【WORDS LEFT UNSAID】

AEMMA WAS DEAD. It was the sole thought on Vaelor's mind. She was gone──or would be whenever Viserys decided to cremate her. Who's dragon would it be? Aemma was no dragon rider and Viserys's dragon had died when Vaelor was still a toddling thing. He didn't suppose it would be Daemon's blasted blood wyrm, nor Rhaenys's lovely Meleys, neither having been close enough to deserve such a right. Then there was Vaelor himself, who was burdened with the shadowy belief his own dragon would one day dare to set him alight──perhaps he would deserve it if it ever came to pass.

That left Rhaenyra's Syrax, the fairest choice of them all. At that, he let out a sigh of relief with the belief Syrax would be the best for sending Aemma off tenderly.

The world was silent, the golden chatter of raucous youth disregarded for mournful contemplation. Although solemn thinking was not doing much for Vaelor's shaken state. Aemma lingered there in his mind, stuck in the mists, already fading, weaving in-and-out of time──out of memory.

Focus on the clay. He told himself, looking down upon the oak desk, shrouded by clay ornaments of Arryn falcons and the misshapen, but not yet finished mounds of clay he had intended to use to form that of the Targaryen three-headed dragon. The tabletop nearly looked like the mockery of a battlefield, falcons having overtaken the poorly looking dragons.

Such could never be, dragons were too fierce.

The hours had ebbed by, floating along with Aemma's spirit as it descended from the web woven by the living, cast out by her own family. It was the darkest of hours, both to Vaelor's mind and eyes, he had but a small, flickering candle which granted him the feeblest of light. In the sticky, harrowed part inside him which reached with the greedy hand of a child, he felt he deserved such treatment by flame. It had given him life, and he vanished from it in return.

Perhaps I should visit Shrygal. He thought as his fingers padded along the heavy clay, leaving trails of his fingerprints in the midst. Let her see my foolishness, she may take pity.

What was pity worth to a dragon? She'd simply end his misery.

He wouldn't hesitate to thank her.

The worm-like form resting in his bed squirmed, muttering something incomprehensible──though he doubted Genavene could ever speak anything he could not at least attempt to understand. If anything, he was an imbecile for not being able to place the meaning behind her muffled words.

She rose, a holy creature being reawakened from its crypt. Her hair was all wild, furious curls now, rather than meticulously woven to sit behind her face, leaving her beauty to be seen by all. Swiping a hand across her face, she fell back with a yawn.

Vaelor's eyes flickered back to his work, thinking the dear lady might return to the land of dreams. That is, until he heard words, heavy with sleep, "Do you want my help?"

"Do you want to talk?" He countered, supposing that by the way her shoulders sagged and her eyes were barely kept open, she might prefer another hour or two of calm slumbering.

Instead, she stood from where she lay on the plush bed, her hands clasping together. "You could have all the world but Dorne at your feet, yet you choose naught, why?" She asked, an inquisitive wrinkle appearing between her brows as they knitted together.

So you are not tired? He wondered, letting out a yawn himself. He should sleep, but the dragons needed to be done.

Such a query was a common one between them, always asked a different way, and answered familiarly, a difficult ask, yet an easy reply, with the question always seeming to return like an unwelcome visitor on the most miserable of nights──just as it was this night.

Behind the niceties however lay the true question, "Why are you weak?"

"Because I am haunted," He had forever replied, "the spirits keep talking over me."

Though he had never told her so simply, for he knew she believed him half-mad already. Although better a goodly madness than that of Maegor's. He chuckled to himself lightly, plucking a glob of clay from his desk, kneading it in his hands while she approached.

"Well then I'd have to bend to hear them, wouldn't I?" He looked from his muddied hands to her visage, when had she grown so near? "It would be far more convenient for me to stand with them."

Genavene sighed, her hands settling on his shoulders, "When will you understand?" She was otherwise unmoving as she glanced about, seemingly searching for what Vaelor was missing, "No matter the goodness in your heart, it will not make up for the dragon that's woven into your soul."

Upon his lips slipped a smile his heart ached to bear, as he looked up at her, a goddess beneath pale glowing candlelight, "I am no dragon." He set aside the mush of clay in his palms, before encircling her waist and pressing his face close to her stomach, if he might bury himself there perhaps he could be made a sane man, at least for a time, she could be his anchor.

A small, almost imperceptible gasp──but he heard, he heard──left her, and then she stiffened. Have I done something wrong? He wondered as she finally spoke, her voice clipped, "No, no indeed," She said stiffly, and immediately Vaelor knew what it was, I should have asked. "for you are acting like a child."

His cheeks felt warm at the sentiment, yet he conceded, "I feel very much like one." the words muddled against the fabric of her green dress.

Genavene took a breath, before her gaze turned tentatively to the clay battleground on the desk, she tapped it twice before pulling away from him, "Do you want my help with that?" she asked again, and this time he could not so easily rebuff her with another question, for his throat felt like sand, and his mouth tasted like ash at the very idea of denying her.

