119 AC, Braavos

Ophaella pressed her palm to the cold stone, closing her eyes as she tried to drown out everything but the sounds of Laena's heartbeat. She was hiding somewhere in the stacks of books, buried beneath layers of clothes and standing as still as death. She had already found her nearly two dozen times, but Laena insisted she do it again.

Again and again.

Until it was like second nature.

Until it was easier than breathing.

Until she could press her palm to any stone and feel the life on the other side.

Ophaella breathed in and out, imagining, for a moment, that the stone breathed right along with her. It swelled up and down, expanding and contracting, like a giant set of lungs. She placed her other hand on the ground, spreading the palm as flat as possible.

From here, she could hear infinities.

Infinite lives.

Infinite souls, moving and living and being.

Ophaella smiled, allowing herself to sit with the feeling for a moment. Her mother had tried so hard to teach her this and all she received in return was resistance. Her own insecurity had stolen that from her and it was only now, now that her hand had been forced, that she realized just how much she had truly lost.

Her smile cracked just a bit.

Perhaps if she had tried just a little bit harder then…

Ophaella shook her head, concentrating. She could hear everything and it threatened to overwhelm her if she didn't focus quickly. She searched out Laena's heartbeat, knowing it now almost as well as she knew her own. Laena's was slow and deep – like the undercurrent of an ancient river. She found, just as loud as it would have been if she pressed her ear to Laena's chest.

But hers was not the heartbeat she knew the best and the moment he stepped foot in the library, she knew Aemond had grown tired of waiting for her to finish her lessons for the day and came to find her.

Like a steady drum, fast and urgent.

Ophaella listened for a moment, tracking the path he took.

A left, then a right, then a left again.

Ophaella pulled her hands from the floor and slipped behind the nearest book shelf. She pulled the back of her dress up over her head, hiding her hair from the glowing torches as she sank further into the dark. She grabbed a book - not too heavy, not to thin - and held it between her hands. She would need to be quick, as it was the only advantage that still remained to her, and strike with precision. She stilled her breathing, listening to the sound of his feather light footsteps as he made his way closer to her.

She jumped out at him the moment he passed, slamming the book down on his upper back.

He stumbled forward, letting out a grunt of surprise, before he turned around and grabbed her by her wrists.

Aemond shoved her back, a smug look on his face as she slammed into the bookshelf.

"You almost had me that time."

"Almost?" She scowled at him. "I got you."

"You did not."

"Did too!" Her near shout was needlessly loud in the deserted library. She dropped the book to her side and folded her arms across her chest, continuing to glare at him. Her dress fell back down her back, revealing a mess of white fuzz, but she ignored it. "You cannot possibly be saying you got hit on purpose."

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

He mirrored her gesture, folding his longer arms over his chest. He smirked down at her, the corners of his mouth pulling up in a full blown smile. After another moment, he relented, and dipped his chin. "I did not even hear you."

"I knew it!" She clapped her hands together, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I did not hit you too hard?"

She stepped up next to him, hand reaching out to softly touch his upper back.

"No, of course not, Aella," Aemond shrugged her hand off, shaking his head. "Where is Laena?"

"Hiding somewhere."

As she said it, she bent down to her knees and splayed her palms across the stone floor again. It was harder to focus with him standing there, peering over her shoulder and waiting for her to finish. He had seen her do this several times now – several, numerous, and almost too many to count – but she still felt almost naked to be watched so closely. She pushed away the weight of his gaze and endeavored to concentrate, digging through all the noise and the mess until she found Laena's heartbeat once again.

She stood up and looped her arm through Aemond, content to take a leisurely path to Laena now that her day of learning seemed to be drawing to a close.

It had become a pattern for them, as another year drew to a close. Her Nameday – now several months behind them and already a blip of memory – came and went without much fanfare and they had all settled into what seemed to be their permanent routine. Days spent learning and training and reading, followed by nights spent forced into meals with Sealord and whatever strange guest he brought that day.

"Father finished training you early today?"

"He attempted to complete a lesson, before the Sealord asked after his presence again."

The bitterness was quite clear.

She pulled herself just a little bit closer to him, annoyed by how tall he seemed to be growing with each day that passed. Soon, they would never be able to look eye to eye again – if that moment had not already passed – and she would be forced to stand on a stool.

Or he forced to stoop to her level.

"I am sure tomorrow he will back at it again," She said, though she was not sure she really believed it.

