Hi, love your works so much! Can't wait for more updates 🥰🥰 I was wondering maybe you'd like the idea where book!Aemond and Velarion!(Strong?)Reader are in an arranged marriage. But Reader just knows what to say and how to act so that Aemond is wrapped around her finger (kinda thought of Margaery and Joffrey situation, she was such a talented schemer, worthy of winning the Throne 😭). I don't really know about the setting, like if it's before, during or after the Dance... just thought it'd be interesting to see this kind of plot with our beloved Prince 🤴🏼🐉
If you don't like it, just ignore me 🙈
Dragon Sickness (18+)
Pairing: bookcanon!Aemond x Strong!Niece!Reader
Warnings: No usage of (Y/N), Greens win AU, bookcanon Greens, the obvious Targaryen incest, mentions of major character deaths (we're entering spoiler grounds, but not really), blood, gore etc.
Word Count: 3.5K+
Author's Note: I fell in love with this idea the moment I saw it! I ended up altering the plot line for this one-shot a little bit - the reader will definitely grow into the Margaery architype, but today you shall see her as she was when she just learned how to make ends meet with her newfound life at Court.
I don't know if I should turn this into yet another series, but if you guys enjoyed this, let me know
Also, thank you so, so much for your kind words ♡ i'm hugging you to the moon and back!
PART 2 IS OUT NOW ♡♡♡
Who could ever blame you for your indiscreet acts? Alliances change when the world you know suddenly turns upside down.
She remembered how weak she was. How scared she had been.
How her eyes widened into two brown specs of uncertainty, how her mouth fell agape, as she mulled over Alicent’s words.
‘You shall marry Aemond within the next moon turns. For the good of the Realm.’
The Dowager Queen had openly admitted to being against the match – of course, the prospect of her perfect son, married off to a lowly bastard of Rhaenyra's (otherwise said, her last surviving child), didn’t specifically thrill her. Much less her demanding and scornful father.
Still, it couldn’t be helped. And if the Velaryon wanted to keep her head away from a spike, she had no other choice but to comply.
Although… she wasn’t a Velaryon now, was she? Aegon the Usurper made sure of that.
His final gift to her was to strip her of all her titles. She had been openly declared a bastard – before the masses, before the Court.
With a wide smile upon his burnt lips, the “King” had told her she’d be a Targaryen instead. Driftmark wouldn’t matter, her legacy wouldn’t matter. Aemond would inherit the seat with the Usurper’s blessing, as a homage brought to his able fighting and his shown bravery on the bloody battlefield.
Never mind that he’d never partaken in a fight; save for the one that killed her stepfather, Daemon, and sent her poor mother in a downward spiral. Aemond had chosen his adversaries wisely, and managed to go through the whole war without as much of a scratch upon his silver armour.
‘I shan’t marry your son. Not now, not ever.’ Her own voice rang out.
‘You will do exactly as demanded.’
‘I would rather die than bear the treacherous children of that monstrous beast.’
A monstrous beast. That is what Aemond was.
And that is what he shall remain. No matter how many gifts he brought to her. No matter how many hours of their days and days in their weeks and weeks in their months they spent promenading those ghastly gardens.
‘You will if you know your best interests. Your own head may hold no value to you, but a single swing of my son’s sword would be enough to bring forth the ruin of House Blackwood.’
At first, she’d been restless in her attempts to escape the Keep. Her every waking hour was spent shamelessly inside the Sept, where she prayed not for the safety of her brothers’ souls, but for revenge against the mutted Greens.
The slight breeze of the cathedral mended her flesh from the heat of summer. And no one dared to approach or talk to her. The quietness was a welcomed deed.
During the first night of their betrothal, her glossy eyes scanned Aemond’s face. His hands wantonly gripped at his thighs and a slight twitch of his mouth, accompanied by an elongated hum escaped his lips.
There was no other discernable expression. And when he led her to the chambers of her early girlhood, he merely bowed and kissed her hand.
She spent the first night of their betrothal scraping her knuckles so harshly, that they broke and cracked under the stimulation of the cold water.
Her thirst for vengeance ceased after the first two months. Her wedding date was approaching swiftly, and she found herself faced with the abhorrent truth. She had no allies. No more friends at Court. The girl had shut herself in her tiny room, losing her mind with the pain and grief that flooded her at night: the faces of her mother, her brothers, her father. The sound of their screams and their endless pleas for help.
Every night, without a fail, she woke up tormented by nightmares – her throat burning with absolving shrieks of fear, exacerbated breaths of air and flimsy nightdresses, damp throughout by breaks of sweat.
The first night she lashed out onto her bedding was the night she found out Aemond had moved his Quarters next to hers. He yanked the door open and stepped into the light of her candle – looking ravished, completely out of breath and startled. Started not for his own accord and safety, but for the state that his future wife had been in.
