Baptism | Cregan Stark

eighteen

(please do not ghostread)

That night Aelyna lied asleep in her bed, it had been three days since she had last spoken to anyone.

She avoided the gaze of Cregan the most. She realized she was wrong to sully accusations against his name and his  house, out of spite and frustration putting words in his mouth of which he had never said. Aelyna did feel guilty about the ordeal, but even as a child she struggled to do one deed: apologize.

Aelyna tossed and turned in her bed. Her hesitation to return to Kings Landing still prevalent as ever. Was it worth the trouble? Was Viserys Targaryens health and his council of cunts truly the efforts to leave Winterfell? 

To leave him.

Aelyna sighed as she sat up in her bed. Empty and cold because he did not accompany that night. She climbed out of the bed and exited her chambers. Perhaps cake would lift her troubled spirits. The halls desolate and cold, not a guard in sight. Nothing but the torches of light as she followed down the dark corridors. Underneath her feet she could hear a gentle crunch of leaves and twigs underneath her feet. She stopped.

Bending down Aelyna picked up a read leaf, as her fingers barely held it she felt a prickle in her fingers. She hissed when the leave fell again, only now her fingers stained in blood. The metallic scent so sharp in her nose, a pool of blood soaked the leaves beneath her feet. Rotten from the smell of iron.

"Fuck." Aelyna cursed. Another dream.

Aelyna could feel her palms itch, the desperate need to cut through her skin. A trickle of blood and herbs and she could be rid of them. Aelyna's eyes scanned the empty corridor. Nothing but a trail of leaves hoped to lead her. Aelyna's mind screamed to turn around, but like most of her dreams she had the misfortune of having no control over her body. Like a child she followed into a thread of danger her mind played. 

As Aelyna passed through the empty halls, she felt a chill run down her spine. She could hear the crunching leaves- someone was following her. Afraid to turn and look she soldiered forward. The footsteps heavy and slow, as though the one struggled to keep to her pace. Aelyna led herself to outside the castle, to the Godswood. Her bare feet trudged over frozen grass, stabbing into her foot. Aelyna held herself, her breath uneven and skin crawling. The desperate need to wake up. 

She felt a warm hand on her shoulder. Her breath caught in her throat, a sharp gasp escaping her lips as her eyes widened in sheer terror, heart pounding like a drum in her chest. 

There he lay in a bed of snow. As the moon eclipsed the sun, there laid Viserys Targaryen. A frail, shell of a man waiting for death. His skin blue and green, the side of his face hallow as though his flesh had been eaten. Shallow breaths as he looked up to the stars.

At her feet Viserys' crown.

Terror gripped Aelyna's heart, its icy fingers squeezed until her breath became ragged in gasps. Her eyes, wide with shock, as she felt tears stain down her cheeks. Her lips trembled as she felt every limb in her body frozen, as though she was lying in the snow.

The hairs on the back of Aelyna's neck stood. As she looked to her uncle Viserys, she could feel a sinister presence behind her, a creeping and silent force that made her skin burn. She whipped her head around, her breath caught in her throat

"Mother." uttered as she stepped back. 

There she stood, cloaked in violet with raven black hair, bronze skin but her eyes still her eyes. Her eyes were a deep, velvety purple. Like the twilight sky after the sun had set, holding a depth Aelyna could never reach.