#alys rivers

She noticed it, even before he did, the blood. It was spilling fast through his armour onto the floor. His arms lost strength and the sword hit the ground when he lost his grip on it. His legs gave out one after the other. He could listen to nothing but his own heart, rapid and urgent. Prince Aemond became weaker and weaker, crawling on the ground to reach her, his impaired vision darkening at the edges until only the stranger's figure remained.

 “Help me…” he said. He tried to reach her, gasping, but could no longer breathe properly let alone talk “Help me…” he repeated, pleading, like a deer caught in a trap that prays for mercy. Aemond Targaryen, the one eyed kinslayer and Prince Regent, lay unconscious in his own puddle of blood at the feet of Alys Rivers. 

 She took a moment to assess the scene, and as soon as she felt his consciousness drift away, she approached. Her long fingers felt his pulse, thready, the result of the blood loss. He was not dead, for now. His coming was no secret to her, she had seen it, but she could not predict the state she would find him in. Concern, maybe even pity, seemed to cross her soul, but action took place before that settled. When she was touching the body, two maids emerged from the dark shadows of that haunted place, hidden way before the prince took over Harrenhall, they now joined Alys in her ministrations. They were loyal to Lady Alys and Lady Alys alone, for she had extended her wisdom to them in the past. They were put to work for House Strong, but their allegiance rested with Alys. Aemond’s armour was a challenge to what they could do to help in the first crucial moments, removing it was their first task.

“We need to cut between the plates, his armour is made of small pieces, we need to take it all out.” The witch looked at the younger maid, yet not a grown woman, and continued, “Fetch clean linens, wine, needle, thread, honey, clean water and my leather bag with all my herbs and ingredients." Without a second word the girl ran to fetch it for her. 

“Are you sure we should do this? We could just let him be…” Alys knew what the older helper meant, they could just let him die, couldn’t they? He was bleeding heavily, the stab was under his last right rib moving up inside, by the looks of it and the quantity of blood, Alys imagined it must have punctured his right kidney. He would certainly die if they didn't help. Aemond Targaryen, dead by a kitchen knife. The thought made her laugh, but alas, he was still too young and green to war, inexperienced and foolish, a striking combination, was he not worthy of the care?

“I saw him in the fire, several times, but I didn’t see this… He is still alive, I believe I must at least try to save him.” The witch spoke while cutting the armour. “This is exciting!” What she meant was that it was something new for her, a challenge, something she was not expecting and she was most of all curious to see where it would take her. 

The older one sighted, glancing over her shoulder to the dead bodies of the members of the House Strong.

“I am not happy with it, but they are dead, there's nothing we can do” Alys spoke as if reading her expression “but I bore no deep attachment to them, as I know neither did you. After a while, the flow of time is just… detaching. Besides, he is a dragon prince..” She stopped mid sentence to look at him,“ a very beautiful creature I must say, this sapphire does suit him.” The older maid knew Alys since she was a girl, not yet ten. She saw it right away in her eyes, her master was amused, entertained and there was nothing else for her to say.

 They removed the final pieces of steel from the body and the young girl arrived with all the supplies. The healer witch was now ready to do her work. Alys asked the older woman to stay mindful of the signs of distress from him while she worked, the younger one was helping to cut linen and cleaning. It was not the first time they had such a task at hand, maybe it would not be the last. She worked fast but with ease, precise in what she was doing. When she was done cleaning, honey ointment was spread on it to prevent rottenness of the flesh. She mumbled soft words that were foreign to the two maids before making it enter his body. Then, the stitches were made easier by the patient's total unresponsiveness. She could finally wrap his back in clean linens now. When touching his hands, she noticed his fingers were getting too cold, for a moment, the witch thought her prowess and qualities would not be enough.

The chamber where they placed him was already prepared - after all she was expecting him - she laid him down carefully on his left side, keeping the wound up and unburdened. Alys fetched a soft blanket and silk pillows to make sure he would not roll into his injury. She was warming his hands on hers when he opened his eye... he murmured something incomprehensible and Alys made him drink an infusion that took him out again in seconds.

“Too soon to wake, you must rest…” 

Were the knife valyrian steel, an infection would be unlikely, but that was a common knife and not clean. During the first and second night the prince was very feverish, not uncommon after such an injury, but infection was a concern to her. She knelt on a strange altar in the corner of the chambers to prepare a tincture for the fever, using honey, willow bark, sage and hibiscus. With the help of her maids, she made him drink it, sip by sip. “If the flesh takes to rot inside his body, I'm afraid his dragon will need a new rider soon. Maybe I can try then.” She smirked to the younger maid that helped her, but the girl did not smile back.

