❝I am not a dragon, Aemond Targaryen. You may have claimed me as yours, but to think I'd bend that easily? That is beyond foolish.❞
⟼ Ayla Bolton & Aemond Targaryen: bound by marriage, strengthened by love, ignited by madness.
𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗺𝗼𝗼𝗻𝘆 |...
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››a long way
"My prince," I call in the dead of the dark. "Can I ask you a question?" Aemond turns to me, where I unconsciously stopped a couple of seconds before. There are two things I am sure of: there is no way to break a betrothal after it is sealed, and I do not want to find myself married to a stranger. Since I have no intentions of starting a war against the Targaryen on behalf of the Bolton, I should at least try to get to know him, no matter what. My family could not stand a chance against them anyway.
"What do you wish to know, Lady Ayla?" His voice is quiet again, nothing to do with the vehemence that he had responded to Aegon in the Dining Hall. I sigh softly, my eyes still locked on that spot.
"Prince Aegon's twelfth nameday." I whisper, "Was what you were alluding to when you visited the Dreadfort?" Aside from our brief encounter, that day was not particularly worthy of being remembered: father ignored us most of the time, preferring to drown in wine cup after cup, mother gossiped nastily with every lady she considered reliable enough, and Royce was defeated in the tourney, at last, by Lord Blackwood's son.
Silence.
"I remember wandering in these halls and stumbling into you." Fragments of that day run freely inside my mind, as everything happened merely two days before. "You told me something I did not fully understand." A smile paints up on my lips. "Iksā litse, if my memory is not playing tricks on me." At this point, all I want is a response of any kind. Aemond is still deadly silent, and the feeling of being an idiot has not quite left me yet.
I may not be able to change my fate, I may have misunderstood the situation.
Perhaps naivety got the best of me, and he could not care less about me, it is not like he actually has to gain something from our betrothal.
A political matter, nothing more than that.
"You still mispronounce it." I shake my head lightly, turning my head from the windowsill to meet his face, half-hidden by the shadow.
"Perhaps I just need a good teacher." I wonder if unraveling all my boldness is the most thoughtful way to handle this situation, but my mother never fully instructed me. I just know I will soon be bound to squeeze out heir after heir if I am lucky enough not to die while giving birth. His brow arches questioningly; I wish he was easy to read.
"Have you grown an interest in High Valyrian?" He asks after a brief moment of silence. I purse my lips, releasing a deep sigh. I don't knoe if showing my sweet spots will bring something good, or if it's just a shortcut to the quickest sorrow.
"Maybe," I say, glancing at my feet. "If it means I can get to know you a bit better... I don't want us to still be fully strangers by the time we marry." Aemond intrigues me, I can not lie. He is impassable and cold most of the time, never indulging in too many smiles and pleasantries. But he's delicate in all his harshness.
