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"Gēlȳni enkā gon Jemēla! Taoba!"
Aemond remembers that night, the night where everything went wrong.
He remembers being drenched in rain and exhilaration and loving every second of it. He remembers the terror, the confusion, plastered all over that bastard's face as he
pulls the blade, glinting with a promise, that was what had got him to turn tails and flee like a coward. But over the years, it was only the hatred that was his exterior. His interior, hidden away between bars, spoke a different story, and a different voice.
How could he forget what has happened, much less let it go? Aemond has held that grudge for years. Silently, mercifully, angrily, and ever since the incident.
He may have lost an eye, but he tamed a dragon; the war beast that will be the cause of his own downfall.
But Aemond does not know, nor does he care much. His thoughts are riddled with something else. It should not be dwelling on his mind like stone, rumble burying everything else. He has not
managed to go by one day without thinking about it. About that.
That bastard.
Arrax had hit Vhagar.
That bloody dragon fired at her, a straight aim to the side of her jaw, and now, neither of them had control over their dragons anymore.
"No Vhagar! No!"
The old dragon swerves from the course, and in a minute, she did not even need to bite twice. her jaws are two clamps, falling down on a Targaryen and his dragon, reduced to torn flesh and bone, and that is all it takes for the regret to come tumbling down, and it weighs down to the point that Aemond cannot breathe, his lungs squeezed of its capacity. With only one question in mind, both foolish and impossible:
Where is Lucerys?
Aemond tried desperately to look, even with his impaired vision. Maybe the boy had leaped out of the way, forced to sacrifice Arrax for the sake of himself, plunging into the ocean below.
In a matter of seconds.
But Aemond also knows, that he would have never done that. He was looking away from Vhagar's jaws as she had appeared from cloud and smoke. He didn't leap off. He didn't even move.
He was gone.
But he decides to circle across the oceans, searching for hours, until Vhagar grows tired, and he grows weak with every second. He returns from Storms End, and dreads it all, for he knows he has
caused a war of flame and blood to come.
Alicent was furious. Beyond furious, even. This anger was only ever directed at her imbecile of a first son, but now, it is her second that has gone too far.
Pacing her rooms up and down and demanding an answer to why. Why? Aemond does not know himself.
Why must he do this? To scare him? There is nothing more foolish than taking a century old war dragon to frolic in life and death.
"You have jeopardised this kingdom, Aemond. All for your silly games and ploys of entertainment. Have you learnt nothing?"
He could not do anything but bow his head. In shame, in anger, simmering like a boiled pot that is already spilling over.
He retreats like a kicked dog back to his chambers, where he would spend most of his days after that. Refusing to eat, to study, to ride, and to live like an absconder that even Aegon gets worried.
"This is not like you, brother."
Aemond ignores him.
During these days he sees silhouettes. Figures, behind closets and around corners of the hallways. In his dreams and visions. Of a boy; ten and four, standing on water, his hair ruffling in the wind and his eyes bleak. His face is a deep red.
A silver dragon, almost no bigger than him, lands on the water too, staring with red eyes and glinting teeth. Whole again.
The boy does not smile, tears of blood running down his face and as he closes his eyes, it is all gone.
And Aemond would scream, pummelling his fists in the wall Lucerys had been, desperate for an answer to the two questions scraping in his brain. Is he at peace? Is he alright?
He had never acted so childish before, but fresh tears spill every day and every night, ones he cannot stop.
Rhaenyra demands for war not long after, understandably and expectedly. Which would mean Aemond has to fight.
But how can he, when anyone he faces will only remind him of what has happened, that it was his fault?
He prepares Vhagar and sees through it anyway. More blood will splatter on his conscious, but this time it is past him. He never cared in that way for Rhaenys, nor her dragon. He did relate to her, but now they had burned to the ground and never became anything more.
Aegon is crippled, his body burned and his face half dismembered. Perhaps it is a curse of all kings to have half of their face ruined. It did not look like a scar of war, but of humiliation and greed. All because he underestimated her. Aemond is unscathed, something he know feels a deep shame in himself.
Daemon.
The man swore loyalty to Rhaenyra, perhaps the utmost of devotion, now stood with his dragon of red and blood, glaring.
Aemond spoke, his voice low and loud, and Vhagar glared back.
"You have lived too long, uncle."
"On that much we agree."
The Battle Above The Gods Eye was was said to be a sight to see, yet Aemond did not care for a view anymore, or of a glorious battle between dragon and men. Nothing mattered anymore.
Caraxes plunged into Vhagar from Aemond's blind side, and they both toppled, closer and closer to the lake below, but he did not notice that.
Daemon had leaped off, amidst the clash of teeth and fire, and Dark Sister plunges through his sapphire eye before he could even move to his own blade.
There is a splash of blood, he saw, of his own; splattered across his face and Daemon's, before everything went dark.
The one place Aemond had dreaded to wake up in, was that ocean he had seen countless times, boundless and bare and waves that lap at his feet. He is standing on it too, just as the boy was.
Frantically, he whirls around, breathless already, searching. He could see properly now, not just the hazy outlines and dark exteriors from his visions. Everything felt clear; too clear.
He did not care that he died.
"Uncle."
Behind him, Aemond hears the voice, all too familiar that it stung his heart and threatened to crumple it to shreds.
It already has.
Tears flutter in his eye, dropping to the ocean below, who drinks it greedily, and he turns around.
"Lucerys."
He never got to apologise, but now, dropping to his knees with the splash of water sounding, he clings to Luke's tunic, stained with blood, and sobs.
"I cannot ask for forgiveness."
'I have already forgiven you."
Aemond shifts at that, lifting his head. Silver hair clung to the tears on the sides of his face. He does not remember the last time he had cried.
"You should not, Luke."
Lucerys smiles, it is a sad one.
"Why did you regret it so much?"
Regret. Aemond did not remember a life before he wasn't filled with it.
"I made a mistake, a huge one that neither you nor I can condemn."
"I'm not asking about that."
Lucerys takes his hand, squeezing it hard. Of course he was not.
"Because I, all this time, had hid my emotions like a fool. I saw you for more than I had said, you meant more to me than I could ever say."
The words slip past parched lips, and Aemond grips his hand back, tight and desperate.
"I loved you, Luke. I loved you more than I have anyone else. I still do."
Luke guides Aemond so that he was standing. The boy did not seem so short anymore. He seemed to have grown too, like time was still ticking and he was moving with it. He was smiling again, and it is happy.
"Do you want to stay with me? Here?"
The answer is obvious, he would have said it in his lifetime if he could.
"Of course. I will repay everything."
In the distance, two figures walk down the endless ocean, as dark as coal and the sky grey with storm. Their hands meet and fire pours out, like the power of a thousand dragons, and it drowns them both in a glorious light.