Strings of Silk / Aemond Targaryen

The Fool's Ball

A shadow haunted my bedside.

I found myself slipping in and out of dreams, and I saw him there, lips pursed at my bedside, my hand in his as he whispered in his dead language. Aemond might have left hours ago, but I would never know. He had sat there before, saying those words, and the ghost would linger.

xxx

Aemond brought me mulled wine, and the heat and spice brought life to my chilled limbs, and ignited my brain. I found my thoughts emerging, clearer and sharper, the events of the past hour took on a stark reality.

He stood in the corner of the room, a lean shadow as I slipped out of my wet clothes. I had to peel the breeches from my damp flesh. I could only trust in his goodwill not to turn, to see me bare, but I did. He might betray me, he might cast my world into ruin, but not in that way. Not ever.

Aemond had picked up a loose shirt to cover himself. I did not think it was his, with its flourishes at the sleeve and the orange blossoms embroidered at the neckline. I had seen men naked, seen their secret, animal selves along with their bodies. Young or old, handsome or ugly, it distilled to greedy, grasping flesh.

Yet he continued to elude me, even as I had seen him half unclothed, his feet and chest exposed and pale in the evening chill. My mind had been disordered then, fresh plucked from the brine, but now I knew. I felt not repulsion or fear but sadness at the fine delineations of his body. I would have expected terror, resignation. I would have expected emptiness. But never sorrow.

I pulled on my nightgown and crawled in bed. The ache was still raw in my chest as I watched him, patient as a sentinel, facing the door.

"I'm....dressed." I said. My voice was still ragged with salt.

I folded my hands, almost primly, as though I were some virtuous matron and not what I was. He pulled up a chair and sat beside me. He reached out his hand, and I had some sense it would land on my forehead, but he merely grazed the pillow beside me. "Do you sleep at night?" he asked. "Do you sleep at all?"

"Everyone sleeps," I said, looking at him. His hair was nearly dry, rougher and wilder from the salt.

He ran his fingers over the pillow, petting it like some spooked creature. "I can't imagine you sleeping," he said. "Do you remember when you first came here? When I woke you at sundown? Even then you tossed and murmured, as though it was much against your will."

He stroked the sheet by my arm. I shivered. "Now, even when the hour is late, I do not think you are abed, but moving, thinking, scratching letters with you pen."

He thinks of me at night...It was not safe to linger there.

"I must prove you wrong then." I said, turning on my side and blinking. I wanted to be present, to let him speak and watch his long fingers trace the linen beside me. But I was all too weary. "I don't want to disappoint you, Your Highness. But I have a habit of sleeping. I may toss though. Or kick."

His eye went wide, and he smiled through pursed lips. "I wish you could..." he shook his head. "Always be so free with me."

I shut my eyes. The sadness stifled me. "I know better than that." I said, forcing a smile. "I must have swallowed the sea water."

"You were drowned and resurrected. Like the men of the Iron Islands. Valyria has its stories too, of heroes reborn from ashes."

He spoke in his Essosi tongue, High Valyrian. Only there was no giddy energy as when he spoke to Vhagar, but a plaintive longing.

"Āeksio morghe ilza

Morghor āeksio iksos daor