Throughout the Dance of Dragons - House of Dragon

Part X - I warned you before

Days passed swiftly for Daenaera as she spent her time trying to play out in her mind how her future will look with Aemond as her husband. It was hard to imagine herself with a man for whom she feels constant anger towards. She would find herself in the library imagining how would he act with her, would they have children and how would he be with them. Visuals in her mind went from him being kind and gentle to passionate and protective, to distant, to cold and unbothered and even to him being brutal. All of it crossed her mind and she knew that anything was possible. Aemond was a mystery to her and even though she hated to admit it, that mystery intrigued her. She wanted to know who he was and what was he capable of. 

Daenaera sighed and closed her book ready to return to her chambers for a nights sleep. Tomorrow will be the day of the tourney which is being held in the palace. All the lords will be gathering again and trying to swoon her, too bad for them she was already promised to Aemond. Even though her father was quite set on her marrying the man from the North, a Stark who had been said to be fair and kind, a true ruler. Daenaera had not met him yet and she was quite intrigued to finally see him in person after hearing stories about his deeds. She was also interested to see Darrion Lannister after the incident between him and Aemond.

As she stood up to move the door opened and Aemond was standing there. She was used to meeting him in the library, neither of them speaking to each other. He looked at her and moved to the shelves, like every other evening not paying much attention to her. "Will you be participating tomorrow?" Daenaera asked looking at his turned back. Aemond was a bit taken back by her question as he was used to not interacting with Daenaera. "Hm?" he hummed and turned to look at her. She seemed tired, her posture was clean as always but something about her eyes showed him that she was exhausted. "The tourney." She said making herself more clear to him. "I don't give a shit about tourneys." Aemond said not taking his eye away from her and watched her nod and turn away towards the exit doors.

"You seem to be tired a great deal." He said speaking out his thoughts "I assume you have been missing a good nights sleep." He continued as he watched Daenaera standing her back to him and holding her hands on the door handles. She did not move and she did not answer, the statement caught her of guard. Daenaera indeed was loosing her sleep with her thoughts regarding marriage, the future and with dreams of all sorts, one recurring about two dragons fighting in the grey sky. Everything in that dream was grey, she could not make out anything from it only the heart ache she felt in her heart. She would wake up from the dream in sweat, her heart pounding and a weight on her chest, every time after the dream she felt like crying. She could not explain the dream in any way but she was sure it meant something as it kept coming back to her night after night, the same dream over and over again.

"I have a lot on my mind, yes, but I do sleep enough." she finally said still not looking back at him. "What is plaguing your mind?" Aemond asked as he was suddenly for some reason interested in her thoughts. Even though he did not care as much but most of things about Daenaera intrigued him. "That is none of your concern, Aemond." Daenaera said as she moved and opened the door to leave. "It doesn't concern me, true. I do not care about your sleep patterns, I am merely curious." Aemond said as he crossed his hands on his chest and kept looking at Daenaera, waiting for her to turn her face to him. She didn't do that, she did not look at him and just straightened her posture answering with barely audible but strong voice "Don't be." she walked through the door and turned to close them "Good night, Aemond." She added and closed the door before he could reply or ask anymore questions.

He looked at the closed door and couldn't help thinking to himself about their relationship. He had offered her his friendship but it seems she did not take it, she cared for her bastard brothers and Aemond detested them. He would look at Lucerys and remember how because of him he had lost an eye. All three strong boys were challenging him to act out just by being there and breathing. Daenaera was also considered as a bastard as even though she had white Targaryen hair, she was nothing alike to ser Laynor, she was a spitting image of Rhaenyra and Daemon. This made her a pure blooded Targaryen but a bastard nonetheless. For some reason he did not mind her being illegitimate as much as he minded the boys, since they were little there was something different about her. He could not bring himself to hate or detest her as much as what he felt for Lucerys and Jacearys.