Chapter Text
“Mother, please. This is not necessary,” Y/N stood still in front of a polished mirror as her soft protest fell on deaf ears. Behind her, Rhaenyra Targaryen held a brush gilded with delicate, gold dragons, and the soft bristles glided through silky white hair.
Rhaenyra would never admit it to anyone but herself in the safe retreat of her mind that half the tears she had wept the night Y/N was born were because she was blessed with a head full of white hair like a true Targaryen and Velaryon. Rhaenyra was relieved. She was relieved that at least one of her children would be spared the cruel jabs and accusations wherever she went. True, their words couldn’t be called accusations if they had truth to them, and what set Y/N apart from her older brothers was not blood, for they shared the same father, but a bit of luck or perhaps an intervention from the old Gods or the new. But the specifics eluded Rhaenyra, and no one needed to know any further.
Y/N had servants doting her from the moment she took her first breath—and not only because they had to, but because she was, not unlike her mother, a delight to be around—and yet for the ten and eight years she’s been alive, her hair was gently brushed and braided by her mother. Despite the fact that Y/N loved nothing more than to run around and come back to her chambers come afternoon with scrapes and dirt across her face and her hair a dishevelled disaster, Rhaenyra carefully brushed and braided her hair unceasingly, morning after morning.
So, a dismissive—loving, but dismissive nevertheless—hum was all Y/N got out of Rhaenyra.
“Two or one? Perhaps one over, and one under?”
“Only one, please. Leave the rest as is, I’m to take Tessarion out of the pit soon.”
Rhaenyra, in curiosity, cocked her head to the side to catch Y/N’s gaze in the reflection of the mirror. Meanwhile, her deft fingers dove in and out of strands of white hair, creating a tight, single braid that would soon twirl into a simple bun with a few pins.
“Have I not told you? Apologies. She hasn’t flown in days, and the weather seems well. It would do her good to—”
“Flying alone, are you?”
“No,” Y/N’s voice came out weak. A stronger “no” soon followed. “Vhagar is coming, too.”
“You mean Aemond,” Rhaenyra’s shapely brows furrowed into a disapproving frown.
It didn’t take a Sister of the Faith or the Spymaster of the court to know that Rhaenyra and Queen Alicent weren’t what they once were. A collateral of their bitter falling out was her somewhat sudden disapproval of how much time Y/N had spent with Aemond. “That boy’s nothing but bad influence,” she’d complain over dinner. Daemon would hum in agreement, though the agreement, Y/N knew, did not come from his heart. Y/N always had her suspicion that Daemon and Aemond had mutual respect, and perhaps a slight hint of admiration for one another. Though both were too proud to ever be anything other than reverential to one another whenever they crossed paths. Even so, Daemon saw Y/N with Aemond several times, and reassured Rhaenyra that she only spent time with the servant girls, helping them fold heavy tapestries all day long.
Y/N however, felt differently. Despite her childish cruelty towards Aemond before he’d claimed Vhagar for himself, he was nothing but sweet and kind to her. She was in on cruel pranks played on him, parading around a much smaller Tessarion whilst asking him why did he not have a dragon, and could he perhaps be a bastard himself since his egg hadn’t hatched.
“You know, Tessarion was a goddess in old Valyria. Mother helped me choose a name for my dragon. From the tomes of our Maester. When will you get a dragon? You’re older than me. Besides, everyone else has one. Except for you,” Y/N once pressed Aemond as a child, instigated and encouraged by her brothers and Aemond’s.
“Perhaps never,” Aemond responded quietly, unbeknownst to both himself and Y/N that things would change quite soon.
And change they did. Aemond claimed the biggest dragon in the known realm. He changed, too. He hopped off from his first flight as a man: colder, calmer, more distant and cruel. Yet he always reserved a warmer, softer place in his frozen heart for Y/N.
Aemond never regarded himself handsome, and he was too smart to fool himself with Alicent’s excuses as to why young ladies around Red Keep avoided her. But not Y/N. Never Y/N. She beamed up whenever they sat across from each other at the breakfast tables and dinner feasts. Though their games changed, the time they spent together never lessened. She seemed almost *happy* to see him, but Aemond took great care to remind himself it was a kind, friendly gesture from a well-behaved lady. Though he couldn’t dare say it out loud unless he risked a playful slap to his broad shoulder with a feigned-stern warning that Y/N was not a lady.
“By the Gods! I’m NOT a lady. I’ll wear an armour, like you. Don’t laugh. You will see. I will never get married. I won’t fall in love. It’s absurd. Mother says she said the same thing once, but she ended up fighting in the same battlefield all women do,” Y/N stomped her feet to the pit just last week with Aemond following behind with a lopsided smile.
“And what battlefield is that, my not-a-lady?”
“The birthing bed, of course! It’s absurd. Truly. It’s a horror! I’m never falling in love.”