Ophaella would not lay claim to knowing her father well enough to know if her words were true. But she could hope, if for nothing else than to never have to see the look on disappointment on Aemond's face ever again. Gods, but it hurt. Every day he spurned Aemond was another day that he sunk further and further back into how he had once been.

How he had been when they left King's Landing.

"It is no matter."

Ophaella eyed him, mouth pursed as he tried to avoid her gaze.

"It is some matter, at least to me." She pressed in even closer. "You've been thinking about him again."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Aemond said, feigning ignorance at what she was talking about. He tried to pull his arm back as they continued to weave through the shelves, but she gripped tight, locking him in place.

"Your heartrate just increased."

"That's cheating," Aemond said, shooting her a foul look that she did not think he meant in the slightest. How could he, really, when he was the greatest champion for using her gifts.

"That is pressing an advantage." She dug her fingers into his arm, pulling them both to a stop as she turned to face him. "You've been thinking about that strange man, Aemond, don't bother lying."

"And if I have? What would be the harm? Daemon no longer trains me as he once did and leaves me to the whims of the Quartermaster. Why should I not look elsewhere? I have no dragon, no title, and no remarkable gifts like you."

"You are Unburnt. Do not dismiss yourself for the sake of self-pity and use it against me. You do not even know if you will find anything with this man." She did not drop his arm, though she did loosen her grip ever so slightly. Aemond's other hand rose to grasp her wrist. His fingers found her pulse. He could not read her the way she could him, but she knew it brought him the tiniest bit of comfort – and just the barest hint of power – to be able to feel her heart.

"And you do not know that I won't." They stared at each other, each observing the other.

"I do not trust him."

"You know nothing of him."

"Exactly!"

Aemond clamped his hand over her mouth, rolling his eyes at her exuberance. "I have to try, Aella. I have to. Every day I fear the dragons will return and I will have lost my chance at something. I do not know what it is, but I know it is something. I can feel it. Fire may not burn me, but I fear I will still die under the weight of its expectations."

"Aemond, that's not…"

"Will you come with me?"

She knew he felt her heart uptick – knew he felt the apprehension and the fear. But the longer she stared at him, the more it steadied. The more she knew that she would never have said no. The more she knew that he knew she would never say no.

"Of course."

Aemond smiled.

It was the dazzling sort, the sort that she knew would cause her to agree to anything and everything he asked of her. It was tinged with relief, with unrealized possibilities watered fresh and given oxygen to grow. Gods, but she loved it. She pulled her wrist back before he could feel her racing heart, blush spreading from her cheeks and down her neck.

"Tonight?"

"Why not now?" He smiled even brighter at her, practically glowing, and nodded. "Let me find Laena and then we can go. No point in delaying the inevitable."

"They will spot us," Ophaella said without preamble.

They were dressed for sneaking – or what the pair of them assumed was sneaking – though she doubted it would have must effect. Small and slight and with backs that never slouched, there was a undeniable air of nobility about them that they could never hide no matter how many layers of rough fabric they tried to bury it under.

Though they endeavored to attempt it all the same.

Their guardians distracted by yet another guest and plied with more wine than a hundred men could drink, it was shockingly easy for them to sneak out right under everyone's noses. There hadn't even been a need to fake a turning tummy or an aching muscle. Laena and her father simply bid them goodnight and ushered them to their rooms, too distracted to notice the conspiratorial look Ophaella and Aemond shared before it was too late to stop them.

"No one is paying attention."

Ophaella rolled her eyes, a little annoyed at the confidence. It was still early enough in the evening that the market was absolutely packed with people, making it even harder to find the strange man. Aemond ignored the look and kept walking forward. Their hands remained intertwined, their fingers laced so tightly it made her knuckles ache.

"Every time we have come to the market unaccompanied, someone has taken notice."

"We covered our hair," He said, as if it was the only thing that marked them.

Ophaella wished she had his confidence. Perhaps it might have quieted the erratic beating of her heart that only intensified the further and further they walked through the market. While she could acknowledge that Aemond had spent much longer trolling through the stalls and watching the people – searching for that man – but she could not help but think of the last time the two of them walked through.

Disaster might be an understatement.

Worst of all, her pretty teal fabric had been absolutely ruined in the mess.

Her cheeks were still scratched to hell and back, but she did not dare try to fix that again.

"How will find him?"

"Hmm?"

"The man?"

