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touch you and touch and touch
until you give
me suddenly a smile, shyly obscene
When Aemond sees her in his chamber, he’s angry. Though, not just angry. Spun-out, alight, and something else buzzes in his gut that must be fury.
His chamber is one of the few rooms of Harrenhal perfectly intact. Which was to say, still somehow had each of the walls undamaged. But it was far enough away in this ridiculous maze of a castle that he almost wished The Conqueror finished what he started and laid waste to the entire thing.
Aemond is exhausted and aching. What’s never discussed in the history books is how uncomfortable it is to sit astride a dragon for hours on end in full armor. But Aemond never complains, the ancient dragon riders never would. A bit of discomfort was nothing in the grand scheme.
Begrudgingly, the sight of the copper tub filled with steaming water, fresh and hot, was a sight enough to make him fall to his knees right there.
Alys was at the little table near his bed across the room, crushing herbs in a mortar. It was something floral and familiar. Lavender, clove, some unknown spiced plant that must grow around the castle. Some combination of things that mother would drink when she could not sleep. Aemond suffered a similar affliction more often of late.
Alys stopped her work when Aemond let his sword and belt clatter against the stone floor.
She lowered herself to a curtsy, practiced and polite.
“My prince, I heard Vhagar across the valley,” she said by way of explanation.
“You may go,” he sighed dismissively.
Alys frowned slightly and shook her head.
The audacity of the woman never ceased to frustrate Aemond. Why could she not just do as she’s told?
Alys was unlike any other maid Aemond had ever met, not that he befriended them as easily as his siblings would. They spoke little to him, and what they did was meek requests of his needs with knotted hands and bowed heads. Overnight, the loss of his eye may as well have made him Maegor-reborn. The eye patch helped some not to frighten the younger maids, but only barely.
Alys was not a servant by birth nor occupation if he had to wager, though Aemond never asked and did not care to. Her manner gave her away. She assisted Aemond when needed, but the woman took liberties. She looked too long, lingered too long, and spoke too freely.
Aemond Targaryen was a rider of a dragon that flew in old Valyria, and he could lay waste to the entire kingdom in an afternoon if he wanted to. But this single woman with unbound hair and dark eyes made his fingers twitch. Perhaps she indeed was a witch, as the others in Harrenhal whispered.
“I’ll help you, my prince,” Alys said, coming from the table.
Aemond felt his breath catch.
“You’ll do no such thing,” he said quickly, placing a hand between them.
His defense crumbled instantly as Alys reached for the vambrace that guarded his forearm. Before he could say anything, the piece was already off and neatly sat on the floor. It would have taken Aemond a frustrating number of minutes to undo the buckle with tired fingers.
“You have no squire,” Alys said, “Allow me.”
Aemond admitted defeat with a clenched fist.
Each buckle came undone as easily as the next.
Crushed lavender and cinnamon filled him from the inside out, and not for the first time did prickling shame begin to sting his throat. He did not like to be touched.
“Arms up, my prince,” she ordered, and he obeyed.
In his daze, Aemond hadn’t even realized that all his armor was now off, and it was time for mail.
It fell from him as if it weighed nothing in her hands, joining the pile of black metals.
When he felt fingers moving to his gambeson, Aemond could not help pushing himself away.
“I’m not a child,” he said quickly, “You may leave, Alys.”
Alys sighed, allowing him to war with himself for a moment. Suddenly he was thirteen again, being handled like a fragile thing when his half-sight made him clumsy.
“You’re not a child,” she agreed, “You are not helpless, my prince. You are just tired.”
Aemond watched her, perplexed and frustrated. He was tired, but surely it didn’t do well for his reputation to be seen as thus. He was a god, not a man. He did not tire, did not take ill. He could not be merely a mortal man.
But Alys Rivers saw through him, and it was hollowing.
She reached forward again, her deep brown eyes boring into him with silent permission. Aemond swallowed thickly, unable to hold her gaze a second more. But nor could he refuse her either. Aemond felt his skin bristle with hyperawareness through the layers of wool and cotton as her fingers worked down his torso to undo the buckles of the padded jacket.
Aemond allowed himself to be turned so Alys could pull the over-warm garment from him. It was folded neatly on a chair near them.
In just his shirt and trousers, he felt exposed and caught-out.
“I’ll leave you to the rest, my prince,” Alys said, stepping away.
She did as she said, going back to the table to finish concocting whatever made her smell of lavender.
Aemond stood dumbly for a moment. He could have shouted at her to leave, to do as he commanded as her prince. They were not familiars and barely shared a conversation since he took Harrenhal. All sense of propriety was absent here, though nothing happened more than her simply existing in his periphery too long.
She had said I only wish to help, and it burned in Aemond’s head for days.
Aemond bit back his embarrassment, pulled off his shirt, and then managed each boot without falling over. When it seemed that Alys had no intention of stealing glances, his trousers joined the rest of the heap.
