Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

The prince comes to her room at night.

Author note: this is an extract from my fanfic. The female character is an oc.

When she opened the door, she held her breath. 

Her prince was right in front of her. Looking even wearier and more tired than that morning: the circles under his eye had grown deeper and darker and his skin looked paler. 

Elia opened her mouth to say his name, but he shut her down putting his lips on hers, cradling her face in his big hands, icy cold on her warm face. She pulled him inside her room, closing the door, wise enough to think they couldn’t be seen kissing like that.  

When the door was closed, he slipped his tongue inside her mouth, groaning while tasting her, savoring her like he was starving.

He licked her lips one more time before interrupting the kiss, keeping his forehead against her without saying anything, his face tensed, a frown on his eyebrow. 

They stayed like that for a bit, Elia understood he needed only that, he needed the calm and the silence, so she stayed in silence, waiting for him to speak, caressing the back of his hands, bony and soft.  

He sighed and pulled her close, his eye still closed. “I didn’t know where else to go” 

“I’m glad you came here” she admitted, brushing her nose against his. 

“My father is dead” he whispered so weakly that she could hear him only thanks to their closeness. 

She raised her hand and caressed his face. “I know” she whispered, nodding. “I’m so sorry”

His frown deepened. 

“You’re freezing,” she caressed his cheek, right under the lace of his eyepatch. “Sit by the fire. I get you some water”  

She poured the water into a cup, watching him walk to the fire almost limping; he looked drunk, but she knew he probably hadn’t been sleeping in days. When she brought him the water, he was sitting on the ground, on a big red carpet right in front of the fire. She held her gown and sat by his side, handing him the cup. 

He looked at the cup and then at her, smiling briefly, a smile that looked almost painful. 

“Thank you” he muttered under his breath. 

She shrugged. “How are you?” 

He chuckled, looking into the fire, he put his palms over the fire. “People keep asking me that, and I keep replying that I’m trying to be strong. But I’m not: the ugly truth is that… I don’t feel anything , at all. I mean, one should be sad on the day of his father's funeral, right? This is how normal people feel when their father dies. Then why can’t I feel anything? Why can’t I be normal for one fucking time?” 

Elia had the impression that, if he had been in his full senses, he would have never told her something like that, he would have never opened up like that with anyone. 

“Because love isn’t owed,” she replied, caressing his forearm. “It’s deserved”

He turned to her, nodding. 

“I’ve tried, you know?” he admitted, turning back to look at the fire. “When I was little I followed him everywhere, I’ve listened to hours of boring meetings of the Small Council, of Lords making requests, I’ve asked him about his life, about his dragon… I couldn’t believe that my father was the last rider of the Black Dread. But he never cared about me, or any of us…” 

The flames were burning into his eye while he talked. “The night I’ve lost my eye, something changed in me. And not just because I had claimed Vhagar. I was there, bleeding, defaced forever, and he was screaming at me, at me , for calling their precious grandchildren bastards . A simple statement, more than an offense, if you ask me.” 

The more she heard that story, the more she realized that a war was starting only because of children’s bickering. 

“I blamed Aegon, for telling me that.” he admitted, chuckling. “I thought he would have denied it, but my brother, the drunk idiot who had never missed a chance to taunt me, surprisingly had my back, he took the blame for me, and never said a word. I even had the suspicion he actually liked the Strong boys, but he took my defenses. Only he and our mother did. That night, I understood that we had just ourselves, that it didn’t matter how good I was, my father would have always preferred Rhaenyra and her family. I avoided him like the plague, since that night, and he has never asked why I suddenly stopped following him, so I thought it was a relief for him”

“The biggest lie of this world is that we should necessarily love our parents,” she told him. “Or that they will love us no matter what.” 

“I wanted to punch all the people who had come to me today, saying how much he loved us” he confessed, closing his fists. 

“You should have” she replied, shrugging. 

He looked at her, giggling. He stopped and gave a deeper look at her hair completely loose, falling in black waves around her shoulder, it felt like he was seeing her again for the first time, without her colorful dresses or flashy jewelry. “I’ve missed you, sea girl” 

Yeah, he definitely would have never talked to her like that if he was more in himself.

She chuckled, laying her head on the couch, looking at him. “I’ve missed you, too”

He looked down. “Can I stay here, tonight?” 

