Mourning my innocence

Aerion Targayen x male oc

Chapter(3)Of Rubies and Gold

A tiny warning, Targest incoming.That's all.

The night air was thick and close, heavy with the promise of rain that never seemed to come. Duncan the Tall had been walking for hours.

His feet hurt. His back hurt. His pride hurt most of all, a raw wound that every refusal scraped a little deeper.

"No. Never heard of him."

"Ser Arlan? Of Pennytree? The name's not familiar."

"A hedge knight from fifty years ago? What do you take me for, a maester? Get out of here."

"Even if I knew him, lad, I wouldn't vouch for you. Look at you. You're not a knight. You're a scarecrow with a sword."

The pavilions of the great houses glowed like paper lanterns in the gathering dusk, silk walls lit from within by candles and braziers. The tents of the lesser knights were humblercanvas and rope, pegged into the hard-packed earthbut even they seemed like palaces to Dunk, who had spent the past night sleeping under a tree with his cloak for a blanket and his saddle for a pillow.

No master. No proof that he was anything but what they had called him: a Flea Bottom rat who'd crawled out of the gutter and decided to play at knighthood.

Ser Arlan would have known what to do, Dunk thought, and the thought was a knife between his ribs. Ser Arlan would have talked his way in, made them laugh, found a sponsor before the sun went down. Ser Arlan knew everyone. Ser Arlan was a knight.

And what was Duncan? A big lad with a dead man's sword and a dead man's name, walking through a sea of silk and steel, trying not to drown.

He had peeled away from the main encampment an hour ago, following a path that led toward a small copse of elm trees at the edge of the tourney grounds. The tents here were sparse pitch-black shapes against the deeper black of the woodsand Dunk had almost turned back twice. No one of importance would camp this far from the lists. No one of importance would vouch for him.

But he was desperate, and desperation makes fools of better men than Dunk.

The tent was set apart from the others, a full hundred yards of open ground between it and the nearest pavilion. In the darkness, Dunk could barely make out its shapelow and sleek, more like a pavilion than a campaign tent, but made of a fabric so dark it seemed to drink the starlight. No banners flew from its peak. No sigils marked its walls. A single rope light glowed faintly near its entrance, and through the gap in the flaps, Dunk could see the warm orange flicker of candlelight.A light flickered inside the tent. Low and golden, the light of a single candle or a small lantern.

Someone's in there, he thought. Maybe someone who doesn't care about names and vouchers and the proper way of things. Maybe someone who'll listen.

The tent was larger inside than it had seemed from outside not a pavilion, not a great hall of canvas and silk, but a comfortable space for two. A brazier glowed in the corner, throwing off a warmth that smelled faintly of sandalwood. Thick carpets covered the grass beneath. And on a heap of furs and velvet cushions in the center of it all

Dunk's brain stopped working.

Aerion Targaryen was not wearing his armour.

This should not have been a revelation. Princes did not sleep in steel. But Dunk had only ever seen Aerion as a creature of gilt and enamel, of rubies and gold wire and chainmail that moved like water. To see him now in a loose linen tunic the color of undyed wool, unlaced at the throat, his silver hair wild and tangled as though he'd just rolled out of bed was like seeing a dragon without its scales. He looked almost human.

He was holding something up to the candlelight. A ruby. It was enormous, the size of a quail's egg even after it was cut ,dangling from a rich gold chain and even in the dim glow it burned with an inner fire that seemed to drink the light and give it back doubled. Aerion turned it this way and that, admiring the facets, and then he held it next to a face.

Aenar's face.

His hair in loose braids and no gold to be found in them.

Aenar, whose pale skin seemed to glow in the candlelight, pale as milk, pale as moonlight, pale as the belly of a fish that had never seen the sun. The ruby cast a red sheen across his cheek, his throat, the sharp line of his collarbone

Gods be good, Dunk thought, his mind finally catching up to his eyes, he's naked.

The fur blanket was pooled around Aenar's waist, no higher. Above it, nothing. No tunic, no shirt, no smallclothesjust miles of pale, unblemished skin, the smooth plane of his chest, the dark circles of his nipples, the delicate architecture of his ribs. His hair was spread across the pillows like molten silver, and his eyesthose terrible, beautiful pale purple eyeswere half-lidded, watching his brother with an expression Dunk could not name.

"It complements you," Aerion was saying, his voice low and intimate, nothing like the high, petulant sneer Dunk had heard before. "The red against the white. Like blood on snow."

Aenar smiled. It was a different smile than the one Dunk had seen before softer, warmer, almost sweet. "You always say that."

"Because it's always true."

Aerion set the ruby aside on a small table covered in velvet, where six other gems of similar size lay scattered like fallen starsand reached out to touch his brother's face. His fingers traced the line of Aenar's jaw, the curve of his cheek, the soft place beneath his ear. Aenar leaned into the touch like a cat leaning into a hand that meant to pet it.

Brothers, Dunk's mind supplied helpfully. They're brothers. They're just... close. Twins are close. Everyone knows that. It's...

Aerion leaned down and kissed Aenar on the mouth.

It was not a brotherly kiss. Dunk had seen knights embrace after a joust, had seen fathers kiss their sons' brows, had seen men clasp hands and call it friendship. This was none of those things. This was the kiss of two people who knew each other's mouths better than their own, who had mapped every inch of each other's bodies in the dark, who had no shame left to lose.

Aerion's hand came up to fist in Aenar's hair. Aenar's free hand the one not holding the ruby slid up Aerion's thigh, fingers digging into the wool of his breeches. The kiss deepened. Aenar's head fell back against the furs, his throat bared, and Aerion followed him down like a falling star.

