Aella Targaryen wed on the anniversary of her father's death. To her cousin, nonetheless, continuing the long-standing tradition of her family to marry their relatives. It was a day that was meant to bring joy and overshadow the sorrow that had purs...
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I usually solve problems by letting them devour me
– Franz Kafka
°•~━━✥❖✥━━~•°
115 AC
After three years, Aemon's stance on his betrothal hardly changed. The anxiety when faced with Lady Elinor was no longer there, and he did feel sick whenever their impending marriage was mentioned but he still despised the idea of marrying her. Lady Elinor was kind, charming, and intelligent, and Aemon found himself enjoying the hours they spent together. She was a friend to him and nothing more.
That did not seem to matter to the world or the court. Because everyone now knew of the betrothal, including Elinor herself. Aemon spent a year harbouring that knowledge all by himself. His father had kept his word, as Aemon expected he would, and Elinor was not told anything, nor was the betrothal solidified by any means. Until Prince Aegon was born – a red-faced squalling son that Viserys craves for so long – and his father came to the capital.
When faced with his father and the question of the betrothal, Aemon found it hard to refuse him. Prince Rhaegon, pale and exhausted, looking more like a wraith than a man, was the very image of duty in that year. He alone took care of Aeron and Viserra, especially now that Aemon's mother was in the Stepstones. And how could Aemon stand in front of his father, look into his eyes which were lined with redness and surrounded by heavy bags, and complain like a child that he did not want it?
He couldn't, and that was the truth. And no matter how much Aemon regretted his answer, there wasn't anything he could do about it now. The court knew, Elinor knew, the King had agreed and a contract was drawn up. And Elinor smiled at him so brightly that first feast they attended together, eyes shining with barely kept excitement. If he backed out now, he would only hurt everyone around him.
But do you want it? Rhaenyra had shouted those words at him when she found out, violet eyes lined with tears that Aemon didn't understand. His answer of duty and tradition hasn't quelled her crying, and he did not know how to comfort her. After that day, she never brought it up again, but her face was one of hard steel in the presence of his betrothed.
"How is your mother, my Prince?" Elinor's soft melodic voice brought him to the present. The air around him was heavy with the overpowering fragrance of blooming flowers and the stifling. No, there hasn't been any sort of news from the Stepstone in almost three months. The anger of his mother's abandonment had long dwindled and only turned to a soft – but ever-present – turmoil. It had come as such a shock when his father's letter arrived at the Red Keep not only a month after his uncle's wedding to his new queen.
Aemon's mother had been suffering for a long time, he knew that. The maester's called it a common melancholy, supposedly an after-effect of childbirth. Many women suffered through it, and clearly, Aemon did not understand it, because he never imagined his mother would mount her dragon in the middle of the night in nothing more than her nightgown and fly off south to where the war was occurring. It had been almost three years, and she hadn't returned, nor did she write as often as she had in the beginning.
