Sorry, sorry, sorry!

This is all I have to say x).

Enjoy!

Chapter XLVIII: I dreamed that I was old

Eastwatch-by-the-sea was a gloomy yet calm place. Here, even more than in Castle Black, Jon realised the poor state the Wall was in. Not only did they have too few stewards to maintain all the areas of the stronghold, but the ones they had were all either maimed or over sixty namedays. It truly was a miracle that there still was fire burning in the halls of the keep. The rangers were in no better shape. They never ranged for more than a day if they were not called by Castle Black. And the builders… there were no builders. Or rather, there was one man, but he was too old to do his job now.

At first, Daeron had thought with Arianne that herself and their son could stay there, as Selyse and Shireen Baratheon had done, but, when they saw the state of the place, they had to change their mind. "I'm not staying here." Arianne had declared. "Even if we had a Kingsguard, I would not stay here." She had felt the need to add. Daeron had agreed with his wife, so both Rhoynax and Weirion had flown to Castle Black.

If there was one thing Daeron had not been prepared to discover when he arrived at the Night's Watch headquarters, it was the Lord Commander cooing over a baby. Ser Alliser was over the moon when he saw little Aemon. So much so that he did not even greet his King at first. When he realised his mistake, he bowed profusely.

Daeron only laughed. "It's quite alright Ser Alliser. I, myself, find Prince Aemon much more interesting than me." He had expected the older knight to be laughing.

He did not. His face fell and took a tint of sadness. "Your Grace…" Realising that it was the name that had made him react, Daeron understood what the problem might be.

"My uncle…" Inside him, he still wanted to have hope. He wanted to introduce his son to the oldest of the Targaryens. The Gods could not be so unjust that they would have taken him from the world before he could meet little Aemon.

"He's still alive…" Ser Alliser quickly explained. "But it won't be long. He's bed-ridden and rarely coherent." The man looked at his feet. "I'm sorry, your Grace."

"Thank you, Lord Commander. Do you mind if me and my family go to him immediately?" Ser Alliser agreed to Daeron's request, so the King led his wife and son to the Maester's solar.

Fat Samwell Tarly opened the door. "Your Grace." It seemed the man was constantly panting. "You're just in time. I'm not sure he will make it through the night." Arianne gasped and brought her hand to her mouth but Daeron only nodded. He had guessed. "I was holding his hand…" The fat man explained when they heard the whining of the old man.

"I'll take over from here, thank you Samwell." Daeron only looked at his uncle. "I want you going to the Citadel as soon as the funeral is done. And you will not only train as a maester, you will try and find ways to combat the White Walkers."

He inhaled sharply. "Of… of course, your Grace." Daeron heard the fear in his voice, he had no need to look at his face which, no doubt, depicted his horror. "I will leave you know, your Grace, your Grace." He left the room as Daeron reached the bedside and took Aemon's old wrinkly hand in his.

"Uncle Aemon?" Daeron called softly.

"Rhaegar?" The old man grasped farther for his hand.

Daeron's chest tightened at the mention of his father. "No. It's Daeron. Rhaegar's son." He explained trying to mask his sorrow.

"Oh, Daeron!" At least he still knew who he was.

"I've brought my wife, Arianne and our son, Aemon." He told his great-great-uncle and gestured for his Queen to give him their son. She positioned the baby in his arms but still held his bottom. Aemon was too big now to be held with only one hand. Daeron guided Maester Aemon's hand to Prince Aemon's little face, delicately. The maester jumped a little when he felt the soft skin. "This is my son, Aemon." Daeron precised with both pride and sadness.

"A future King." Old Aemon commented, a single tear rolled down his cheek. "You must raise him well. He is the future of our House." He warned with a raspy voice.

"We will." It was Arianne who answered quietly. That had the effect of indicating her position to the blind old man.

