SEE HOW IT SHINES

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A dreamless night.

A second, then a third. It's been years since this happened. It's strange, almost wrong, like a mummer's stage without a backdrop or a player to bring it to life—just darkness, night after night.

Then again, Aemond barely sleeps those three nights. It was like this after the Kingswood. He'd try to find rest but be granted only images of blood when he closed his eye, great rivers of rubies staining his hands, his hair, his heart. This must be what killing does to a man, he reasons as he stares at his ceiling each night, waiting for the sky to lighten enough for him to seek out Vhagar and forget his exhaustion on dragonback.

He would do it over and over again, sleepless, dreamless nights be damned. He would kill a hundred thousand men, be haunted by their deaths at his hands for decades. For the sake of his house, his family. His father. His...

Niece. Friend. That is stranger than all else. No amount of dragon dreams could've prepared him for that. Viserra Velaryon, the golden girl, the smug, sun-bright little fool he's resented for a lifetime, couldn't possibly be his friend. If he weren't so tired, passing through the kitchens for a crust of bread and a handful of blackberries on his way to find his dragon the third morning without a dream, he'd laugh. It's ridiculous! It's unfathomable.

And yet...and yet. They shook hands. That means something, to a man of honor such as Aemond. He can't break his word, not now that it's been sealed by their palms. She trusted him, there in the pale, early morning light of her doorway, her heart on the sleeve of her sheer white nightgown. And he'd given himself up to her then like an offering at an altar—even if he wanted to, he couldn't break his word now. She trusts him. That, too, is almost laughable. After all he's done, the cruel words in their youth, the rock in Driftmark's sand, she would still take his hand and share her sunlight with him.

He laughs to himself once he leaves the castle. At first, it's a mirthless thing, a natural release of the absurdity he feels in his chest. Friends—who would've thought? But then he laughs as he reaches Vhagar's lair on the side of Rhaenys' Hill just below the Dragonpit. And when they take to the skies, the Blackwater and the clouds alike still dark beneath them, images of Viserra's sweet smile flashing at him whenever he blinks, he realizes that he's still laughing. Oh.

He wants this. Perhaps he always has. Perhaps he liked that she'd always try again when they were children, that his cold shoulder was never too cold for her, that she never abandoned her attempts to pull him into her heart—even when he resisted so fiercely that she'll now forever wear a scar to remind them all that young Aemond would never let her love him, not as a friend or a brother or a dog. He wants to be her friend–to be something to her, anything. He wants—

What do you want, Aemond Targaryen?

Vhagar groans beneath him, as if in answer to the question that she knows her young rider can't answer himself. He squeezes his eye shut, so hard that he feels the long-dead muscles around his diamond clenching in phantom pains. Enough of her, he tells himself, a flush of his old resentment returning. Who is she to claim so much of his mind, waking and sleeping and all in between? He returns his attention to the bay spread out below him, the ships arriving in the harbor with the day's wares, the seagulls dipping into the waves to break their fasts. Vhagar sets their course for him, her mighty wings beating as she makes a beeline for one of her favorite places, a cluster of oblong rocks poking out of the bay. Someone else must've flown her here often, Baelon or perhaps Visenya; dragons remember everything, Father told him once. I'm certain Balerion remembered Valyria, and that's why he took young Aerea home.

But as they draw closer to the rock formation, Vhagar hesitates, circling them instead of landing. Aemond squints to see what she sees, but can only make out the foaming line of the choppy waves breaking. Everything else is too dark, too still. Until something moves, the same midnight blue of the rocks in the early morning mist—scaled, shimmering, almost purple. Gaelithox raises his head, a low growl rumbling in the back of his throat as he watches Vhagar approach with unblinking yellow eyes. Aemond's heart flinches against his ribs. He urges his dragon down, down, until he sees a flash of white against the other beast's belly, nestled beneath a wing. When Gaelithox starts to move into a defensive stance (as if the little thing could ever be a match for a beast of conquest), the girl moves, too, her lavender-blue eyes widening when she sees Vhagar looming over her. Fear and relief wash over her features in turn, and then she smiles, hazy and sweet, lifting a hand to wave at him.