‘Shit, it’s alright, I’m here–’
The echo of his mellow voice deterred her to let out a blood-curdling scream, that would have rivalled even the one of the late Queen Rhaenyra, after Aegon the Usurper ceased her at Dragonstone, and reeled his dragon to eat her whole.
‘Get the fuck away from me! Get the fuck out of my room!’
Her sobs pierced into the man’s heart, but his hurt expression was masked quickly with one most bitter and taciturn. He clenched his fists ruefully by his side, and spat out an apology in a low and dangerous tone.
‘As you wish.’
And how dearly he loved those words:
‘As you wish.’
'As you desire.’
Even though nothing had been, or ever will be, as she achingly wished them to.
“You could at least attempt to look happy.” His chastising tone rained upon her, as his Lady remained hammered in her seat. Maids flocked to her like lost chickens to their cock, arranging her hair and picking out dresses fit for their engagement parade.
Her face contorted into the mirror, and a faint sigh beleft her lips. Carefully she turned around, reflecting his stance with a subtle arch to her shapely brow.
“It’s bad luck to see your bride before the wedding ceremony.”
“An old wives' tale. And one that applies only on the day itself.”
“Perhaps we should encourage tradition more. Make it so we don’t cross paths at all til then.”
Just as fast as it came, the feral look dissolved over his tired face. Aemond heaved out a heavy exhale and merely settled to growl at her maids.
“Leave us. Now.”
A discontented look painted over her fair features. His niece opened her mouth in protest, to try and stop the fleeing girls from truly making their escape.
“I must remind my Prince that the engagement assembly will be held in less than an hour. I believe I should like them to stay.”
The gathered women exchanged lost and protruding glances, until the former King Regent spoke again.
“They will leave us at once.”
“They’ll do no such a thing. They must make haste to get me ready. We wouldn’t want to upset your mother.”
“I’m more than capable of lacing up a loose bodice.”
The tight expression on her face deserted her features with the leave of his smug retort. She swallowed thickly in enraged abandon, and silently beseeched her ladies not to leave her all alone.
Still ravishing her with his bold stare, Aemond stepped another foot into the cosy confinements of her tidy prison. “If I’m to turn around now and find any of you standing before me, I’ll arrange that you’re all flogged and defiled beyond the utter of salvation.”
Brisk footsteps swallowed the room, echoing wildly through the narrow dark hallways. The former Velaryon shook her head in disarray, and graced her soon-to-be-husband with a tight smile and a nod.
“Congratulations.” She uttered humorously, “I should enjoy looking like a fool tonight much more than being proper by your side.”
As if drowned below a trace, Aemond took another step in the direction of the frowning Princess. His face remained impenetrable, but as he opened his mouth to speak, his voice ran meek, unsure and hoarse.
“Turn around.” He commanded her gently, whilst grabbing a deep green garment from the cluttery made on her bed. Despite her lack of desire to abide by his request, the woman turned her back to him and muttered slowly, though much softer than intended.
“I don’t like that one. It’ll make the skirts look out of place.”
“Which one do you want, then?” His whisper had made her draw in a sharp gasp; the warmth of his breath fell soothingly over the nape of her neck, caressing her delicate skin in a way she hadn’t known was possible.
“The red one with black lacings.”
His hand came to spin her back around, and their noses nearly touched together. A smile tugged at the ends of his upturned lips, but the look inside his eye remained frigid and unforgiving.
“Your petticoat won’t be those colours.”
A conceited scowl graced her face. She reached her hand behind him and skillfully snatched one of a different design. “Fine. I want to wear this one, then.”
The obnoxious blue and silver danced across her paling skin. And if Aemond weren’t so dazed by their proximity and lack of air, he might have laughed at her feeble attempts of vexing him.
“Those are Velaryon hues.”
“Perfect. I shall honour my house well.”
“You are not a Velaryon to grace them with such a feat.”
“No, you are absolutely right. Your brother did name me a Targaryen.”
Their faces were so close to each other, that their moving lips were almost touching.
“Yet I can’t wear black and red either.” A prompted look disarmed the Prince, “It is all very confusing.”
His lone orb descended to her puffing bosom, but Aemond soon directed himself upon a more elusive image. His fingers twitched with the need to grab a hold of her – to pull away those last pieces of cloth that shielded her away from view.
“You know full well why I can’t allow that.” He hummed in unmoving disapproval, “As much as I enjoy your voice and the raptures of your closeness, I must say this conversation bores me.”
“I should be able to wear what I want.” Came her prompt and swift reply, “But of course, Your Grace, forgive me. ‘Tis not for men to pounder on laces and brims.” Her palms took to rest upon his bulging chest, and the girl nearly removed them at once, as the thrumming of his heart enterlaced with her slim fingers. Still, she furrowed her brows in a most perplexed of mockeries, and insatiably drove on, “Indeed resilient men such as yourself occupy their time much better.”
