in looks. Neddie had her coloring, too, though with a smattering of freckles on her cheeks that darkened after only a couple minutes in the sun. Sansa thought that was a Tully feature, though one that had skipped Catelyn and her eldest daughter, who both had skin like unmarred ivory. Come to think of it, Rickon had freckles on the tops of his shoulders and a few on his nose, though they blended in with his skin which wasn’t as pale as his eldest sister’s.
“You don’t think Jon will get a swelled head, do you?” Sansa asked.
Aemond looked at his wife, though she was looking down at the sleeping babe in his arms, “Your brother Jon? You’re asking me if I think he’ll get a swelled head from having a nephew named after him?”
Sansa rolled her eyes, “He can be conceited, you know.”
“No, he can be stubborn in his beliefs and rigid in his ways – thinking he knows better than everyone – but conceit has nothing to do with it.”
“Maybe so,” Sansa relented with a yawn, “He’s more likely to blush and stammer and say ‘you shouldn’t have’ a hundred times.”
Aemond chuckled, “Good. Serves him right for that time he kidnapped me.”
Sansa didn’t roll her eyes this time, but she might as well have for the amount of zeal she put into her next sigh.
He’d let her have her sighs and eyerolls and her occasional outbursts over whatever he did or said that annoyed her or even his muscle density. Thanks to her, he now had five children he loved more than life itself, and that was just the start of how Sansa Stark had changed his life for the better.
“You feel alright?” he asked quietly. Jonos was sound asleep and Aemond knew such precious moments were best not disturbed.
Sansa nodded against the pillow, “It’s easier each time. The next will probably just fall right out. I’ll have to be careful where I walk in the final weeks.”
“Mm. Better use a chamber pot and not the privy, too.”
She pursed her lips and gave him the admonishing glare that was all for show. The one he found more arousing than intimidating.
He held his free hand up, “Easy, she-wolf. Or we’ll end up having the next one nine months from today, and Myriam will yell at me for bothering you too soon.”
As he knew would happen, Sansa snorted at that. Myriam was the wisewoman who’d delivered all their children but Laenie. She was up in years, but Aemond couldn’t tell how far up, precisely, because her skin was surprisingly youthful, with nary a wrinkle, but her hair had quite a bit of grey in it and she was missing more than a few teeth. She was quite good at her craft and was clearly passionate about delivering babes, which might lead one to believe she was a romantic at heart.
One would be wrong.
Aemond was fairly certain that if some god granted Myriam the power to snap her fingers and remove all men from the world – or all but a handful of the finer specimens who’d be housed in stables and used as studs for the human race – she would do so without hesitation.
Neddie’s afterbirth hadn’t even come out before Myriam was looking at Aemond, warning him not to “bother” the queen for at least eight weeks, ideally twelve. Aemond shared the advice that a different wisewoman had given them after Laenie’s birth: that it was six weeks, not eight. Myriam said nothing, just looked at him so sharply that he squirmed and averted his gaze even as he petulantly mumbled, “And it doesn’t bother her.”
“Aye, a man would say that,” was Myriam’s response. After a sigh of apparent exhaustion that had nothing to do with the hours spent guiding Sansa through childbirth and everything to do with the one minute of conversing with a man, she added, “And even after tha twelve weeks, leave yer seed on’er belly, not in it, ‘til the babe’s old ‘nuff to eat sum’n udder’n milk.”
All the maids but the youngest found that hilarious. The boldest of the lot said, “What about on her backside, Miss Myriam?”
Myriam was not amused, and another scorching glare was sent the maid’s way, which put a damper on all the fun in the room but for Jeyne’s – she’d been tasked with wiping down and swaddling the babe who’d no doubt grow up calling her ‘auntie’ just like Laenie did. With a hand massaging Sansa’s low belly, Myriam cut her eyes back to Aemond and said, “Most wombs won’t catch if’n the woman’s still got a babe on th’teat, but yers is potent stock.”
He'd not meant to, but ended up smiling at that, which relit the flame of the ladies’ amusement and Myriam’s ire. The old woman relieved Sansa of her afterbirth all while grumbling about the many failings of the male sex (Sansa tiredly but readily agreed with most of them, even if only to get her strikes in while Aemond could not parry back without looking like an absolute cur).
When Myriam was called eight months later to confirm that Sansa was three months along with what would end up being their precious Aryana, Aemond had feared gelding, if not complete emasculation, for the way Myriam looked at him. Truly, the next time some brazen Ironborn threatened one of the Western settlements, Aemond would not fly there on Vhagar but would deliver Myriam to Pyke. A minute of her glaring and every man would feel so ashamed (and terrified) that he’d renounce his larcenous ways and return every stolen item to its rightful owner.
