Pre-Chapter A/N: Here we go with another chapter. Here on time! Next five chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
XXXXX- LAENOR VELARYON
I waited patiently at my squire's door. Patiently. Definitely patiently. I definitely wasn't about to blow my fuse at the fact that the boy had still been sleeping in as late as 8am. Or at the fact that I had gone down to the training yard this morning and not found him there. The latter, of course, being more my fault than his. I had told him to report to the yard first thing in the morning, but it seemed that the phrase 'first thing in the morning' meant different things to different people.
I took a deep breath. In and out. This was actually all my fault. I had already decided not to train the boy much, and then he had gotten off that ship with that look in his eyes that reminded me of how I had felt when I arrived in the Stormlands. All alone in a foreign land with nothing but your dragon and your wits to keep you company. Of course, I had greater wits even back then than Aegon did, but the similarities were still plentiful.
Looking at them, I could not bear the thought of treating him how Borros had treated me—pawned off as an inconvenience until he had reason to return, and then practically physically abused until I had 'proved' my worth to him. I just could not do it. Not like Laena would ever let me do that either way. So the old plan to just do the bare minimum had been shunted off to the side.
Training Aegon did not mean I had to involve myself in the war. In fact, it could mean the opposite. If I trained both he and Sunfyre to the point where it was near certain that they would win the dance, it would take nothing for me to convince my former squire of the need for the independence of the Stepstones. And if he could not be convinced, training him would mean I would know him better than any other and would be able to anticipate his moves should it come to war. Of course, one could say the same about me, but I had my own advantages that Aegon just could not plan his way around. One could not make a plan to beat Vhagar. The Queen of Dragons did not fall so easily.
"He is dressing up, my lord. He will be out shortly," Ser Cargyll said on leaving the room. If he had any negative feelings about me, I could see no signs of them. I saw little signs of what was going on in his head, to be honest. Other than the obvious loyalty towards Aegon. It was almost painful to be this near him. If Aegon reminded me of me, then Cargyll was Ben come again. The same stoic presence, the same unflinching bravery in the face of it all, and just the same loyalty that had saved my life when the chips were down.
I could not bear to stand and stare at such a reminder for long.
"Have him meet me in the yard," I said, turning and leaving. I had finished my own training for the day a while ago. When I had gotten to the yard and not seen him there, I had moved on and gotten on with my own training. Multiple rounds with the dummies at first, and then the guards when they arrived. House Velaryon had quite a few Knights on retainer. The word had spread through Westeros that I paid well, and armed and armoured my Knights better than some minor Lords could arm themselves, and we had applications aplenty. Most of them did not fit my requirements but quite a few did, so I had an abundance of sparring partners, guards, and the core of what would become my first Legion in time. I just had to get the final bits in place.
I arrived at the yard and ended up watching three different sparring matches before Aegon walked down towards me, rubbing at his eyes.
"When were you supposed to meet me?" I asked.
"Uh?"
"Words, boy. Do you not speak common anymore or have you gone simple?" I barked, feeling the earlier annoyance rise again at the obvious sleep on his face.
"First thing in the morning, my Lord," he said.
"Indeed. And does this look like the first thing in the morning to you?" I asked, gesturing to our very busy surroundings. Most of the Knights had stopped what they were doing to listen in. Those who seemed not to were just better at eavesdropping while looking busy.
"No, my Lord," he said. Credit to him, there was a brain cell in there at least. He didn't point out just how bullshit and non-specific my initial instruction had been. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. You aren't angry at the boy, Laenor. You're angry because you feel like you are being forced to do things you don't want to do, I reminded myself. When I opened my eyes again, he looked much less sleepy.
"Show me what you can do. Pick up a training sword and get some padding on," I said, gesturing to the field in the middle. The Knights that had been using it, Goldbridge and Waterstone, stepped aside once I began to approach.
The rack of practice swords was not far and I grabbed one off the way before settling to wait for my new squire.
When he made it over, he held the blade in a ready stance that was not at least complete shit. Guess the master at arms in the Red Keep was good for something at least.