The callouses of his hands fell heavily upon her cheeks.
“Fucking their ways through brothels, getting their pricks wet, and fantasising about wars.”
The harshness of his next tug nearly broke her brave facade – her eyes widened in mistrust, and a slight recoil braced over her straightened back. Her small fingers clasped over his shaking wrist, which held onto her face with a gentleness untoward; one completely mismatching with the predatory glimmer in his eye.
The man he was, and the man he was trying to be would surely never mend to one.
A Kinslayer. A monster. A divergent freak.
Nothing more, and nothing less.
His thumb played absent-mindedly at her lower lip, and the young Princess tried her damnest not to bite him. “Did I strike a nerve with that one?”
“You are as imprudent as you are beautiful. A family trait, I assume.”
“You have my gratitude for the flattering commentary. I’m very proud of my heritage.”
His lilac orb bore into her, and the man let out a reserved laugh, “Your bastard brothers were ample proud. Look where that brought them.” The rough end of his hand gripped her own painfully, before she could make for a swing at his handsome face. “Lost in the seas, rotting at the bottom of an ocean, nestling inside Sunfyre’s belly.”
While her hands were clasped together, her mouth wasn’t sown shut. With a single and effective move, she spat harshly in his face, eliciting a groan from her broader perpetrator.
Though his nostrils flared up in disdain, the man graced her with a calculated smirk. “Did I strike a nerve with that one?” He mocked her with feigned interest.
“Fuck you,” She hissed out slowly, “Don’t you dare talk of my family – my brothers were ten times the man you are.”
“Oh, but I have every right to talk about your family. Given that I will be yours quite soon.” Once more he forced her to turn around, and kneeled over to her spasming form, to begin dressing her up; in nought else, of course, but the mundane silks of his choosing.
"Doesn't the prospect thrill you? To become my lady-wife, to finally bear a true Targaryen inside your royal womb?"
So hopeless and defeated she felt, that the youth jerked herself relentlessly, while repeating him the same plethora of words. “You cannot force me to be your whore. You cannot force me to wear this. I will not bear your Hightower green.”
Aemond could feel his patience running thin – and when her foot came into contact with his setting knee, the man let out a ferocious growl, and promptly trapped the girl in his arms, with the aid of a nearby wall.
“So you want to be difficult? You don’t want to wear this? Hmm? Well, who am I not to abide my Lady’s burning wishes?”
The sharpness of his dagger came into quick contact with the milky skin of her thighs. And she might have almost screamed, if Aemond didn’t immediately pull himself away. His hard chest grazed hers for but a moment, as the Prince cast his attention to her moving shadow.
“If you wish not to attend our engagement parade wearing the clothes I’ve chosen for you,” He muttered against her face, a scorned look adorning his own, “Then you won’t be wearing anything at all.”
She huffed out a dispensing pant and pursed her lips into a tight line.
She remained rigid and poised, until a spark of amusement swirled into her eyes.
The first crack was that of a lax smile. The next, a tremor to her lips. The calm before the storm approached, until all rattled down with a mirthed laugh cascading from her reddened lips.
“Do you mean to frighten me with this promise?” She asked through the arch of an uncertain brow, “As if every man in this cursed Keep won’t get to watch me whore myself out to you anyway, when our wedding night will come?”
His face suddenly hardened at the notion of their reality – as if he didn’t give much thought to the bedding ceremony. To his Lady being watched by a thousand other eyes but his.
Aemond suddenly darkened, and his fist came into contact with a near spot on the wall, so awfully close to her frightened, paling face.
She watched with wide eyes how his stare contorted from one of realisation to one of fury. He stiffly peeled his body away from hers, and strained himself to leave her be. The jealous and possessive knots that churned painfully inside his stomach burned his skin upon the surface, and constricted the air he brashly took in.
He nodded to her in a spry and calloused manner, and brought his hand out to touch her cheek. His knuckles had begun to bleed, busted by the force of impact that his fist had faced for him. Behind his eye danced a look of seldom shame – he gnawed harshly at his bottom lip, and pondered, for a while, on apologising to his niece; for his lack of princely conduct, for his show of impropriety – for his inability to keep himself at bay.
Still his thoughts failed to merge to words, and so the man ran his eye one final time over her defensive pose, and merely left her standing there.
As if turned into a statue, the girl barely registered the lethargic closing of the door, the hurried and heavy footsteps that travelled further and further away from her quaint and cluttered space, and the animated curse that slipped past her uncle's throat.
Did he just dare to leave her there, with her petticoat half up her legs, in nought else but a flimsy nightdress?
At first she thought that his avoidance was a blessing in disguise.
