Why Are You Still Awake?

in my humblest of opinions, the ‘strong dad bod’ is one of the sexiest fucking builds a man can have and i can’t stop thinking about them

especially if price had one *screams into my pillow like an idiot*

can you imagine how obsessed he’d be with draping his body over yours ?? like if you’re at the kitchen counter, or standing on your toes to reach something on a high shelf, price would be smushing himself right up against your back

big arms wrapping around your torso, large hands splayed over the softness of your belly, the warm mounds of his pectorals and stomach pressed firmly against your back

he’d tuck his head against your shoulder and kiss your neck and the side of your face, pushing more of his weight onto you

such a good hugger, so warm and cozy and safe <3 would also be used as a human weighted blanket and i’d hope to god he’d trap me beneath him oh my god

imagine running your hands up and down the smooth, fatty ridges of muscle that took up most of his abdomen and arms. the hair too !! ugh i’d just pet him for hours like a little cat lol

*sarah paulson voice* THE HORNY IS ESCAPING !!!

thinking about the feel of this kind of body draped over your back as he fucked you hard into the mattress, both of his hands on your hips and keeping you pinned so that he could rut into you like a man starved

mmm or his large hands wrapped around your legs and keeping them bent up towards your head while he drills into you, his own soft tummy rubbing against yours

price with a muscly dad bod like this would make you put your legs over his wide shoulders while he’s eating you out, one hand on the pudge of your lower stomach and the other squeezing the flesh of your arse

god his cock would be so fucking thick like don’t even get me started 😭

he’d stretch you open so well too, make you come almost one too many times before he’s easing himself into you and stretching you open with a moan of your name

or or you’d ride him and constantly running your hands and/or nails up and down the soft dips of his body, moaning as his cock hit so deep and almost made you come within mere seconds of sinking down onto his cock lmao

You believed you had figured out your husband by the time your marriage ceremony had finally occurred. You had spent a rather long time in the betrothal stage, likely longer than either your father or mother had hoped. They had become agitated by the end, desperate to see you in the Sept, draped in the Targaryen colours and finally out of their house. Not for any sinister reason of course, they loved you dearly and only wanted the best for you, but the best only came from marrying a prince, and the longer it dallied, the more they worried that the temperamental prince would change his mind. 

You had all been surprised when the raven arrived proclaiming that Prince Maekar, fourth son of King Daeron the Good, wished to marry you. Though you had later found out the truth of the matter from your dear husband, at the time you had frozen with shock. You had only met the man once before, at a rather lovely feast thrown in the gardens at Summerhall when much of the royal family had made their way there for the latest occurring summer months, bringing the hubbub of court with them. 

Your parents had rejoiced of course, though not without commentary at how odd it was that it was this particular prince. They did not wish to demean you by any means with this comment, but only to suggest that he had already gained a reputation for being surly and grumpy, that no one thought he would remarry after the death of his first wife, and that he already had a brood of children and an heir, so he did not necessarily require a wife of your age to provide him with more. If anything, they thought perhaps one of his sons would be the one coming for a look, but neither ones of age had even a sniff in your direction. Instead their father won the lot. 

You and your family were all invited to stay at Summerhall during the length of your betrothal, and that you would only be given leave once the wedding had occurred. You had been giddy with excitement, remembering how lovely it had been the last time, remembering the luscious gardens and pools and surrounding nature, remembering the lovely decor - unique tiles and mosaics and tapestries and everything so full of colour. You had already begun planning the wedding in your head, wondering if it would be possible to request that you be married in the gardens rather than in the Sept. It was not tradition, but why waste such a lovely space? 

You and your entourage arrived to be greeted by the King and Queen, the Crown Prince and his wife, Maekar’s other brothers and wives, his sons and daughters, and of course, the man himself. You had felt instantly intimidated, heart spiking in your chest, but kept on, hoping the tremble in your hands was not too obvious. To each you curtsied, spoke well wishes, smiled as best you could, and then moved on while they still smiled in return. When you finally ended up in front of your betrothed, you had beamed at him, offering your trembling hand for him to kiss and blinking like a lovesick fool. 

He was handsome. You had known this already, remembered from your last meeting, but it struck you again in his presence. You longed to feel his beard yourself, to touch his hair and cheeks and lips. At the time it had made you hot with bashfulness, but now filled you with immense fondness. You had simply been excited that once you were married, you could do as you pleased in that regard. 

He had lifted your hand, bent his head, and pressed a fleeting kiss to your knuckles, barely there. His second son had snorted, an amused yet cruel sound, but he paid him no mind. You could not precisely tell what had been going through your betrothed’s mind at the time. His face was blank, if a little frowning, and you had not come to know the microexpressions of his just yet. 

Maekar had grumbled a “my lady”, then turned away to follow after his father and brothers as they led you all into Summerhall and to your chambers. You had been a little taken aback at his gruffness, a little downtrodden, but you had not let it deter you. Perhaps he was simply shy, you had thought, or unaccustomed to wooing a woman after so much time alone. You would not let it get to you, you had decided.