And then Aerion pushed him.

It was not gentle. It was not slow. It was a shove, hard and deliberate, that sent Aenar sprawling across the furs with his hair spread out beneath him like a silver fan. The fur blanket slipped lower, revealing the sharp jut of his hipbones, the dark thatch of hair at the base of his belly, and

Dunk ran.

He did not think about it. He did not decide to run. His legs simply carried him, crashing through the darkness, tripping over tent ropes and stumbling into bushes and gasping for air that seemed too thin to fill his lungs. The trees whipped past him. The path disappeared under his feet. He ran until his sides burned and his vision blurred and he could no longer see the glow of the single rope light behind him.

Then he stopped, bent over with his hands on his knees, and vomited into the grass.

You saw nothing, he told himself, over and over, while his stomach heaved. You saw nothing. It was dark. You were tired. Your eyes were playing tricks.

But he had seen. He knew he had seen. The ruby swinging on its chain. Aenar's naked chest. Aerion's hand in his brother's hair. The way they had kissed, so familiar, so practiced, like a dance they had performed a thousand times before.

They're twins, Dunk thought, and the word felt wrong in his head, heavy and sour. They're brothers. They're princes. They're.....Targayens.

They were something that would get him killed if he spoke of it. He knew that too. Not because anyone would believe him who would believe a hedge knight over a dragon prince?but because Aerion would know. Or Aenar would know. Those pale purple eyes would look at him across the tourney grounds, and they would see what he had seen, and they would smile those terrible smiles, and Dunk would disappear.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up straight.

I didn't see anything, he told himself again. This time, he almost believed it.

The walk back to his elm tree was long and dark. The camp was quiet now, the fires burned down to coals, the laughter and music faded to memory. Dunk curled up in his thin cloak and stared at the stars through the gaps in the leaves above him.

He thought about Ser Arlan, who had taught him that a knight protected the weak and defended the innocent and kept his vows no matter the cost.

He thought about Aerion's face when the apple struck him that awful, bruised rage and Aenar's soft voice talking about mercy while a family's livelihood bled into the mud. Those apples were bought by the last coins of the whole family, with hope to make profit at the Tourney.

And he thought about the ruby, swinging back and forth, back and forth, painting the darkness red. The gems amd Jewels Aenar always adorn himself in...it seems they all come from Aerion. They were gifts...or claims,proofs that only he is Aenar's provider. Proofs that Aenar wore proudly.

I'm going to joust tomorrow, Dunk told himself, because he had to believe something or he would fall apart. I'm going to find someone to vouch for me. I'm going to prove that I'm a knight. And then I'm going to leave this place and never think about the dragon twins again.

It was a good plan.

It was a fool's plan.

Dragon twins

Chapter (2)

A Dragon ought never be mocked

Dunk saw them again later, and wished he hadn't.

The tourney grounds were a chaos of colors and smells and shouting. Knights in enameled plate paraded past pavilions striped with heraldry. Squires ran with buckets and lances. The great lords had erected whole wooden castles for their retinues, and the smallfolk pressed against the ropes like a rising tide.

Dunk saw Prince Aerion

The apple struck with a crack.

Dunk turned at the sound, just in time to see it—half-eaten, brown at the edges—bounce off Aerion’s helm with enough force to snap the visor down over his face.

For a heartbeat, the world went still.

Even the wind seemed to die.

Aerion did not move.

Slowly, very slowly, he lifted the visor.

His face beneath it—

Dunk had seen angry men before.

This wasn’t anger.

This was something colder.

Something that waited.

“What,” Aerion said softly, “was that?”

No one answered.

No one breathed.

Up on the viewing stand, Baelor Targaryen had gone rigid. Beside him, Lord Ashford looked as though he might faint clean away.

“It is an insult,” Maekar said, his voice carrying like steel striking stone.

Baelor did not stop his brother.

“It is more than that,” he said, grave. “It is the image of our House.”

Dunk didn’t understand all of it—but he understood enough.

This wasn’t about one prince.

This was about dragons being laughed at.

And someone had just dared.

They found the man quickly.

A seller. Thin. Poorly dressed. The kind of man Dunk might’ve been, if things had gone a little different.

He was shaking when they dragged him forward.

“I—I meant no—”

Aerion stepped toward him.

Dunk knew, in that moment, how it would end.

Blood. Screaming. Something broken that wouldn’t mend.

Aerion’s hand lifted—

“Brother.”

Aenar’s voice cut clean through it.

Aerion paused.

Annoyed, more than anything.

Aenar stepped forward instead.

Still smiling.

Still calm.

His eyes were the same pale purple as his brother's, but where Aerion's burned, Aenar's were cool and still, like deep water over sharp rocks.His clothes were pale—cream and soft gold, flowing clean and unmarked—but they fastened not with buttons, no. Each clasp was a gemstone. Not small ones, neither. Deep red rubies, pale pearls, something green and bright that might’ve been emerald. The same stones hung at his throat, from his ears, gleamed on his fingers.

A matched set.

“It was a poor throw,” he said lightly. “You missed the eye.”

A few nervous laughs rippled through the crowd.

Mercy, they thought.

Dunk knew better.

Aenar turned, looking toward the man’s cart.

“Those are yours?”

The seller nodded, trembling.

“Y-yes, my prince.”

Aenar considered it.

Then, with a single, almost lazy motion, he put his hand to the cart—

—and pushed.

It tipped easily.

Too easily.

Apples spilled out in a rolling wave, thudding into dirt and mud, splitting, bruising, sinking into filth.

Gasps rose.

The man made a broken sound.

“My prince—please—”

Aenar watched it all.

Every last one.

