ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʀᴋ ꜱɪꜱᴛᴇʀ - House of the Dragon

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The wild wind caused some strands of my hair to escape my braid and tickle my, I knew, blushed cheeks.

I had to bring my hands to my arms, rubbing them to try and find any warmth as a quiet insult towards my uncle rolled out of my tongue. He looked at me almost as if I had offended him, and narrowed his eye as he grabbed my wrist and pulled me with him until we reached the little hill Vhagar had landed in.

He let go of me, silently ordering me to sit down with a movement of his hand as I watched him collect stones and wood, and I had to bring my arms to my legs to rub them as I had done previously with my arms as Aemond prepared everything in that quiet and studiedtly way of his.

I leaned my chin on my knee, staring at the way the muscles of his arms tensed and his clothes tightened every time he added a new piece of wood to his already heavy collection, but he was too proud to allow me to help him. So I just followed his every movement with amused eyes, chewing on my bottom lip to not laugh every time he huffed and complained and cursed.

"Should I call Vhagar or do you want to call for Stormbreaker?"

"To do what?"

"Start a fire, Visenya. Why do you think I prepared this for?" My name rolling out his tongue brought some sort of warmth to my gut I did my best to ignore. 

"You do not need a dragon to start a fire, uncle."

I rolled my eyes as I sighed and stood up, eyeing him as he sat besides the spot I was a moment prior and watched me as I grabbed two little stones and some dry grass from the little homemade bonfire.

The ground was as cold as the wind as I kneeled, hitting the stones into one another until sparks lighted up the grass beneath it, and I quickly brought my head closer and gently blowed at it and avoided his raised eyebrow. After that, I grabbed the grass between my hands and delicately drop it at the bottom of the wood my uncle collected. The flames rapidly consumed every piece of it, lighting up our faces and bringing warmth to our bodies.

Aemond's eye followed my very movement as I sat next to him again.

"I know you hate it, but happy nameday."

"Thank you, uncle."

We chatted for a bit, and my nameday and the atrocious event we were both forced to attend were easily forgotten when Stormy roared somewhere in the sky and the topic of dragons welcomed us as if we would have never spoken about it. There was something about the way he would speak of dragons, not as a dragonrider, but as a person who had spent three-and-ten years without one of those beasts for himself and had studied them in every language he could read and speak and understand that made you drown in his shiny eye and soft voice and his expressive hands, for him to always moved them every time he got excited talking about something he really enjoyed.

Besides, there was a difference between claiming a dragon and being born with one. For all I knew, the bond with the claimed dragon grew stronger over time, and it had times when it could be extremely sensitive and almost non-existent, and being born with a dragon meant you had two hearts beating at the same rate inside you and two voices inside your head.

So it was enterteining seeing how our bonds with our dragons could be so similar and so different even when we shared blood.

I was sitting at his left, and he seemed deeply annoyed by that fact, because the long scar and the black eyepatch kept forcing him to turn his entire head so his eye could actually looked at me, but even that couldn't erase that sideway smile from his lips.

"I never apologized," His hair hit me in the face as he quickly looked at me, surprise in his remaining eye and furrowed eyebrow. "For bringing the blade. That night."