Were it anyone else who sat at his side, he would have attempted a veil of composure, but what use was such in times like this, and what did it matter when the lady at his side was one he had already shared all of himself with? Watery eyes met hers as he pulled away from her, and he nodded, breath shaking, a mere wisp of air leaving his throat, "Please."

The Goddess's face seemed to soften, and once she'd found herself a stool, she placed it at his side, the wood feet plopping softly onto the stony floor.

I could believe again, I could, I could, words of a child he felt so terribly close to being.

He prayed in the royal sept with Aemma when he was young. Were it not for his uncle Vaegon frightening him so as a child, perhaps he could've walked in the light of the faith, holding its hand as it guided him toward whatever destiny laid ahead. I could have been, I could have been.

Genavene pressed a hand into his, her eyes staring straight into his, sending little tendrils of feeling, grazing the land thinly masked behind his own.

"How do I do this?" She asked, and were it not for her sight leaving him for the desk, he would've believed she meant something else entirely.

His gaze remained on her, before taking his hand, held in hers and guiding it over an unformed mound of clay, "Take this," he then shrugged as though it were the simplest thing in the world──to him, it was, "make a dragon."

Her laughter was sweet on the air, "My prince, you mistake me for an expert in such things. You are the dragon rider of us, if I don't recall."

While Vaelor would on a normal occasion be above such frivolous things as a bawdy jape, his heart was beating a low thrum, and if he stood he knew he would collapse into tears. Tonight was a night with little light, and what brightness he could uncover, he would gladly clutch to his breast.

So it began with him weakly managing, "Forgive me," he feigned a small pout, resting his free hand over his heart, truly holding this utterly stupid thing over himself, "My mind has been away as of late, I seemed to have thought that to be you."

"How dare you say such a thing to a lady such as myself?" She lightly smacked the hand sitting upon his chest, the ease to her movements warming him some.

"I forget myself." His head lowered as he chuckled quietly before looking at her again, "Could you make me forget?"

"I cannot promise eternity." Genavene admitted, rolling a ball of clay in her palm, her fingerprints creating fine lines in the beige mush.

What is eternity? Vaelor asked himself. Is it an idea, or a fact? The idea that something could last till the world's end, or the fact that something could last even beyond that?
With a wave of his hand, he brushed her worries aside, "A moment is fine."

Plucking a little falcon from the table, she squinted, scrutinizing the figure. "Will making this truly help?"

Would anything? He could muster a laugh at his misfortune, his foolishness as Genavene preferred to call it, his mind was faltering while his heart flowed in-and-out of its bounds, fluttering above it all, then falling, falling, and falling. There was a pit he had become prisoner to and he could not figure a way to drag himself out, for there was nothing he had but tears, and tears would not return Aemma to him, they would only serve to drown him further into madness.

"Yes," He all but croaked, "because Baelon will live to see the day. He must. Or else it will all have been for nothing." His fingers tapped along the tabletop, following the familiar rhythm that emerged from his mind. "Aemma will have died for nothing." Tap, tap, tap, "I cannot have that-" he hung his head, his shoulders scrunching as his voice fettered to a fragile wheeze, "I will not have that."

"Vaelor," Genavene placed a firm hand upon his shoulder, "if you don't cease, I will not be able to help you."

He was too lowly to look upon her, and yet she allowed him the mercy. In her neck, her pulse thrived. Alive. That's what we are. Taking a steadying──if weary──breath he muttered the question, "When will it stop?"

Her eyes shone with fragments of emotions, of them he glimpsed confusion and pity, others he did not dare give a name, for they were too raw.

Being a burden was a trait Vaelor knew well, it was such a feeling that it grew from prickling thorns to one of mild unease, but being Genavene's burden? Oh, it made him feel like he had been pierced through by a lance──perhaps he would have preferred that to this.

"The grief will linger," She turned away from him, to the clay mountains, "it is relentless." she let out a hum as she tapped her fingers alongside his, the tune disjointed. "Some fall prey to it, but you won't. You are too good for that."

I doubt that. Even still, he fixed a frail curve upon his lips, "You make it difficult to be sad." he told her, as honest as he knew to be.

One of her elbows mounted the edge of the desk, anchoring her head as she rested her chin against her fist. A half-grin wrung across her lips, as she pressed the side of her face into that fist, a gentle flush coming over her cheeks.

"Are you alright?" He asked her for a second time that night. "Will you be alright?"

"My prince," She began, speaking the two words that always seemed to make him fluster or frown depending on the day, "one day, your nephew will inherit the throne. I will not be at your side then." the half-grin vanished, and his eyes grasped at the frayed edges, "For you do not love me, you desire me. Desire is a dangerous thing, I prefer it not."

You are wrong. He thought, although the sentiment drowned in bitterness and folly. Within some darkened part of himself, he wondered if it was in fact him, who was wrong, if it was he who had defiled the innocence of the affair──when had it ever been innocent?

"I mean nothing untoward, Lady Genavene." No, no what he meant was "I yearn to feel your heart against mine for all time." but the simpler, less harsh statement was all he dared say in the sudden cold that overtook the chamber, the ghost of sensibility prying its way into his heart, restless in its attempts to subdue the little fire that rose in his chest.