Only when the cart lay empty did he speak again.

“There,” he said gently. “You have nothing left to throw.”

A ripple went through the crowd.

Relief.

Approval.

Mercy.

Dunk felt sick.

Because Aerion would have taken the man’s hand.

But this—

This was worse.

Hands could heal.

This?

This was winter.

This was children going hungry.

This was a slow, quiet death no one would blame on a prince.

Dunk looked at Aenar, at that soft smile, those bright, empty eyes—

—and understood.

Aerion burned.

But Aenar…

Aenar counted.

Chapter (1) link

Prince Maekar's Dragon Twins

Chapter (1)

Aerion x Twin male oc

Ashford Tourney, 209 AC

The banners had caught his eye first.

Dunk had seen sigils beforethe checked lords of Swyft, the hanged man of Trant, a dozen others he couldn't name if his life depended on it. But this... this was different.

Three dragons. Red on black. Targaryen.

He'd followed them like a moth to flame, pushing through the crowd that parted before the approaching column like water before a ship's prow. And what a ship it was. Twenty knights in gleaming plate, their cloaks the color of fresh blood, riding destriers that probably cost more than Dunk would earn in a lifetime. Then the wheelhousegilded wheels, windows of rippled glass, the three-headed dragon picked out in rubies along its side.

Lord Ashford and his whole family came scrambling out of the keep like ants from a kicked hill. Bowing. Scraping. Lord Ashford's wife was actually curtsying in the mud, her silks ruined, and she looked grateful for the privilege.

Gods, Dunk thought, what must it be like to own the world so thoroughly that people kneel when you simply arrive?

He'd drifted too close to the path. He realized it a moment too latefelt the weight of eyes on him, looked up, and there they were.

The horses were wrong.

That was his first real thought.

Too tall. Too sleek. Their coats brushed to such a shine they looked wet in the light, their tack worked in red leather and gold fittings. Even their hooves seemed cleaner than most mens hands.

Then came the riders.

And the world shifted.

At their head rode Baelor Targayen,Prince of Dragon Stone and Heir to the Iron throne,with his dark hair and warm skin he looks more Dornish than Targayen,His mother was a Martell, Dunk remembered. The Dornishwoman. The difference was stark. Beside his silver haired brother and nephews, Baelor looked almost like a different species. Almost common.Followed closely is Maekar I Targaryen, hard-faced and iron-backed, a man who looked as though he had been carved rather than born. A young man with brown hair and a feather of Targayen silver trailed after them like a shadow. Beside him...

Dunk forgot to breathe.

Two of them.

For a heartbeat, he thought his eyes had gone strange on him.

The Dragon Twins.

He knew them by reputation. Everyone did. Prince Maekar's sons, born on the same day, same hour, same breath it was said. Silver hair like molten moonlight. Eyes like amethysts. The blood of Old Valyria made flesh, twice over.

They were the same.

Silver hair, bright as beaten metal. Eyes like pale amethysts, cold and sharp and seeing. Not just similaridentical, as though one had been poured from the same mold as the other.

But then they moved, and the difference showed.

The firsthe could only be Aerion Targaryensat his horse like the world was a stage built for him alone.

His armor gleamed like a challenge.

He was climbing down from his horse with the grace of a catno, a dragon, for cats did not look at men like they were something to be eaten. His armor was a work of art that had somehow been made functional: ringmail so fine it shimmered like water, each ring kissed with gold. Leather boots stitched with actual dragon scalesor metal worked to look like them that caught the light with every step. His cloak was heavy velvet, black as a starless sky, threaded through with golden dragons that seemed to move when he walked. His hair fell in a perfect silver cascade to his shoulders, and his lips curled in a way that suggested he'd just smelled something unpleasant. The cruel one. The one they whispered about in taverns, the name spoken in hushed tones with a quick glance over the shoulder.

The other twin was still mounted, one leg hooked casually over the pommel of his saddle as if he hadn't a care in the world. His hair was the same that impossible silver-gold that seemed to glow his eyes the same violet. Where Aerion wore his hair down and simple, Aenar had fashioned it with braids and gold rings. But where Aerion wore armor like a declaration of war, this one wore... not much at all. A simple doublet of cream silk, open at the collar to show the pale column of his throat. Loose breeches of charcoal grey. Boots of plain black leather, unadorned.

And yet.

No embroidery, no dragon motifs, no ostentation at alluntil you looked closer. The buttons that ran down his chest were not buttons. They were cabochon sapphires, each the size of a thumbnail, cut to catch the light from a hundred tiny facets. A matching sapphire hung from one ear on a chain so fine it seemed to float. At his throat, a brooch of white gold held a single star-sapphire that pulsed with an inner light, and on his fingeron every finger, Dunk realized with growing horrorwere rings: rubies, emeralds, black diamonds, and one that might have been a raw amethyst the size of his thumb's last joint.

Around his narrow waist hung a belt of woven gold links, and from it dangled a chain of seed pearls that swayed with his horse's gait, catching against his hip with every stride. Because he can, Dunk thought. Because he has so many pearls he can wear them like a whore wears ribbons, and no one dares say a word.

They drew abreast of Lord Ashford, and the whole Ashford party bent at the waist like wheat before a storm. Aerion acknowledged them with a flick of one gauntleted hand, his lip curled in what might have been boredom or disgust. The other princethe simple one acknowledges them at all with a smile. His pale purple eyes moving slowly from face to face, and Dunk felt a chill when those eyes passed over him. Not recognition. Inventory. Counting the cattle, he thought, and hated himself for the thought, because Ser Arlan had taught him better than to hate a man for his birth.

But Ser Arlan had never seen anything like this.

