Disclaimer: I do not own A Son of Ice and Fire

Summary: Canon Divergence—Aemon and Naerys elope.

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''They'll tell stories about us one day,'' she says, loud like a scream in the dead of night, and she sounds so fiercely proud of all their sins that he can't help but laugh. His sickly sister, all of a sudden she sounded like a great general.

He threads their fingers together. ''And what stories they'll be,'' he sighs, only a little bit melancholy.

Seawater sprays their faces, and neither of them wipes the droplets off. After so long a life spent in the shadows of family and duty, the taste of liberty is dizzying.

The silence waits for a moment, and then:

''They'll say, no knight was greater and no princess was braver than Naerys and her Aemon the Dragonknight. They'll gossip about us, and they'll curse us, and they'll blame us for everything, but one day, some old man will put his grandchild on his knee, and he will ask: 'What tale do you want me to tell you today?' And the child will say: 'Tell me about Aemon and Naerys!' and the man will laugh, because that'll be the hundredth time the little one had asked for the same story, but he will tell the story anyway, because it's one that deserves to be repeated, a hundred and thousand and million times, over and over again.''

Naerys goes quiet, and Aemon cants his head to rest on her shoulder. ''All we did was run away, isn't that what you said? And now you have us be like the heroes of old. Shall you have us fight for the Dawn as well?''

''No, you silly fool! We've merely run away. But it shan't be the last thing we do. Perhaps we can battle the Dothraki, or conquer the Stepstones, or even go across the Sunset Sea. Perhaps there we will find another Valyria. That's what the stories will be about. Not…''

''Not about a queen eloping with her husband's brother,'' he smiled wryly. ''Not about a Kingsguard forsaking his vows.''

Naerys is small and bony and terrifyingly fragile is his embrace. He remembers all the times the maesters told them she would die of this or that illness, and yet she survived them all.

She scoffs, the bitterness which had left her tongue when they left Blackwater Bay returning with vengeance. ''Aegon can wed one of his mistresses,'' she says, ''or cousin Daena, when she is of age. It was only spite that had him grind us into dust beneath his boot. But all I have is you.''

Aemon tightens his grip on her hand. ''And all I have is you.''