Surviving

Chapter 12: The Girl Who Was Out of Control

****TW: Mention of sexual assault****

The next morning as the sun was beginning to rise, Aliandra and Coryanne checked on Naerys to find her still asleep with Aemond sitting in a chair beside her still wide awake.

They offered to stay with her while he slipped out of the room to get answers for what happened to her. He burst through the double wooden doors loudly, waking his mother up from her sleep as she snapped up.

"Aemond! Seven hells, what-?" She rubbed at her eyes as he stomped over to her bedside.

"Did something happen between Aegon and Naerys when we were children?" His voice was harsh as he cut her off. He'd been on edge all night imagining the worst of the worst. Nothing but anger and guilt filled him, letting his mind go through the seven hells and back since the previous night.

Alicent's eyes widened with horror as her mouth parted slightly. "I...has something happened?"

"Yes. My brother tried to rape her in our own fucking chambers is what happened!" He shouted at the top of his lungs. The vein in his neck twitching with each word.

Her hand flew to her mouth as shame began to fill her eyes. She looked away from Aemond and he knew this wasn't a surprise to her at all. And why should it be? His mother had covered up for Aegon plenty. The servant girls he knew of, but Naerys? A child?

"What happened before she left for Dragonstone?" He narrowed his eye on her as she glanced at him for a moment before looking down at her lap. Her fingers anxiously picked at the skin under her nails as she swallowed hard.

"Your brother snuck into her room one night and he...she said she woke up to him..." She turned her head away from Aemond as she started getting choked up remembering the look on that poor girl's face. Though she despised Naerys now, she was so heartbroken for the girl that night. But Aegon was her son. She cleared her throat and sighed. "...he didn't rape her, but he touched her...down there...and she hit Aegon upside the head with her dragon egg and ran out the room, and that's when I found her."

Aemond felt like he was going to throw up at any moment. No wonder she was gripping onto his hand so tightly. No wonder she begged him to let her go. Suddenly more and more started to make sense to him from his childhood.

He thought it was odd when he passed Naerys' former chambers with the door wide open, seeing the maids scrubbing at the residue leftover from the smashed dragon egg. He thought she had given up on becoming a dragon rider.

He remembered at Lady Laena's funeral, she hid in a corner curled up with her knees to her chest, looking away from everyone until she ran away hiding from everyone. He thought she was mourning her real father.

When he got ahold of her and grabbed her by the throat, she was so frightened and trembling until he held up the rock. She held onto him and just shut her eyes. She gave up and just accepted it.

She had given up in that moment. Just like he always suspected. Though he assumed it was because Ser Harwin and Lord Lyonel were dead. Her only true family.

But it wasn't just because of that. Aegon had broken her completely. Ser Harwin and Lord Lyonel were her final straws.

She wanted Aemond to kill her.

Because of what his brother did to her only weeks prior.

And his mother knew of it.

"Does father know of this?" Aemond asked in a low, shakey breath as his hand began to tremble at his sides. He was seconds away destroying everything in sight.