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The Night That Ended

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Death comes for him in the aftermath of their raid for The Twins.

The wound is not fatal, nor is it bone-deep that he needs special treatment from the best maester or the like. It is a simple scratch that cuts to the first layer of tissue on his wrist, so delicate and thin it looks almost beautiful. Even the sword is not poisoned, not even a valyrian-steel, yet here he is. Lying on the bed of The Shy Maiden’s cabin that smells so thick like Griff, Connington or whoever he wants to call himself to be, he wants to vomit.

Aegon wants to laugh so hard at the irony if he is not burning from the fever. Really, he does. The flickering bright lights above his head give him the headache, fucking bright it hurts his skin and makes him squirm underneath the heat. He is bathed in sweat in matter of seconds; images flashing through his mind, cliché situation he often reads in one of Connington’s books about a man being in front of Death’s door. Maybe he is.

He sees his father first, a blur of silver and purple clothed in crimson red, then his mother with her black braided hair, what images left of his siblings the last time he saw them. It feels like a dream yet it does not feel like one either. He imagines Daenerys to be a female-version of his father, but her hair is long and braided like his mother’s when she steps to his line of vision. It is a blur of silver and emerald so it is not... he is not sure if this person is his aunt or not. She does have the Targaryen’s trademark of silver hair, purple eyes though so she probably is.

When he tries to reach out, Daenerys—or who he thinks of as his aunt of a Queen anyway—takes his hand in hers, caresses his knuckles with the tips of his fingers like one would to a lover. Aegon is melting inside.

“You are not my aunt,” he decides, forcing a grin to his sweat-covered face. The image shifts into a blur of different colours, from brown to silver to pitch black, until a young girl of twelve or thirteen sits on his aunt’s place. While her face is long, she is beautiful in ways other women are not. Streaks of wilderness, strength and fury reside inside her lithe slender body, completely shown in the way her dark long hair tangled wildly about her face.

The girl smiles a soft smile that kills his heart. “No,” she tells him. “I am not your aunt.”

Aegon tilts his head in wonder, in fascination, interested. “What are you then,” he demands because he is the prince who is destined, the prince who means to be, because he will be king who rules the kingdom. She leans down close to his face and he smells nature, of green trees and pine soles and it smells so beautiful he thinks that it’s, it is okay if death means this. If Death means her.

“I can be your death,” replies the girl with a fierce grin. “But I can also be your salvation.” She grips his hand tight, dangerously threatening that his knuckles turn white. Yet instead of pain, it is fire he feels. Fire that burns deep in his soul, fire that makes him feels alive. Aegon swallows a cough hard down his throat and licks his lips.

“Tell me what to do,” and there is so much desperation in his voice, so much longing and it sounds so broken he pities his pathetic self. He watches the girl with the piercing silver eyes and the wolf-ish grin leans even closer until she can taste the sweat on his chapped split lips, his hot breath against her face with quick-thumping beats of his heart.

“Do nothing,” the girl commands him, brushing strands of blue away from his forehead with her free hand. “And stay still.” She finishes before leaning down to press a chaste kiss on his lips.

He closes his eyes and tastes ashes, death, fresh berries and life.

When Aegon opens his eyes again, he tastes wine on his tongue, a dagger-length sword on his lap with the word ‘Winterfell’ above small letters of ‘The North Remembers’ carved into the wall beside his head.