Tourney To Love | Aemond Targaryen and Eowyn Velaryon

A growing heir

In the following months since she had finally revealed her pregnancy, she had grown to rely on her mother more. Aemond truly avoided being around her and part of her understood, but she missed her husband. She felt like she was going through all of this alone. Maybe when the babe was born, and he looked down at their hair and features he would decide to stay or leave. But it was a fate she had prepared herself for. It would kill her to be without Aemond, she would be a shell of her former self, but she would survive for her children. Be the best mother she could be until she welcomed the stranger with open arms.

She was nearing the last days of her pregnancy and it was stupid to think she could hide this. The pregnancy was relatively easy once the sickness had died down, but her heart ached for comfort, and she grew lonely. Thankfully Ben spent most of his days with her, even Aegon had come to see her a couple of times, but he was hurt that she didn't tell him. He also had asked for Ben's permission to marry Alysanne and after Eowyn had convinced him he had granted it. So, in all the craziness, before the baby was to be born and the witches would attack again. There was to be a wedding. Even though Rhaneyra had finally stepped up and taken the throne and was now Queen, she ensured her younger brother would have a royal wedding. There was feasts, parties and events on for the whole week to celebrate the new union.

The night before the wedding, Eowyn had asked Belladonna to help bathe her as the bump made it pretty impossible to do some things herself. She bathed in milk, her skin feeling like silk to the touch and her hair was washed in the finest oils. It had been months since she had felt so relaxed and almost as if fate had known it Aemond had returned to their chambers for the first time since he left her in the gods wood that night. "Leave us, please." Belladonna looked for confirmation from Eowyn but there was only a weak smile as an answer, not wanting to upset her husband further. "The Queen insists I return to our chambers, with visiting lord and ladies arriving for the wedding. I cannot be seen anywhere but by your side."

Of course, he didn't want to be here. This was just a political arrangement to appear like a family who wasn't broken. She reached for her towel, climbing out of the bath and moving behind the changing screen to dry herself properly before pulling on one of her robes. "Of course, husband, you do not need to seek my approval." Her eyes were fixed on the floor, not wanting to look at him in case she broke down in tears as she walked past him and back into the bedroom. Sitting on the bed she picked up the book beside the bed and continued to read from where she had left the story the following night.

"I'm sorry. I can't be the person you need me to be until I see their hair." He tried to make her understand but her eyes didn't leave her book. His heavy boots hitting the floor as he walked over to take the book from her hands, his palm directing her gaze to him by holding her chin. "I love you. I am cursed to love you until my dying breath. Things are just tough right now." She nodded, his touch bringing some warmth back to her skin she had craved these last few months.

"None of this would be happening if I wasn't so weak. I shouldn't have let the hurt and loneliness take over my body. I shouldn't have gone searching for comfort." That's what it was with Cregan. Comfort. The chance to feel something other than being numb. But now it had backfired. She could be carrying his child. Tricked into it by Otto and his supernatural forces. "I cannot lose you Aemond, not again. If that is my destiny, then I pray to the gods that they claim me during childbirth."

He was quick to sit beside her, shocked to the core by her admission and he hated himself for once again upsetting her. "I'm here. I will still be here once the child is born. I just have to know. I will love the child as my own, regardless."

"Can you promise that? That you won't look at this child, see the colour of their hair and then run? Because at the moment Aemond, it seems you are looking for any excuse to leave me lately." Her hormones and emotions were getting the best of her, but she hated how he only considered his own feelings when he decided to leave.