For after clashing wits with Aemond, and after his swift hurried departure, the man had barely graced her with another word.
His hand held onto hers for the whole duration of the procession. He wordlessly forced her to dance two dances, and led her to her Quarters as soon as she mentioned that she was tired.
But his palms didn’t linger on the shape of her narrow waist – his lips barely grazed her knuckles, and Aemond turned with lest a word to add after their fake sympathies were exchanged.
Had he gotten bored of her? Realised what a terrible match they made, and begged his mother on his hands and knees to break off their ill engagement?
For the first time in a while, a new notion of fear engulfed her.
The Greens couldn’t kill her. Of that, she was almost certain. It wouldn't be a wise move, and it would anger the North beyond the power of salvation. The war had had its say on every army that fought into it, yet the Crownlands were especially weak.
But if Aemond were to sever their solidary alliance, then her future would be most uncertain.
Otto Hightower would make her join with an old and withered Lord, no doubt – one with more than enough sons to further on his pesky line. One who couldn’t even get it up to her, who’d never procreate and mend their blood, who’d make sure Rhaenyra’s line would end with her.
Or perhaps she’d be sent to join the Faith – become a Septa or a Silent Sister, among the infamous Maris Baratheons of the Realm. Yet another girl who wouldn’t keep her tongue when asked.
And history might remember them as ‘the women who couldn’t be tamed’, but their lives would be thrown to ruin. Their existence would remain a sham.
No, she had whispered to herself, as she writhed into the soft bedding. If she still thirsted for revenge, she would have to marry Aemond. Keep him interested and relaxed – yearning for her voice and company.
… And if she had to whore herself to him to do it, she would obediently assume her role.
“I beg your pardon?” Aegon asked through another gulp of bitter wine, “Gods be good – I believe that now I’ve heard it all.”
Aemond paced about his brother’s room, with his hands clasped behind his back, and his face set into a deep grimace. He hummed in admission to his brother’s words, and glanced his way with the instance of a hooded eye.
“There is to be no bedding ceremony.” He repeated himself with ease, “I frightened her enough already. The girl will be plenty uncomfortable without the aid of chafing eyes.”
His brother smiled and raised his brows in nothing else but blinding wonder. A small shake of his head indicated his perplexion, and a sharp inhale his drawn decision.
“Mother insisted upon it. You know that well.” The man steadied himself in his chair as he spoke, whilst letting out a small grunt at the contact that the wood made upon his burnt remnants of skin. “I don’t see any reason to annul it. Especially now, an eve before.”
Another sip of the stinging liquor interrupted his smooth and ready trail of thought. The Targaryen brushed off Aemond’s concerns, and gleefully bided his teasing.
“It’ll do the two of you good – you’ll get to see she’s as pure as a bastard girl can be; and she’ll have no deniability that any of her future heirs are yours.” He pointed his weary digit in the direction of his stiffened form and swallowed down a hefty laugh. “Not to mention that Lord Redwyne and Tarly already placed bets on the state of her maidenhead. Would be a shame to disappoint them both, don't you think?"
“What mother thinks is of no consequence. And the amusement of the Realm matters not to me. There will be no bedding ceremony.”
“Nonsense, Aemond. It is our duty to upkeep the Realm – and to entertain its inhabitants if need be.”
When his reckless teasing was met with glacial silence, Aegon sighed as he briskly leaned forward. He watched his sibling with an indiscernible expression across his scorched veneer, and yawned greatly at his indisposed behaviour.
“Of course, we’re here to talk it out. But after so much time spent in your company, I fail to see the necessity for such a thing.” A sly smirk danced across his puffy lips, “Are you concerned that she won’t bleed? Or that you’ll be too cunt-struck by her to last enough to make a statement?”
Aemond’s fists descended upon the polished wood of Aegon’d desk. He thrashed his brother with a defiant glare, and hissed through his gritted teeth, and tight-set jaw.
“There will be no bedding ceremony for my niece and I. Tell that to every Lord that wishes to glance upon my wife – if they do so much as to cast their eyes on her, they’ll be fucking their own wives with a wooden cock.”
Amusement laced with grave concern – the finality of Aemond's words ought to have vexed him, irk the King in his sibling's weighty insolence. Instead Aegon nodded, pushing back the feeling of dread that settled deep within his bones. His head jerked towards his closed oak door, signalling to his brother that his visit had been overstated. “What sort of brother would I be, to not grant you with this simple whim?”
The younger Targaryen mirrored his stance, and turned abruptly on his heel after a low grunt of gratitude.
His hand reached for the golden handle, but Aegon's words deterred him to a halt.
“But be careful with that one, Aemond. She’s brash and wholly unpredictable. Make sure the blood that stains your sheets come morning isn’t somehow your very own.”
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