She bit her lips, smiling. “I wouldn’t let you go anywhere else, my prince,” she said, tilting her head toward him. “Especially because you look drunk” 

He chuckled. “I’m not drunk, I swear. I’m just really really tired”

She smiled. “Oh, I can tell. Do you want to lay on the bed?”

He shook his head. “Let’s stay here, just for a bit”

She nodded, coming closer. 

“What about you?” his eye was battling to stay open, closing languidly for more seconds than a simple blink. “Were you asleep? Did I wake you up?” 

She shook her head. “No, I… I couldn’t very much sleep” 

“Were you worried about… I mean, about what would happen to us?” 

That and so much more, my prince. She wanted to say, but she simply nodded. 

“I’ve asked, before,” he told her. And her heart sank in her stomach, she realized only at that moment how scared she was to have to say goodbye to him. “They say nothing has changed, the wedding is still arranged.” 

Her body relaxed with a deep sigh of relief when she heard that. Yet, she was far from being tranquil, but at least it was something less to worry about.

“What were you doing?” he asked. 

She shrugged. “Getting bored, awake with nothing to do, and nothing to read except The Seven-Pointed-Star ” she admitted with a grimace. 

“A delightful read” he joked, chuckling. “I’ve tried to read it to the twins but they get bored. They like stories, though.”

Elia came nearer, settling near him, her head almost on his shoulder. “What stories?” 

“About our past, our ancestors, their dragons, how they conquered the Seven Kingdoms, how they forged the Iron Throne…” 

She giggled. “I hope you tell them the part where Dorne refused to bow to the Targaryens and that’s why there aren’t dornish swords on the Iron Throne” 

His tongue snapped lightly in his mouth. “I may have neglected that part…” he admitted with a laugh, “but Jaehaera asks me to tell her the tale of Nymeria every time she is sick. She has asked to learn how to use the sword“

She smiled. “Would you teach her?” 

He nodded. “Of course I would. I’ve already commissioned a sword to give her for her name day” 

“It’s very sweet of you” she admitted. 

“I’ve always thought that when I would have had children, I wouldn’t have made any differences about them. Sons, daughters…they all should have the same possibilities” 

That was sweet, other than absolutely right to say. Yet she felt like she wanted to sink into the ground and never came up again.

Here's what you’re taking away from him. 

Go to your prince and tell him that he’ll never have an heir, that he’ll never give his family name to a child, that he’ll never put a dragon egg on his child's cradle, that he’ll never see his heirs play with his nephews… Tell him that and you’ll lose him forever.

“Do you… do you really want children?” she asked, tentatively. 

He shrugged, he had finally closed his eye but was still clearly awake. “It’s not that I have other choices. It’s my duty, I have to make our bloodline continue. But… after all that’s been, I don’t really know if I could be a good father. I think about it sometimes…”

Elia had to bite his lips not to let tears drop down her face. She raised a hand and put it on his cheek, slowly caressing his cheekbones. 

“You would make a wonderful father,” she told him, while her fingertips were starting to move in circles around his jaw until he relaxed. 

He sighed, drowsy and almost peaceful when he spoke. “Gods, I love you when you do that” 

She flinched. “You mean you love it ?” 

But he didn’t reply, finally asleep, finally resting. 

She took a blanket from her bed and put it on him, before sitting next to him and nestling on his shoulder. Falling asleep instantly. 

Beside the Queen stood her husband, the Rogue Prince, who was looking at his brother’s body, clenching his jaw, grinding his teeth. In front of him, there were all the children of the King: Aegon looked like he wasn’t even there, his eyes empty and red, surrounded by dark circles, Helaena was beside him, holding his youngest kid in her arms, cradling him, drying her eyes with her hand. Even the youngest of the king's children had joined the function, Daeron, who had interrupted his training at Oldtown to come. Her prince stood behind them all, aside, like he was there by chance; he was standing with his back straight, his arms behind his back, his chin lifted up in a hard look, yet unnatural, impenetrable, almost inhuman.

“Does he ever shows any emotions?” Morgan asked, lowering his voice. “At least when you’re alone?”

They were used to all other types of reactions, where they came from. Everything had to be loud, in Dorne, or it didn’t happen: cries, laughter, fights.

But she knew her prince, she knew he wasn’t cold as he so much liked to appear, she had seen the fire in his eye, and she had let herself get warmed by it, maybe almost burned, sometimes.

