The Lady of Asshai •Aemond Targaryen•

9. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY

   Vhagar was gone. That much was certain. In the clear light of morning she was nowhere to be found. Both Brass and Aemond had returned to the cave to resume some semblance of sleep and dry from the rain. They had awoken and Vhagar was no where to be found. Which was really saying something as she was a rather unmissable creature. In an odd way, Brass found this comforting. She and the prince were on a slightly more level footing.

The prince was agitatedly marching about the cave. He seemed restless and irritable. Brass found this to be thoroughly amusing. She laid back against the wall of the cave and watched him attempt to look as though he weren't panicking. Her hands we restrained behind her. The prince couldn't risk having her make another daring escape attempt. She fought him, of course. His bloody nose and a blackened cheekbone were there to show for it.

He didn't outwardly show it in his expression, but she could tell. She was perceptive that way. He was doing up the ties of his tunic and fumbling with the delicate strings. He was probably used to attendants doing it for him, she surmised.

Oh, to be a prince.

She thought he was trying to look busy. She thought it humorous that a man who held himself up with such great importance would care enough to put on a pretence for her at all. Especially with her sat bound and at his mercy.

"I'm sure the dragons will return." She said.

He turned sharply to look at her. "What?"

She rolled her neck. Trying to scratch her neck against the collar of her now dry cotton tunic. "I said, I'm sure the dragons will return. They are odd creatures, but they are loyal."

He scoffed. "Vhagar is under my command. Of course she will come back."

Brass wasn't seeking out an argument but she couldn't help the words that sat begging to be said on the tip of her tongue. She furrowed her brow. "She is not a child bound to your beck and call. Dragons are wild animals that will do what they please."

He laughed at her now. "Is that what you told yourself when your precious Kirine abandoned you to drown?"

She felt herself become rigid then. "Maybe she wouldn't have been spooked if you had not killed your own nephew before setting your sights upon us." Her voice had found a hardness that was becoming common as she spent more time in this man's presence. "Perhaps the reason Vhagar has abandoned you is that she is sickened at the prospect of being ridden by a Kinslayer." She mused tauntingly.

His jaw tightened and he stalked closer. "Perhaps last night you placed some sort of enchantment upon her. She should have killed you."

She rolled her eyes and looked away from him in defiance. "Please, you're ridiculous."

"Am I?" He asked. "It seems everyday you prove yourself more and more to be a witch."

"As I already said, don't you think if I was a witch I would have done something terrible to you or any other green a long time ago? Right now I'm wishing I could have. Maybe then I wouldn't be stuck here with you now, or Aegon could be drinking himself into a stupor in some Fleabottom brothel rather than sitting on his sister's throne."

"Ahh, so you admit to desiring harm to fall upon the Royal Family? That is treason, girl. Punishable by death."

She looked back at him with distain. "Don't act as if you don't know that Aegon is unfit to be King. He is a drunken, volatile, usurper, who I doubt even desires to sit the Iron Throne. Rather it is your grandsire and mother who have plotted since the day he was born and they saw a cock between his legs to unseat the rightful heir."