The younger maid, not yet eight and ten, looked at the prince and touched his face, then his scar and gemstone eye “He’s still so young, even with this scar and this stone in his eye he looks so...” she could not find the word right away “he looks frail, vulnerable like this…  but he slew them, and the others, me and Eva are scared to have him here Alys, besides, his dragon is still out there.” For a moment she looked at Alys searching for her affection, jealous of the man in bed. “Men are strange creatures. He looks like a poor lamb in sacrifice now, but he unleashed fire in these halls not minding who might get killed or hurt, as he did in Sharp Point.”

“Do you wish to kill him, Gena?” Alys asked her, while caressing the prince’s skin, like a lap animal, she had already tended to the injury and gladly noticed no smell from the wound and no more heavy bleeding.

Gena took a moment before replying “I think he deserves to die.” Her words were spoken coldly, but with her hands trembling with fear that the prince might hear them. His eye was closed, but his sapphire was always open, she felt seen by him and it frightened her to the core.

Alys took a small and sharp knife and gave it to the younger girl “Here, do it… I sedated him some hours ago, his sleep was too turbulent and he needed rest. Also, he lost so much blood… you can be sure he won’t wake up. If you cut here,“ she pointed to his carotid artery that pulsated violently and thinly under her nail “he will die. He won’t feel pain, it will be smooth.”

Gena’s eyes, usually small and timid, now opened up to Alys in shock. “I don’t mean that! I… I am not a killer, Lady Alys, I’m just saying…I’m just saying he deserved to simply die” The girl was astonished by the suggestion, even so, she looked at the knife once more.

“So you are saying that I should not have saved him?” Her eyes did not leave the prince’s features, except to look at Gena’s hands.

The girl spoke almost whispering facing the window. “Yes… I think that. We should have just let him bleed out, not kill him, but let death happen to him.” 

“Ah, I see..I hate to see beautiful animals trapped in the forest…How could I let this one die? “ She continued to caress the prince's cheek with a smile, not particularly impressed with the girl’s words. For a second, her nails turned to dark claws, and with them she stroked his porcelain skin, softly, as if one single mistake would cut him. “Once, many lives in the past when I was but a girl, I kept sheep. There was a wolf in the forest that came to hunt them, he killed two and a babe. I found the beast in the forest later, trapped, the hunters had been successful. The beast killed my sheep, and yet, I pitied it - maybe I even cried - for the wolf knows no other path, what else was the wolf supposed to do other than kill and hunt my sheep?”

“With all the respect, Lady Alys, Prince Aemond is not a wolf, he kills while not having to, he kills because he fancies so.”

“Does he? Does he really fancy it? Perhaps he believes he has to kill in order to survive too... When he killed Simon, he was…” she pondered to continue but decided not to “Nevermind my dear, it is irrelevant.” Alys held Gena’s face and kissed her forehead, staining her with the Targaryen blood that clung to her hands after tending to the prince. “He might yet die Gena, nevertheless, I've seen flashes of his past and future, and I think this is yet not his time.” Alys’ eyes were onyx in that moment, she leaned into Gena’s ear whispering, “I saved the wolf, fed him, healed him. He killed the two hunters and I gained their sheep after. He killed three of mine, but he gave me thirty more. And I did keep him after, I came to truly enjoy his company.” Gena did not answer her, she excused herself from the room, the feeling of Aemond’s blood on her cheek felt like fire burning through her.

The first night was spent in vigilance, like the one that followed. Alys stayed alone with the prince mostly. Deep in the night, at times, she laid with him on the bed, held him, he was still cold. Alys was not sure she was trying to warm him or herself. Sometimes Aemond would wake briefly from his feverish slumber, mumbling incoherent things or asking for water, his mother, his dragon, or to say he felt burning. When they needed to change the bed and roll him in different positions they could tell he was agonizing in pain, his hand instinctively went to his flank and Alys needed to stop him from damaging the sutures. “You see… Even a prince is reduced to his most basic needs as a human when illness or injury strikes” With that, she delivered the stained sheets to the old maid and sent her way.

Three days after the incident he regained his consciousness, and was lucid enough to be able to hold some conversation. First he felt the smells: ointments, rosemary with saltflower, honey and damp stone, willowbark and tea, blood and boiled water. Pain radiated in his back to his abdomen and chest. Alys was preparing a daily treatment she would put on him thrice a day at least when his eye opened to her. His body felt stiff, too heavy to move, but as soon as his senses came back he felt the urge to lift from the bed “Where am I…” the sudden move trying to rise from the bed lasted but a couple of seconds. A small frail gasp escaped his lips. His lone eye was wet from the pain and fever and he saw everything turning dark as his heart slammed in his ribs to keep him conscious.