Like he had sensed her, his eye found her in the crowd. And his chest stopped moving for a few seconds, while his eye was on her, without even blinking. His face was sharper than usual, his blue eye was cold, but his gaze softened when it met hers, even if just for a bit.

The prince explains what happened the night he lost his eye.

Aemond laughed. “When I was nine, Aegon gave me and Jace some wine, saying that it was pomegranate juice. We woke up in the chicken coop with the worst headache I had ever had, vomiting for the rest of the day, having to hide from our mothers”

She giggled. “You and Jace?”

He looked away. “Yes”

“So there was a time you were friend…”

The prince sighed, tensing up again. “We were kids of the same age living together. We trained together, studied together, and ate together. Of course we were friends” 

“And then what happened?” 

He chuckled, bitterly. “I don’t know... I have no idea where or when it began, but I wasn't the one who started it, that is for sure. I just remember that one day we were all inseparable, and the other I was the fool who didn't have a dragon” 

We treated him like that because we thought he was weak and we didn’t think he would have bothered us, one day.

“And then,” Aemond continued, with a sigh. “ This happened” he concluded, pointing at his eyepatch. “But I’m sure they already told you that”

Elia nodded, feeling his body tensing against her, his jaw tight again. 

“I bet they brought up the story of how I stole their mother’s dragon?"

She nodded again. “Isn’t that what happened?”

He looked away, tensing even more. “You can't steal a dragon. A dragon is not a possession or a slave. Those spoiled princes and princesses think they can inherit everything, and that everything that their parents had, must be theirs. Not everything works that way”

Elia didn’t reply. She simply held his hand tight, letting him talk. 

“Listen,” he admitted, sighing. “I know what I did was a low blow. I knew it even then, and I knew that I deserved a good punch for that. If they had given me just a bloody nose, I would have gone to bed knowing that we were even. But what they did was…They went too far.” 

She looked down, nodding. “It’s true. You didn’t deserve it” 

Aemond looked at her, his eye wide open. He blinked, surprised. “No one has ever told me this. Well, except for my mother, maybe.”

She chuckled and looked at the eyepatch. “Will you ever let me see you without it?”

He inhaled quickly, shaking his head. “One day”

“Before our wedding?” 

“Maybe” he replied, looking away. 

She looked at the muscle in his jaw rhythmically darting under his pale skin. “What are you afraid of?”

Elia didn’t forget their first night together, the way he didn’t let her touch his eyepatch, or how he warned her when she was about to undress him. 

It's not exactly a sight to see.

“Nothing” he simply replied, without looking at her.

“Look at me, my prince,” she told him, in a whisper that sounded like a command. He obeyed. 

When their eyes met, she raised a hand to stroke his cheekbone. She smiled, before coming closer and kissing his lips. 

Summary: The prince finally convince his betrothed to ride his dragon

Vhagar slowly landed in front of them, lowering her big head to let her rider gently pat her muzzle.

“You promised to reconsider our ride” he stated, glancing at the dragon.

She looked at the beast, then at him. “Maybe because I forgot how big she was”

Aemond chuckled. “I think she likes you, you know?”

A hot whizz of air lifted her dress, reminding her of when she had almost been roasted alive by the dragon.

“I think she just wants to eat me” she replied, lifting her eyebrow.

“You’re getting confused with her rider” he teased her, with a wicked smirk.

She hit him with a light punch on his arm.

“Your impudence is not taking you anywhere, pretty boy”

“Oh yeah?” he asked her “What if I told you we will be finally alone and far far away from indiscreet eyes? From your mother, for example.”

Elia bit her lips. “How do I get on her?”

A flash of triumph brightened his eye and his smile. He turned to Vhagar and talked to her in a calm tone.

“Sagon sȳz sir, Vhagar” he told her. “Ȳdra daor sȳngagon īlva raqiros”

Be good now, Vhagar. Don’t frighten our friend.

He turned to Elia and stretched his hand toward her. Elia took it and came closer slowly until she was so close to the dragon that she could actually touch her. Aemond guided her hand toward the big muzzle. She gasped when she felt her scaly skin, surprised to see how cold it was. Vhagar closed her big eyes and lifted her muzzle like a gigantic cat.

“See?” he reminded her, whispering in her ear. “She likes you”

“How did she know you were here?” she asked.

He shrugged, shaking his head. “Even for us, it’s hard to understand the bond between us and our dragons. Somehow, she seems to always know where I am, or when I need her”

You are quite silent, today, my prince,” Elia said, looking at him. 