On each day after that, you had been adamant to spend as much time in his company as you could. He would not even have the option to ignore you, you had made sure of it. You invited him to walks in the gardens in front of people so he would feel too guilty to deny you, begged him to show you around the palace in front of his daughters so that they might egg him on as well, seated yourself near him when everyone took time in the afternoon to recline in a solar or simply conversed with him at the dinner table, poking and prodding him for topics that would interest him. 

And you could see him softening. It was wonderful to watch. You could see the way his eyes began to soften when you hurried up to him, just shy of running, clasping his arm and begging him for another walk to the lovely flower garden you could never figure out how to find on your own. You could see the way his lips twitched when you laughed at a joke, full and unabashed, glancing back to him to see if he found it funny as well. You saw the way he reached for you when you tripped in your enthusiasm or the way he already bent his elbow, ready for you to thread your arm through before you had even reached him. 

It was when this began that a wedding date was finally set, two weeks from when it was announced. Seamstresses hurried, cooks rushed, and though you still held the initial ceremony in the Sept, the reception afterwards was situated in the gardens, exactly as you had wanted. It was perfect. No, more than perfect. It was everything you could have wanted. 

It was later that his truths were revealed to you. That the King and Queen, in their ever-present worry that he was lonely, that a woman was required to run his house and mother his young children, had pressed him into finally agreeing to remarry. They had told him he could choose, that whoever he wished to marry, they would accept, be it a commoner or a queen from another land, just as long as he was finally married, and the only tolerable person that came to mind was you. 

He had remembered you from that feast the year before, you and your pretty smiles and kind words, the way you had danced jovially with Daella and Rhae despite not being an acquaintance, despite having no responsibility to keep the children company when you could have been off drinking and gossiping with your gaggle of ladies. He had remembered your bright smile when he had come to break up your little trio, telling the girls that if they did not go up to bed right that minute then he would tell the cooks to never buy even an ounce of sugar again and that their beloved lemon cakes would disappear for the rest of their lives. 

What had truly endeared you to him though had been the gasp you let out at the news, the way your eyes had widened and you had acted so terribly frightened for them, the way you had aided his mission by telling them that it was too serious a threat to be ignored. And though the girls had giggled (for even at his most serious moments they never took him or his threats of punishment seriously) they had ultimately listened, if only to ease you of your overdramatic worry, promising you that they would go to ease your mind and to appease their father. He had grumbled a rough thanks once they were back in the arms of their maids, and you had simply laughed and smiled brightly, telling him that it was rather good fun for you. 

So it was this moment, seemingly small, that had sealed your fate in his heart. He had not forgotten it, and when it had finally come time for him to remarry, he could only think of you. The letter was written, the raven flown, and the rest was history. But you had prodded him even then (physically too, your finger digging into his ribs as he huffed and twitched with annoyance), asking him why he delayed the wedding so long, why the betrothal carried on if he was so sure of you. 

His answer rather broke your heart. He did not look at you as he said it, his arm tightening over your shoulder where he had been holding you close in bed, and his eyes had fallen almost closed. He told you that he had been giving you time. He said that he had wanted you to be sure as well, that he had believed that, if he delayed long enough, you might finally realise that you did not love him, or that you were far too good to be trapped into such a marriage, or that even if you did somehow manage to love him, that you would not want all the other weight that he came with. He had simply thought that if he gave you enough time, you would rescind your acceptance and fly your way out of his life, as he still sometimes thought you ought to have done. 

You had stared at him with a serious frown, sitting up and extricating yourself from his arm. You had leaned over him, cupping his cheek firmly and making sure that he was looking you right in the eye as you told him what utter nonsense that was. You loved him, most thoroughly, most ardently, and to even think that you would wish for any other life was to commit blasphemy. He had huffed a laugh at that, but the amused pinch of his lips had disappeared when you had stared at him with the utmost seriousness. 

He had kissed you then, a hand speedily placing itself at the back of your neck and yanking you down until your lips met his. He had devoured your mouth, kissing hurriedly, sticking his tongue into your mouth, moaning and groaning in such a way that your legs trembled at it. He had urged you onto him with his hands at your waist, pressing and supporting until you were straddling him, palms shoved under the pillow that he laid his head on, heels of your hands digging into the mattress to keep you upright. Neither of you bothered much at all, he had scrabbled his breeches down just enough to pull his cock out, gathered your shift onto your hips, and you had done the work from there. 

And so a marriage of love, of care and utter devotion, was born at Summerhall, left to flourish most beautifully. 

There was a knock at the door to his study, answered only by a grunt and the continual scratching of a quill on parchment as he attempted to answer a distant lord’s query on the Crown’s tax on grain. He did not enjoy such work, but every so often, the lot did end up falling to him, and he was happy to lift some of the burden from Baelor where he could. 