Blessedly, the bath was still hot- though not as hot as he usually preferred. But still, it was enough to work its way into his muscles and loosen the tension in his shoulders. Aemond always loved the isolating quiet of a bath. As a boy, he loved testing his limits of holding his breath until he could no longer stand it. Under the water, he was alone, and no one could tease or bother him.
Mother felt pity for Aemond, but he liked being alone and preferred it. There were no disappointments to count on. He had his family, and for better or worse, it was enough.
His long limbs were almost too much for the tub, but Aemond folded himself in and let himself sink beneath the water.
In the hot quiet of the bath, he did not have to think about the war or Aegon, his she-bitch of a half sister, or the blasted Strong boy. He was so very tired of thinking about it all.
Aemond surfaced, only noticing too late that his eye patch was still on. It was going to be too wet to wear now. He pulled it off, annoyed, tossing it over the side of the tub in a wet splat.
Only then did he notice that Alys was near him.
“My prince,” the lilt of her Riverlander accent was gentle on his ear. But he did not look at her.
She knelt beside him, and Aemond felt the heavy under the weight of her staring.
“Your eye is getting inflamed,” she said. “If you leave the stone too long, it will become quite painful.”
Aemond couldn’t help the anger that rose in his throat at her presumption.
“And what would you know of it?” he said unkindly, “Are you a healer?”
Alys simply smiled a lovely disarming smile.
“I’ve been called that, my prince,” she said with a shrug, “Among other things.”
Witch. Whore. Bastard .
Aemond was no fool. He heard the whispers from his men when they thought he could not hear. Rumors of parentage, of dark deeds in high towers. That she stole his bed the day he took the ruined castle. It mattered little to him if they thought he was fucking the woman, as any other man would have been. It might have bothered him once, but it stopped mattering after Storm’s End.
What did matter was how close Alys was to him now. There was a freckle in the white of her right eye. The very same that Aemond was missing.
That fucking lavender, and now clove.
“You may apply it yourself if you’d like,” she said with a slight grin. “You’re not helpless, as you’ve said.”
So the woman japes as well as remedies.
Alys stood, taking a strip bit of cloth and soaking it in the mortar on the table.
Removing the sapphire from the socket was not pleasurable, which meant it sometimes got left in for too long. The results weren’t necessarily dire, but the irritation of the tender flesh left behind resulted in visits to the maester and pitying chastisement from his mother and Ser Criston for not taking care of himself.
He hated being reminded of his failings. That he was, sometimes, a man of mortal flesh.
Aemond held a hand off the side of the tub, not looking at Alys. In his other hand, he had his false eye; the magnificent sapphire stone grandfather gifted him.
The cloth was placed in his palm, damp with the oils. He may have had cause to be suspicious of the medicine, but over the numerous appointments with maesters, Aemond could recognize it as simple infused oil of cloves and licorice root.
His wound was healed over many years, but the place where the eye once sat was always tender. The woman was right. he dabbed around the old wound, letting the oil work its properties into the skin. Aemond had grown used to the irritation, so much so that the relief was immediate and refreshing.
He sighed, heavy and deflating.
“You know much about eye wounds,” Aemond said in question.
Alys took the cloth from his hand as he held it out for her.
“A wound is a wound, my prince,” she said. “I’ve seen worse than yours.”
“How much worse?”
“Children with whole limbs gone, men with half a jaw.”
There was no hesitation in her voice that Aemond could note. It didn’t make her wince to recall it, which told Aemond she must have seen much tragedy in her time. Though this was Harrenhal, it was expected.
Aemond hummed and let himself sink back into the water until just his nose sat above the surface. The long tresses of his silver hair floated around him like branches of a willow tree.
With his remaining eye, he could hear Alys moving about the room, clicking flint at the brazier, the ruffling of clothes.
It was odd how much Aemond didn’t wholly despise her presence. The woman was nothing to him, a stranger. But her existence in his space settled something nameless in him. He could not place her age, but he knew she was older than him. The only old women Aemond has ever met were weathered from years of labor or ancient crones that tittered about the court with their little dogs. Of course, there was mother, but she did not count. But something about her made Aemond feel like an exhaled breath.
Alys was surprisingly comely, objectively speaking. Not that he knew what most Riverlander women looked like, but Alys could rival any noble woman if she’d dressed the part of silks and Myrish lace. But even in over-worn wool and with the long dark hair that fell in knotty waves down her back, there was no mistaking that the woman was attractive.
Aemond looked, as he was not entirely blind, but he did not linger. Even if she was not a noblewoman it was not polite. He was a kinslayer but not a letch.
There were some sins he left to his brother.
“You have smoke in your hair,”
Aemond opened his eye to see her standing before the tub. He was keenly aware of his own nakedness but could not be bothered to shield himself.
“What?”
“Your hair, prince,” Alys smiled, “Should shimmer like silverfish but is dull as a storm cloud. Shall I wash it for you?”