“We better not,” Sansa said, “If I give birth nine months from now, I’ll have to do it without your hand to squeeze.”
Aemond snorted, “And why’s that?”
“Because Myriam will do more than yell at you,” Sansa raised her brows.
“Well, you might still have my hand to squeeze, but I doubt you’ll have my cock to curse.”
Sansa laughed so hard it led straight to a wince of pain as she pressed a hand to her belly, “Uch. You can’t make me laugh for at least a sennight, remember?”
Hearing ‘you can’t make me laugh’ would never not sound like a challenge to Aemond Targaryen, but he pursed his lips and swallowed every witty retort he had.
Obviously, Sansa knew what he was doing. She rolled her eyes and jerked her chin toward him, “Go introduce your son to your daughters. Make sure Nisa and Yana know he isn’t a baby doll.”
Aemond snorted, “You don’t have to tell me. He may be the only son we ever have, and I’d hate for him to end up like…” he snapped his lips closed, remembering that he wasn’t supposed to make Sansa laugh.
While she stared at him expectantly – damned hypocrite – he took a deep breath to push down the final words that were trying to bubble up out of him, rose from the chair, and turned to leave the room. He’d like to have kissed his wife’s knuckles or brow, but he was going to explode as it was.
He stepped out of the bedchamber, shut the heavy door behind him, and exhaled as if he was the one who’d just passed a child. “Morris Norvey,” he concluded, smirking as he thought of the builder who’d been brought before Sansa because their relatively new castellan, Donald, was not sure what sort of punishment was fitting given the perverse yet relatively harmless nature of the offense.
Old Morris, who’d seen over fifty namedays and looked every bit as rough and hard and burly as a builder should, had apparently been the culprit behind a rash of missing ladies’ garments (unders, stockings, shifts, and even dresses had been going missing from Winterfell’s laundry for months). Morris might never have been caught if not that one of Winterfell’s young guards stumbled behind the wrong curtain in Wintertown’s brothel, a bit too tipsy to remember if his girl was in the third room on the right or the fourth when he returned from taking a leak. He guessed fourth and came upon a sight which genuinely seemed to traumatize the lad. Good ol’ Morris, wearing a lady’s velvet dress that couldn’t quite tie in the back and wool stockings that only made it up to his knees since his calves were so thick with muscle, was bent over the bed, having the daylights pounded out of him by a local man while his face was buried in a whore’s cunt.
The guard wasn’t so drunk that he couldn’t connect the dots between the theft occurring at the laundry and the disturbing scene before him. He’d shouted for some of his mates and together they delivered Morris to Donald, who’d replaced Jory so Jory could serve Arya and Daeron as their castellan when Lord Vayon Poole retired due to severe gout. Donald, not yet entirely confident in his authority, had Morris imprisoned for the night. The next day he was brought before the Queen in the North who’d only been delivered of their youngest daughter about seven weeks earlier.
Ten minutes later Aemond and Jeyne were called by Donald to comfort a distraught Sansa, who recognized Morris’ outfit as being comprised of the velvet dressing gown and shift she hadn’t seen since sending it down to the laundry a fortnight ago. A beet-red Donald relayed all that’d been told to him by the guard. Livid that the man derived some perverse pleasure from wearing his wife’s clothing, Aemond was about to introduce Morris’ neck to Dark Sister when Morris hurried to explain that he hadn’t even known the dress belonged to the queen, he’d only grabbed the first one he saw that was both pretty and would fit around his chest... the chest that anyone who looked at him would describe as broad or even burly.
It was Sansa trying to relieve Morris of his head after that, and Morris’ defense became less about trying to explain his sexual deviance or offering to pay fines and more about assuring the queen that she was still an attractive woman, and all-in-all more slender than any other lady would be after carrying four children in such short order. Jeyne nodded passiontely and said, “And he thinks your dress is pretty!”
When Sansa was only mildly assuaged, Morris sang the refrain of a ditty called ‘Milady’s Pillow’ which was popular in the taverns and inns and brothels, apparently, and widely known to be inspired by the queen’s bosom. “And it’s all quite flattering!” Morris said emphatically.
“See? It’s all quite… what?” was Aemond’s response, along with a tightening of his grip on Dark Sister’s handle.
Miraculously, Sansa had eventually learned to laugh over the entire thing and had even paid a minstrel to sing the song at supper in the great hall one eve, cackling after the man got to the part about the lady’s pillow being big enough for a dragon to sleep on.
Even more miraculously, Aemond hadn’t killed the minstrel, nor Morris, nor any of the people who laughed along with Sansa that night (which was every person in attendance, give or take). And since then, Aemond and his wife entertained each other ceaselessly over the incident.