The door opened and you entered, the sounds of your sweeping skirts following you in, and he glanced up to see you smiling, a plate in hand as you made your way over to his desk with a small hum of greeting. You placed it down just in front of where he worked, within arm’s reach still, then rounded the desk to stand just beside him. 

“How does the work go, husband?” You asked him, draping one hand gently on his shoulder and using the other to touch his chin and gently tilt his head in your direction. He sighed, long and low, and slumped back into his chair, eyes fluttering shut as you scratched lightly at his beard and moved your hand upward to begin caressing his hair. 

“It remains unending,” he grumbled to you, wrapping his arm around your waist and tugging you closer to the side of the chair until he could lean his head against your stomach. Another sigh worked from him, more contented this time, and you slowly ran your fingers through his hair, cradling his head to you and simply humming in response. 

“You have been sequestered here a rather long while,” your voice was quiet, just above a whisper, and he only made an ‘mm’ sound in acknowledgement. “I know you have not eaten, for I have made sure to ask if anything has been brought to you other than ale or wine and the resounding answer has been that you would ‘think about such nonsense later’.” You raised an eyebrow, tilting your chin down to look at him, but he did not open his eyes or make any attempt to look up at your face, huffing once and nothing more. 

You only sighed after that, caressing his forehead, tracing the lines where his wrinkles deepened when he frowned (as he so often did). He allowed you to do this a while, your fingers stroking through his hair, over his cheeks and beard, until you bent down and carefully pressed kisses to his lips, soft little things so full of love that they made his chest warm and tight. When you finally pulled away, you were smiling once more and stood to your full height, placing the plate of roast and bread and stewed vegetables in front of him, luckily still steaming. 

“Eat please, before you worry me more,” you told him, nudging your head in the direction of the food before moving to stand behind his chair and placing your hands on his shoulders. You massaged him there, along the back of his neck too, and he moaned quietly (though you weren’t sure if it was because of your ministrations or because of the food he was now inhaling). 

He grunted once before he finally said, swallowing down a mouthful, “you need not care for me so closely you know. I have lived long enough by my own hand.” But you only scoffed, tugging on a strand of his hair in reprimand before bending and kissing the top of his head. 

“Perhaps I do not need to, but I wish to do so. It makes me happy, gives me purpose to care for you. Someone ought to. You deserve love and diligent care, same as the rest of us, my prince.” You said it so seriously too, as if it was irrefutable, a simple truth. He only grunted in response, continued pressing meat and bread into his mouth (because he truly had not realised how hungry he actually was) but that pulsing warmth in his chest became stronger, flowed out into the rest of his body, filling him up in a way he had not known he was capable of. 

Your fingernails dug into his shoulders, at the base of his neck, clinging him ever closer. He was draped over you, his weight pressed into you, nothing separating you. You could feel his coarse chest hair against your nipples, sparking through you as he pumped his hips back and forth, sending those sparks into you, through you, right up your core and into your mouth and mind. The slap of it, the force, not too hard but not soft, permanent, a feeling to last for a long while after the coupling ended. 

One arm was wrapped around your back, clutching you tight to him, as the other gripped your hip, steadied you against the mattress so he could continue his motions. He grunted into your neck, sounds from deep in his throat, animalistic, true testaments to the pleasure he took from you. He kissed and bit at your neck, down onto your chest and over the swells of your breasts. 

“Feels so good, my love,” you moaned, eyes shut, face turned up to the ceiling, voice breathy and uncontrolled. “You’re making me feel so good!” You panted, eyes screwing even tighter as the pleasure coiled, and you could almost feel his own face pinching with it. His grunts became interspersed with moans, his arm around you tightened, his hand following suit. 

The heat of it was everywhere, in your core between your thighs, in your stomach and chest, in the sweat on your skin and his breath against you. You felt alight with it. “Yes, Maekar, yes!” Your leg twitched, your core tightened, your entire body seemed to throb with it. “Please, my love, it feels so good,” you panted, “kiss me, please,” and he obliged, pushing up at the last minute as the pleasure hit, pressing his mouth to yours, moaning there, tongues intertwined. 

The two of you writhed against each other, riding the waves together until your bodies collapsed against the sheets with finality. He rested his weight over you, just as you loved him to do after such activities. You told him it was like having your own personal hearth laid over you, a soft yet muscular hearth at the perfect weight in temperature. And he enjoyed the closeness too, did not wish to leave your warmth either. 

You caressed the back of his head, dragging your nails over the back of his neck and the planes of his shoulders as your body settled, as you went weak all over and melted into the mattress. He simply breathed, heavy washes of it over your neck and chest. You hummed, just a sound for the sake of it, before you tilted your head just enough and pressed a kiss at his temple. 

“I did not see much of you today,” you mumbled, eyes fluttering closed though the warm oranges and yellows of the candlelight and fire still played over your eyelids. 