Dunk had drifted too close to the processional path. He knew it a moment too late."Dunk the lunk," he muttered to himself. "Thick as a castle wall."

"You there."

The voice was high and sweet and poisonous as honey left too long in the comb. Dunk looked up.Prince Aerion had reined in his horse directly before him. From this close, Dunk could see the individual links of that impossible chainmail, the way the gold inlay caught the light and threw it into his eyes. He could see the prince's faceyounger than he'd thought, but with a hardness around the mouth that spoke of a childhood spent learning that his word was law and his tantrums were weather.

"You there. Stable boy." Aerion's lip curled. "Take my horse to the stables. See he's rubbed down properly. If I find a single knot in his mane, I'll have your hide for a saddle blanket."

Dunk straightened. "I'm not a stable boy, my lord. I'm a hedge knight." The words came out rougher than he'd intended. "I've come for the tourney."

The silence that followed was worse than any shout. Aerion stared at him. The men-at-arms stared. Lord Ashford's party stared. Even the wheelhouse seemed to hold its breath.And the other princeAenarsmiled.It was not a kind smile. It was the smile a cat might give a mouse a moment before the paw came down. Aenar leaned forward slightly in his saddle, and the pearls on his waist-chain swayed with the movement, catching the sun in a dozen soft gleams. His eyes were the same pale purple as his brother's, but where Aerion's burned, Aenar's were cool and still, like deep water over sharp rocks.

"Don't you hear my brother, stable boy?" Aenar's voice was softer than Aerion's, almost gentle. It was infinitely worse. "He asked you to take his horse. Are you deaf as well as stupid?"

Dunk swallowed. His heart was hammering against his ribs like a caged bird. "I'm not a stable boy," he said. "I have the honour to become a Knight. By Ser Arlan of Pennytree,he knighted me." He added the last because he didn't know what else to say. It was true, if not the whole truth.

Aerion's face merely changes,he looks at Dunk up and down with disinterest . "Well,it seems Knighthood has fallen into sad days." leaned down from his saddle, close enough that Dunk could smell the perfume in his hairsomething floral and expensive and utterly incongruous.

Dunk looked. He had no choice. His neck seemed to move on its own.

"Where is the actual stable boy?" Aenar asked, his voice cutting through the moment with surgical precision. He was still smiling. He was always still smiling. "There must be one. Lord Ashford would not be so remiss as to leave his guests without servants." He looked past Dunk, dismissing him entirely, and addressed the nearest Ashford man. "Fetch him. My brother's horse requires attention that this... person... cannot provide."

The stable boy came. Dunk was forgotten, moved aside. And as the Targaryen procession moved on Aerion already complaining about the lack of fine wine, Aenar still smiling that terrible, gentle smile Dunk stood in the mud and watched them go.

The dragon twins, the camp followers called them. He would learn that later, over a smoked sausage and watered down ale. Prince Maekar's boys. Fire and ice, they say. Aerion's the fireall rage and flame, burns fast and bright. Aenar's the ice. Smiles while he cuts your throat and thanks you for the mess on his boots.

Dunk thought it was poetry. Foolish, dangerous poetry.

He would learn better.

Fallen Star and Wildfire

Chapter (3)

The Reckoning

Lys, 211 AC

Three weeks.

Three weeks of playing the frightened, grateful, bewildered boy. Three weeks of wide eyes and trembling hands and breathy little gasps every time Aerion touched him. Three weeks of tasting the prince's blood in secret—a drop here, a smear there, always disguised as clumsiness or pain or overeagerness.

Lysandro had learned much.

The dragon dreams were strong in this one. Stronger than any he had tasted in centuries. Aerion woke nearly every night with a scream caught in his throat, eyes wild, hands clutching at empty air. He never spoke of what he saw, but Lysandro did not need words. The blood told him everything: fire and shadow, towering wings, a crown that burned whoever wore it.

And beneath the dreams, the traces of Bloodraven's work. Subtle. Old. Like threads sewn into a tapestry, meant to guide the wearer toward some predetermined end.

Someone wants this boy for something, Lysandro mused. A pawn. A sacrifice. A king.

The thought should have made him cautious. Perhaps even fearful. Bloodraven was not an enemy to be made lightly.

But Lysandro had lived through the Doom. He had watched the Freehold crumble. A sorcerer with one eye and a thousand spies did not frighten him.

Interesting, he thought. But not dangerous.

The problem was Aerion himself.

---

It happened on the twenty-second night.

Lysandro had prepared for many scenarios. If Aerion discovered the truth, he would have to act fast. A sleeping draft in the wine. A binding chain hidden beneath the bed. A whisper of old magic to cloud the prince's mind until he could be... recalibrated.

He had done it before. Dozens of times. Centuries of manipulating men who thought they were the masters.

He was ready.

What he was not ready for was Aerion walking into the bedchamber mid-afternoon—hours early, unannounced, with a look on his face that was neither drunk nor angry nor lustful.

It was calculating.

Lysandro, mid-pour of wine, froze. His eyes went wide—practiced wide—and he set down the jug with a small, nervous clatter.

"My lord? You are back early. I was not—I did not expect—"

"Stop."

Aerion's voice was quiet. That was the first warning. Aerion was never quiet.

He crossed the room slowly, boots echoing on the marble floor. Lysandro backed up—pretended to back up—until his shoulders hit the wall.

Here it is, Lysandro thought. His hand drifted toward his sleeve, where a small vial of sleeping draught waited. He knows. Or suspects. One word and he drinks.

Aerion stopped a foot away. Those mad violet eyes—so like his own, and yet so feverish—scanned Lysandro's face.

