#eternite

(i) j’attends patiemment la lueur / qui jaillira des abysses (i patiently wait for the glow / which will spring from the abyss)

Her heartbeat is one with the rhythm of the dragons’ moving wings. Above the shelter the storm gives them, they make their way, almost invisible in the moonless night. 

While her nephew Jacaerys traveled north, she proposed to take Lucerys’ place to travel to the Stormlands. Her nephew had said he had wished to go, but she had convinced her sister to send her instead. Her nephew should stay at Dragonstone to protect his queen mother. Or so she had told Luke, so that he no longer felt disappointment. 

Truth be told her motives were not entirely in the new Queens’s favor. With the grief that came with losing their father and Visenya, Dragonstone felt colder than ever. With her uncle planning a war and her sister trying to prevent one, tensions never been higher. They all know war is coming and they all know it won’t be without losses. 

Her relationship with Rhaenyra is one of contradictions. For her to live, their mother had to die. Her first breath meant their mothers last. To her father she was the daughter that was not wanted and to her sister the girl who killed her mother. At the same time, she was also all that was left of their mother and their father’s wife. They said her smile was so alike Aemma’s, they sometimes said she was her mother reborn. She never believed them until the last time she saw her father and he called her by her mother’s name instead of her own. The smile had not disappeared from her face, it was the final confirmation that she was not entirely unwanted after all. 

It’s the burden she has to bear, to be the killer of her mom and be a girl at the same time. A second daughter, to never be more than an object to be used in a marriage pact. To make sure the Targaryen line goes forth and forth. And to probably end up like her mother did, dying in the warfare of childbirth. If Viserys hadn’t named Rhaenyra his heir, the same fate would be bestowed on her. The same fate Rhaenyra now expects of her to fulfill. 

She was betrothed before; Aegon was only two months, and she was two years. And all her life that was all she knew; she would marry him and he would be hers. Of course the match fell the moment she followed her sister to Dragonstone and Alicent married him to Helaena. She now wonders if it would’ve prevented the war that is about to come if she stayed. Maybe she would’ve been happy. Maybe she could’ve been more than just a babe that killed her mother, more than a second daughter and more than a mirror of a person that will never be again. 

As she urges her black dragon closer to the stars, she tries to not think about what she left behind on the ground.  It would be so easy to forget about duty and to escape. To fly closer to the stars anyone else ever has, to be one with the night and together with the moon. Forever looking down on what’s beneath, to never have to worry about anything. All she would have to do is glow. 

Borros Baratheon will not support Rhaenyra, her trip is a wasteful one. He has no son she can marry and she has no cock to bed one of his daughters with. Maybe the Gods are kind, and she is there before any Hightower is, they still have two sons to marry off. Maybe she can persuade them with her words and otherwise maybe she persuades them with her dragon. She owes it to her sister to at least try. Delving into the stormy clouds, away from the stars and back into duty, Storm’s End takes shape. 

// 

“Sister.” She does not even have to look in the direction the voice is coming from to know which of her two brothers is here. A small smile plays on her face, she was sure this trip was a waste of time. But maybe now this visit might become fruitful after all. 

“Half-brother.” If he feels anything at all because of the distinction, his face masks it well. But the eye that he still has can’t hide the flash of annoyance he feels. She imagines Aemond sometimes wishes it is as emotionless as the sapphire that rests on the other side of his handsome face. 

The line-up of Baratheon daughters tells her all she needs to know. A marriage pact was probably discussed, if not already made. The girls suddenly find the ground very interesting, not one looks up. She tries to find the one that might be blushing, or the one that secretly smiles. Or maybe there is one who looks disappointed. Did her brother choose his new bride, or did they offer him one? 

“It must be a second child’s curse, to always have to do the eldest sibling’s dirty work.” Her words are for Aemond, but she is looking at the lord of Storm’s End. Borros Baratheon is as impressed with her as she is impressed with him. “I came here to remind you of your father’s oath. But seeing how willingly you have your own blood lined up as broodmare for a traitorous second son, I know my sisters’ words will only be wasted.” She waves with the letter Rhaenyra wrote. 

“You can tell your whore of a sister that there is no place for a woman on the throne.” Borros spits the words out as if they are supposed to hurt her. She does not show emotion, instead she walks to one of the torches that light up the hall. She puts the letter close to it, so it catches fire. She searches for the one familiar face in the crowd and when she finds it, she makes her decision. 

“Let’s pray you won’t burn as this paper does when the fighting starts.” 