He smiled. “Let’s say this is not how I pictured the morning with you” 

It was ridiculous, they were about to marry, yet they couldn’t talk to each other alone. If only their families knew what they did when they were alone. 

Elia chuckled, dramatically putting a hand on her chest. “You won’t expect me to talk to a man without my mother's supervision? I’m a respectable lady!”

He smiled, looking at her, letting his eye wondering on her figure. “Sure you are, most of the time” 

When he lowered his gaze down at her, he saw her looking at him with a wicked smirk, biting her bottom lip, and slowly shaking her head.  

He swallowed and looked away, licking at his lips. “Don’t look at me like that”

“Or else?” she chuckled, temptingly raising an eyebrow. 

He sighed. “Or else I may do something I shouldn’t be doing in front of both our mothers”

The more she looked at it, the less scary it became.

The skull of Balerion, The Black Dread, was looking at her, harmless, yet so monumental it was giving her shivers. She couldn’t imagine what it was for people hundreds of years before, to find themselves fighting against this thing.

Actually, she could. She had met Vhagar.

She was still looking at the giant skull when she felt someone beside her.

Aemond sighed and looked at her, she gave him just a quick glance, he was standing beside her with his hands behind his back.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked, looking away, right into the eyes of the monster in front of them.

“Well,” he admitted. “You weren’t with my sister, your mother, Baela and Rhaena, in the gardens… So or you were here, or sailing to Penthos”

She nodded. “Well, now you found me. Goodbye”

She was walking away when she heard him, he spoke so quickly it was almost unintelligible.

“I’m sorry for what happened yesterday” he muttered.

She turned, raising an eyebrow. “What?”

He blinked, looking down. “I shouldn’t have said those things to you”

She nodded, crossing her arms. If he thought this was enough, he was very wrong.

“What things?” she asked.

He bit his lips and looked at her. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about you and Jace, and I shouldn’t have forbidden you anything. I wish I had thought one instant more”

Elia held her breath, surprised. “Then why did you do it?”

He closed his eye, sighing, his fists clenched by his side . “Don’t make me say it”

She scoffed. “Goodbye, your grace”

He talked when she had already turned around.

“Because I didn’t expect to care this much” he confessed, while she slowly turned. He looked like someone was trying to pull off his teeth from his mouth. “When I imagined my wedding I thought it would be with a lady I didn’t know, I thought I would have married her, and lived by her side without getting… involved. And now I have no idea what to do with what I feel, this is all new to me”

Elia had to tighten her grip on her gown to not follow her heart and run to him.

“And what made you change your mind?”

"I don't want to be the man I've been yesterday" he admitted. “I don’t want you to be scared when you’re with me,” he told her, coming closer. She didn’t step back. “You should feel safe when you’re with me. You should be yourself when you're with me. I like when you're yourself. I don't care what people say"

The prince's betrothed discovers about Aemond's past

“What happened between them?” Elia asked.

“They tormented him” Baela confessed, in one breath, looking away.

“Baela…” Rhaena called her, a warning look in her eyes.

“Who?”

Her friend didn’t look at her when she finally replied.

“Jace, Luke, even Aegon, sometimes. And us…” the girl shook her head. “He didn’t have a dragon when we were little, and they wouldn’t stop teasing him about that. You know, making jokes, and laughing at him… Children can be mean, sometimes”

A flash of clear lightning brightened the room with his silver light.

Be careful how you talk, or your tongue will end like your eye.

“Jace did that to him?” Elia realized, covering her mouth.

A thunder made the walls almost tremble.

“It was Luke” Rhaena corrected her.

“It was all of us” Baela pointed out, looking at her sister. “We were all there, we are all responsible for what happened to him. Sometimes I… I can still hear his screams"

Let’s see what you can do without your brother and cousins.

When she heard that Aemond had lost his eye the night he had claimed Vhagar, she did not think about him being hurt by his own family. 

E lia held her fists tight, her chest aching, imagining him in pain. She still remembered his reaction, his fear, when she tried to touch his scar, how he quickly took her hand away, making sure she would not touch him there.

Is he still afraid of girls? When we were younger I had to literally force him to talk to them.

“He was always mean to us, he insulted Jace and Luke, insulted me. He stole our mother’s dragon!” Rhaena replied. That looked like a conversation they had already had, multiple times. “He’s only waiting for his father to be dead to kill us all”

“Yes, and partly that’s our fault. Why would he consider us family when we treated him like that?”