“Mm,” was his answer, “not a moment’s rest.” You hummed as well, kissing the side of his head again, running your fingers through his hair. He rumbled, almost purring like a cat, his entire body vibrating with it, and you continued what you were doing. 

“How was it then?” You asked, wanting his voice a little longer still, and he finally shifted in your grasp, lifting his head up just enough to smirk at you before dipping down to press a kiss to your breast, just above your nipple where it still sparked with pleasure. 

“Would have fared far better if I had only been allowed to rest like so, just here, in my favourite spot,” and then he lay his head down on your chest again, using your breast as a cushion to his cheek, mouthing gently at the skin, kissing just around your nipple in a way that made you shiver. You laughed breathily, shaking your head before settling even further into the pillows and sheets of your bed, kissing at his temple and forehead. 

“Mm, and I would not object to you staying right here if you so pleased. You keep me sufficiently warm during these cold nights.” You felt his smile against you, heard the barest huff of a chuckle before he gently bit at the nipple he had just kissed, rolling it lightly between his teeth as you twitched and made a noise of surprise, slapping at his back as he continued to laugh. 

“Do you love me?” He asked, and you felt your entire body pause, stiffen, visceral in its reaction. 

“What?” You breathed out, eyebrows gaining a furrow, hands trembling. 

“Do you love me?” He asked again, voice low, grumbling as always, but this felt more trembling than anything. A man who had only the barest control left on his emotions. A man so utterly overwhelmed, shaken from the inside, attempting to be vulnerable in the only way he knew how. 

“Has that ever been in doubt?” You asked quietly, lashes fluttering, the sudden burn of tears, the welling of them at your lashline. He did not say anything, looked away instead, a harsh swallow bobbing at his throat. He hummed, neither a yes or a no. Your lips trembled and you stepped forward quickly, reaching out for him in desperation. Your hands landed on his chest, smoothing out over his tunic before clenching into it, dragging yourself as close as possible, until the warmth of you both was intertwined. As it was meant to be. 

“If it has been in doubt, then it is entirely my own fault. And it is an injustice I have committed.” Your voice trembled. “For I love you so much that it rather terrifies me. I love you so much that even the thought of separation from you brings me to tears, brings a tremble to my hands and I must sit a long while or find your company to make the corrosive pain run from me. I love you so much that just the sight of your face can right all wrongs in my heart.” The words dribbled out of you so quickly now, hurried as if you were desperate for him to know the truth of the matter. “I love you so much that your pain is my pain, your love is my balm, your word my truth. I did not think it possible to love a person so, but here we are. I love you…” and your words trailed off as he pressed his mouth to yours. 

The kiss was salty with your tears, and though he did not cry, when he pulled back, his eyes were red limned and shined like glass. He kissed you like you were intertwined things, meant to be attached at the lips. His mouth was soft, wet, squished to yours, and you splayed both your hands along the sides of his neck, laced your fingers at the nape, pulled him in until his tongue too ventured past your lips and tasted all the love you carried. 

His arm curled around your waist, dragged you closer up against him, into the firmness of his chest and the warmth of his body, and you made a muffled sound into his mouth that he swallowed like wine. The tears on your cheeks smeared onto his, his other hand threaded into the hair at the back of your neck, cradled your skull and kept you that final bit closer. You wished to breathe him in entirely, and he wished the same of you. 

You did not know what had caused this reaction. You did not know what had caused him to ask, what rotten thing had appeared and nestled in his heart to make him feel so, but you knew that you would do everything in your power and then some, would do what must be done, whatever that may be, to make sure that he finally felt all the love that he deserved to feel. 

For Maekar was no one’s shadow, not a spare nor an afterthought, nor any other cruel name the court gave him for the crime of being born fourth. He was yours, and you were his, and that was what mattered most of all.

"—and then Tansy said I was being dramatic," Daeron was saying, "which, first of all, I was not being dramatic, and second of all—"

"You were being dramatic," you said, without turning around.

"I was being expressive," Daeron said, "there's a difference, and you of all people should know that, you've got that same mole on your right underb—"

He stopped. The kitchen went very quiet. You turned around slowly.

Daeron was holding his toast halfway to his mouth with the expression of a man watching a grenade he'd thrown himself arc through the air in slow motion, completely powerless to recall it.

You looked at Maekar. Maekar was looking at the newspaper.

He was holding it. His eyes were on it. But he had not moved, not turned a page, not lifted his coffee, not made any of the small continuous micro-movements that characterized a man reading, in approximately five seconds, which for Maekar was a geological epoch when reading the newspaper.

"The same mole as Tanselle," Daeron said, at a speed that suggested he was building the sentence as fast as he could and hoping it would hold. "That's what I was going to say. Tansy has the exact same—"

"Daeron," you said.

"—placement, very common placement actually, statistically—"

"Daeron."

He stopped talking.