The clatter of swords being drawn makes her drop the burning letter to the floor. But to her surprise it is Aemond who is the first to be in front of her. His own sword drawn, but instead of facing him she faces his back. She does not understand why he is still defending her after all she had said. The whole hall is silent, the tension so thick it almost suffocates her. The tension is lifted when Borros laughs a deep raspy laugh. “Let’s pray for that indeed, princess. Lower your swords, there is no need for bloodshed, today.” 

//

Aemond had followed her outside. He joins her on the wooden bench that looks over the training yard, sheltered away from the storm but close enough to taste the rain. 

“How did you come here?” His first question is a loaded one. For a long time she didn’t have a dragon, the egg that was placed in her cradle never hatched. And she never found a dragon to bond with, not until she followed her sister to Dragonstone. 

It was something they used to bond over when they were children and without a dragon. But then he lost an eye but gained the sky and all that was left for her to claim was the loneliness on the ground. 

“The same way as you did brother.” 

“Now I am no longer your half-brother?” He does not even ask about her dragon. At least it is good to know that the poison she put in her words stung. She opens her mouth to answer, but the sound of thunder interrupts her. She stands up to have a closer look at the empty yard. The sound of the rain calms her down a little. The clattering sound reminds her of how the sea sounds at Dragonstone. 

“Which one will you marry?” She does not dare to look at him when she asks her question. 

“Why? Do you want to make the choice for me?” When she turns around, she sees him smiling at her. It feels comforting and like she is in the past. Where they would fight each other daily to be seen strolling in the gardens after. 

“Like how I had to decide what sweets we should steal from the kitchens? Will I also be blamed if your wife is as sour as the sweets I used to choose?” She sits down next to him again. “Blamed like I was when you tried to steal a dragon egg.” 

She pretends to be offended. “As if I didn’t steal one for you too.” They both laugh at the bittersweet memory that comes with it. Back when they were lonely together on the ground, when their adventures came in the form of stealing candy, dragon eggs and reading stories in the library. It was the day after their nephews and brother had presented him with the pig-dragon she had stolen the eggs. He took the blame, but at night she came to his room with books, candy and a promise to get back at them. 

The memories once so sweet now taste bitter. They can never have that again and he probably doesn’t even care. 

To ache the pain in her heart she pretends to not care either. “You know, I almost forgot how much fun we used to have.” It’s an invitation for more laughter, but Aemond does not give her that. 

“I didn’t. I will never forget it.” 

They are silent after that, both listening to the storm that rages over the steadfast. He is the one to break the silence after the fifth flash of lighting. 

“I think we are so alike, both the second child of our mother. You a second daughter and me the second son. We are both closer in age to Aegon, but yet it was always you I found.” 

She looks up at his face, but his eye stubbornly stares into the storm. So she takes the hand that rests on his leg. Her skin is cold against his, but he accepts her touch. 

“Would you still have found me if I stayed in Kings Landing?” They both know if she stayed, she would’ve been Aegon’s wife. He finally looks her in the eye, his hand squeezing hers. 

“I found you now.” 

There are so many things she wants to tell him or ask him. She wants to ask if he missed her, she wants to tell him how she sometimes dreams of him. She wonders if he thinks of her when he flies, because she does think of him. But she doesn’t dare to go there, so she asks something else. 

“Have you been to Fleabottom with Aegon in the time I was away?” She doesn’t want to know why she is dreading his answer. He smiles that half smile that he used to give to her when they were younger. It’s the smile he would wear when they were to do things they were not supposed to do. 

“Yes. But not in the way you’re insinuating.” He must like the relief that clearly shows on her face, because his smile grows a little too cocky for her liking. But she can give him this one truth, it won’t hurt her that much. 

“Good.” 

“What does it matter to you?” 

“I imagine it matters to your future wife. I know it is something I will want in my future spouse.”  His one eyebrow is raised, but the mocking expression leaves his face when she leans in closer. “Wouldn’t you like to be the only one? To be the first and the last. To take ownership of all the good memories in their head. To be forever theirs and them to be forever yours.” 

His eye darkened, she can almost see purple in the blue now. Her mouth is so close to his. He breathes in her air, something that was once inside her now inside him. She hopes she can worm her way inside of him like her air does. To be in his head and through his head in his heart. She feels possessive, she wants to be his first. Maybe not his last, but this moment she wants to take from him. Something that will be just for her, something no one else will ever make claim of. She must have him, can’t let anyone else have the pleasure to be the first. So, she is the one to close the gap and kiss him. 

His lips taste like smoke and she turns into ash when he wraps his arms around her to deepen the kiss. He is like her future and her past, everything she thought would not last. And it is only a kiss, but in this very moment she is sure that he not only belongs in her past, but also in her future. 

