Innocence// AEMOND TARGARYEN ✔️

Chapter Twelve

"That's not what it means" Aemond laughed.

"I will slit your throat if I am to hear you laugh one more time" Eirlys warned.

The prince ceased his teasing.

The pair had decided to spend their morning together learning high valerian.

And while Aemond was pretty much fluent in the language, being able to hold full conversations; Eirlys was still trying her best at learning how to speak in valerian, following the customs of her house.

"Nyke kessa gūrogon ao naejot iā voktys" (I shall take you to a priest) Aemond read from one of his books "try this one"

"I wish to talk to a priest?" Eirlys tried to translate.

"Close" the prince sighed "you mistranslated it as 'talk' instead of 'take' princess"

"Iksā iā nāpāstre" the princess read before she paused for a moment to think "you are brave?"

"Brave is nēdenka" Aemond explained as he turned a few pages "nāpāstre means traitor"

"iksā isse gēlȳn" The princess tried again "you are beautiful"

"It's 'you are in debt'. Try another" Aemond corrected yet again.

"Skoro syt sia ao rȳ se līve lentor?" (Why were you at the whorehouse)

"I'm sorry-" Aemond glanced back into the book, skimming his eye over the words in-scripted "where is this one written..."

"It's not, it's a question I'm asking" Eirlys looked away from the book and toward the prince.

She had asked him a few times before, but he had always changed the subject, never quiet giving her an answer. Eirlys did think that he too went there out of curiosity, until he'd told her that wasn't his first time he'd visited.

"Now she speaks fluently" the young prince chuckled, still not providing her with an answer.

"You cannot keep avoiding this" Eirlys held his hand when she saw him turn the pages yet again to find another passage for her to read "I want to know"

"I was there for the same reason you were"

"But that wasn't your first time at the establishment" she recalled.

"It wasn't" he admitted "but I was only a boy when I was first taken to that pla-"

"So why did you find the need to go again?" She asked.

"I went simply to educate myself on what duties I am to perform as a husband" Aemond tried to sway his answer, doing his best to sound as vague and provide as little information as possible "once I had seen what it is I shall be expected to do-"

"So did you fuck a whore?" Eirlys asked, losing her patience as Aemond was using elaborate words to fill the gaps of his story he was leaving out.

"N-no" Aemond wanted to slap himself for stuttering "I was simply-"

"So you are still a virgin?" The princess interrupted, noticing how tense he grew next to her.

"Well I mean, it depends on-"

"It's either a yes or a no, Aemond" Eirlys sighed, hoping that he would say the former.

Yet Aemond responded with quiet the opposite of what she was expecting:

"No"

Eirlys' gaze quickly shifted from his fingers, nervously fidgeting with the spine of the book, to his face.