Maekar's jaw worked once. Just once. And then it stopped, and the stillness returned, and it was somehow more alarming than anything that had preceded it because this was not Maekar's thinking stillness or his considering stillness or even his annoyed stillness. This was something new. Something with a very specific quality to it, like a pressure system building before a storm that hasn't decided yet what kind it's going to be.

"Dad," Daeron tried.

"Mm," Maekar murmured as an answer.

Not a word. Not even a sound, really. More like the noise a man made when he was allocating all available cognitive resources to not saying the thing he was currently thinking and had nothing left over for actual language.

"I'm going to—" Daeron began, sliding off the counter.

"Sit the fuck down again, Daeron," Maekar said.

Daeron sat down. The paper turned one page. Slowly. Deliberately. Like a man demonstrating to himself that he was capable of performing a normal action and finding it required more effort than it should.

"You were talking," Maekar said, to the paper, "about the mole on her right underboob."

The flatness of his voice was doing something specific. Not the usual flat — that one was comfortable, familiar, Maekar's default register. This one had something underneath it that was being held down with visible effort, like something large pressing against a door from the other side.

"How," he said, "would he know about that."

"Dad—"

"I'm talking to her," Maekar said, still to the paper.

You set the coffee down. "It was years ago. Before I knew you. Before I even knew you existed. We were at university, we were drunk, it happened once and the next morning we agreed it was a mistake and it never happened again."

Maekar turned a page.

"Daeron and I have been best friends since before either of us knew what we were doing," you said. "It was one night and it was—"

"Don't," Maekar said, still quiet, "tell me it didn't mean anything."

"Why—"

"Because," he said, and something in his voice had shifted in a way that made you stop talking, "if you tell me it didn't mean anything I am going to have to sit here and be reasonable about the fact that my son—" he stopped. His hand, flat on the table beside the paper, pressed down hard against the surface. "My son has seen you."

The kitchen was very still.

"He's seen—" Maekar stopped again. Started again. The jaw was working continuously now. "He's had his hands on you. He has—" another stop, another press of his hand against the table, like he was using it as an anchor. "And now he sits at my table every Sunday and eats my food and I have to look at his face."

"Dad," Daeron said, very carefully, "I need you to remember that I'm your son and you love me."

"I'm acutely aware of who you are right now," Maekar said, with the specific tone of a man for whom this information was not currently as useful as it usually was.

"And that it was years ago and meant nothing—"

"I told her not to say that," Maekar said.

"—and that she didn't even know you yet—"

"Daeron." Maekar looked up from the paper for the first time. Looked at his son with an expression that was entirely controlled and also somehow made Daeron press slightly backward against the counter. "I need you to stop talking."

Daeron stopped talking. Maekar looked at you.

Whatever was happening behind his eyes had not finished happening. You could see him working through it in real time. The rational part, which knew perfectly well that your past had nothing to do with your present, losing ground steadily to the part of him that was fundamentally, constitutionally incapable of sharing, even retroactively, even with someone he loved, even with his own son especially with his own son—

"Excuse me," Maekar said, pushed his chair back, and left the kitchen.

You found followed him into the garage after a shared, knowing look with Daeron, who still was glued to his seat at the table.

Maekar was standing at his workbench with both hands braced against it, head down, in the posture of a man conducting an extremely serious internal negotiation with himself. He did not look up when you came in.

"How long," he just said.

"How long what."

"Did I not know about this."

"I first met you like two years ago," you said. "This happened on second year, so," you did the math, "approximately four years, give or take."

He made a sound that was not a word.

"Maekar—"

"Four years," he said, "of Daeron—" He pressed harder against the workbench. "Four years of him knowing. Looking at you. Knowing what you—" he stopped. "Knowing things about you that I didn't know yet when I met you. That I had to learn." His jaw was doing continuous, relentless work. "He already knew them."

"He had also forgotten," you said, brushing aside the feeling of this man is making no sense but he's hurting. "Until approximately ten seconds before he remembered it in front of you. That detail had not crossed his mind in years."

"That's not—" Maekar turned around, and the look on his face was something you hadn't quite seen before. Not anger exactly, more like a man trying very hard to contain something that kept pressing against the containment. "That's not the point. The point is that my son—"

"Your son is my best friend," you said. "He was that before I loved you and he'll remain being just that. One stupid drunk night four years ago has nothing to do with what you and I are."

"I know that," Maekar said, which came out frustrated rather than reassured, the voice of a man who had arrived at the correct rational conclusion and found it singularly unhelpful. "I know that. I know it didn't mean anything and I know it was before and I know—" he stopped, pushed off the workbench, crossed to the far wall and stood there with his back to you for a moment— "I know all of it. It doesn't help."

"Tell me what would help," you said, taking a step closer.

"Nothing would help," he answered, turning around. "Because no matter what you say, my son has seen the mole on your right underboob, and I have to live with that information and its consequences for the rest of my natural life, and there is nothing to be done about it."

You pressed your lips together very hard.

"Don't," he warned you.

"I'm not."

