#tagcest

You don’t speak at first. You’ve learned better than to ask him for softness when the scent of blood is still fresh in his memory. But your eyes keep drifting to him anyway, to the line of his jaw, to the twitch of his gloved fingers as he traces the path of a possible ambush. Your body aches. Your heart aches. You are so tired of this cold, of this war, of these nights that pass with him beside you but never reaching for you. You used to speak between the battles. Now, you only strategize.

You reach across the table. Just a little. Not a plea, not a demand, just the brush of your hand near his. A hope. He doesn’t take it. Aemond doesn’t flinch or glance up. He just keeps speaking, something about supply lines, something about timing, something about anything that isn’t you.

You pull your hand back.

“The children,” you say after a long silence, your voice low, almost hoarse from disuse. “They’re safe?”

His eye flicks to yours, just briefly. “They’re safe,” he says. “We’ll see them soon.”

You nod. But it doesn’t help. The words don’t soothe anything. You feel the distance settle again between you like another line on the map, a border you no longer know how to cross.

Outside, someone calls for a report. The flap rustles. You don’t look.

Inside, Aemond shifts in his seat and mutters something about dawn. His hand is still on the map. You wonder when the last time was that he touched you for no reason at all. You try not to remember. You rise to stoke the fire. Your limbs are heavy. The silence between you isn’t quiet. It’s waiting. And you no longer know what it’s waiting for. 

The wind is different that next morning. You feel it before your eyes even open—how it moves through the camp like a warning, sharp and cold and full of something that does not belong. The tent is dim, dawn not yet risen, and the embers in the brazier have burned low, casting only a faint glow across the floor. You sit up slowly, the weight of sleep still clinging to your skin like mist. For a moment, you think you are alone. Then you hear the low sound of Silverwing breathing just beyond the canvas, restless, her movements heavy and deliberate, tail brushing against frost-laced earth.

You swing your legs out from beneath the furs. Your body remembers the ache before your mind does. Shoulders stiff, fingers swollen at the knuckles from the cold, a deep soreness in your back that never really leaves. The moment you rise, there is a whisper at the flap—a soft voice calling your name. You open it to find the maester, pale and wrinkled, hunched against the wind. He does not meet your eyes when he speaks.

He says there was a vision. A dream. A warning. His words are careful, but the shape of them is clear: Do not fly today. You stare at him long enough that he falters. You thank him with a nod and dismiss him without a word. The tent flap closes behind him like the edge of a blade.

Silverwing grumbles again, low and unsettled. Her breath curls through the air in thick puffs, the sound of her wings shifting like thunder barely held back. She senses something. She always has. But you move anyway. You strip the furs from your body and begin to dress, slow and methodical. You tie the leather bindings around your wrists, fasten the chestplate with steady fingers, pull the belt tight enough to bruise. You braid your hair back without thinking, without feeling. This is routine. This is armor, in more than one sense.

You hear him before you see him. Aemond's footsteps are unmistakable, quick and sharp, followed by the soft clink of his own armor. He stops at the entrance and watches as you slide your blade into place. The silence between you is full of everything he won’t say.

You turn toward him and adjust your gloves. His eye flicks from your hands to your face. There is something there. A flicker. A breath. His jaw tenses like he might speak, like he might tell you to stop. His hand twitches once at his side. He nearly says your name.

But he doesn’t. He only nods once. Curt. Detached. You pass him without a word.

The sky is red before it is anything else.

Red with fire, red with blood, red with danger as the dawn breaks with the sound of war. The sky is an open wound bleeding light, bleeding clouds, bleeding banners and ash. The horizon stretches wide and crimson, and you don’t know where the day begins or where it ends or if it ever will. The air is thick with smoke, choking and sharp, full of the sound of dragons that writhe and claw and dive through the sky like arrows through flesh. You hear them above the din, hear them beneath it, the scream of the wind and the shudder of steel. The shrill cry of death everywhere, closing in. This battle is not clean. It never is. The rhythm is pure chaos—too loud, too close, too fast, a fury of noise and movement that fills your head until you can’t hear yourself think, until you can’t hear your own breath beneath the roar, until you can't hear your own scream when it leaves your throat.