There was no getting around Morris taking a few lashes – theft from the royal family, even if unwitting, could not be dealt with too softly – but the man became surprisingly popular after the incident. Initially mocked by many around the castle and in Wintertown, word quickly spread that the whores actually fought over who got to serve Morris during one of his visits to the brothel, bidding each other down until the builder paid virtually nothing. Apparently, the man was as good with his tongue as he was with his hands, and lots of girls found it very arousing to watch men fucking other men. Staggered by the notion, Aemond confessed his shock to Sansa only to have her shrug while informing him that most of her ladies had been trying to catch Jon and Satin in the act for years now, whenever the men came down for a visit. That certainly hadn’t helped Aemond understand, so Sansa tried, “So you wouldn’t find it arousing to watch two women in bed together?”
That Aemond could understand, though he still could not look at Morris without blushing. At least in that he wasn’t alone. Most men reacted to Morris that way after seeing him hauled into the castle in a lady’s dress. The rest were rather cruel in their taunts, but at least most were not cruel in their actions; not since four young men ganged up on Morris one evening only to end up on the losing side thanks to Morris’ hammer-like fists. To add insult to injury, they were denied entry to the brothel for a month so they could “learn their lesson”.
Aemond was glad the skilled and hardworking builder didn’t have to endure more than the occasional mumbled expletive or gob of spit, yet also a bit peeved that he and Daemon had been ridiculed for faggotry that neither of them possessed while Morris had become a beloved figure in and around Winterfell. Sansa had even (quietly, of course) gifted him a dress she’d had custom-made for his stocky and muscled frame, tasking her most trusted guard to deliver it to the madame at the brothel as a gift for the girls’ favorite customer. The guard returned with a message of profuse thanks and – as Sansa later relayed to Aemond – an offer for the use of one of the brothel’s best private rooms, and one of their best whores, for two hours, and that her husband the prince was welcome to join.
Aemond was beyond satisfied with his marriage in and beyond the bedroom, but what man could hear such a thing and not silently pray that his wife would take the madame up on her very generous offer? He’d gone so far as to imagine Sansa straddling a faceless blond woman, locking lips while grinding her seam against the woman’s mound. He’d seen himself crawling across the bed, kissing Sansa’s back, the woman’s chest; Sansa’s lips, the woman’s neck. He’d seen himself licking Sansa’s cunt from behind while three fingers were buried in the whore’s cunt just below.
He honestly thought his dream was coming true when Sansa, in all her wisdom that bordered on supernatural, looked at him curiously and said, “You would like that?” with a lilt to her voice that made it clear she was hoping for a positive answer.
Still, wary of a trap, he shrugged and said, “I’m not sure. I might. If you’re willing to try it, then I am.”
“I’m not sure. I’m afraid it might be awkward. And I’d hate for it to put a strain on things between you and I. Promises not to get jealous are all fine and good, but not so easy to deliver.”
“Mm. True. So, it’s a no, then?” he asked, striving to sound indifferent.
She bit her lip, “I don’t know… Well, what sort of lover would you want if we… if we were to try that? Tall or short? Light hair or dark hair?”
“Height doesn’t really matter, though I suppose I wouldn’t want anyone taller than me, at least.”
Sansa nodded.
“And hair color doesn’t much matter, either, though I suppose blond is a pretty color, and not all too common in the North.”
Sansa scrunched her nose, “I was hoping you’d say dark hair…”
“Well, I’d be alright with that, too,” he offered far too quickly.
“Though I heard there’s a whore there with the Valyrian look,” Sansa arched a brow, “Maybe you’d like that?”
He rolled his eye, “Very funny.”
She poked him in the rib, grinning like a fiend, “You wouldn’t be a little bit curious to know what it’s like to fuck yourself? Because I’m curious what it’d be like to have two Aemonds…”
“Two Aemonds? Wait, Sansa, are you talking about a boy whore?”
Her smile fell away, “You were talking about a woman?”
“Well… yes!”
With a huff, she rose from the bed and swung her dressing gown over her shoulders, “Ah, so it’s your great fantasy to sleep with a blond woman, hm!?”
He sprung from the bed and tried to take her hand only to have his smacked away. “Sansa, that’s not what—”
“I suppose you’d like her to have big brown eyes and skinny little thighs and a flat tummy, too!”
“Now, you know that’s not what I want!”
“Uch! And to think I wanted two of you!”
“And I’d take two of you if I knew that was an option!”
“Oh, it’s too late for you to say that now! I’m sleeping in the other bedchamber. And I’m going to dream about a man with dark hair and a hairy chest and a thick beard—”
“Hey!”