"The first night," Aerion said. "You bit me."

Lysandro's heart did not skip. He had trained it not to. "I—I was frightened, my lord. You were—it was my first time, I did not mean to—"

"You tasted my blood."

Silence.

Lysandro's fingers touched the vial.

"You didn't run," Aerion continued, voice still soft. "You didn't steal. You didn't try to poison me. But you tasted me. Multiple times. I thought you were just clumsy. But you're not clumsy, are you?"

Lysandro said nothing. His wide-eyed mask remained in place, but behind it, his mind raced.

How? He had been so careful. The bites had been timed perfectly, hidden in moments of supposed passion or pain. The blood had been wiped away, swallowed, absorbed. There should have been no trace.

"You forgot one thing," Aerion said, as if reading his thoughts. "I may be exiled, but I am still a prince. My father had me trained by the best minds in Westeros. I know what a man looks like when he's thinking, and I know what a man looks like when he's performing."

He stepped closer. Lysandro pressed against the wall—actually pressed this time, because the prince was taller than him and broader and frightening in a way that had nothing to do with magic.

"Last night, after you bit me, I pretended to sleep," Aerion said. "And you sat up. And you watched me. For hours. Not like a lover. Like a cat watching a canary."

Damn, Lysandro thought. Damn, damn, damn.

The vial was in his hand now, hidden by his sleeve. One flick of the wrist and it would be in the wine. One murmured word and Aerion would be on the floor, dreaming peacefully until Lysandro decided what to do next.

But Aerion did not give him the chance.

"Who are you?" the prince demanded.

Lysandro met his eyes. The mask slipped—not off, but down, just enough to show a sliver of what lay beneath.

"Someone older than your house," he said quietly. "Someone who has worn a hundred faces and bedded a hundred princes. Someone who bought you the moment you stepped into my city."

Aerion's expression did not change.

"I own The Gilded Cage," Lysandro continued. "Have for fifty-three years. The auction was for your benefit. The boy you bought never existed. I am not young. I am not innocent. And I have been drinking your blood to taste the dragon dreams that haunt you."

He braced himself.

Aerion would scream. Would call for his guards. Would draw his dagger—Lysandro saw the hilt at the prince's belt—and try to kill him. And then Lysandro would have to use the vial, or a binding chain, or one of the older, uglier spells he had hoped to keep hidden.

So be it, he thought. This dance was always going to end. I simply misjudged the timing.

He waited for the explosion.

It did not come.

Aerion stared at him for a long, breathless moment. His jaw tightened. His hands curled into fists.

And then—

He laughed.

It was not a kind laugh. It was not a sane laugh. It was the laugh of a man who had just seen the universe crack open and found exactly what he had always wanted inside.

"You—" Aerion gasped, clutching his stomach. "You—bought me? A three-hundred-year-old blood mage pretending to be a virgin whore—and you think I'm going to be angry?"

Lysandro blinked. For the first time in centuries, he had no prepared response.

"All my life," Aerion said, still laughing, still feverish, "people have looked at me and seen a monster. A madman. A disappointment. My father sent me here to rot because he couldn't stand the sight of me. My brothers barely speak my name. And you—" He pointed a trembling finger at Lysandro's chest. "You looked at every Targaryen in the world—every prince, every lord, every bastard with a drop of dragon blood—and you chose me."

Lysandro opened his mouth. Closed it.

"You could have had Bloodraven," Aerion continued, stepping closer, voice dropping to a whisper. "You could have had the king himself. You could have waited for Aegon or Aemon or any of the others. But you didn't. You came to Lys, you set up your little auction, and you let me win."

He reached out and grabbed Lysandro by the front of his silk tunic.

"You chose me," Aerion said, and his eyes were burning. "No one chooses me. No one ever has."

And then he kissed him.

It was not gentle. It was not romantic. It was a claiming—all teeth and tongue and desperate, hungry need. Aerion shoved him against the wall hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs, and Lysandro, centuries-old blood mage, slayer of men and manipulator of kings, went limp with shock.

The vial slipped from his fingers. It hit the carpet and rolled away, unbroken.

Aerion pulled back just far enough to speak, lips brushing Lysandro's. "You wanted my blood. You wanted my dreams. You wanted to use me for whatever ancient scheme you're brewing."

"Yes," Lysandro breathed—honestly, for once.

"Good." Aerion's smile was sharp as a dagger. "Then use me. Drink from me. Twist my fate however you like. I don't care."

"You don't—care?"

"I care about one thing." Aerion's hand slid up to cup Lysandro's face, thumb brushing his cheekbone. "You stay. You don't leave. You don't pick someone else. You chose me, and I am keeping you."

Lysandro stared at him.

He means it, the blood mage realized. He genuinely, truly, does not care that I played him. He does not care that I have been manipulating him. He only cares that I picked him.

He is the most dangerous kind of fool.

He is magnificent.

A century of cynicism cracked, just a little. Lysandro reached up and grabbed Aerion's wrist—not to push him away, but to hold him there.

"You are insane," Lysandro said.

"So I've been told." Aerion kissed him again, slower this time, almost tender. "And you're a three-hundred-year-old blood mage who faked being a virgin to get close to me. We're perfect for each other."

Lysandro laughed—actually laughed, a real one, unpracticed and raw. "You are going to be exhausting."

"Probably." Aerion pulled back just enough to look him in the eye. "But you're not leaving."

It wasn't a question.

Lysandro thought of the binding chains hidden beneath the bed. The sleeping draughts. The escape routes. The careful centuries of never being truly known by anyone.

Then he looked at Aerion's mad, brilliant, desperate face—a face that had just been handed the truth and had embraced it like a lover—and made a decision.

