Archive of Our Own ^beta

Aemond sighed quietly, his eye closed so he could concentrate on the sensation coming from his back. Helaena was sitting behind him, Aemond's head resting on her lap, her hands gently stroking his long hair, little by little braiding it.

It was merely a small moment of mutual companionship; Helaena's lovely, soothing voice reaching him over and over, her words about these insects and those bugs, as Aemond only would open his mouth to let out some question that would make Hel talk even more about it, what he knew was by far her favourite subject.

It was nice to hear her voice, to feel her this content; it was not every day that someone let Helaena talk long about spiders, and worms, and cockroaches. This happened to be comforting for both of them.

And it was also rather pleasant for Aemond to feel her so close, the warmth of Helaena's body against his own and her hands so carefully touching him.

At some point, anyways, the sensation went to a halt, his sister's now motionless hands only resting on Aemond's head and Helaena falling quiet mid-sentence. It made Aemond open his eye and wonder, if there would be any reason for her sudden silence.

“You will always be my little brother. No matter what, until our last day in this world,” she ended up saying, as if nothing, with a certain kindness in her precious voice and those delicate fingers soon returning to their task of braiding Aemond's locks.

He eased back again, then, the faintest of smiles tugging at his lips, before Helaena leaned in to meet his face and planted a fleeting kiss on him, her lips barely brushing the corner of Aemond's mouth.

That made him wish she also could hold his hand, made him wish he would have dared to move his face to that particular side and pressed his mouth against Helaena's, and that his sister would tell him next about her most beloved and intriguing insects, her 20 most preferred, and then her 30, and after that another ten more, for hours on end until dawn could find them asleep in a heap of two.

It had been nothing, he knew, in truth. The smallest of kisses, as Hel had immediately pulled away from him again, yet the occurrence had sent winged bugs to flutter in Aemond's stomach in some silent joy, and perhaps too in a longing for something else from the girl who was to carry him in her heart, as his older sister, for life.