“And thick lips and… and dark eyes! TWO of them!”
“You just described your brother!”
“Jon’s chest isn’t that hairy!”
“And two eyes? That’s a bit low, don’t you think?”
“Don’t try to change the subject.”
“I’m not!”
“At least Morris thinks I’m attractive!”
With that she had slammed the door, leaving Aemond blinking in confusion over where precisely things had gone awry before remembering that she was only about twelve weeks removed from delivering a babe, which meant prone to acting like a completely irrational madwoman. Well, she’d been a rational madwoman after Neddie and Yana, an irrational madwoman after Laenie and Nisa.
It was too soon to tell how she’d be now that little Jonos had come into the world. He’d know in a few days, and he’d planned accordingly. Arya and Daeron would already be here by now if Jonos hadn’t come a fortnight early. They were due to arrive on the morrow after a brief flight on Tessarion.
Just in case Aemond needed back-up.
∞
“You absolute bitch!” Arya growled, “This is payback for me using Robb’s name; I know it is!”
“Arya, you can’t call me a bitch so loudly; I’m your queen,” Sansa hissed.
They were in the family quarters of the main keep, far from any nosey eavesdroppers, but Sansa did have a point.
“Oh, that’s the nicest thing I’m going to call you! I cannot believe you took ‘Jon’.”
“You know we could still name a son after him, don’t you?” Daeron tried, “How about Jonnel?”
“We’re not bloody Targaryens!”
“Well, technically—”
Arya quieted him with a glare before turning back to Sansa, “You were always jealous of my and Jon’s closeness, admit it!”
“Arya, I was not jealous! I was always closer to Robb, you were closer to Jon. That doesn’t mean I loved Jon any less, or that you loved Robb any less!”
“King Jon,” Arya scoffed, “Sounds stupid, anyway.”
“Well, it’ll be King Jonos,” Aemond tried.
He was expertly ignored, “Why not Torrhen? Or Theon? Or Brandon? Or anything with Rick in it!”
Sansa looked to the ceiling and took a deep breath, “It was announced last night in the great hall that Prince Jonos had been born. I can hardly take it back now, and I shouldn’t have to!”
“Prince Jonos…” Daeron said thoughtfully, “It has a nice ring to it, actually.”
Arya glared at him, “You wanna wake up dead tomorrow?”
“How would I wake up if I’m—”
“It’s an expression! And who asked you, anyway?”
Daeron turned away with a shake of his head, mumbling something under his breath.
“Look,” Arya took a steadying breath and looked down at Sansa who was propped up in bed, “Obviously you’re too stubborn to yield the name…”
Sansa lifted her brow.
“…and I have no intention of consenting to you using it.”
“I did not know I needed your consent.”
Arya ignored that very logical statement, “So I see only two rational ways we can settle this.”
“I did not know that it wasn’t settled.”
“One, we ask Jon whose nephew he’d rather share his name with—”
Aemond snorted, “Ah, I’m sure Jon will answer that question.”
Daeron sent him a smirk.
“…Or, two, we fight over the name.”
Sansa blinked at Arya for a few long seconds before realizing she was serious, “Arya, have you lost your mind?! I just gave birth yesterday!”
“I can wait a couple weeks.”
“And I’ve got half a foot in height and probably a good three stone on you!”
Aemond did not dare point out that it was probably more like four stone, at the moment.
“Aye and it’s all in your teats. Unless you plan on bludgeoning me with the dragon’s pillow, I’ll take my chances.”
“It’s actually ‘Milady’s Pillow’,” Aemond corrected then frowned, wishing Arya’s version was the right one. Daeron noticed his expression and was smirking again.
“And why do you choose fighting, anyway? Why not embroidery? Or the medicinal qualities of herbs? Or the family lineage of House Stark?” Sansa asked pointedly.
“Urgh! Fine! You can name a champion to fight for you.”
“Before this gets bloody, I need to ask,” Aemond directed at his goodsister, “are we talking about fighting with swords, or a fistfight, or wrestling, or something else that only you would conjure up?”
“Well, if the queen was willing to fight, I’d say wrestling. But if she’s going to name a champion, then it’ll be swords.”
“What if the queen is unwilling to fight and unwilling to name a champion because this entire notion is ridiculous? I named my son ‘Jonos’ and that’s that. If it means so much to you, then you can do as Daeron suggested and name your next son Jonnel.”
“Maybe I’ll name him Jonos,” Arya said in a threatening voice, her eyes narrowed.
Sansa gasped, “You wouldn’t dare.”
“I’m pretty sure she would,” Daeron mumbled under his breath.
