Salvation - Aemond Targaryen / Aegon Targaryen

Hands

The new moon came over the land and with it, Aemond's war garrison made their camp at the edge of the Wendwater, near fifty miles from the Red Keep.

He could still see the glowing towers faintly in the distance, pulsating from the light of thousands of candles. He wondered if one of them was Jeyne, if one of them was his lady wife lighting a candle—praying for his safe return rather than keeping her promise.

He wouldn't blame her. The trek south of King's Landing had been a brutal one, fifty miles of men marching, drums pounding. They didn't even have a keep to make their camp within. He was stuck striking a war tent a stone's throw from the water, sleeping on a cot like a commoner.

Aemond was exhausted. It took far too much of his energy to fly circles above his men a dozen times—following his generals as they marched south lazily to a pattern of left, right, left, right. Nevertheless when his generals gave the signal to cease the marching and the drummers ceased their incessant noise, Aemond geared his dragon to land in the shallow bank of the water.

Vhagar's beastly form swallowed the width of the bank as if it were an inch wide. He could feel the way her muscles contorted as her wingspan shrunk, the water splashed a league tall when her form crashed into the bank, water bracing her fall. Water landings were terrible for her, but Aemond knew landing on solid ground would be worse. She seemed to prefer the crash landings in the bank. So deep in the center of the Kingswood, her only other option was to crash into the trees and hope that Aemond could stay out of harms way.

He wouldn't, and if it was to be Vhagar or Aemond, he would choose himself.

He made the rounds when Vhagar crawled from the depths of the bank to dry in the evening air. Water seeped into his breeches and onto his skin, wetting it uncomfortably. He was brought back to the Blackwater, weeks ago before Jeyne had wed him. He remembered how pretty she looked when the wine reached her cheeks, bright red and splotchy as she swayed with the breeze.

The knights sat eating roast pheasant their squires hunted from the woods. Those who did not have squires supped on skinned hare as they were pulled from the skewers over small fires of dead and decayed wood. The drummers whom his mother insisted on bringing were cleaning their wooden barrels, jesting with the younger boys in his retinue.

They fell silent as he drudged along the camp, mouths sealing shut in fear of his retribution. Aemond paid them no mind, he made his way toward the outskirts of the camp—far from his war tent and generals as they no doubt threw themselves into their maps and battle strategies.

Peasants, he thought. One does not need battle strategies when one rides dragons. The pathetic triarchy the Sea Snake and his dear uncle had been unable to squash had no dragons. They had sticks and swords, arrows and war cannons. None were a match for his beast.

Aemond found himself sitting on a large rock, covered with moss on the North face. He wondered how long he would wait, how long it would be until his men abandoned him to head south on schedule. Aemond paid that no mind--for Jeyne, he would wait forever.

-

Jeyne waited until the sky began to dim and the castle began to simmer from its rolling boil. Aemond's chambers were empty without him, devoid of warmth and love. Jeyne laid in their bed, eveloped by his smell in the sheets and silk pillows. She yearned for the feel of his heartbeat beneath his chest, for the way he hummed to her and stroked her hair.

It had only been hours, and she felt as if the Stranger had come for her.

There was an itch inside of her that she could not scratch that strengthened with every second she spent waiting for the right moment, for the time in which she could slip from the coverlets and begin her journey south.