"No," Lysandro said softly. "I'm not leaving."

He pulled Aerion back in.

---

Hours Later

They lay tangled in the ruined sheets, sweat drying on their skin. The sun had set. No one had lit the candles. The room was dark and warm and smelled of them.

Lysandro's head rested on Aerion's chest. The prince's heartbeat was steady now, calm for the first time in weeks.

"So," Aerion said into the darkness. "The fog. That's real? You can actually make me untouchable?"

Lysandro smiled against his skin. "I can do much more than that."

"Show me."

"Soon." Lysandro traced a lazy pattern on Aerion's ribs. "First, I need more of your blood. And you need to tell me everything about these dreams of yours. Bloodraven has his hooks in your family line, and I want to know why."

Aerion was quiet for a moment. Then: "You're not afraid of him."

"I'm not afraid of anyone."

"Good." Aerion's arm tightened around him. "Neither am I. Not anymore."

Lysandro closed his eyes.

For the first time in three hundred years, he was not entirely sure who was using whom.

And for the first time in three hundred years, he found he did not entirely care.

Chapter(2)

Fallen Star and Wildfire

Chapter (2)

The Morning After

Lys, 211 AC

Aerion woke to sunlight stabbing through half-drawn curtains and a skull full of hammers.

He groaned, rolled over, and found the other side of the bed empty. For a moment—a single, stupid moment—he felt a flicker of something almost like disappointment.

Then he heard the soft sound of breathing from the corner.

Lysandro sat on the floor, knees drawn to his chest, wrapped in a bedsheet like a frightened bird. His silver hair was disheveled, his purple eyes wide and red-rimmed, as if he had been crying. Or not sleeping.

"You're still here," Aerion said, surprised.

Lysandro flinched. "You… you told me not to leave, my lord. I—I didn't know if you meant… if you would be angry…"

Aerion stared at him for a long moment. The boy looked utterly lost. Like a kitten dropped in a wolf's den. His hands were shaking.

Pathetic, Aerion thought again. But something in his chest eased. The boy hadn't run. Hadn't stolen anything. Hadn't tried to poison him in his sleep—which, given Lys's reputation, was a genuine concern.

"Fetch me wine," Aerion said, swinging his legs out of bed. The room spun. He pressed a hand to his temple. "And water. And bread. And stay where I can see you."

Lysandro scrambled to obey, moving with the clumsy uncertainty of someone who had never served before. He nearly dropped the wine jug. He fumbled with the water pitcher. He brought the bread on a tray that tilted dangerously.

Aerion watched him, and for the first time since waking, he began to think.

---

The wine helped. So did the water. The bread he chewed slowly, sitting in a high-backed chair while Lysandro knelt on the floor nearby, not daring to move unless instructed.

Aerion's mind, now less clouded by drink and sated desire, began to pick at the edges of last night.

The pleasure house.

He remembered the crowd. The auctioneer. The five slaves on the platform—three young men, two young women. He remembered scanning them, unimpressed, about to leave.

And then…

Then Lysandro appeared.

Aerion frowned. He hadn't thought about it at the time. In the moment, he had simply seen the silver hair and violet eyes and felt that strange pull. But now, replaying the memory, he realized:

The boy had not been on the platform when Aerion first arrived.

He had emerged from somewhere—a side door, perhaps, or from behind the auctioneer—just as Aerion was turning away. As if summoned. As if someone had been watching and decided to put the most desirable goods on display precisely when the richest customer was about to leave.

Coincidence, Aerion told himself. The boy was probably being prepared. Oiled. Dressed. Whatever they do to virgins before selling them.

But the thought nagged at him, small and sharp as a splinter.

He looked down at Lysandro. The boy was staring at the floor, fingers twisting in the sheet, whole body radiating nervous energy. When he noticed Aerion watching, he blushed—actually blushed—and looked away.

Shy, Aerion decided. Genuinely shy. Probably never been alone with a man before last night. Certainly never been bought.

He remembered the way Lysandro had trembled under his hands. The way he had asked obvious questions—"Does this hurt?" "Should I… what do you want me to do?" "Am I doing it right?"—in a voice that cracked with uncertainty. The way he had gasped and bitten his lip, drawing a tiny bead of blood, when Aerion had been too rough.

Inexperienced. Frightened. Grateful.

Aerion felt a smirk tug at his mouth. He had bought a virgin. Not just any virgin—one with the coloring of kings. One who would look at him with those big violet eyes and see not an exile, not a failure, but a prince.

Father sent me to rot. But I found something valuable anyway.

The splinter of suspicion dissolved in a wash of self-satisfaction.

"You're mine now," Aerion said aloud, not cruelly, just stating fact. "You understand that? You don't leave this villa without my permission. You don't speak to anyone without my permission. You don't even breathe without my permission."

Lysandro nodded quickly, eyes downcast. "Yes, my lord. I understand."

"Good." Aerion stood, stretched, and walked to the door. He pulled the heavy iron bolt across the outside—a precaution; he wasn't stupid—and glanced back at the boy kneeling on the floor.

"Stay in the bedchamber until I return. There's food, water, a chamber pot. I'll have clothes brought for you later."

"Yes, my lord."

Aerion paused at the door. For a moment, something flickered across his face—not kindness, exactly, but something close to it.

"I won't hurt you," he said. "Not unless you give me reason."

Then he left, locking the door behind him.

---

The moment the lock clicked, Lysandro stopped trembling.

He sat up straight, rolled his shoulders, and let out a long, slow breath. The bedsheet fell away. He made no move to cover himself.

Five hundred gold dragons, he thought, amused. For a creature who thinks he's locked me in.