“Of course, if we fought over it, and your champion won, I’d promise to let your son be the only Jonos in his generation,” Arya said with a slight smile.
“Are your fingers crossed behind your back?”
Arya held her hands up, fingers spread wide apart, “I promise, that if your champion beats me in a fair fight, I won’t name any son of mine ‘Jonos’.”
“Fine!” Sansa finally agreed, much to Aemond’s surprise and delight. Arya seemed to be forgetting that she rarely beat Aemond when they sparred. She was damned near unbeatable against bulkier men who’d emphasized strength over agility in their training, but Aemond had always emphasized evasive and counterattack technique, and speed over brute strength.
“Fine,” Arya reached out and shook Sansa’s hand, “Name your champion.”
“I name myself.”
“What?” three voices harmonized.
“You heard me,” Sansa said, “Once Myriam says I’m all healed and that there’ll be no harm in it, you and I are going to wrestle.”
“Uh… anyone else think this is a horrible idea?” Daeron asked through a wince.
“Don’t you worry about me, Daeron,” Sansa said assuredly without taking her eyes off her sister.
“I’m not,” Daeron said flatly while exchanging a glance with his wife. Arya seemed to not know what to make of her sister. Frankly, Aemond didn’t know what to make of her. Sansa could come across as scary in an icy, detached sort of way, but right now she looked like she planned to drink the blood straight from Arya’s still-beating heart.
“Right. Well… We should probably let you get some rest, goodsister,” Daeron put a quick kiss on Sansa’s cheekbone then was hurrying out, an unresisting Arya following him without ever taking her bewildered gaze off Sansa even when it meant twisting her neck almost all the way around.
Sansa’s neck twisted, too, her eyes locked on Arya like a hungry wolf, following her until she was out of sight.
When the door was shut, Aemond lowered himself into the chair at Sansa’s bedside, “Do I want to know what that was about?”
Finally Sansa took her eyes off the door Arya had left through and faced Aemond, her upper lip curled, “She knew I wanted to name my firstborn son after Robb.”
Aemond sighed loudly, “And they say men are the vengeful ones…”
∞
Even after ten years living in the North, Aemond sometimes found himself shocked by its people’s behaviors. He’d often thought he understood why people like Septon Eustace and his late grandfather considered them all heathens. They weren’t, of course, but they could certainly be barbaric. Aemond had once seen Tormund and a particularly stocky Flint fighting in one of the training yards that, after weeks of spring rain showers, was muddier than a marsh.
The men disagreed on some matter or another (Aemond had by then stopped trying to keep up) and decided there was only one way to settle the debate. They stripped off their coats and tunics and boots and socks and had an anything goes fight right there. Fists smashed into chins and ribs, knees pounded bellies, feet kicked and tripped. The men grappled on the ground but the mud made it impossible for either to get enough of a grip to break the other’s elbow or get him in an inescapable headlock. The Flint man won the day by tiring out the much older Tormund, and the men ended up slapping their slippery bellies together in a fierce hug. Covered head-to-toe in mud and blood they headed to the spring-fed pools after one of the older servant women threatened to knock out the rest of their teeth if they tracked dirt all over the floors of the bathhouse that it was her job to keep clean. She also warned them to wash their breeches in the natural pools, too, or else the washerwomen would see to it that they didn’t wake up on the morrow.
“What would I know ‘bout scrubbin’ stains outta wool?” the Flint man asked.
“I could help you!” a twenty-something maid offered, cheeks flushed as she sent him a toothy smile.
“Like hell you will,” the older woman scolded, then flicked her hand back toward the main hall, “Ain’t you got floors to sweep, Marnie?”
With a truculent pout the girl returned to her duties. Aemond shook his head and returned to his own, but not before noting that a pair of other girls had stealthily followed the men into the godswood forest. Spring was in the air, and while fraternizing between servants and nobles (which Tormund was, to some degree, as Chieftain of one of the Free Folk settlements established on a bit of Winterfell’s lands to the northeast) was supposedly forbidden, Sansa rarely punished it so long as the servant hadn’t been coerced. If anything, she’d give a stern talking-to to the maids and an even sterner one to the “lords”, making it quite clear that if anything came of their frolic in the gosdwood nine months from now that they’d better make it right.
That was but one of the more memorable occasions during which Aemond felt as if the North was an entirely different world from the South, but he’d never expected his own wife would be among those he counted as barbaric…
Until he saw her standing inside a painted circle, chin high and hands clasped regally in front of her yet dressed in men’s trousers that Jeyne had somehow acquired for her and one of Aemond’s well-worn tunics. The two other spectators present, beyond Jeyne and Aemond, would not know that her breasts were bound so their bouncing would not be an uncomfortable distraction (and so there was no risk of her leaking through the tunic).
