ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʀᴋ ꜱɪꜱᴛᴇʀ - House of the Dragon

CHAPTER FORTY

The sun was so bright in the sky that there was not reminded of the storm the night before.

The sounds of the servants and knights walking around the hallways was too loud to ignore it, and the numbness on my arm was bothering my shoulder and back. I didn't know how Aemond managed to stay in that same position for long hours without complaints.

Helaena muttered something, perhaps still in her sleep, as I stretched my body as still as I could, hoping it wouldn't disturb nor upset her.

Yet it was useless, she was very much awake.

We had moved in our sleeps, turning to lie in our sides, and I was tightly hugging her from behind as I used to do with Luke or my own pillow. She turned her body, sleepy smiling and rubbing the back of her own hand against her eye, and quietly complained when I tried to lift my arm up and far from her waist. I wouldn't have, but I really needed to move it.

"Did you sleep well?" She gently asked.

Her voice sounded a bit cracky, and I knew her throat sore as the reminder of her late night episode. Yet I said nothing, and simply nodded my head when a yawn made my eyes water a bit.

It hadn't been a dreamless night though, those were only for Aemond's apparently. But it had been a nice dream. A war. Tides and tides of rotten flesh bodies, men and women and children and flies and crows devouring them with that insatiable way of theirs. Blood and sweat and ashes and even tears. A triumphant person standing on top of the tide, sword in hand, crown in head. A dragon roaring in the sky.

My favorite dream.

Helaena seemed much better too. Her eyes glowed again, her hair, still a bit knotty yet shining under the sunlight, was thrown above the pillow almost in a studiedly way, she was grinning from ear to ear, and her mind seemed far from her usual riddles.

Right as she opened her mouth to speak again, the door of her bedchambers flew open. And soon enough a small body threw itself on top of ours.

"Aunt Vis! Good morrow!"

A very much energetic Jaehaera smiled with all and teeth as she unconsciously digged her elbows in my stomach, holding her chin in her hands to have a proper look into my eyes and giggling as I gently tickled her own belly, deeply breathing once she unbent her arms and the slight pain no longer bothered me.

"Good morrow to you too, my beautiful girl."

Jaehaerys seemed asleep still, almost as if he had only gone there by order of the nursemaids. His soul seemed far from his body, and this only following his brain's command as he kept his violet eyes closed, fighting the sudden yawn making it's way through his mouth. He climbed onto the bed as well, calmer and gentler, and left his head on his mother's chest as she embraced him with her maternal arms, kissing the top of his head and smiling at Jaehaera.

It felt odd, that the nursemaids had allowed the children to interrupt in the quarters in such manner. Specially since the entire Keep already knew about my aunt's episode. But then I heard Maelor's unmistakable giggle, and my eyes scanned the place until spotting an eyepatch and an amethyst iris staring at us from his position next to the bed.

Aemond no longer seemed the drunkman I had ran into the day before. He had his hair perfectly pulled back in his usual way, and it almost felt wrong of me to think of his silver locks in the messy bun I had desperately wanted to pull from in the mere Throne Room. I didn't even care if the knights or the maids or his own mother heard or saw us. His clothes were immaculate as well. All black if not for the dark green collar of his leather top.

I wanted to rip them apart.

Was it the dream, the ecstasy of such battle, that had made me so sexually aroused? His apology the night before? The entire day I had spent without his presence? I hoped not, or else I would have a rough time the rest of my life.