ELLIPSISM, aemond targaryen

[025] the story of a maid

THE STATEMENT "DRAGONSTONE is weird without Aemma" was about the only thing its inhabitants could agree on.

After Aemma and Meraxes disappeared from sight, they all had to make their way back inside the castle, with Rhaena having to lead Gwyn away as the girl stared after the dragon with tears in her eyes. However, no one made any comment, but neither did they (except Rhaena) try to comfort her.

Because everyone was worried and their way of dealing with it was not to talk about it.

These fears were still obvious, especially during dinner, during which no one dared to speak. The only sound was the clinking of cutlery until Rhaenyra put the cutlery down and announced that she was tired and going to bed. Daemon followed a moment later, then Rhaena left and finally Jace and Luke who had to put Joffrey to bed as Aemma was gone.

Joffrey was quite obviously sad and missing his sister, but Jace and Luke couldn't think of any words of comfort so they just closed the door and without another word they each went to their chambers.

When Luke woke up in the morning, he found that his worries had not gone away, on the contrary, they had doubled. The other members of the family were in a similar situation, each retreating to their own part of the castle and not talking to anyone.

Luke tried to spend time with Jace at first, but it was more than obvious that Jace wasn't paying attention to what he was saying, too lost in his own thoughts. His second choice, Joffrey, was in no mood to play with toys, so Luke tried to find Rhaena, but the conversation with her went as usual - they had nothing to talk about. Rhaenyra retreated to her chambers and Daemon disappeared with his dragon right after breakfast.

And so Luke was left alone.

Although he didn't like to admit that he was attached to something (as Jace claimed that a proper man wouldn't admit it), he wasn't naive or stupid either. The simple truth was that even though Luke loved his mother and his brothers, it was Aemma who taught him how to sword properly, who taught him to fly, who taught him how to shoot. It was she who comforted him during the night after a bad dream, she took care of him when he was sick, she stood by his side throughout his life. 

And Luke suddenly didn't know what to do without her. Alone, without a sister for the first time in his life.

He was lying on his bed staring at the ceiling after not being able to train because Aemma wasn't there to correct him when he did something wrong. Then he wanted to fly with Arrax, but when he saw dark clouds on the sky, he decided to go to the room instead.

He spent most of the day there until a storm started outside that made the room dark. Luke tried to read and study High Valyrian but gave up due to the lack of light. He looked around the room for a moment, wondering if he could light the candles when the room was lit by lightning and then thunder.

Luke immediately flinched and looked around with wide eyes. His heart started pounding and his breathing quickened and when the same thing happened again he jumped out of bed and ran to the room next to him, opening the door.

"Aemma--"

The rest of his words stuck in his throat as he saw a room in front of him, as dark as his, without his sister.

After thinking for a moment, Luke walked in and closed the door behind him. 

Aemma's room looked very much like her owner - although at first glance it looked tidy, when Luke opened the wardrobe he saw clothes tossed around inside as if Aemma couldn't decide what to wear.

However, the room was mostly full of books, in the bookcases and on the table, and a few were lying by the bed. On the table by the window were maps, papers and letters, many letters on which Luke had registered the handwriting of Helaena, Baela, Corlys Velaryon, Ben Stark and unknown elegant handwriting, however, most of the words written in a language he did not understand and signed by "A."