"He always seems to be skulking around. I imagine it will not be too hard." He shifted his hand, dipping his point down to scrape it across her palm. Across the scars that had almost smoothed out into nothingness. She pulled her hand away, aware of where his mind had gone. Gifts or not, she knew him well enough by now to know exactly what he was thinking. "And if not, I will find one of those boys and start a fight with them."

Ophaella scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"So they can try and take your eye again?"

"They haven't been able to so far, I am not too worried." He glanced down at her, a playful smirk present that seemed so out of place for the conversation. "Besides, I would be ugly with one eye."

Ophaella looked at him – really looked – taking in the imperfectly perfect symmetry of his face. Just as she knew his heartbeat better than her very own, she knew the features of his face like words written to page and memorized for an eternity.

Ugly?

Never.

Something poked at the back of her brain, needling, pushing, stabbing, and she realized that it wouldn't be so bad, really. Whatever pieces fate wanted to take, he would always be whole to her. He would always be him.

He stared back at her, the quirk of his lips faltering ever so slightly as she saw her looking at him. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Look!"

Their gazes tore away from each other, the brief spellbound moment shattered, and she felt her stomach seize up in so much embarrassment that she was thankful for the shout to their left. The man pointed upwards, hand shaking as he gestured towards the pink stained clouds.

Nothing but endless sky.

Deep blues and pinks and purples that would soon turn inky black.

Vhagar's feet broke through first, followed by the rest of her massive body swooping low.

"The dragons," Ophaella breathed, tilting her head back to get a better look as Vhagar passed low overhead. "They're back."

Ophaella grabbed Aemond's arm, shaking it as their hoods were thrown back from the force of the wind.

"No." It was nothing more than whisper. "No, no, no."

A panicked set of words thrown out into the universe and meant for no one but him, but it was enough to pull Ophaella out of her excitement and send her crashing back down to earth. She turned to look at him, mouth open to offer comfort that she had not even begun to form in her mind.

"Leave it," Aemond said, turning away from her before she could see his face. "We should go back."

"What about the m-"

"I said leave it, Ophaella."

She looked up at the sky, at the wisps of clouds that had been parted by Vhagar and left open like gaping wound, and then at the direction they had been walking in. The thrum of activity in the market had been replaced by a buzz of fear and panic. The shopkeepers, only moments before happy to show off their wares, hurriedly closed things down. Mothers ushered their children undercover of buildings and men gripped the swords and knives at their sides just a little bit tighter.

The attention that they had hoped to avoid turned back on them in full and reluctant acceptance and curiosity was replaced with pure terror.

Ophaella covered up her hair and pulled her hood tight against her cheeks, but it was for nothing.

Small and slight and with backs that never slouched they might have been, it was not their hair that scared people, but the dragons that swooped overhead. Three years was not long enough to wipe away that fear. Three years was not enough to forget who they are.

There was undeniable air of nobility about them.

An undeniable stench of blood and power and dragonfire.

It was a fact that they could never hide no matter how many layers of rough fabric they tried to bury it under.

It never occurred to her that Aemond might be trying to hide from it as well.

Aemond did not bother to ask Ophaella to return the next day, though she appeared at his door just before dinner all the same. "Laena is riding Vhagar and father is...somewhere. I am not sure. I saw him storming away from the Sealord a few minutes ago. If you want to find the man, we should do it tonight."

Aemond stared at her.

It was a habit of his, staring at her like it might tell him something he did not already know. Tonight, she was already dressed in dark colors though she had not yet bothered to cover her white curls. She had them pulled back from her face, leaving just a few to bounce around.

"You do not have to do this," Aemond said, feeling the misery seeping into every single word he spoke.

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and stepped around in and into his room. "Where is your cloak? It's warm outside, but given Vhagar, I do not fancy the attention if we can avoid it."

His sudden anger at her was misplaced. He knew that. But he could not help it all the same. It was effortless for her, so ingrained like taking a deep breath. He envied her for it, just as he envied her for her connection to a dragon, but he could not truly hate her for it.

But he wanted to.

Everything would be easier if he could just accept that she was like every other person in his family. That she looked down on him for all the ways he was lacking.

That she pitied him for his lack of a dragon.

That she knew she was remarkable in all the ways he was not.

That, but for his name, he was utterly nothing and little more than no one.

But there she was, dragging him out of his room to find a man that was likely nothing more than a Braavosi swindler without a second thought. Worse still, she did it with the same smile on her face that she did everything that involved him.

