She is Daemon's daughter but she wants nothing from him, rides a dragon and doesn't shy away from a fight. She also hides a dangerous secret and has her own reasons for coming to King's Landing.
Aemond wonders if he can tame her.
✧...
warnings: things get a little heated at the end (blink and you'll miss it!). in case anyone forgot that it's a love story, this chapter is a reminder of that hehe. P.S. the title comes from the song "Unraveling" by Aron Wright. give it a listen after you're done with reading!
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Indecisiveness has never been a trait of Aemond's but it spreads in his mind like poison ivy, and by the time the night falls he's covered in it and he can't sleep a wink. Doubts sprout in his head as he's searching for a way to tell Lia what he knows now, what her father told him. He tries to picture her reaction — will she be glad? Or chafed? Or unconcerned? He'd loathe to make her feel bound to him on no other grounds than the bond their dragons share. He's most afraid of pushing her away.
The moon reigns the sky when Aemond drags himself out of bed, and there is only one cure for his insomnia he can think of. He quietly steps into the hall and treads the corridors with a lantern in his hand, his shirt open at the collar to let some air in, and the light sneaks under it, right to where his heart is heaving with emotion. The library is his place of peace, and he's brought into the arms of its stillness when he finally walks in.
The rows of shelves stretch out for a good hundred feet, filled with books, and drawings, and scrolls, most of which he held and read, and some he learned by heart. The room dwells in semi-darkness but Aemond knows the place like the back of his hand. He looks through wooden shelves, some of which are so tall, even he needs a ladder to reach the top, each crammed with book covers — the old, the new, inscribed with words and figures. Aemond is so carried away by examining them, he doesn't realize that he is not alone until he notices another source of light twinkling ahead. He moves to follow it, more flurried than cautious, and then his eye suddenly catches a pair of legs hanging over the edge of a high bookcase. The legs are very much bare, and his confused gaze trails them up, his head slowly tilting back. And then Aemond's breathing hitches.
Lia sits at the very top of the shelf with a leather-bound book in her hands, biting her lower lip in concentration, carefully flipping through the worn-out pages. She is wearing nothing but a white chemise that barely reaches her knees, waves of her calves contoured by the dimmed lighting of her own lantern. The material slightly bares her thigh, the curve of it shamelessly visible, and he can discern a stripe of dark leather wrapped around her leg, an outline of a sheath sewn to it. Aemond doesn't know what is more improper — the way she's dressed or the way he's looking at her, transfixed and mesmerized. His mind screams at him to stop staring but he cannot take his eye off Lia, and every cell in his body forbids him from moving.
Whether a minute passes or ten, Aemond doesn't know, until his limbs thaw and he forces himself to curb his emotions that are yet to be named. Only then he musters the strength to come closer. Lia is too wrapped up in reading to notice.
"What are you —" his voice comes out low, raspy, and he tries to steady his breath. "What are you doing up there?"
Lia looks at him, loose strands of her hair gliding back from her shoulder so he can see the delicate outline of her collarbones. He tries to shift his focus on anything else; never once has he found the library so boring.
