Devotion (GOT Fanfic)

Chapter XVIII

'You are not angry with him?'

'He broke my heart but.....'

'He still remains such a figure in your mind and heart constantly, as if a dream that lingers onto reality...'

Leila laughed humorlessly as she drank another gulp of wine. 'Yes, he is a dream...seeming so real and yet so unattainable.'

'Do you regret being his wife?'

Leila looked at him, the burning ambers of the fire sparked near her. 'It's hard to regret something you've been happy about. He gave me a life with all I could ever want....'

'That's not a straight answer.'

'How about you, my lord? Do you love my husband.....more than just a friend?' Jon's eyes widened. 'No, you don't have to answer. I already know...you love him as much as I do...You burn for him as much as I... But you don't say anything.

'Because he is married.'

'But that isn't the point. That didn't stop him from leaving me for another woman.' Leila laughed bitterly as she drank from her goblet once more as she gazed deeper and deeper towards the hearth. 'I would have preferred if he had loved you instead....that I would have been able to swallow, to accept. Maybe we would have our own house of three. Dorne made me accepting of that. Because unlike Lyanna, you would have been careful. You wouldn't have started a war. You wouldn't cause my children to suffer... You would...you would be better.'

There were tears in her eyes.

'Leila...' Jon whispered as he realized what she actually truly felt. It became obvious to him what she actually felt. She felt angry, she felt bitter. In pain, lonely....This is what Rhaegar Targaryen had reduced this proud brilliant woman to. He stood from his own seat and wrapped his arms around her, caressing her back to soothe her. 'It's alright.'

Finally someone understood him for the first time in his life.

Leila paused her sewing for one moment as a bird flew pass her figure against the glass window. A calming sight for her poor dear soul. Leila shook her head as she turned back to the blanket she had been sewing for her youngest son, plucking the needle from the other side. It was a beautiful lion roaring against the three headed dragon filled with small vibrant words of his origins, in a checkered red and black field she had gotten from the servants.

No, she thinks to herself. This must simply be a distraction from the terrible nightmares I see when I close my eyes and...

The screams then came.

Leila Lannister immediately dropped the blanket without a second thought and quickly rushed towards the other side of the chambers, into the bed of her eldest son as he screamed with fear and tears falling from his resting eyes clearly corrupted by the nightmares of the things he had been forced to see. Leila rushed to him and placed her arms around him, her hands placed upon his beautiful golden silver hair, brushing it softly as he shook violently with his screams getting louder and louder.

"Shhhh, shhhhh..." Leila hummed to her son softly as his hands pushed her away from him but she did not bulge despite the pain and held him, placing kisses upon his forehead. "My son, my dear boy,...my good Aegon, it is alright. It is just a dream, my boy. You must wake now, my son. There is nothing to fear now. I am here with you."

Slowly, Aegon's shaking had ceased as did his violent reactions and very carefully, his eyes opened still shedding tears that sprung down his already wet face. Leila pampered her son with her fingers rubbing his tears away. Aegon raised his head to eye his mother with a frightened face, an expression he had never used in his six years of life. Leila smiled softly at her son, albeit it was that of a sorrowful emotion she held within her.