Now, twelve weeks after giving birth to a son, she stood roughly in the center of the circle, staring at her sister who Aemond knew to be one of the best female fighters in Westeros, thanks to having a father who permitted her to start training with the sword when she was nine years old. Sansa obviously had the advantage in reach and weight, but Arya had training and experience on her side, not to mention agility and speed, one would have to assume.
Aemond had no idea why they were even still doing this, other than his wife’s ability to hold a grudge and his goodsister’s inability to back down from a challenge – especially since she’d been the one to issue it. Jonos had been Jonos for three moons now and even Arya knew they couldn’t change his name without creating confusion, including in the minds of Jonos’ big sisters. In fact, when Arya and Daeron returned to Winterfell two days ago, Arya had told her sister, “Look, I won’t tease you if you want to back out. You can keep the name and I won’t even copy it, alright? I don’t need to feel guilty for the rest of my life if you get hurt.”
Sansa had simply said, “But what kind of cowards would we be if we backed out now?”
Daeron had groaned rather loudly, knowing his wife too well. If anyone wanted to murder Arya Stark, they’d only need to say to her, “I bet you’re too scared to…” then name some dangerous and likely fatal activity.
Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration.
(But only a bit.)
“You sure you want to do this?” Arya asked.
“How many times are you going to ask me that?” Sansa returned.
“If you think I’ll go easy on you…”
“I don’t think you will, and I’d prefer if you didn’t.”
Arya huffed, “Fine. What’s off limits?”
“Nothing.”
Arya’s brow furrowed, “Not even chokeholds?”
Sansa shrugged, “Fine by me.”
“Knee to the cunny?”
Jon, whose presence had been demanded by the Queen in the North, grimaced.
“Do your worst,” Sansa answered placidly.
“Elbows?”
“As pointy as I know yours to be, I’ll still allow it.”
“Stomping on each other’s feet?”
“Why not?”
“Urgh, fine! Then how are we scoring this, your grace?”
“No need to trouble anyone with keeping score. First to yield loses. Acceptable?”
For the first time all night (yes, they were doing this in the middle of the night and had sworn the few guards within sight to secrecy) Arya looked like her usual confident self. “You think you’re going to get me to yield?”
“I think anything’s possible.”
Arya rolled her eyes and took a deep breath, “We should play for points. You might get lucky and knock me down once or twice, so it won’t be a complete route.”
“Are you going to talk all night, or are we going to get on with this?”
Arya let out an airy snort, “You know what? Fuck it. I was going to go easy on you, but now I’m gonna sweep the ground with your face.”
“Oh, fuck…” Jon muttered. Aemond wasn’t sure whether to share the sentiment, but his opportunity to decide expired a heartbeat later as Arya ducked and dove, wrapping her arms around Sansa’s waist and trying to drive her back and down. Sansa pivoted to use Arya’s momentum against her, but Arya knew to go with the flow, side-stepping in a circle in the same direction Sansa was trying to throw her.
It went on that way for some time, Arya trying to use her muscle mass and low center of gravity, Sansa fighting it by shifting her weight this way and that.
And then suddenly Arya was bringing her right leg around Sansa’s left, and the women went down to the ground with Arya on top. On pure instinct Aemond went to step forward but Jeyne grabbed his forearm with a surprisingly firm grip. He looked at her in confusion just as he heard Sansa’s voice hiss out, “You fool.”
When he looked back to the circle, Sansa was rolling them until she was on top, straddling her sister’s hips and digging her fingers into Arya’s sides.
“Ah… ah… AHH!” Arya was half-screaming, half-laughing as her sister tickled her rather violently, “Stop! Stop it! You bitch!”
“Do you yield?”
“Never- ah! Stop it! Stop!”
“Admit it! You knew I wanted to name my son Robbard. ADMIT IT!”
“Ahhh-hah-hah-AHH!”
“And admit you broke Mother’s butterfly figurine! I know it was you!”
Aemond arched a brow at Jon, who only side-eyed him while shaking his head.
“Sansa, stop! I’m gonna piss myself!”
“Good! And how many times did you put sheep shit in my mattress? Don’t tell me the last two times it was Bran and Rick!”
“Fine, fuck, it was me! Ah! Ah-hah-hah-AHH! Stop! STOP!”
“And the name?”
“Fine, I took your stupid name! Robb always liked you better and I hated that!”
“So?! Jon liked you better!”
“That’s not true!” Jon called out over the sound of Arya cackling and screaming, “I like you both the same.”
“Liar!” two Stark women shouted.
“Everyone liked you better. Everyone but Robb!” Sansa accused.