"Queen Arianne…" He called, reaching with his other hand. Arianne caught it and held it in hers. "I'll die surrounded by family… Can you believe it?" The sound he made next, Daeron could not identify if it was a laugh or a painful cough.

His condition worsened quickly after that. He whined a lot. His skin turned damp and took a yellow tint. And his breathing worsened. He was not conscious often, yet Daeron and Arianne – who had asked Ser Alliser to watch over the little prince – stayed with him, holding his hands.

"Egg…" At first, it was a whisper and Daeron thought he had not heard him right. "Egg! Egg!" Maester Aemon screamed. "Mother said she was looking for you." The old man was confused. It was too much for the young King. Silently, the tears started rolling down his cheeks. With her free hand, Arianne cradled his face and sent him an apologetic smile. The maester drifted back to sleep. He woke again a few hours later and called for his long-deceased little brother again. "Egg! I dreamed that I was old." The tears started pooling in Arianne's eyes as well, even though she had known the maester less than Daeron.

Maester Aemon did not wake up again. His breathing worsened even more, until it stopped completely, and his hands became limp in Daeron's and Arianne's embraces. The King was not ashamed to say that he sobbed when his old uncle passed away. His young Queen circled the bed and enveloped him in her arms, trying to ease the pain.

...

If anything could be said about the Night's Watch in such tragic times, it was that they were highly efficient in their construction of a funeral pyre. By the time Daeron and Arianne got out of their room with Prince Aemon, it was ready and Daeron's great-great-uncle was being lifted onto it by his brothers. All of the black brothers looked saddened by the death, no matter the grievances that existed within the order, they were all brought together in their sorrow. When they slowly installed the body on the dark wood, it started snowing, as if the Old Gods themselves were sending a sign and honouring the man. At least that was what Daeron wanted to believe.

Ser Alliser had offered Daeron the opportunity of speaking the words of the rite for Aemon, but Daeron had declined. It was not his place, he felt. Aemon had been a brother of the Night's Watch for over seventy years. And Daeron had only known him for three years. The black brothers were as much Aemon's family as Daeron and the young Targaryen felt it was what his uncle would have wanted. So, he let Ser Alliser say the words.

"His name was Aemon Targaryen." Ser Alliser Thorne started with a commanding voice though, it was not devoid of emotion. "He came to us from King's Landing. A Maester of the Citadel, chained and sworn, and sworn brother of the Night's Watch, ever faithful. No man was wiser, or gentler, or more loved in Castle Black. At the Wall, a dozen Lord Commanders came and fell during his years of service. But he was always there to counsel us." The knight seemed to be starting to struggle. "He was the blood of the Dragon, but now his fire has gone out, and now his Watch has ended."

"And now his watch has ended." They all repeated, Arianne and Daeron included.

Then, Ser Alliser took two torches from one of the stewards. He kept one, and gave the other to Daeron. Together they walked closer to the pyre and lit it, honouring the Targaryen tradition of burning the dead. Wanting to remain strong, Daeron put his arm around his wife's shoulder for support, as he watched his precious uncle turn to flames and ashes.

"My deepest condolences, your Grace." The Lord Commander told him when the men started to scatter.

"He was as much your family as he was mine, Ser Alliser." Daeron could see the surprise in the knight's eyes. "He guided you as best as he could, like he did for me, like he did for many men before us, I'd wager. This man was an example of fortitude and bravery, the likes of which we will probably never see again." He developed. Thorne could only nod before he excused himself from the royal family.

Daeron felt his wife's hand wrap around his arm. She leaned her cheek into his shoulder, and they stayed there until the last flames had gone out. "He will never be forgotten." Arianne vowed. "We will tell our little Aemon everything about his wise Uncle Aemon." She gave him a small kiss on the shoulder.

"Aye, we will." Daeron agreed.

...

