Dream Of Winter | C. Stark & H. Targaryen

Blood Hunt

A/N: Finally living up to that mature tag. This chapter is pretty dark. Mentions of torture and child death (blood and cheese).

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Aemond POV

The chosen rider of the Queen of Dragons enjoyed hunting down criminals and lowlifes just as much as anyone. The pathetic fools aggravated him when they begged and pleaded for their release and tried to bribe him into looking the other way.

Unfortunately for them, he was no Lord Fleabottom. A mercurial maniac gutting guilty and innocent on the street one day and pardonning whomever he saw fit the next.

But this particular instance it was personal.

Heleana should've been enjoying her courtship. Within the bounds of propriety of course but enjoying herself nonetheless.

Yet her visions cared not for such occasions.

A week prior, he had to witness his sister wailing like a banshee from the old northern folktales for hours. At first she spoke no words and was left catatonic. But a couple hours later, she sat on her desk and started drawing two men on a paper.

One was broad and tall, with inflinching pale eyes and the gold cloak of the City Watch worn proudly on his back, soaked in blood. The other was much smaller. Aemond could practically feel the depravity from his low sunk face and hungry eyes. He was squeezing a squealing rat in his right hand until his head separated from his body.

When she finished with her work his sister simply returned to lying down and kept mumbling under her breath something that seemed like gibberish.

He stayed anyway and tucked her to bed. She was saying 'my son.'

After spending hours at her bedside, his mother told him to catch some sleep and that she'll look after her now. He protested but was denied.

The moment his head met his pillow, he felt no tiredness embrace him and sleep evaded him once more.

Until it didn't.

Blissful unconsciousness was still out of reach. Nightmares were his companions. Both old and new.

Lucerys taking his eye at Driftmark. His howls of pain mixing with those of Vhagar's. Only this time his sire was no longer amongst the realm of the living.

Justice would finally be his.

When the deed was done it wasn't an eye he took from his nephew. His life was the price he paid.

And just like that, rivers of blood spilled from every branch of his burning family tree.

His sister's son the first one lost. A son for a son his uncle claimed. Helaena suffered for his own sins.

He tasted bile on the tip of his mouth when he awoke. Most dreams fade away but this one stayed imprinted as if carved on stone.

Perhaps that's his penance.

Not even a day after his father's death he became a kinslayer. Rejected by all the Gods and doomed to suffer a hellish fate in life and after death.

His eye socket burned and he reached for the dagger next to his bedside. He made a small cut to his lower leg.

This was pain he made. So one he can control. He focused an the bleeding cut instead of the seering heat that almost engulfed his mind.

The Seven were showing him a glimpse of what awaited him, no doubt.

Yet the Father above left him to suffer the wound in the first place. Should the Stranger be so incensed he sought his own justice when none was given to him.