"I said show me what you can do, not stand there and do your best impression of a puppet," I said, gesturing for him to get on with it. And get on with it he did. He took two steps forward, crossing his feet as he did so—a footwork error that I would have to fix with time.
He attempted an overhead slash. Stupid considering the differences between us in height and strength. I blocked, we crossed blades and I pushed him backwards with a flick of my wrist and not even the barest amount of effort. I was stronger than men double my size. Against a child, I was overkill.
"Now defend," I commanded, and began my own attack.
--
At the end of the training session, Aegon was on all fours in the center of the training ground. I had pushed him hard, but to his credit he had only attempted to quit twice. Once he realised that I would not be stopping until I myself felt like he had had enough, he'd accepted his fate and just taken it on the chin. That was good at least.
"When I say first thing in the morning, I mean before the sun rises. You will have the burden of ensuring you wake up on time to make it here. If I have to call you from your room again, you will clean the stables for a week. If I have to do it twice, you will clean the stables until you are Knighted. I am sure you wouldn't want that," I said, and he nodded vigorously despite his obvious tiredness.
"Every morning, you will report here to me and we will train for two hours. I will train you in sword, spear, bow, and lance. By the time I am done with you, you will be able to fight the greatest Knights in the realm on even footing and perhaps best some of them. After our training in the mornings, you will report for your first lesson. I tend to fast until noon before breaking my fast. As my Squire, you will be expected to join me. It will be difficult in the beginning but you will find with time that the hunger sharpens your mind in a way few things can. Your first lesson will be on your letters, and history. You will break your fast after that with my wife and I. After that, you will move to your second lesson on your numbers. From your second, you will go on to your third lesson. That will change from day to day as I decide. From there, your day will end and you will be free to take on one project of your choosing. I will expect reports on this project every moon, so do not take this time as free time. Dinner will be served at sundown and you will join my wife and I for the meal," I said. He nodded.
"Now, get cleaned and report for breakfast," I said, turning and walking away. The schedule was barebones for now. It would populate itself once I found the things he excelled in and the things he was less good at. It was best to keep things flexible until I understood my student better. I looked at the position of the sun before stepping inside. The sun was directly overhead. Time to go see my wife. I'd been away from her all morning.
--
The sound of retching could be heard from the door. I turned to look at the Knight who waited there. Today's choice, a man from a cadet branch of House Darklyn, just acted like he could not see my eyes on him as he resolutely pretended to be unable to hear what was going on inside. When Laena had morning sickness, she turned from the sweet woman who the Maiden herself would be jealous of to a dragon more similar to Vhagar than anything else. I considered turning around for a brief moment, but that was the coward within. This was my wife we were talking about. Of course I wanted to go in.
Despite that, I still found myself hesitating at the door.
"No shame in turning around, my Lord," the Darklyn Knight spoke. I just gave him a glare before swinging the door open. It was my wife in there, not some dragon.
"Finally, you have returned. Must I do everything by myself?" she snarled from her position in the bathroom.
"Why aren't you in here yet? Are you just going to stand there gaping like a lost rabbit or are you going to come get my hair out of my face? Pro-tip, the latter is what you should be doing if you want to survive the night," she screamed from within before returning to retching. Maybe I should actually have turned around, a traitorous part of my mind whispered before I was rushing into the bathroom. She was sitting on the floor, arm around the toilet seat to support herself as she emptied her stomach acids into it.
And I wasn't exaggerating there. All the food in her stomach must have already been ejected. Now all that was left was stomach acid. Her position and that fact told me she'd been at this for either over an hour or close to it. That explained the venom. I reached down, kneeling as I did so, and took her hair into my grip. I cringed internally but knew better than to show it in my body language as I realised that there was actually some dried vomit on the hair. Yeah, she'd been at this for a while. I began stroking her back.
"I told you the fish from yesterday was a bad idea," she snarled, sending the blame my way. I nodded, accepting it easily, and not mentioning that she had actually been craving fish all day and only decided when dinner had already been made that it was better not to. In her defence, I probably shouldn't have encouraged it as much as I did, but then again we hadn't had bad morning sickness in a week. Can you blame a man for mistakenly thinking the worst was behind him?