Daeron was surprised to see that he was dreaming of the Red Keep once more yet no one was crying or screaming. Could he really have a happy dream in this accursed castle? The room he was in looked like the solar of a maester or a scholar at the very least. There were herbs, mixtures bubbling in glass containers and books everywhere in the room. However, the central table was littered with painted soldiers rich children play with in the South. It looked as if a child had come in and taken over the room.

"We were recreating the Battle of the Redgrass Field, with Egg." The man who talked behind him startled him. He was young, maybe a few years older than Daeron, with short silver-gold hair and vibrant violet eyes. Around his neck, a chain dangled above grey robes. The sight brought Daeron to tears.

"Uncle Aemon?" He sobbed. The man opened his arms to capture Daeron into his embrace. "You're gone." Daeron kept crying. "I don't want you to be gone."

"I had lived long enough. A hundred years is a very long time." Aemon patted his back. "And I had so many happy moments, it was easy for me to die, I don't have regrets." Daeron did not know how to react, he was confused. "Of course, I have known many hardships, but my life was mostly happy. See, this table? It represents the happiness of my childhood to me. getting into all sorts of mischief with Egg."

Daeron chuckled tearily. "What did you do here?" He asked.

"We invested the solar of our maester and used his table to re-enact the battles from the Blackfyre Rebellion. We always fought each other to know who would play the Targaryens and who would play the Blackfyres. Usually, I let Egg choose." Aemon smiled fondly. "He was so young, I doubt he would have remembered."

"How old were you?" Daeron questioned with a smile.

"I don't know exactly, I had to be younger than ten. I was sent to the Citadel at ten." He recalled. "My grandfather wanted me to become a maester."

"Why?" That had always intrigued Daeron, why would a Targaryen, an heir to the Iron Throne be sent to the Citadel? Especially when he knew now how close to extinction his House had been. Aemon could have married, sired children and given more chance to their family to survive.

"At the time, he worried there would be too many heirs and we would wage war on each other." Aemon explained. "He was not that far from the truth. My brothers and cousins would surely have tried to kill each other if they had not died from other ailment." Now that he thought of it, Daeron realised that the time Aemon had been born in was not only ancient, it was troubled by the Rebellions, epidemics and disasters.

"How long did it take you to become a maester?" This interested him not only for curiosity, but he wanted to know how long it would take for him to hope to see a maester in the Night's Watch again.

"Ten years." Daeron's eyes must have widened because his uncle added while laughing, "I took my sweet time. I studied the higher arts for four years for instance. I was sure that my Targaryen blood would be enough to summon magic back into the world. It was not of course. I also wanted to learn everything I could about medicine, even the foreign or forbidden techniques, it served me well on the Wall. You cannot imagine the number of issues some of these men have with their body or their mind. Well, anyway, I took my time."

"Were you happy to be there?" Daeron could not come to term with the fact that he had never asked all those things.

"At first? No. I missed Egg and my parents terribly." He paused. "I only saw Egg once during those years, when he came to Oldtown with Ser Duncan whom I measured. I gave my brother a mule that day, I remember. And I never saw my mother again. She died while I was at the Citadel…"

"I'm sorry." Daeron looked at his feet.

"I am too… Yet, I am also grateful that my grandfather sent me. I learnt useful skills with the maesters, and if I had not taken the vows, I would have sat on the Iron Throne instead of Egg. I would have hated it more than he did." He had a sad smile.

"What did you do after you forged your chain, did you take the black immediately?" He thought he recalled that Aemon had come North with Bloodraven, so there had to be some years in between.

"Oh no! First, I served a minor lordling in the Stormlands. It was highly inconvenient. The poor lad always bowed to me and called me 'your Grace', even though I was a maester and had renounced my family name." Aemon grinned. "It was uncomfortable. Then, when my father took the throne, he called me back to Court. I did not stay long. He wanted me to be on the Small Council, but it would not have been right, the Grand Maester would have been rightly offended. So, instead, he sent me to Dragonstone, where I served my oldest brother, an other Daeron." Aemon gave Daeron a knowing look.