He rose gracefully—no clumsiness now, no fumbling—and crossed to the window. The villa's gardens spread below, lush and green, with a high wall around the perimeter. Guards patrolled lazily. Easy enough to evade, had he wished.

But he did not wish.

He turned back to the bed. The sheets were rumpled, stained in a few places. One small stain near the pillow caught his eye.

His blood.

Lysandro touched his lower lip, where last night he had bitten down—pretended to bite down—when Aerion had been too rough. A clever trick, learned centuries ago. Pain and pleasure intertwined. The prince had not even noticed the difference between a frightened boy's reflexive bite and a blood mage's deliberate collection.

He brought his fingers to his mouth and tasted the dried smear.

Oh, he thought. Oh, you are delicious.

The blood sang on his tongue. Not just dragon blood—he had tasted that before, from lesser exiles and bastard get. No, this was something else. Something potent.

Dreams, he realized, closing his eyes. The boy is tormented by dreams. Dragon dreams. The kind that drive men mad or make them kings.

And beneath that, another flavor. Fainter, but unmistakable to someone who had lived as long as Lysandro.

Someone else has touched this bloodline. Someone powerful. Someone who left traces behind like hooks in a fish's mouth.

His eyes snapped open.

Bloodraven.

Brynden Rivers. The Hand of the King. The spymaster with a thousand eyes and one. A sorcerer in his own right, working his own schemes, meddling with Targaryen futures.

And Shiera Seastar, his paramour. The woman with the sapphire eyes and the necklace of Valyrian steel. A blood mage in her own way—old magic, old knowledge, old appetites.

They have been tampering with this family, Lysandro realized. Selecting. Guiding. Pruning.

He smiled slowly.

How delightful.

He had not expected to find such rich soil in the soul of a mere exiled prince. But there it was: Aerion Targaryen was a battlefield. Dragon dreams on one side, Bloodraven's whispers on another, and somewhere in the middle a desperate, lonely young man who believed no one loved him.

Perfect, Lysandro thought. Absolutely perfect.

He lay back on the bed, arms folded behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. The lock on the door meant nothing. The guards meant nothing. The prince's arrogance meant less than nothing.

He had tasted the blood. He had found it useful—more than useful, irreplaceable.

He was not going anywhere.

You think you bought me, Aerion Targaryen, he thought again, echoing his silent vow from the night before. But I am the one who will keep you.

And when the time comes, I will teach you what it truly means to be untouchable.

---

Somewhere in the Red Keep, the Same Morning

Brynden Rivers—Bloodraven—paused with his quill halfway through a letter.

He frowned.

Something shifted.

He reached out with senses honed by decades of greensight and shadow-binding, searching for the disturbance. A thread in the tapestry of fate had twisted. Someone had stepped onto a path that should have been empty.

But the signal was faint. Distant. And gone as quickly as it had come.

He dipped his quill and continued writing.

Probably nothing, he told himself.

It was not nothing.

Fallen Star and Wildfire

Aerion Targayen x Male OC

Chapter (1)

When It Began

Lys, 211 AC

The ship smelled of salt, shit, and shame.

Aerion Targaryen stood at the rail as the Lady's Favor glided into the harbor of Lys, the pink-and-gold towers of the city catching the afternoon sun like scattered jewels. A year ago, he would have called it beautiful. Now it looked like a gilded cage.

He touched the small purse at his beltgold dragons, enough to buy a small manse or a large pleasure fleet. His father's mercy, wrapped in silk and contempt.

"You will go to Lys," Maekar had said, voice like a slammed door. "You will stay there until I send for you. And you will thank the Seven I did not send you to the Wall."

Aerion had not thanked him. He had not spoken at all. He had simply turned and walked to the ship, feeling the weight of every lord's whisper, every servant's averted gaze.

No one loves me, he thought as the gangplank lowered. Not enough to let me stay. Not enough to believe me.

Behind him, his household guardstwenty men, loyal to gold if not to namebegan unloading chests. His father had been generous, damn him. Generous with everything except trust.

---

The Lysene heat hit him like a wet blanket. Perfume and brine and something sweeter underneaththe smell of pleasure houses opening their windows for the evening trade.

Aerion had been given a villa near the Temple of Trade, modest by Targaryen standards but opulent by any other. He dismissed the servants, poured himself a cup of wine that cost more than a farmer's yearly wage, and sat in the dark.

I am a prince of the blood, and I am alone.

He drank until the walls blurred.

---

Three days of sulking. Three days of ignoring letters from his father (unopened), ignoring invitations from Lysene magisters (burned), ignoring the perfumed whores who knocked on his door (sent away with curses).

On the fourth night, restless and half-drunk, Aerion wandered into the city.

He told himself it was reconnaissance. Learning his new "home." But his feet carried him toward the Street of Silkevery city had one, though Lys's was less a street and more a districtand soon he was standing before a pleasure house called The Gilded Cage.

The irony was not lost on him. He almost left.

Then he heard the crowd.

---

A dozen men, maybe more, jostling outside the house's marble steps. Not the usual patronsthese were bidding. Aerion pushed through, curious despite himself, and saw the platform.

Three young men and two young women stood in a line, wrapped in sheer silks, heads bowed. An auctioneer in a golden mask called out prices in Lysene Valyrian, and the crowd answered with raised hands and lewd suggestions.

First nights, Aerion realized. The old custom. Virgins sold to the highest bidder, for reasons that ranged from traditional to unspeakable.

He was about to turn awayhe had no interest in bought innocencewhen he saw him.

