The Realm's Fright | HOTD S1 | Fem!OC x Aemond Targaryen Fanfiction

Chapter Nine

Coming to the training yard had been a mistake. Alysanne had thought, naively, that the sight of her cousins would ease her troubled mind. But even the joy of seeing Rhaena and Baela, the cousins who had once been her solace in the turmoil of their family's scheming, could not assuage the dark knot of dread tightening in her chest. For there, in the midst of it all, stood Aemond. Her betrothed. Her future husband. The thought of it alone curdled her stomach.

It was a fate she had not chosen, and yet it seemed to loom over her as inescapable as the weight of the crown that she would one day wear. Alysanne's future had been set in stone long before she had learned to walk, bound by blood and duty in a union that now felt more like a sentence than a blessing. To see Aemond again, to hear his voice and witness the coldness in his gaze, made her wish she could disappear into the very stone of the Red Keep, vanish from his reach, from the burdens that awaited her.

The gardens, however, had been an idea of her ladies, and as always, they had been right. The gardens were a refuge, cool and fragrant, offering a reprieve from the choking stench of the city below. The cliffs that jutted out over Blackwater Bay were an ancient, steadfast thing, a reminder that, in this ever-shifting world, there were some things that could endure. Alysanne needed that. She needed the stillness.

With her ladies trailing behind her, she found solace at the farthest edge of the gardens, where the flowers bloomed in the most defiant of places, against the very rock of the cliffside. Bougainvilleas, their vibrant hues of magenta and purple curling and twisting in the wind, seemed to laugh at the danger that surrounded them. They clung to the earth, stubborn in their defiance, just as she longed to cling to something, anything, that felt like freedom.

"Careful, Princess, or you might fall," warned the Baratheon girl, her voice a reminder of the sharp cliffs beneath their feet. She was two years older than Alysanne and often wore the mantle of protectiveness with such ease it almost seemed natural. Her warning was affectionate, not admonishing, and Alysanne found a flicker of warmth in it, something to soften the ever-present weight on her chest.

"These flowers are beautiful," Alysanne murmured, her gaze drawn back to the bougainvilleas, which, despite their fragile appearance, seemed to thrive where no other flower could. "They are bougainvilleas, I think? Flexible creatures, able to thrive in the most dangerous of places. One can only wish to be like these flowers, don't you agree, ladies?"

"Yes, Princess," came the response in unison, as if rehearsed.

Alysanne smiled faintly, but the silence that followed was heavy. The wind began to stir, whipping through the leaves and sending a chill across her skin. A storm was coming—she could feel it in the tightening of the air, the way the trees whispered and groaned under the pressure of it.

And then, as if guided by some unseen hand, her thoughts turned inward, slipping from the moment at hand and into something far older, far more painful. She could imagine herself not here, in this garden of false peace, but soaring high above, free from all the chains that bound her. A world where there was no duty, no uncertainty. Just the open sky.

Her voice, soft as the wind, rose almost without thought. A song, in the ancient tongue of her forebears, a melody she had composed with Maester Cleos's help—a melody that carried the longing of her soul, the ache of a home she would never truly return to. The tune was simple, yet haunting, and as it filled the air, the garden seemed to still around her, the earth itself listening.

"Se jelmio mazverdagon se lentor hen guēse ȳdragon gō pōja jelevre
mazverdagon se tēmbi sōvegon qrīdrughagon rȳ se dōron
mazverdagon nyke sagon dāez
jaelan naejot sōvegon qrīdrughagon
sagon dāez hae se jelmio se se tēmbi..."