"You're about to laugh."

"I'm genuinely not," you said, which was becoming increasingly less true.

"He is," Maekar said, with the flat, aggrieved certainty of a man stating an irreversible fact about the universe, "my son. Who I see almost every day. Who butchers the coffee in my kitchen. Who borrowed my car just last Tuesday." He said it like each item was its own specific grievance. "Who has seen you and touched you and—"

"Maekar," you said, and crossed the garage toward him and took his face in your hands the way you'd done the night the I love you had slipped out, and made him look at you. "Listen to me."

He looked at you. Jaw tight. Eyes doing something complicated.

"It was four years ago," you said. "We were almost still horny teenagers. We laughed through the entire thing. It was so mutually, immediately, obviously wrong that we agreed by nine the next morning that we'd both forget it and have never revisited it. It was less a romantic encounter and more a very misguided sleepover that got briefly out of hand." You held his gaze. "Daeron has never been mine and I have never been his. Not like that. Not ever. You are the only man I have wanted to come back to. You are the only one I'll ever want to come back to. Do you understand me?"

He looked at you for a long moment.

"You say he laughed?" he asked.

"Constantly," you half-smiled. "We both did."

"Through all of it."

"Start to finish," you confirmed. "It was extremely unglamorous. He tripped and fell. There was a desk chair incident."

Something shifted in his expression. The thing pressing against the containment eased, fractionally.

"An incident," he said.

"It's not a story that reflects well on either of us," you laughed briefly. "I promise you, there is nothing there worth being this worked up about."

The jaw unclenched by one degree.

"He still knows about the mole," Maekar said.

"He had forgotten about the mole for approximately four years," you said. "He will now spend the next four trying to forget that he remembered it, because he has to live with your face across the table every other day and he knows exactly what he just did."

Maekar was quiet for a moment. Something worked behind his eyes.

"Good," he said, finally, with a flatness that had crossed back over into his usual register — not the contained, effortful version from the kitchen but the real one, ordinary and certain. "Good that he has to think about it."

"Maekar—"

"It's fine," he said. "It's fine. I know it's fine." He took your wrists, gently, where your hands were still on his face, and held them. "I just needed a minute."

"You needed more than a minute."

"Several minutes," he conceded.

"You kind of grounded your son and then disappeared from the room."

"I was removing myself from a situation," he said, with great dignity, "before I said or did something I couldn't take back."

"That was very mature of you," you teased.

"I'm a mature person," he said, and the almost-smile appeared, finally, fractional and deeply reluctant, like it had been waiting behind the jaw-working and the workbench-bracing and the several minutes of genuine barely-contained possessive fury for permission to exist. "I handled that well."

"You called your son's name like a threat twice and then left the kitchen," you repeated, in case he hadn't noticed.

"I didn't raise my voice," he shrugged, feeling victorious.

"That's a very low bar, Maekar."

"It's my bar," he said, "and I cleared it," and pulled you against his chest with both arms, solid and certain, his chin coming to rest on the top of your head, his heartbeat still slightly faster than usual beneath your ear.

You let him hold you for a moment.

"Mine," he said, into your hair. Quiet. Flat. The word that was never really about possession and always about certainty, about the specific fact of choosing and being chosen and not being willing to be ambiguous about either.

"Yours," you said. "Have been. Will be. Daeron notwithstanding."

A low sound in his chest. Not quite a laugh. Almost.

"I'm going to need," he said, "to be insufferable about this for a while."

"I know."

"Not to you," he said. "To him."

"Maekar—"

"Small things," he said. "Nothing dramatic. Just — he's going to know that I know, every time he walks in that door, for a significant period of time."

"Please don't terrorize your son."

"I'm not going to terrorize him," Maekar said, with the flat reasonableness of a man who had already decided what he was going to do and was now managing your expectations around it. "I'm just not going to let him forget."

"He already can't forget. He caused this."

"Good," Maekar said. "Then we're aligned."

From somewhere inside the house, distantly, Daeron's voice carried. "Are you two still in the garage? Can I come out of the kitchen? I've been sitting here for eleven minutes."

Maekar's arms tightened slightly around you.

"No," he almost barked back.

A pause. "Dad—"

"Five more minutes, Daeron."

Silence. Then, very quietly, "Be normal about it?"

Maekar closed his eyes briefly. He had to admit Daeron had an unreasonable humour that tended to surface on the worst scenarios.

"That," he said, into your hair, very quietly, "is the only reason he's still in my will."

You laughed against his chest, and after a moment he laughed too.

“Fucks sake girl,” he laughed a bit because he already had one of his dirty boots off before you started bitching. He didn’t poke you any more than that, which was the smart thing to do. Ever ounce of body language you had was shouting that you were needing a break.

“I gotta talk to you about somethin’ honey.” His hand pushing down your frazzled hair on the crown of your head as he reached down to pick up Daisy as she pulled on his jeans and stepped on his foot.