The last boy on the platform. Silver-white hair, cut short and uneven, as if done by a nervous hand. Violet eyes, so pale they were almost lavender, wide and wet with what looked like fear. Pale skin, slender build, youngtoo young, seventeen perhaps, or eighteen.

But it wasn't the beauty that stopped Aerion.

It was the familiarity.

Targaryen coloring, his mind whispered. A bastard, maybe. Or a descendant of some exile. Or

The boy looked up, and for a moment their eyes met. The boy flinched, looked down, and trembled.

Aerion felt something twist in his chest. Not lust. Something older. Something he couldn't name.

The auctioneer called a price. Hands went up. The bids climbed.

Aerion raised his hand.

"Five hundred gold dragons," he said in Common, loud enough to cut through the din.

Silence. The Lysene bidders turned to stare at the foreign prince with the mad eyes and the dragon on his doublet.

The auctioneer hesitated. "My lord, this is"

"I am not bidding for a night." Aerion stepped onto the platform. The other slaves shrank back. The silver-haired boy did not move. "I am buying him. Outright. Name your price."

The auctioneer glanced toward a curtained balcony above the crowd. Someone was up there, watching. A handsmall, elegant, with a single silver ringpulled the curtain closed.

"The house accepts," the auctioneer said quietly.

---

Aerion led the boy through the streets by the elbow, half-dragging him. The boy stumbled, made small frightened sounds, kept his head down.

Good, Aerion thought. Fear is appropriate. Fear is honest.

Back at the villa, he shoved the boy into a chair by the fireplace, poured himself more wine, and stared.

"What is your name?"

"L-Lysandro, my lord." The voice was soft, accented, perfectly Lysene.

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen, my lord. I think."

"You think?"

"I was taken young. I do not know my true name-day."

Aerion snorted. A standard sob story. Probably true, probably not. He didn't care.

"Do you know who I am?"

The boy shook his head, eyes wide. "A lord? A rich man?"

"A prince." Aerion leaned close, watching for recognition, for calculation. "Aerion Targaryen, son of Maekar, grandson of the old king. I was exiled here for" He laughed, bitter. "For being honest."

The boy only blinked. No flicker of ambition. No gleam of opportunity. Just fear and confusion andwas that gratitude?

Pathetic, Aerion thought. Pretty, but pathetic.

"You have my coloring," he said abruptly. "Silver hair. Purple eyes. You're some whore's bastard by a Targaryen exile, I'd wager. Or maybe you're not even Lysene. Maybe you're from the Free Cities, sold here as a curiosity."

The boy said nothing. Just sat there, trembling.

Aerion sighed. He was drunker than he'd realized. The fire crackled. The wine warmed his blood.

"Come," he said, pulling the boy to his feet. "I didn't buy you to talk."

---

Latermuch laterAerion lay in the great silk-sheeted bed, breathing slow and deep. The wine had done its work. Lysandro lay curled against his side, still as a corpse, breathing in soft, sleep-like rhythms.

Aerion's eyes closed.

And stayed closed.

---

For a long moment, the room was silent save for the prince's heavy breathing.

Then Lysandro's eyes opened.

They were not wide. They were not wet. They were not afraid.

They were ancient.

He sat up slowly, carefully, and turned to look at the man beside him. Aerion Targaryen, second son of a second son, exiled to a city of pleasure and poison. A fool with a dragon's pride and a child's understanding of the world.

Lysandro smiled.

So easy, he thought. So terribly, terribly easy.

He had owned The Gilded Cage for fifty-three years. The current master of the house thought he ran it. That was the arrangement. Lysandro provided the capital, the protection, the occasional miracle that kept competitors bankrupt or dead. In return, he had a steady stream of bodies to feed his work, a perfect cover for his true nature, andbest of allno one ever looked twice at the young slaves being auctioned in the yard.

He had sensed Aerion the moment the prince stepped off the ship. Dragon blood burned like a beacon to someone like him. Bright, hot, useful.

The audition had been a performance. The trembling, the tears, the wide-eyed innocenceall practiced. He had signaled his man behind the curtain to stop the bidding at exactly five hundred gold, knowing Aerion's pride would not let him walk away.

And now here he was. In the dragon's den. Curled beside the dragon himself.

Lysandro reached out, brushing a strand of silver-gold hair from Aerion's sleeping face. The prince did not stir.

You think you bought me, Aerion Targaryen.

The smile widened. In the darkness, his eyes glowed faintlyjust for a momentthe color of amethysts drowned in starlight.

But I have been buying and selling little princes like you for three hundred years.

He settled back against the pillows, one hand resting lightly on Aerion's chest, feeling the man's heartbeat. Slow. Steady. Unaware.

Sleep well, my dragon. You will need your strength.

We have so much work to do.

---

The Truth No One Knows

Lysandro was not seventeen. He was not even Lysene, not originally. He had been born in the shadow of Valyria itself, in the century before the Doom, and had learned blood magic from masters whose names had been erased from every history. The Doom did not kill him. The Century of Blood did not touch him. He had watched dragons die, dynasties fall, and kings turn to dust.

He looked young because he chose to look young. Innocence was armor. Beauty was a blade.

And Aerion Targaryenpoor, mad, desperate Aerionhad just handed him the keys to a kingdom.

Or a funeral pyre.

Bez sweaty,nervous,about to have a breakdown:Vale,I need advice.

Vale who thought Bez broke a bike or lost a helmet:And that is?

Bez about to pass out:I got my boyfriend pregnant.

Vale who is an old timer and has no concept of tran parents:The fuck?? How Marco?? I..you??? How did you even do that??.

Pecco who saved the day:His boyfriend's trans-marc,Vale. He can have babies.

Vale who just realized that:oh,ok. Nice.