Breathless she leans back in his arms, to see her own desire mirrored on his face. With his flushed cheeks and swollen lips, he looks like everything she wants him to be. Her heart is raging as loud as the storm. She’s trying to decide what to do, she can’t have him here publicly in the yard of a house that hates her. But she wants him to come back to her, begging for more and more and for her to give him that again and again. 

He does not give her time to think things through, because he kisses her again. His kisses on her throat are too light, too soft and too sweet. She hates how her body feels out of control, as if it no longer belongs to her but to him. This is not how it was supposed to go, it was just him that should feel this way. But his tender kisses feel like the soft glow of a sunrise and the way he murmurs her name against her skin sounds like a prayer. 

She pushes herself closer to him, her body hiding to where her hand wanders. She can feel him through the fabric of the pants. He is already half hard.  Softly she strokes him, he immediately freezes, his eye big with uncertainty. 

“If you want me to stop, now is the time to say.” She wants to give him a smile to reassure him it is okay for him to say no, that he doesn’t need to go there if he really doesn’t want to. 

“No, don’t stop.”

“Then keep kissing me.” She smiles her smile now. 

Her rubs are on the rhythm of his kisses. Too slow, too sweet, but she starts to think he likes it that way. Her skin catches his soft moans and breathy sounds. His eye closes, his skin glows in the lighting. He looks like something that only appears in her dreams, too good to be true. 

Her other hand finds its way into his hair. It’s damp because of the rain, but still so soft. She wants to pull it, maybe that will make him less loving and easier to distrust. To feel his fire and to burn her fingers on his heat. For him to lose control and to think about this moment for months. Like a blood stain in white fabric, she won’t be erased from his mind. 

Something about the way his hips arch up to meet her touch excites her. The sounds that escape from his mouth, his skin that is so adorably flushed. The way her touch blinds him, so willingly, so needy. Just for her. 

Their bodies will be the battlefield and his heart the casualty. But not here and not yet. 

When she stops her touch, he reaches for her face with both hands. The next open-mouthed kiss more heated than the one before. Almost can she feel the fire burning inside him, ready to unleash and ready to take what it wants. 

His fingers make its way inside her dress, where warm skin meets the cool skin of her upper leg. But she grabs his hand before he can go further. “No. That is something I can only give to the one I will wed.”

The disappointment on his face she feels inside her heart. The spell is broken, she feels in control again. 

“Maybe you can’t be my first, but you can certainly try to be my last.” 

It is a promise she knows he will keep no matter what. An insurance to be his in a way the Gods will disapprove of. She notices that the storm had stopped, there is only a light rain now. 

“Besides, we can’t do that here.” Suddenly Aemond seems to be aware of the location they’re in too. Where first it was only them, suddenly the world around them lives again. 

//

“Do you want me to fly you back to Dragonstone?” She turns around, already in the middle of the yard. “And how can I trust you to not take me with you to Kings Landing? Besides, I have my own dragon.” 

“Then where is it?” She now realizes he didn’t ask about her dragon because he didn’t believe she had one. 

“Where it belongs, free as a storm and one with the stars.” They both look up to the sky, where a big shadow circles closer to the ground and then how her dragon lands outside the walls of the keep. 

He grabs her arm before she can truly leave him. “If I were the one to be married to you all those years ago, I would have kept my promise.”

She realizes it now. The way he was so fast to draw his sword when she threatened Lord Baratheon and the way he so easily fell in the feelings of nostalgia. He will kill for her, conquer for her and maybe even betray for her. It’s not just the lust, it’s the nostalgia and childhood memories not to be forgotten. To never be enough and always be there to be a pawn. The understanding only second children will ever have between them. 

Her smile does not reach her eyes when he lets her go. “But we weren’t.”

//

Later Aemond would watch her fly away on a black dragon he does not recognize. His heart filled with contradicting feelings, but his head occupied with a plan. She said he might not be the first but could try to be the last. What if he could be the first too? She could be his and maybe he could let himself be hers. If she was his, it would mean she would be on his side too. She wasn’t entirely wrong with her accusation before, he would’ve taken her with him to Kingslanding. As a pawn and perhaps as a lover and only now he realizes she could become both. 

//

“We can forget about the Baratheon’s support.” Her arm is linked with her sister’s arm. In the distance they can hear a dragon’s calling, loud enough to overcome the sound of the waves. “Aemond was already there when I arrived. I think he will marry one of the Baratheon daughters.” Rhaenyra sniffs and grabs her hand, squeezing it lightly. “It does not matter; I am glad you came back safely.”

In this moment she is happy she came back; the warm glow of the stars does not compare to the fire that is her sister’s love. 

“I would not say the trip was without it’s uses. Perhaps there will be a powerful new ally in the future after all.” 

 ----

Thank you for reading! Part two will be a whole lot smuttier. This part is the needed build up for what is to come ;)