His gaze turned to the clay. They should have started on the figures long ago.

Carefully, he reached his arms over her shoulders, and his shaking hands hovered over hers. He looked at her, swallowed, and then questioned, "Is this alright?"

They were all too close to each other, the tip of his nose tickled by stray curls. Rosemary. Vaelor realized as he breathed in, the rapid beat of his heart mellowing.

"My hands are not sacred, are they?" She asked in response, a subtle quirk to one of her brows.

He blinked, before nodding. Though he was oft to liken her to something holy and good──for what else could she be, putting up with him──there was always the ever quiet echo of her humanity that lingered. He couldn't avoid it, she was human and whole and speaking to him-not an afterthought nor burden, simply speaking.

His hands did not wander, only settled atop hers. "Imagine the webbed feet of a duck." he whispered, pressing his thumbs kindly against her flesh, "That's about what they are like." a tiny grin found its way to his lips, this was his place. Where all else faded away, even in the most wretched of times.

Vaelor's heart sang, for once he was to share it with Genavene, a lady most beloved. His hands ran along hers, the gentle caress prickling his arms with goose pimples, "And then the ridges are like... Bone- scaly bone. The formation of a bird's wing." he chuckled wearily as two of his fingers pressed against her knuckles.

As she began to form the clay, drawing out the smooth flap of the wing, her pinkie hooked around his. He paused, looking up at her──she did not return his gaze, that was alright──a small gasp leaving his lungs. Suddenly, she asked in the quietest of voices, "You will not propose to me again?"

Could I promise that? He wondered, brows furrowed for a moment. No, no he could not. So like the most cowardly of men, he did not grant an answer. His hands remained against hers, the shivers that had briefly vanished, welcoming themselves back.

Then Genavene's head turned, sitting upon her shoulder. Her eyes did not glare at him, merely demanded the simple courtesy he seemed incapable of giving. She thought too generously of him.

"Vaelor," Her voice commanded, "look at me, and tell me."

So many things he wished to say, none of them she wanted to hear. My heart is yours, for however long you will have it, was perhaps the worst thing he could ever give chance to saying, even if the truest of true to his soul.

Words of tragic romances filled his head, lovely, pretty words that would only stoke her ire further, but for him, were the only syllables he found worthy of leaving his parted lips where nothing else emerged.

He wanted to lean forward, to wrap his fingers into her hair, and as softly as one might a butterfly, cradle her neck in his hand, as he kissed her, but he did not one of those things, for he was too frightened to ask. Besides, he also knew she would never allow such complete insanity to be committed on his part.

Even so, he was sinking, sinking into her eyes. He couldn't breathe, for she'd stolen all the air──nay he had given it to her, all the air he had breathed to her. All of it was hers. His state was her doing, or mayhap simply she was his undoing.

A choked sound left him as finally, he cleared his throat. "I can't promise anything, my lady. Only that, if I were ever wed," It could only ever be you, "I'd be faithful to my wife." my heart would still be a fool for you.

"May I?" He murmured, lips brushing her temple, and when she nodded her consent, he pressed his lips there──barely a moment, and yet his heart felt whole, while his soul staggered along. Tell her the truth. Tell her you want her and only her for the rest of your days. His eyes fluttered shut and he rested his head against hers. Tell her you aren't confused as she thinks you are. He hummed his contentment, just being close to her. Tell her you would do all you could for her happiness.

Not so deep within himself, Vaelor knew she would be happier not knowing, and so he told her nothing but wordless devotion. He did not have a deity to worship, he had Genavene, and she was a roughly drawn sketch of a woman, but he──he dared not name the word he felt any longer, for she would not appreciate it, but he knew how he felt. The feeling festered, climbing up the very walls of his person. It would never leave, that he was certain.

"Only my wife." He eventually affirmed as he drew away from her. That could only ever be you, so I will wait for you. However many lifetimes it takes.

Her next words were both blessing and curse──a blessing for that she even spoke at all, and a curse for the damned reminder that their woven-together fate was destined to be unraveled, "And that I will never be."

【A/N】

Alexa play If I Could Tell Her from Dear Evan Hansen.

WOW, okay it took me a minute to get this chapter out. Apologies for that, life's been hectic, as mentioned previously, I'm in the middle of moving, not previously mentioned however, I got diagnosed with another blood disorder alongside my anemia. (NOT FATAL. I'M FINE. I just have to take more medication.)

In better news for why this chapter was late, I'm currently working on some pre-writing for a GOT fic. (I know, me pre-writing? Absurd.) I've finally realized that I probably should start doing that more so that I don't get so stressed about updating. I'm trying to get enough done so that when I am moved, I can start comfortably releasing chapters.

ALSO this fic is up for nomination for best HOTD fic for aesflms fanfic awards!! GO VOTE! Not just for this fic, but the other amazing creators there. Some you probably know if you like this fic, so, yeah I don't know how to end this, other than VOTE MY CHILDREN.

As always, comment your thoughts/questions, I love to hear them, and have a lovely, lovely day/night <33