“Maybe we treated him like this because he deserved it”

“Has something happened with Aemond?” the princess asked, then.

Elia looked away, indecisive.

“Mommy!”

A little boy ran into the room and into the arms of Helaena, jumping on the couch. Elia didn’t have to raise her eyes to see who accompanied Jaehaerys to his mother.

She did her best to not look at him, quickly drying her tears with her hands, trying to not get caught, but she could tell he was looking at her, his eye was burning on her, pinching like thousand needles.

“Aemond, what a coincidence” Helaena pointed out. “I invited Elia for breakfast”

She looked at him, in the end, realizing she wasn’t the one who should have looked away, she wasn’t the one who had thrown everything away for nothing.

He imperceptibly flinched, when their eyes met. What a difference from just the day before. His face looked pale, paler than usual, his eyes were dry and surrounded by deep, dark, circles.

Look how miserable you made us.

He swallowed, his throat tensing. “Hi,” he whispered.

She nodded. “Hi”

The prince saw his betrothed talking with another boy and gets jealous

Elia moved to follow him, but Jace stopped her, taking her by the arm.

“ Let him go,” he told her. “He is not worth it”

She shook her head and followed Aemond along the hall. She found him outside the hall.

“ Hey!” she called him. He turned to her and started walking faster, she had to almost run to reach him and grabbed him by the arm.

“ Don’t touch me” he said, freeing his arm from her grip.

"What was that?" she asked, gesturing at the hall with her arm.

He looked at her almost in disgust. "I should be the one asking that. I don't know how it is in Dorne, but here, women don't remain alone with other men”

"Are you being serious?!"

"And you?” he asked, in remand. “Are you being serious about this, or is this just a game, for you?"

"A game?” she repeated, shaking her head in disbelief. “Why? Just because I was talking to Jace? We were talking about how excited he is to get married!"

"I don't give a fuck about what you were talking about,” he said, with an expression on his face that made him almost unrecognizable. “You won't talk to him ever again, if you want this to continue" he concluded, pointing at them.

Elia flinched, blinking. She took a step back, his word echoing in her head.

Before realizing it, she was laughing. Not chuckling, or giggling, she was laughing out loud, a hand covering her face while she tilted her head back.

Aemond was looking at her with a confused look, as well as still enraged.

“ What…?” he asked.

"I feel so stupid” she admitted, shaking her head. “I really thought you were different, but you're just like every other man in this fucking seven kingdoms. You think you can raise your voice and take out your knife and everyone will listen to you, too scared to disobey. Well, you won't scare me , and you will not give me orders. You're not my father, you're not my master, and you're not even my prince."

"Then who am I to you?" he questioned her.

She shook her head, while she took a step back, trying to put as much distance as possible between them. But even if she had run away to the other side of the world, it wouldn’t have been far enough. She took off her necklace and threw it at him.

“ Your impertinence is funnier when it’s not directed against me” he admitted. His arm was still around the backrest of her chair, and he was languidly caressing her shoulder blades.

Elia smiled. “I’m the only one who can tease you-uh”

His fingertips had now started to draw swirls on her skin, right in the center of her back, and she couldn’t hold a sound sigh.

He chuckled, while his fingers traveled lower. “You have to improve your self-control, princess. We are in public.”

She had to close her eyes, biting her lips. “You caught me by surprise, pretty boy”

“ Oh?” he asked, before drawing a vertical line along her spine, from the lower back to the nape, playing with a few strands of hair.

She held onto the armrests of the chair, gasping. “Fuck”

“ You really missed my touch, haven’t you?” he asked, drawing little waves on her shoulder blades. 

She closed her eyes and sighed, while he kept doing his wicked play to her back, her mind unable to react.

He chuckled and came closer, putting his lips right next to her ear.

“ By the way” he moved his lips against her ear. “I don’t have to check… I know it will be as good as the first time. I still have your scratches on my back, they burn so good.”

“That tongue is as wicked as talented” she admitted, panting. Her legs were rubbing against each other.  

He chuckled, looking at her legs. “Fuck, you are impatient, sea girl. Can’t you wait till our marriage?”

She shook her head, tensing up. “You know where my room is”

He licked his lips. “Would you leave the door open for me?”

Yes, yes, fuck, of course. She wanted to scream.