Aemond only hummed, nodding as Y/N trailed off, nearing the end of another one of her rants about the perils of ladyhood. Though that time, his face fell. There was a stinging ache inside him, as if Ser Criston finally got him in one of their training sessions. Why did it matter if Y/N disavowed love? So what if she was sworn off marriage? Didn’t he do the very same as he stared at the grotesque scar that ran across his face? Besides, if she were to fall in love, it would be with a handsome and flirty Lannister, or a ravishing Velaryon who would whisper promises in her ear that he’d sail her across the whole realm, showing her palaces and gardens from the comfort of her own ship. Y/N grew into an attractive lady, and while Aemond himself grew taller and muscular, he was not fortunate enough to grow another eye in place of the one he lost. Though the trade was far from fair, sometimes a certain thought snuck into his mind, especially when he was with Y/N: he would trade Vhagar back for his eye, and then, perhaps Y/N would see him differently. It was a silly thought, and he chased it off as soon as it came, but by the Gods it was persistent.
“Good morning,” Y/N squinted an eye to stare up at the man with his back to her. She needn’t see his face to know her dragon-riding partner. Not because almost all her waking thoughts were plagued, in one way or the other, with him—it was indecent and quite frankly went against what she’d promised herself—Gods, no! But, well, he was tall and stood a certain way and shifted his weight from one foot to the other a certain way and his hair blew in the tender morning breeze a certain way and that breeze carried a certain scent that Y/N could distinguish from a feast hall full of smells—only because they grew up together. Perhaps Maester was right and reading too many romances was indeed perilous for a fresh mind like hers.
“Morning? Is it not past noon?”
“No. Perhaps you have suffered a blow to your head.”
Aemond smiled first. He always let Y/N win their playful bickering.
A gentle tap on his arm signalled him to follow along, though with his long legs he could’ve easily caught up with no warnings. His arms were folded behind him. Perhaps it was a feeble attempt at ensuring that his hands didn’t defy his mind and reach for Y/N’s, or perhaps, they were just comfortable like that.
“Are you excited?” Y/N broke the silence, stepping closer to Aemond, who always had to arch his back or crane his neck to meet her height. It amused him how petite she was in comparison. It reminded him of the times he carried her behind his back, with her legs locked around his waist and her arms almost suffocating him with how tight she’d clutched his neck from behind.
“What for?”
“The wedding, of course. Gods, you behave as if Aemon is not your brother sometimes!”
“Can you blame me?”
“No…” Y/N trailed off. She found that she couldn’t blame him for much, but perhaps for coming into her mind and filling her ears each time a suitor introduced himself to her, or when the Maester bored her to death with another history lesson.
“Well, are you?”
“No. I suppose not. Frankly, I’m not certain why I even asked,” Y/N chuckled. She could be herself the most and speak with no reservations or designations when she was around Aemond. The idea that he would soon follow after Aegon and marry a woman infuriated her. They could no longer spend as much time together as they could now, and they couldn’t be as close as they were either. The grass-green dragon of jealousy got the better of her. Oh, how she wished he’d let his arms idle by his side as he usually did. She would take his arm and tell him if she absolutely had to marry someone, she’d choose him, and she wouldn’t hate the notion of giving him a baby or two who would look exactly half like him and half like her. And despite telling herself this exact tale almost every day, she never quite gathered enough confidence and courage to do such a thing.
So instead Y/N flew alongside Aemond as usual. He showed off and she admired whenever she thought he didn’t look. High up above the clouds, Y/N thought about never landing down again. She fantasized about taking off with Aemond. She had once read in a tome about how the old Valyrians got married, and the words turned into pictures in her mind as she watched Vhagar glide through a flock of birds. The blood was first drawn from a palm she thought about pressing against hers whenever sleep eluded her. Then, the sharp Dragonglass cut hers, and the flow of their blood united in a mysterious Valyrian magic. Then—then, Aemond pulled Y/N out of her sweet fantasy and back to the clouds they were flying above.
“It’s getting late. Your mother might worry.”
“Or perhaps you’ve had enough of my company? Would you rather be elsewhere?”
The smile faded from Y/N’s face as the silence went on. It was a “yes”, then? Aemond did want to be elsewhere, perhaps with someone else, and she would find out through a silly tease.
“No. But I would rather you were not in trouble on my account.”
The delayed, stoic answer didn’t do much to comfort Y/N. So, that’s what he would come up with as an excuse to cut our time short? Might as well admit that you would rather be anywhere but here, why won’t you, Aemond?
“Actually, yes. We should land. I forgot I have a suitor coming all the way from the Eyrie.” That was a lie, and an immature one at that, but Aemond didn’t need to know.
He looked back over his shoulder. The hiss laced with disappointment and fury was swallowed up by the wind raised by Vhagar’s wings.
Back at the Pit, Aemond was courteous as always, hopping off Vhagar first to hold his hand out to Y/N, helping her off her dragon. Though this time, his hand didn’t reach for her waist to aid her in her small jump, and the lack of his touch through his gloves and her heavy brocade riding coat burned her flesh from the inside out like scorching iron. His face was turned to the side, his hands idle with the saddle on Vhagar as Y/N idled, praying to all the Gods she knew to pry a word of assurance out of Aemond’s mouth. A sweet, warm confirmation that they are still—well, friends. Yet it never came. A quiet, almost distant “Be well, princess,” was all that she got and a sharp piece of Dragonglass cut her open from neck to the heart. Far more painful and deadlier than an open palm, and no matching cut to bind their lives together, either. Perhaps the idea of marrying the very next lord that asked for her hand and getting away from King’s Landing—a place that once held much hope and happiness but now nothing but anguish—once and for all wasn’t such a bad idea after all.