When he opened his eye again, Alys was sitting beside him, touching his arm without asking permission. She laid him back on his uninjured side “Prince Aemond, I’m Alys. You’re in Harrenhal. You are injured, stabbed in the back.”

The prince parted his lips to say something but truth was he had no recollection of it, not yet. He remembered reaching Harrenhal and after that a blur. Then, a sudden image of Simon Strong’s body getting lifeless in his arms hit him and he felt nauseous, a deep anxiety rooting in his chest twisted his stomach. Before he could say anything Alys had a silver basin beside him right away where he immediately vomited whatever he still had from the days before. He panted after, trying to manage his pain and shame in equal amounts. Was he that inept? He thought. Why did it all come to this? He took the castle, but at what cost? Daemon was gone, Rhaenyra was coming to the throne - he was still not aware she sat on it already - he killed the members of House Strong but now lay injured in a bed that was not his, in a place that looked haunted, with a witch to tend to him. He tried to speak but failed once again. For a moment he was about to cry, but the witch cleaned his mouth and fussed before the tear fell.

“Have some water, you are in need of it… “ Aemond took her glass immediately “slowly, sip by sip….” The prince's hand trembled with the cup and Alys helped him with it until he was done. The simple effort made him breathless, she let him recompose himself before reaching to refresh his face with a clean cloth “Enough, too much and you’ll spill it back”

“I remember you…flashes, from these last days” Aemond’s memory was foggy but slowly coming back, he could recall frames of her doing vigil to him. The images in his mind were however too strange, it was like he was watching her and himself from above, like a spider on the ceiling, like an out of body view.

“I have been caring for you, diligently, I might say. Sometimes you’d wake but it would not last much, your body needed complete rest. Recovery will be slow...” She helped him up once his breathing improved.

“Why?” He asked plainly, not refusing her help.

“The stab was not big but it made you bleed extensively, your state makes me assume it punctured the right kidney, we are lucky it did not destroy it completely. Until your body makes more blood and the wound starts to heal properly you must stay as you are now”

“How can you know that? You are not even a maester…” The prince inquired about her trying to sound regal but his sunken eye bags and glimmery eye made him look defenseless. 

“Oh, but I am much better than a maester, Prince Aemond. Were I simply a maester, you’d not be talking to me, you’d be perhaps talking with the Stranger,“ she smirked, proud of her skill. 

The prince was not amused, but he did not protest. He was depleted to the bone. Against her advice, he pushed out the blankets and tried to put his feet on the floor to stand when she went to the table to make tea for him.

“My prince, it is too soon, you’ll faint.” She advised without forcing him, yet.

“I can’t… I can’t stay here…” He tried to rise, but as soon as he made the small effort, the room spun in shades of black and grey, and his body fell limp in her embrace.

“I told you…” he was back in bad in seconds “In time you’ll be back on your feet but now you need to lie down and let your body work to heal.”

The prince was distressed, the state of his body shocked and frightened him, he spoke in fragments and desperately said “I can’t breathe well… my heart is slamming inside my chest… my back hurts so much I feel it everywhere and… I am pissing blood!” The sudden image of stained linen from the night before emerged in his mind but sudden shame was quickly replaced by worry for his life. “Am I dying? Please tell me if I am!” He was desperate, a little dramatic, but such was expected for someone in his circumstance, he grabbed her hands trying to steady his own.

“Oh my prince no, no… I don’t think that’s the case, you’ll pass blood for a while with this injury, but it’s getting better, as for the rest…” She took his wrist and felt the pulse, then his neck, finally his chest, where she placed an ear to it “ it’s like a foal galloping across a field now because you tried to get up. Fear not, you lost so much blood, it is only trying to make up for what was shed. What you feel is expected. Don’t force movement, you'll make it worse and probably pass out again or open your wound. Trust my word, you’ve been improving day after day, let that ease your heart.” She smiled at him once more and held his hand back.

“Why…why did you… “ he did not finish his question, he did not have to.

“You asked so nicely! It’s not everyday one can have a Targaryen prince begging to be saved, how could I say no to you?” Alys smiled candidly at him, almost looking innocent, but the look in her eyes was unsettling. And yet, he let her fuss over him, her touch felt warm in his skin, like the winter sun, her ministrations soft but firm, it made him feel safe. When her hands gently touched the scar on his face he almost looked like a lamb in a child’s lap. “I’ll give you some milk of the poppy for the pain, only a few drops with the tea will suffice.” He drank it slowly, not even protesting her choices.

“Thank you…I owe you, truly." He whispered, and his muscles relaxed again in the soft bed.