Silverwing rises beneath you, her cry thundering, her silver and white scales barely visible through the haze of smoke and flame. She is made of stormlight and bone, of speed and rage, her wings beating the air with a force that shakes the sky. She flies hard and fast and straight, as if she knows nothing else, as if she remembers nothing else, as if she still remembers what peace felt like but can't stop this drive for war. She cuts through ash and cloud and chaos with clear purpose, and you ride her like you were born for this, like you never knew how to do anything else. You do not hesitate, your body leaning into the wind, leaning into the heat, as if daring the fire to burn you, as if daring the sky to swallow you. You do not falter. You are not afraid. You can’t be, not anymore. Someone is screaming your name from below, voice harsh and desperate, but you do not look back. You do not slow. All you see is the bright red of dawn and the dark red of blood and the pale blue of the banners you charge toward.

Fire cracks from your throat, a battle cry that pierces the clamor, your blade glinting as you raise it high, as you raise it against the sky, against them all, against the very world. The wind rushes at you, cold and wild, and you are strong and you are fierce and you are untethered. Silverwing carries you forward, ever forward, her breath hot and steady, her muscles coiled and unyielding beneath your grip. You can almost feel Aemond behind you, but his presence is a shadow now, a guess, brushed aside along with the maester’s warning. There is everything you were told and there is what you chose. There is what you are. And you are this. And you see him, then, a streak of red and black against the blinding sky. Vhagar. She and her rider move fast and high and completely unburdened, their path veering away from yours. You cannot tell if Aemond even sees you.

You are alone. You and Silverwing and the tempest of your own making, the rush of your own chaos. This time it is your own voice that calls your name, your own conscience that begs you to hear it. But you don’t listen. You charge on.

They come not from all sides this time, but from one, and you have nowhere to go, no way to escape what is already upon you. There is no sudden sprawl of dragons against the sky, no tangle of wings and claws, no arrows raining from the clouds. There is only him. Caraxes. He tears through the dawn like a blade loosed from the gods, like vengeance, like fate, his neck stretched long, his body coiled and crimson and moving with a rage that cannot be taught. You thought you’d have time. You thought you’d have a chance. But he is here, red on red on red, and he is close enough that you can see his armor, close enough that you can see his rider. Daemon. Not a ghost. Not a whisper. He is here, and there is nothing between you, nothing but the scream of the wind and the fire in your chest. 

Silverwing turns at the last second, rocketing to meet him, wings stretched, cry sharp and furious, fire already building in her throat. She doesn’t retreat. She doesn’t falter. She faces him like she was born for this, like she was waiting for this, like she is ancient and unafraid. The sky groans with the force of their clash, old power against old power, silver and red colliding in the open air with a rage that cannot be stopped. 

You cling to her back, one hand on the bindings, one hand on your blade, as they twist around each other in long, brutal arcs. Flame against flame. Claw against scale. He is fast. Silverwing is faster. She lands a strike to his ribs, tears a line across his side that glows with fresh blood, a bright streak of red against all the other red. It isn’t enough. Caraxes answers with fire that scorches the edge of her wing, and you feel her lift falter, her momentum slow, the heat of it singeing your own hair. His roar splits the clouds. They close again, metal and scale and fury, and Daemon is so close now that you can see his smile, a glint of teeth through the chaos. His eyes are dark and wide, and the look on his face is a look that knows the end of things.

She tries to rise. To pull free. To break above him and reach the open sky. You feel the desperation in her body, the strain of every wingbeat, the struggle of every breath. She is not afraid, but you are. Caraxes is faster. Meaner. He cuts across her path, closes the distance, slams into her chest with his full weight, and drives her downward with all the force of his hate. You are falling. You feel it before you know it, before you understand it, and there is nothing you can do. Nothing you can change. 