"I have not heard much of him." Daeron confessed.

"There is not much to know. We were not very close and I never found him that interesting, most of the time, he was drunk. He died of the pox." Aemon explained.

"What did you do after he died?"

"I stayed and served on Dragonstone, even if the Prince of Dragonstone was not exactly clear. I stayed there until my father died, and I was called for the Great Council." He paused again. "They asked me to become King, can you believe it?" He exclaimed playfully.

"I know you would have hated it, but you would have been a good King." Daeron replied.

"Not as good as Aegon. He was excellent, he cared so much about his people. Maybe too much, sometimes. He was not that popular with the nobles." Aemon said with the tone of secret. "But anyways, I went to Castle Black so that no one would use me in a plot against my brother. Plots were all the rage back then."

"They still are." Daeron remarked. "I had a dream with Egg once, he told me why you had to take the black."

"Yes, he blamed himself… I never saw him again, but we sent ravens to each other." Aemon smiled. "Aegon became obsessed with prophecies once, and I did my best to help him. I read about myths and legends, I tried to interpret some prophecies for him. I ask some of my friends in the Citadel for help. If only I knew…"

"What do you mean?" Daeron frowned.

"Aegon died in the tragedy of Summerhal. You know that. he was trying to revive dragons because one prophecy said that 'only dragons can save dragons'. I told him it probably meant that dragons would come back to the world one day. I was a fool. When your father started showing the same signs of interest in prophecies, I should have done something. Alert Rhaella maybe, or try to talk him out of it. But I'm only a man and I was so far away. My letters with him were so exciting. Rhaegar had such wits about him… He had clever interpretations of some of the prophecies he looked into and I was so curious… I did not realize how deep into obsession he had gotten until he crowned your mother at Harrenhal."

"None of what happened was your fault, Uncle." Daeron tried to ease the man's guilt.

"It was not, but I could not do anything either…" Aemon looked him in the eyes. Daeron saw what beautiful eyes he had had before they turned milky white with blindness. "I was stuck at Castle Black and I could not do anything. All the warnings I sent fell into deaf ears. But I loved your father. I might have never met him face to face, but I loved him. And I failed him…"

"You did not." Daeron protested. "You guided him and he refused to listen."

"You might be right. I told you earlier I had no regret… well, it is my one regret, not being able to save Rhaegar." Aemon gave him a sad smile. "But I got to try again with you in the short time we had together."

"And you did not fail me. You never could fail me, Uncle. But…" The tears threatened to fall again. "… I still need you. I would have liked for you to see my son grow…"

"It was not my fate." Aemon put his warm hand on Daeron's shoulder. "You're going to do just fine without me, I know you will."

"How can you be so confident? How can you have so much faith in me?" Daeron was not ashamed to still be trying.

"When you have lived for as long as I have, you know." Aemon laughed a little.

Daeron simply nodded. There was silence for a few minutes. "What will you do now?" Daeron finally asked. "Is there some sort of afterlife?"

"I do not know, Daeron." Aemon smiled and Daeron was perplexed. How could he not know? He was dead. "We are still in your dream, boy." His uncle elaborated when he saw his face.

"What would you like to do then?" Daeron changed his question.

"I would like to see some of our family again, Aegon and Rhaegar mostly."

"I never saw my father. Not really, not like I see you now or I saw Egg several times before. I saw scenes of his life, but I could never have a real conversation with him." Daeron revealed sadly. "I wonder if I will see him one day… If your wish comes true and you do see him, will you tell him about me? Will you tell him that I would give anything just to have a few minutes with him."

"I'll tell him, and one day I'm sure you will get to tell him yourself, there is no reason for him to never appear in one of your dreams." Aemon tried to reassure his nephew. "What I can tell you is that he would be very proud of you, and he would have loved to get to know you as well. You know, in a way, he went to war for you. Do you remember the letters I gave you when we first met?" Daeron nodded. "In one of the last, he told me he thought he would need to go to battle, so that you and your mother would forever be safe, I think he wrote." Daeron remembered.