“you been bad for your momma?” He asked the little tike. She looked just like his brother, small face, bright hair, beyond mischievous smirk! But she called him dad, knew him as her father, Aerion wasn’t there, he hadn’t been around since she was half a year old.

“fucking running me up the wall.” You groan while leaning back into the couch head flopping back to look at him. Your brow raised a moment later, he looked to happy. Nobody looked that happy after getting off work.

“Tell me.” You blinked, hands coming up to rub over your swollen stomach. You were almost 8 months. A boy according to the scans that were stuck to the refrigerator. He was a big baby as well, you just assumed it was because Daeron was so much taller than Aerion so your stomach had to get bigger to make more room.

“why don’t,” he squatted down, putting daisy back down by her toys and flipped the tv on getting it to a kids channel as he nodded for you to head back to the bedroom.

You would of rather just stayed sat here but with a sigh and a lot of physical effort you pulled yourself up and walked to the back bedroom sitting on the edge of the squeaky bed and then laying back fully. When he got daisy settled and distracted Daeron walked into the back bedroom shutting the door. You had to do a hit of a crunch to see him over your belly. Brow raising when the door clicked close.

He hasn’t been able to get much more than a blowjob as of late and with the day you had just experience you weren’t feeling like his luck was about to change.

“Aerion came home.” You sat up fully at that. Pulse fast.

“what?” Eyes wild and wide. “What the fuck!” You found your feet but was unsure what for. You didn't want to see him, you wanted him to stay away, wanted him to remain some person daisy didn’t know. You wanted to keep playing house with Daeron. “Fuck!” That last one was exhausted and scared and your hands rubbed up and down your face.

“He’s not coming back here.” He motioned at the trailer. “Not coming back for you or our girl.” You swallowed because even if that was the outcome you wanted now it still did hurt to be tossed aside.

“Honey-“ Daeron grabbed the back of your head and pulled you into his shoulder kissing the side of your head. “Hon, I got him to sign the papers.” He whispered. You’d sent the divorce papers a dozen times and never gotten any response, which was sort of understandable because from you guys knew he never stayed in one place long. Drugs sort of did that to a person. Destabilized them.

“Really?” You swallowed the ball of anxiety down and pulled back some to look at him as he pulled the rolled up papers out of his back pocket and passed them over.

“gods,” you smiled flipping the papers over seeing his signature. “You really fucking pinned him down. I….i can’t believe this.” You were beaming so wide that your cheeks ached. His thumb rubbed against the tensing muscle and he nodded with a Smirk, he was pretty smitten with his own efforts as well. It hadn’t been easy.

“I love ya honey,” he reminded while you were still looking at the papers with amazement. You could finally fucking move on, finally feel less like a piece of shit for being married to a guy while being with his brother…while having a kid with his brother. “A lot.” He explained and took a step back, hand fishing into his pocket and pulling out a little ring. It didn’t have a box, it wasn’t new.

“Daeron-“ you exhaled fully, papers dropping because you had covered your mouth. “That’s-shit that’s…” you knew that ring. It was his mama’s. “Y-your…you want me to marry you?” The baby was kicking so much, the tv was loud in the other room and the ceiling fan was slow so you were hot as shit in here. Everything had been overwhelming and now all of a sudden it felt quiet, slow, easy. The weight of today being so overstimulated just ceased to exist.

“Let me get the damn question out.” He laughed and held the ring out a bit more, raking one of your hands, holding it right near your belly. “I love you, for way longer than I should have.” He started and you blinked hard because your eyes felt watery. “I think you liked me for longer than you were suppose ta to.” He squeezed your hand and leaned forward pressing a kiss to your stomach. “I want to make a decent woman outta you, make you my wife, make daisy my daughter, make it so this baby, our baby only knows a world where his mamma and daddy are married and stable and fucking love the shit out of one another.”

You were nodding the entire time he spoke, eyes looking to the ring when you couldn’t keep looking at his pretty blue eyes and also keep your compose.

“I love you.” You whispered hand pushing his hair back.

“Honey, marry me?”

You beamed pratically smushing him against the floor as you kissed him and he stumbled back because your belly bopped him backwards.

“Yes! Yes I’ll marry you!” You attacked his neck with kisses. “Fuck, I love ya.”

Daeron Masterlist, Prompt list/Prompt Masterlist

Clink, clink, clink

The soft metallic sound followed every movement of your naked form. It was Lyonel’s idea to show him off the collection of jewellery he presented you almost everyday of your stay in Dorne. You thought of it as too much and redundant at the time, but now it had a perfect background of your sun-kissed skin, glowing with beads of sweat.

There was everything you could think of and more. Delicate, golden chains adorned with glass beads, a bigger one with precious stones that matched your eyes, some pearls with silver handiwork.

You felt ridiculous with this amount of wealth displayed on your body but one burning gaze from Lyonel melt all your doubts. Seven above could not stop him from getting to you and crushing his lips against yours in a needy and haste kiss.