“What about Mother? Ow! Stop! STOP!”
Sansa did not stop, managing to use her position of leverage to tickle her sister almost non-stop despite Arya trying to push her hands away.
“Mother let you run around in boy’s clothing getting into mischief and just rolled her eyes! But gods forbid I let my shoulders slouch she looked at me like I was a failure!”
“Stop, stop. I’m gonna piss! I mean it.”
“Fine!” Sansa brought her hands away from Arya’s sides and grabbed her sister’s wrists, pinning them down to the earth on either side of her head, “Father liked you better, too. Always making him laugh, reminding him of Aunt Lyanna. I was lucky if I got a pat on the head!”
Arya was obviously struggling, but Sansa was leaning all her weight on her hands.
“Get over it, already!” Arya spat angrily.
“I was over it, until you named your son after my brother when you knew damned well I’d wanted a son named ‘Robb’ for years. You just couldn’t stand that there was one person in this world who liked me better than you, could you? You even did it with Larence. As soon as you noticed the way he looked at me, you hounded him like a dog, stealing all his attention. It wasn’t enough you had all of Jon’s attention, all of Father’s attention; that Bran and Rickon were your little partners in crime. That every fucking person who lived in Winterfell was your friend.”
“Sansa…” Jon started, his voice low and serious.
“Aye, everyone but YOU!” Arya screamed, “You hated me ever since you realized I wouldn’t be a perfect little princess like you!”
“I never hated you!”
“Yes, you did! You and Jeyne and Beth used to mock me all the time!”
“Oh, and you never mocked us?”
“So what? There were three of you and one of me!”
“One of you?! You had the whole bloody castle on your side!”
“How could they be on my side when they were all in love with you? The rose of Winterfell. The most beautiful lass in all the North.”
“Aye, maybe they admired my beauty, but they admired everything else about you!”
“They loved you!”
“Like one loves a porcelain doll, and they treated me as one. You were the one they trained with, laughed with, drank with. You were the one they respected. The she-wolf of Winterfell. I was just the one they wanted to marry so their sons would be royals.”
“They named you queen.”
“You didn’t want it!” Sansa growled.
“It should’ve been Jon!”
“Arya, that’s enough,” Jon said, using a tone of voice Aemond had heard directed at his men (or his captives) but never his sisters.
“It’s alright, Jon,” Sansa said, voice hard, “That much she’s never denied. It didn’t matter that you didn’t want the crown, that she didn’t want the crown, that Bran didn’t want the crown; that Rickon was too young to rule and didn’t want the crown. All that’s ever mattered to her is that the lords chose me. All that’s ever mattered to her is that, for the first time, she had to share the title of ‘she-wolf’, and all the respect the men of the North put behind it. Am I wrong?”
“You think I was jealous?” Arya huffed, “I didn’t want the crown, and I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.”
“Oh, you care, alright. More than just about anyone I’ve ever met. You just do a damned good job pretending not to.”
“So what if I do? Is it so important to you to be right about everything? You got your pretty crown. You got an entire kingdom to kiss your feet. You have the respect of thousands. You got what you wanted.”
“The respect of thousands, aye, yet not my own sister. And I never wanted the crown, either. After losing Mother, then Father, then Robb, then Larence, I wanted to do nothing but lie in bed and cry. But someone had to do the job that none of us wanted. And unlike you I was capable of doing something I didn’t want to do. Doing it and not complaining about it the entire time.”
“What a martyr you are,” Arya spat.
Sansa pushed herself upright and sighed, “This is like talking to a wall.”
“And this is like being crushed under one,” Arya said with a jerk of her hips.
Sansa clicked her tongue, “Bitch.”
“Cunt.”
“Horse face.”
“Horse’s arse.”
Sansa snorted then groaned as she dismounted. Arya quickly scrambled to her feet while Sansa stayed kneeling on the ground.
“My feet are numb,” Sansa admitted.
“Come on, then,” Arya extended her hand, only to snatch it back when Sansa went to clasp it. She pulled the same stunt two more times before saying, “For real this time,” and actually meaning it. Her groan while helping her sister up was obviously exaggerated, but Sansa waved it off.
“Let’s see how petite you are after having five children.”
“That’s why I’m stopping with two. I don’t want anyone confusing me for a cow. Might try to milk me.”
“Hilarious. Though I do need to get back to Jonos before I leak.”
“Better walk ahead of me, then,” Arya ushered Sansa forward, “those things probably put out tidal waves.”
“Ugh,” Jon groaned.
“Then I guess yours put out a raindrop. It’s a wonder little Robbie’s growth wasn’t stunted.”