"He failed." He said in a little voice.

"He did, but his intention was clear." Aemon acknowledged. He gave Daeron time to process what he had just said. "I think it's time you wake up, my boy. Life needs you."

Daeron started to panic. "No, it's too soon. I'm not ready to leave, I can't let you go! I'm not ready! Please!" He begged, though he was not sure what it was that he asked of Aemon.

"You are ready, Daeron." Aemon kept smiling. "Give my love to your wife and to little Aemon. I wish you a good life, my dear."

"No, no, no!" Daeron shook his head. "You cannot leave me Uncle, I still have so much to tell you. There is still so much you need to teach me!"

"Goodbye, my boy." Were the last words Daeron heard before his great-great-uncle disappeared.

Daeron wanted to tell his uncle Aemon about Daenerys, about his trip to Meereen, about the weird dream he had had of his Stark ancestor. He needed his counsel in the war to come, he needed to know that somewhere, there was an older member of his family to guide him. He was not ready to be the oldest Targaryen alive, he was not ready to stop being a little boy just yet. But he had no choice and the finality of death started creeping on him. He had met Maester Aemon only three years before and already he was gone. So much time had been lost. A member of his family had been close to him his whole life, yet so far at the same time.

Daeron was mad at himself for not figuring out the truth earlier. He was mad at Eddard Stark for keeping the truth from him. He was mad at the Lannisters for forcing him into a war. He was mad at the whole world – or the gods, he did not know – for taking Aemon away from him. More surprisingly, he was mad at his wife, because she was not there, in bed, with him as he woke up in grief.

It was not long before she opened the door and quickly closed it back behind her as to avoid making the room cold. She looked startled when she saw her husband. Daeron guessed it was because he looked a mess, he knew that anger and sorrow had diformed his features and reddened his skin.

"Daeron, what happened?" She asked, alarmed.

"Where were you?" He asked back.

"I took Aemon on a walk." She motioned to their son, safely asleep in her arms. "He started fussing and you looked so peaceful as you slept, I did not want him to wake you up." She explained. "Daeron, what's happening, you're starting to frighten me." he insisted.

"It's nothing, love, just a dream." He wiped away the sweat on his face as his wife put the infant in his bassinet.

"Whom about?" She pressed on.

"I talked to Aemon." He told her. "I'm not ready to let him go, Arianne." He hung his head low.

"Oh, Daeron… you're grieving, it's normal, but Aemon would not want you to react this way. You heard what he said before he passed. He was happy with the way his death happened." She told him very rationally.

"I know, he told me too… I'm just not ready. I feel like I just lost the last bit of my parents…" It was an odd feeling. "I don't want to lose anyone else." She looked like she wanted to say something, but he stopped her. "Don't make promises you cannot keep Arianne. We both know we are going to war, we will lose other people." She nodded at his statement.

"Actually, I was about to suggest something else." She lit his curiosity. "To get over my 'grief', even if it was not as if she died, after my mother left, I busied myself, organizing balls and events all over the Water Gardens and Sunspear. I think I drove my uncle and father crazy in this time, but it worked."

"You want us to organize balls?" He asked incredulous. If anything could be less believable than White Walkers and dragons, it would have to be a fancy ball at Castle Black.

"No… But I think preparing for war is just as time consuming." She replied with a small and mischievous smile.

I know some of you might be mad but this was a long way coming. Sadistically I also hope some of you cried as I did and I hope I did Maester Aemon jsutice.
Tell me what you think.

Next chapter: back to reality for Daeron. He gets an update in the events of the North and the royals meet with former royals. Forgotten characters reappear.

Guest reviews:

- Thank you very much. I think the changes in Dany are starting to set and after she's met with her family she'll want different things. SO maybe Daario will not manipulate her as easily. More news about Margeary in two chapters ;).