Silverwing screams as they plummet, not in pain, not in fear, but in fury and refusal and the last hope of what you thought you could be. It is the sound of something that was never meant to break.  

It ends with his teeth at her throat. A breath drawn but never released. The light is red, red, red. Her wings crumple midair, and you are falling before you understand that it is over.

The sky is still red, a deep and aching red, but it feels colder now, heavier, the light strained through smoke and fear. You stare up into it as you fall. You do not scream. You do not even cry out. You do nothing but hold on, desperate and silent, your hands clenched tight and white-knuckled across slick leather and metal. The air howls around you. It is a scream that drowns your own, a shriek that cannot be tamed or softened or stopped. You feel it in your chest, a brutal and unrelenting crush. Wind tears at your skin, your hair, at the edges of your mind. You are spinning. Silverwing is spinning. She is a blur of white and silver and impossible speed, a cyclone streaked with red, a storm unleashed in the chaos of this new sky. The world is collapsing around you, unraveling into pieces that you can no longer hold, into fragments and bursts and bright splinters of flame. Fire licks at her side, at your side, and you do not know where she ends and you begin, do not know if the blood you see is hers or yours or if it even matters anymore. The sky is still red, and you are still falling, and there is nothing left to do. Nothing but hold on. Nothing but wait to hit. You are not afraid. But you are not ready. You are not ready for this.

She hits the ground first. You feel her heart shudder once through the saddle. Her scales are broken. Her wings are shattered. Her body is still. You are still breathing when the flames take you.

Far above, Aemond cuts through the sky on Vhagar’s back. He does not see it happen. He is watching another front, tracking another flight, shouting orders to men who cannot hear him from the clouds. He does not notice the silver vanishing from the horizon until it is already smoke. By the time he turns, you are gone.

He lands hours later, unknowing, unprepared, unaware of the truth waiting for him. The camp is louder than it has been in weeks, a wild frenzy of voices and lights that scatter against the dark. Men feast and bellow with the thrill of blood and victory, laugh and drink until the wine slips from their cups and turns the dirt to mud. Swords are raised in triumph, in celebration, in defiance of death. Fires crackle in every corner, careless and bright, smoke curling high into the sky like an offering, like the gods are owed sacrifice even in times of triumph. It is a clamor that should feel like life but feels instead like betrayal, like a breaking. Aemond walks through it with blood on his face and ash on his cloak. His steps are steady, his mouth set in a line, his mind already sharpening itself for whatever comes next. He moves with the precision of a blade unsheathed, with a purpose that denies hesitation or falter or doubt. He does not look at the men who cheer him. He does not hear what they shout. Vhagar rests outside the ridge with her wings low, her breaths shallow and satisfied, her massive frame a silhouette against the crimson glow of the fires. Somewhere, someone is singing. He does not ask for news. He does not need to. It is already in the air, dense and relentless, a truth closing in from the edges. It tells him before anyone else does, before their lips can form the words they are too afraid to say. It’s in the way the voices drop to murmurs when he passes, the way the laughter becomes whispers, the way the maester stands just beyond the firelight with his head bowed, not moving, not calling his name, not daring to hope. There is no sound but the crackle of flame, the whisper of smoke, the small and fragile sounds of a world that is unaware, unprepared, unfathomable, the sound of grief before it knows itself.

There is a table near the command tent. Someone has laid your things on it.

The ring comes first. Twisted, darkened, the stone cracked straight through the center. A fissure through light. The end of all promises. Then the breastplate, scorched beyond repair, warped and blackened, melted in places, but still unmistakably yours. Unmistakably burned into his memory like a brand across his chest. A piece of the past that is nothing but ruin now, ruin and loss and everything that matters. And last—a scrap of riding leather, the edge of your cloak. Burned. Frayed. Still smelling faintly of smoke and dragonhide, of a life that once burned bright and fierce and relentless. He does not touch any of it. No one speaks. No one dares. The crackle of the fire is the only sound. The sound of things that can never be mended, never be fixed, never be undone.