“UGH!” Jon groaned more loudly, directing it at his sisters’ backs as they ignored everyone else and headed back toward the family keep.
“I told you not to call him Robbie.”
“Did you? I don’t recall.”
“Fine, then I’m calling your son Jonny.”
“Aw, how adorable. Why did we never call Jon ‘Jonny’?”
“Better late than never.”
Jon huffed, “I can’t believe I flew down from Castle Black for this.”
“I thought you flew down to meet your namesake?” Aemond asked wryly.
“Apparently I flew down so Sunfyre could get some action,” he directed at Daeron with a glare.
“What?” Daeron asked innocently, “At the rate my brother and your sister are going, we’re going to need a lot more eggs.”
Jon didn’t like to hear that, but Aemond knew his brother wasn’t wrong. Sansa and Aemond had already given Daeron two of the eggs from Dreamfyre’s clutch – the first when Arya was pregnant with Mariah, the second when she was pregnant with Robbard. That meant Nisa and Yana hadn’t had any in their cribs, though Rhaenys had delivered one about six months back from Syrax’s clutch, a present from the queen to her half-brother on his thirtieth nameday, so a pretty amber-hued egg had been warming in Jonos’ crib for the past few weeks.
“On that note, my lords, I am going to bed,” Jeyne declared. Aemond wondered what she’d told her husband before her midnight departure from their apartment, or if the man was such a heavy sleeper that she’d had to say nothing at all.
Regardless, Aemond figured she had the right idea.
“I think I’ll turn in, too. Brothers, it’s been… an evening.”
Daeron and Jon chuckled at that. They lagged behind when Aemond left, and he figured they planned to talk about Arya.
A short while later, Aemond was crawling under the covers and waiting for Sansa to finish nursing Jonos so she could join him there.
“Feel better?” he asked when she eventually joined him in bed, snuggling into his space.
“Mm. We each apologized, in our own ways.”
“Good.”
It was quiet in a peaceful sort of way for a few moments before Sansa said, “You’re a good husband, you know. I don’t tell you that enough.”
“Thank you. You’re a good wife.”
“I hope I haven’t made you feel… well, like you’re competing with a ghost.”
“No, not really.”
“Good.”
“And… do you ever wish it was him instead of me?”
Sansa pushed up onto her right elbow, her left thumb tracing over Aemond’s cheekbone, “I wish he had lived. I wish they all had lived. And I certainly wish that he hadn’t suffered so… so terribly. But no. I’ve never wished you were anyone else. And do you want to know a secret?”
“Mm.”
“Well,” she smiled softly, “Before my feelings for Larence developed, I used to dream of having my own Targaryen prince.”
Aemond snorted.
“I mean it! I thought some prince would come North by dragonback to negotiate some sort of alliance with my father, and would fall in love with me on sight. Our marriage would seal the alliance, and he’d take me south to the beautiful city of King’s Landing, where the people would love me as one of their princesses.”
Aemond groaned, realizing that her dream had come true. A prince had come North by dragon and fallen in love with her, though it was not meant to be in an act of partnership but rather submission. Then a different Targaryen prince had brought her to the capital, though she’d realized how very un-beautiful the place was, and how much the people there did not love her.
“I suppose the gods have a sense of humor, after all,” he said.
She hummed faintly, “A very small part of it was a nightmare. Most of it has been a dream.”
He reached up and gently swiped her hair back with his fingertips, “And we don’t even have to wake up from it.”
She shook her head as she inched her face closer to his, “No. We never have to wake up.”
And they didn’t.
∞ The End ∞
Notes:
I know the Arya/Sansa scene came out of nowhere but I love the idea of Sansa and Arya, in this AU, having been effective partners, and maybe had less of a contentious relationship than they did as 11 and 9 YO in canon, but have also always had this low-key animosity driven by envy. I touched on it last chapter in the Daeron/Arya scene, but wanted to extend it to show that it's been simmering since they were kids and now at age ~30 and 28 they FINALLY air it all out. My headcanon is that Sansa has tried to bring up the topic and clear the air for years but Arya isn't big on talking about feelings and stuff, so Sansa finally realized she'd need to beat it out of her. Or, more specifically, tickle it out of her.
Also, if you have 4 mobile kids under age 11, you know how to wrestle.
Also also, I'm obsessed with girl-dad Aemond. Sue me.
Also also, the "Morris" thing wrote itself. IDEK. I needed a little inside joke or two to show that Sansa and Aemond have come to a point where they can laugh, but it ended up being like 3 pages of retrospective. Sorry not sorry for that random sequence.
Last but not least, a great big THANK YOU to everyone who read, kudosed, commented. Thank you so much and I hope you enjoyed the fic and the last chapter after such a delay!
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