Aemond prickled uncomfortably beneath the water. He was more than capable of tending to his own hygienic needs and didn’t need fawning over. Perhaps the reputation for princes exceeded him. They may have been lazy and pompous, but Aemond was more than capable of washing his own hair.
But just as he opened his mouth to object, Alys was rounding the tub.
Why could Aemond not tell this woman to mind herself and leave him be. Words stuck in his throat like tree sap, and he loathed this weakness.
Aemond felt awkward and oddly afraid. One touch and she would know what he truly was inside.
A monster, a fool, a stupid boy.
No eye, no armor, no dragon. Just wet, tired, and humiliated by virtue of existing in the same room as her.
Anger pooled in his chest to the point of shaking. It was a force with no direction, existing on its own like some sentient parasitic thing. He hated it, and her, but mostly himself.
But gods he just wanted to be normal.
He felt her presence behind him like a sunbeam.
“Sit up for me,” she said gently, “I’ll be quick.”
Aemond could not help but shiver and prayed it was concealed by the water. He did as she bid, since all his might was non-existent anyways.
Sitting straight, with his back against the cold rim, Alys began her work of gathering together the tresses of his hair from where it stuck to his arms and chest.
And then, as from a dream, she hummed. A simple tune, an old lullaby, maybe. It almost felt familiar from the etches of his mind, but he could not place it. His skin pebbled in the cooling water, and prayed to any god that she would not stop.
“A song,” he found himself saying. Aemond wasn’t sure if he was asking to know what it was, or just to confirm his mind wasn’t abandoning him to hallucinations.
Alys hummed, “An old thing from my village. To calm you, my prince.”
Aemond gripped his knee so tightly he knew there would be a bruise.
With expert hands, she worked a bar of oil soap into his hair. The muted smell of clean filled his mind and warmed him. She pushed soap through his hair until her fingernails scratched at his scalp, and Aemond could have cried.
Aemond hated being touched. But he hated the loss of it even more. Or rather, to know that it could never be a thing he could have forever. It was an impossible thing to explain. Aegon told him to find a girl to fuck until the noise in his head disappeared. Criston assured him that in time he would have a bride if he chose. Aemond never wanted it. He saw what touch did to his mother and sister and could not live with himself if he replicated that sin.
But it was more than that, the base desire of flesh-to-flesh. It was a recognition he did not have. A basic mortal thing of I am you, you are me. No one touched Aemond. It was the unspoken rule. No one took liberties. No one dared.
Aemond existed so far out of reach, and on Vhagar, in the heavens.
Aemond hated being reminded of the straightforward reality that nobody wanted him. Never just him.
Alys pressed into his temples with her thumbs, still humming and slowly wrecking him.
It was torture. Bliss and agony.
Aemond could order her to do this every night if he wished, as was his privilege as lord of this castle. But it would be false, and he knew it would be cruel. Aemond could not stand the idea of forcing a woman to tend to him. The prospect disgusted him beyond measure.
Maybe if she wanted to again, he would welcome it. If she did not think it a labor, maybe…
“Tilt back for me, my prince,” Alys whispered, and Aemond was an obedient creature.
She reached before him, dipping a bowl into the water of his bath and her thumb brushed his arm. Aemond suppressed a flinch.
“There’s a good lad.”
Say it again.
Warm water flowed down his back and she cupped his forehead so tenderly he could have cried.
Aemond gripped the sapphire in his palm so tightly it was sure to crack.
Please.
But then there was an emptiness. That fucking loss. A hollowing vacancy, as if cast out to open sea. Aemond opened his eye to see Alys standing above him, drying her hands on her dress.
“All done, my prince,” she said, unbothered, “I’ll take my leave now. I left a cup of lavender tea on the table when you’re ready to sleep, and it will help.”
Aemond looked at her dumbly, feeling both stupid and torn apart.
Alys was looking at him, his whole face, free of the sapphire and all. This fucking woman. Was it a game? To strip him bare and then abandon him?
She could not be a cruel person. Aemond could not read that in her. He wanted her to leave so many times, but now it felt impossible to let the woman go.
Aemond knew he could be cruel, demanding she stay for nothing else except so that he could be near her. He could be selfish for once.
“Wait,” he said, though it was a half-bitten thing.
Please.
Alys turned, her face soft and warm in the dancing amber glow of firelight.
He swallowed, and she licked her lip.
“My prince?”
Aemond shook his head. It was pointless.
“Nothing,” he ceded, “You may go.”
Alys did not quickly move, but on her face there was something close to sympathy. Or maybe it was pity. His mind was too filled with feathers to differentiate between them.
“If you need me,” Alys said softly, “I’ll not be far away.”
Don’t go.
Aemond nodded shyly.
He closed his eyes, clenching his fist around the sapphire once more, and Alys was gone with the soft click of the door. Aemond sunk back into the bath.
Come back.