It made his entire body ache with shame.

"I want to go alone."

She did not register the words at first and continued to look around his room for his cloak. She stopped after only a moment, shoulders tensing up around her ears as she turned around to look at him, body coiled and tight as she prepared for a fight.

"Don't be stupid."

"It's not stupid and it's not any of your business if I want to go by myself."

"Of course it's my business," She said, grabbing his cloak and holding it out. "You are my business. If you think I am going to let you go try and find him all your own then you'r-"

"I do not need you. Just because I do not have the same gifts as you does not mean I need you to watch me all the time." He hated the way the words felt in his throat. Because he knew he did not mean it, not truly. He needed her in more ways than he could ever fathom, if for nothing more than for the simple fact that she was his closest friend and his greatest source of comfort.

"That's not what I meant."

Aemond sighed, taking the cloak from her hands. Her fingers had dug into the fabric, forcing him to practically rip it away from her.

"I need to do this alone, Aella." His voice was practically pleading and he felt even more shame for that fact. But he had simmered and stewed all night long and he knew that he could not stomach the idea of her witnessing his grasping at something more. He could not stomach the idea of her witnessing his desperate attempts to wrest some sort of something – anything – for himself before it was too late and the other dragons had returned.

Because he knew the moment they did, this thing, this one little thing that might turn into something more, would be well and truly lost and he would spend the rest of his life living in the shadows of what could have been.

Buried under the weight of dragon fire and left to burn alive without the respite of an easy death.

He pulled his cloak over his shoulders and left her standing there, mouth open in shock. He worried if he looked back he would lose his composure and beg her to come with him, just to have the comfort of her presence and the warmth of her hand in his.

Aemond kept his head down as he made his way through the market. He moved with purpose and without direction, though he held onto hope that his feelings about the man were not entirely born out of desperation. He hoped there was something more to him, something that confirmed that he had not completely and totally imagined the way he kept appearing in their orbit.

As if he had not imagined all the ways that this man – this stranger that appeared almost as if from a dream – was how he would finally live up the great promise and the great weight of his blood.

If he was to become remarkable, it would need to be taken by force.

If he was to become something more, someone worth remembering, he would need to take it all for himself.

Without help.

Without aid.

And without pity.

As if summoned by the sheer will of Aemond's determination, the man who had occupied his mind for the last several days appeared from the crowds. He stood where the basket weaver had just been, parting the crowd like he had been there all along and he was only just now noticing him.

Aemond stared the man down.

"Who are you?" He asked, voice steady despite how he felt inside.

"I am No One." The man tilted his head to the side, the queer strip of white in his flame red hair threatening to spill out from behind his ear. "A man has been called many names."

"Just one will suffice."

"A man is called Jaqen."

"A boy has come seeking something that he will not find here."

"How do you know what I seek?"

"Because a boy is not the first dragon to come seeking it."

"You've met a Targaryen before?"

"A man has met many."

"And?"

"And, a boy will not find any more answers than they did."

"Why?" Jaqen turned away, keeping his hands laced together in front of his stomach. Today, he was dressed in gray robes, dyed that color with purpose or through years of wear. Aemond followed after him, though he received no such invitation to do so. "Why not?"

"A boy is curious."

"Well, yes. You've been watching me since I arrived."

"A boy is arrogant."

Aemond glared at the back of his head. "A boy… I'm not arrogant."

"No?" Jaqen looked over his shoulder at him, keeping up his blistering pace as he led Aemond through the twists and turns of the city. "A boy is a Targaryen. A Targaryen is arrogant. A Targaryen will never be No One." It was taken as fact and Aemond did not wish to push whatever luck he might have had by arguing.

"Please. I just want…" Aemond trailed off, unsure of what he would say. Freedom from this burden or the strength to carry it, he cared not. "I just want to know why you keep appearing."

"Then a boy will follow."

"I can. I will."

"And a boy will learn that certain paths cannot be turned back from. A boy will fail if he does not." Jaqen stopped and turned to face him. "Someone can never be No One. No One can never be Someone."

"A second born son with no dragon and no claims to land of my own is not someone," Aemond said stared down Jaqen, screwing up his face in determination. If he was to become remarkable, it would need to be taken by force. If he was to become something more, someone worth remembering, he would need to take it all for himself.

Without pity and without shame.

"If I need to become No One, so be it."