Aemond stares for a long time. His hands are shaking. His world is shaking. Reality is shaking and breaking apart into something he does not know, into a violence he did not see coming. He says nothing. He cannot say anything. Not now. Not here. There is too much to bury. Too much to burn. He cannot see the sky from where he stands. But he feels it, vast and dark, settling heavy upon him, a grief that has no edges, no ground, no direction but down.

They return to King’s Landing without ceremony.

No horns. No banners. No feast. Aemond rides through the gates with ash still clinging to his armor and does not look up once. Vhagar settles on the hill above the city, silent and slow, as if even she understands what has been lost.

The days crawl forward. He moves through them like a man underwater—never rushed, never still, untouchable in his grief. He does not speak unless he must. The servants learn to walk around him. The court pretends not to notice the shadows that grow in his absence. He walks the halls like a ghost.

The children wait for footsteps that do not come. Their voices echo through the stone corridors as they call for you, searching rooms you no longer enter, asking questions no one dares to answer. The eldest repeats it the most, over and over, the same shape on her lips: Is she coming back? She asks it in the morning. At meals. When the wind howls against the tower windows.

The youngest won’t let go of your cloak. She drags it through the hallways like a doll, clutches it to her chest when she sleeps, buries her face in it whenever the silence gets too loud. Aemond tucks it beside her every night. It never helps.

He tells himself he will speak to them tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes the next day. And then the next. Until even your name is a weight he cannot lift.

They don’t forget you. Children never do.

One of them draws a dragon with two riders—your colors, your hair, your sword at your hip. The strokes are careful, almost reverent, like they’ve memorized every detail. It’s left on Aemond’s desk one morning, tucked beneath a shard of sea glass. He stares at it for a long time before folding it in half and placing it in the drawer without a word.

Another hums. Quiet, broken. A tune you used to sing when the castle was still warm with your presence, when there was still laughter at the table and soft footsteps down the corridor. The sound follows Aemond through the halls like a ghost. He never asks them to stop.

“When she comes back,” one of them says, curling up on a window seat beside a basket of half-forgotten toys, “we’ll fly again. All three of us.”

That is when it breaks. Not in the hall. Not in front of them. Not where anyone can see. Later, alone in your solar, the air still faintly scented with rose oil and leather, he sinks to the floor without meaning to. His hand finds the edge of your riding cloak draped over the chaise, worn and frayed from years of use. The seam catches on his knuckle.

He holds it like a lifeline. And then he bows his head and stays there, knees on the stone, shoulders rigid with everything he never said.

They bring your body back to King’s Landing draped in black and silver. The scorched remnants of your armor have been cleaned. Your sword is laid across your chest. What’s left of your cloak rests beneath your hands. There is no procession, no trumpets, no fanfare. Only silence. Only mourning.

Silverwing’s body follows days later, hauled from the battlefield by chains and magic and dragonbone pulleys. She is barely recognizable. Her wings are torn. Her throat is ruined. But her eyes are closed, and her face is calm, and somehow that is worse.

The pyre is built at the edge of the city, where the cliffs meet the water and the wind carries sound for miles. Two shapes are laid side by side—woman and dragon, rider and soul. The firewood is stacked high and dry. The banners do not flap. There is no wind today.

Aemond stands at the base of the pyre with the children beside him. He says nothing. They press against him, quiet as shadows. When it is time, he calls to Vhagar.

The old she-dragon lowers her head. She stares at the pyre for a long moment, as if she, too, is trying to understand how this could have happened. Then she opens her jaws and breathes.

The fire takes quickly.

It devours the wood, the cloth, the flesh, the silver, the blood. It eats everything. It turns you both to smoke. Aemond does not look away.

And when it is done—when the flames settle and only heat remains—he kneels where the ground is still warm, and rests his hand against the stone. Not ashes. Not bones. Just the absence of you.

That night, he does not return to his chambers. He sleeps in your solar, fully clothed, your youngest curled beside him. The fire burns low. He keeps watch. He does not close his eye.