"You did tell me. I'm sorry, my love," I said.
"No, no. It's not your fault. You're doing your best. I was the one that asked for the fish in the morning." And there we were.
"Still, I should have listened to your instincts when you changed your mind," I said, pushing for the blame. When things were like this, there was nothing Laena's worst impulses wanted to do more than fight. Just as there was nothing my own worst impulses wanted to do more than avoid the whole situation.
She remained silent at that. Well, silent in that she was not speaking any more. Her retches were still very much audible. I held her hair all through as she shoved her head lower in the toilet.
"Shall I have the Maester look into something?" I asked hesitantly. I hadn't brought it up since the morning sickness started because she had been clear about her wishes not to involve them earlier on, but now seemed like a good time for her to be receptive to it. Last time, they'd been able to whip something up that made these episodes pass better.
"No. I don't— don't know if what they gave me the last time made me lose him," she said. I did not know how to respond to that one. It was easy when it came to grief to rationalise. To look for patterns that did not exist and extrapolate rules of life from them. One of them I hadn't expected Laena to internalise was that there was some connection between losing our children and taking something for morning sickness. This didn't even seem close to healthy.
"You stopped taking that about three moons in. We lost him at eight moons. There's no way it caused it," I said.
She turned her head around, eyes burning.
"Delayed effects are possible, no? I said no. No remedies. Women give birth without Maesters all the time. I want nothing to do with them. Not in this at least," she said, and as if timed perfectly, she leaned over the toilet and began retching again. I just remained there on my knees, holding her hair and patting her back.
We were there for what felt like hours, but realistically was only one of them before she felt well enough to go into the shower.
"I'm done now. You can leave," she said.
"Nuh-uh. I'm staying."
"No. Leave. I must look a mess right now. Is that vomit in my hair?" she shrieked the last bit as she ran her hands through some of the hair I had let go of.
"It's nothing. Come on," I said, already taking off her night shift.
"I look terrible. So ugly and fat," she said, looking down at her naked stomach. There was a slight swell there already. Nothing as pronounced as I knew it could be, but still noticeable. At least we were still at the part where she could see her toes. Once she stopped being able to see them, things tended to escalate quickly.
"No you don't. You're beautiful. Still fully the woman I fell in love with—the one I fell in love with more every day," I said.
"Even when I'm vomiting my guts out?" she asked.
"Especially then. There is nothing here to be ashamed of. Your body is doing a special thing, Laena. You are carrying our child. A little son or daughter to put joy in our hearts and bring light to this hall. Like this, you have never been more beautiful. Because instead of just containing the person I love the most, your body now holds the two people I love more than any other," I said, internally rejoicing at the small smile that grew on her face.
"You have a snake's tongue," she said with a chuckle as I began to usher her into the shower. On the wall were a bunch of soaps and oils. Most were imported from Lys. Even with a good industrial base and quite a few slaves from the perfumed city, we weren't able to make soaps better than they did. I turned on the faucet, once again marvelling at the effects of my greatest invention in this world. A shower. Good, the servants had been able to keep the water hot all this while.
It was practically boiling as it fell down on us. But the warmth, rather than scalding, was just comforting. The soap I'd placed on my hands I began to run through her hair, lathering it up even as the water tried to rinse off everything I was doing in real time.
Both Laena and I had markedly different hair. They were the same colour but while hers was fine and allowed my fingers free rein, mine would have fought every attempt to run through them with its natural tangles. Getting ready in the mornings could sometimes be a whole production.
"Are you just going to focus on my hair, or are you going to do anything about your very naked wife in this shower?" she asked, and I gulped as the situation came back to mind with shocking clarity. The blood in my brain, probably most of my body even, began to move somewhere else.
----
After a long, long shower, both Laena and I came out refreshed and smiling.
"I'm late," I told her, looking at the wall mounted time keeper.
"Worth it," she just said.
"Worth it," I agreed.
A/N: And here we go with the chapter. Ending things with a bonding scene with our favourite couple. We should be fully back to business by next one. Next five chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.