❝ There was a feeling of inevitability when I met you. And our lives were fated to converge like some cosmic dance. And I think I had to break your heart and you had to break mine. ❞
As Cressida Black's lungs ceased to draw breath, Aurelia Martell's...
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The next day, Daemon watched as Aurelia walked over to him and Caraxes. She wore the riding leathers he had commissioned before leaving Dorne, aware that she could end up having to ride a dragon in the Steps and how uncomfortable it could be for her if she had no leathers available and tried to fly wearing a dress.
They were nothing ostentatious, made in black and different shades of brown, but he has to truly focus on dampening his desire as his eyes rake over her and he realizes that the design used makes it so the leathers cling to every curve and dip of her skin. A smile tugs at his lips as he sees she has knives strapped to her sides and how her hair is bound in a tight braid, clinging to her skull. Watching as she approaches is hypnotizing in a way and he is entranced by her. He did not marry a princess made to be kept in a tower and wait to be saved. She may not be a Visenya, but she isn't a Rhaenys either. She's more of a Rhaena or an Alysanne.
As Aurelia neared Caraxes, her pace slowed. Finally, she stopped a good distance away from the Blood Wyrm. "Don't worry about Caraxes," Daemon yelled out. "He can smell me on you." He will not eat his master's mate.
More bravely, Aurelia approached the dragon, and stroked the scales of his face, Caraxes letting out an appreciative purr. She then made her way to the beast's back, where Daemon sat on a saddle. He extended a hand and pulled Aurelia onto the saddle, using a leather cord to wrap her to his chest.
"Ready?"
"Yes."
With a crack of his whip, Caraxes took flight. Daemon could feel, rather than hear, as she took a sharp intake of breath and tensed, leaning into his body as if seeking protection. It felt good.
━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━✶━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━
Her legs are already sore, a pleasant reminder of the exhilaration of the journey, when they arrive at their first destination, a ruined holdfast in Nymerion. She removes her veil and gloves before they both take off their cloaks and jump into the sand, hurrying to find a cool patch of ground in the shadow of an old courtyard.
"Do you think it beautiful, my lady?" Daemon asks as he splits an orange and shares it between them.
"Yes, and sad."
"Sadness often goes hand in hand with beauty," he muses. "Come, let me show you the designs on the walls."
He tugs her by the hand through the arches of rooms and past fallen columns.
Daemon ducks down and rubs the sand away from the floor and she sits beside him, uncaring of the sand that coats her light riding habit.
"Do you see?"
"An elephant?" She asks, tilting her head. "Have you ever seen one?"
"Yes," he nods. "I saw many strange animals while I was in Essos."
He settles back against a column and she shifts so she is leaning against him. The winds blow gently through the ruins, swirling up shapes and sifting fine layers of sand.
