Burn me • Aemond Targaryen

All these years

Chapter Twenty-seven~ All these years

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Rhaella's plan was simple enough. She was to leave in the middle of the night and take her children to seek refuge in essos.

She would ask Aemond if he wished to join them, his first answer would be his final one and if he refused her then she would leave. If he tried to stop her she would kill him.

The Princess knew that if she was to leave it would have to be now. She would not risk the safety of her children under her brothers rule.

She needed to find a boatman, willing to sale over the narrow sea at night. Aemond could follow on Vhagar so that he could protect them from the sky, Vermithor would follow though she would stay by her children.

"Aemond." She whispered, the night had just followed into the third hour. Aemond was sleeping next to her, she envied how easy he found it to fall into a slumber, she herself had not had a full nights rest for as long as she could remember. "Aemond." She whispered again. But he was not answering. "Aemond!" She half shouted, smacking the side of his chest.

"What!" He jumped from his rest, alarmed.

Rhaella rolled her eyes. "I've been thinking." She told him.

Aemond sighed. "Can this wait till the morrow?" He asked, looking at her to see if he could find any concern or worry in her features.

Rhaella shook her head. "No it cannot."

Aemond dragged himself to sit up, leaning on the headboard.

"I am leaving." She told him. "I'm leaving and I am taking the children with me."

Aemond woke up properly then, he felt as though as he had been punched in the gut. "And where will you go?"

"We will go to essos, you are more than welcome to join us but I will not have myself living in constant fear for their lives in this castle." Rhaella was serious, he could tell she meant it. She always had a certain passion in her words when she had her mind set on something.

"And how will you get there?" Aemond wanted to see how far she had planned this scheme.

"Boat." She said in an instant. "They are too small to ride their dragons and they are also still to small to fly alone, so i'll have them on the ship too, Vermithor can follow from above you and Vhagar may fly alongside, should you wish to come with us."
The Dragon eggs of her children had all hatched within at least a week of their births.

"You have it all planned then it seems." Aemond nodded slowly. "You didn't think to consult me?"

"Aemond whether you like it or not I am leaving here, and the children are coming with me." She told him. "As I have said you are welcome to come, you are the man I love and the man they call father." He took his hand. "But I will not let my love for you overpower the love and need I have for my children and their survival, come with us, let us start a new life."

"Rhaella do you really think Aegon would be so willing to let the line of succession slip out from his hands, Rhaynera holds a line of five sons, not to mention Daemon. Our upper hand in this is that our side of the war hold seven sons of royal birth." He told her.

"I never asked for my Children to be kings." She snapped. "It is our Grandfathers ambition and our mothers bitterness that have placed us in the hands of war, and Rhaynera has four sons now."

Aemond realized his previous mistake. Perhaps he had not yet realized what he had done. But really it was because he was still hoping it was not the reality he had doomed them all to. "When is it you are leaving?"

"On the weeks end." She said, there were still things she needed to put in place, lies she needed to tell and truths she had to confess. "Will you come with us?" although she was angry with him she needed him. He was her forever. Her life and her death, and she needed her life with him.
But it could not be here.

Aemond felt hurt that she felt the need to ask.
After all these years, did she still not know how far he was willing to go for her.
He had killed more than once for her, soldiers and nobles alike, who dared voice the lust he knew half the kingdom felt for his princess. And he would do it all again, he would fall into the pits of a burning hell of it meant she would rise up to lie in the clouds among the Gods.

"Of course I will." He said placing a kiss on her head. "I wish to grow old with you, to see our children's children ride dragons in the sky, and then I wish to die arm in arm with you."

Rhaella felt her head spin at his words. She regretted not leaving sooner. Her children would've been able to live without their Mother worrying whether they would live to see another sun rise.

"And then once life has settled I will do good on that promise." He drew her closer to him. "We will build our own life, the west wall."

Rhaella nodded, She knew what this meant. She would never see her family again, likely they would be labeled as traitors to the crown, running from their king in a time of need, taking the two strongest dragons away with them, which may of been the only way Aegon could defend himself from Rhaynera.

But her children mattered more. Perhaps in years to come they could return home, back to the life they now knew. But that was only a possibility. The raw truth of their life now meant they needed to escape, before Rhaella's visions had chance to steal their lives.

"Four sunsets." Aemond told her. "Just four more and then we may leave." He felt guilty, as a prince of the crown he was sworn to loyalty and his brother, abandoning Aegon would mean he was abandoning his name. He was to be a war hero, fight the battles whilst his brother sat the throne.

But it could not be. Should he wish for his children to survive he must listen to his wife's warnings and take them all away to safety.

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