“Woman, what you do to me is unbelievable,” he whispered huskily, taking in your form, admiring every piece adorning you, “You look like a gift from above.”

“Would you like to unpack me?” your fingers entwined into dark hair of his, holding him close for another kiss. “I see you took some of my jewellery,” you fixed your eyes on bracelets dangling around his forearm.

“Yes, I did. Are you going to punish me for that?” his hands were roaming all over, touching, feeling and squeezing your figure, “Gods, I need you.”

And that was the last coherent noise either of you would produce for some time.

Clink, clink, clink

“Look at you, taking me so well. Such a good, willing–ohh” you lost your thought at the burning sensation coiling up in your core. Your hips moved in slow, deliberate movements dragging desperate moans from man under you, “You like that, don’t you?”

All he could do was to silently nod as his fingers dug into your flesh, leaving possessive marks on it. Another broken whine escaped as you rocked your hips faster.

“Shhh, my love it’ll be over as soon as you give me what you need,” you whispered above his ear, admiring the ruin of his skin left after your nails.

Your fingers caressed the marks, drawing out shaky plea, “Let me come, please.”

“Is this what you want?” a cruel half smile appeared on your lips at Lyonel’s frantic gaze. You perfectly knew he was overstimulated and yet, you couldn’t help yourself but prolong a bit his agony. His cock twitching with every move on the border of spilling before you allow him to do so.

“Yes, gods, yes!” he reached the point where he didn’t care who would hear him. The only remaining thought was to release everything that build up to the point of boiling him inside out.

“Then come, my love,” you whispered into his ear, biting on the neck.

Your hand reached down to his manhood, hard, covered with precum, begging to be touched again. Mercifully, you did exactly that moving simultaneously with your thrusts. His whimpers of pleasure, each tremble you earned as you worked him towards his peak, was a delicious melody to your ears.

A low moan rumbled deep down in Lyonel’s chest as he came with erratic movements and twitches, staining your fingers and bedsheets beneath, “Such a good, obedient boy. Doing exactly what he’s told to,” you tugged his sweat dampened hair, revealing a completely fucked out expression.

You let him fall senseless on the soft mattress hiding tactfully your handiwork. You heard a soft groan as you backed and freed yourself from strap, abandoning it on the floor.

“Are you alright, my love?” you slowly find your way to embrace him from behind, resting your chin on his shoulder, hands caressing tender skin.

“Mmhm, I’m better than alright,” he murmured, voice still bearing tunes of strain, yet he leaned in for your touch and smell. One hand travelled down in search of your soft hip, grabbing it as if life depended on it, “You did a wonderful job, my sweet. I’d never presumed in my wildest dreams… You have a natural talent, love,” to punctuate his opinion, Lyonel slapped your hip with a pleased hum.

You laughed warmly, peppering his shoulder blade with small kisses, “Well, I learn from the best,” you replied cheekily, biting into skin.

“You are a trouble, woman,” you giggled with content at his remark and rolled over to face him with the most innocent smile possible.

“I thought you liked me,” you cupped his face and fixed messed up curls. Lyonel laughed dearly and swiftly imprisoned your upper body under his.

“Woman, what shall I do with you,” his frame hovered above you as he studied you. How your eyes sparkled with mischief, now a bit uncertain of his intentions. How your hair spilled on the softest pillows in vivid colours adding more to your flushed physique, “Absolutely breathtaking,” his murmur followed by soft kisses along your jaw sent shivers down your back, igniting a stir in your abdomen.

“What are you looking for?”

“Hush now, wife. I’m not quite done,” his mouth followed your neck line down to jewellery.

“Lyonel –,” your breath hiked as man’s lips captured one of your nipples with pleased purr, immediately followed by sucking and groping your other breast, earning a shy moan. You observed his doing with half lidded eyes not sure what you enjoyed more. The view or the feeling building up in your core, “Lyonel…”

For a moment he stopped his sweet torture to observe you hungrily, pupils blown to extent you could only see them with a faint rim of his usual hazel colour.

“Come to me,” you pulled him closer for a kiss, buying yourself some time from his greediness. You drowned in sensation of his lips taking over yours, his tongue exploring your mouth, “Gods, Lyonel,” your whisper was barely audible, reserved only for his mouth to experience, “What are you thinking about?”, his hazy gaze all over your face told you he was up for something.

“I cannot neglect the other one, that would be a crime,” this time you felt teeth teasing your sensitive skin as he resumed his task dutifully.

Clink, clink, clink

The afternoon turned into the evening and even though the temperature was slowly surrendering to soothing chill of oncoming night, you were burning. Stretched out, on a display and mercy of your husband’s will. He would probably name it as the highest beading to the most divine creature that graced this land with its presence since arrival of Andals, or other pompous nonsense. Your mind was too occupied with the last waves of your second high, to come up with any other word than spent. Completely and utterly devastated as your husband’s fingers and hungry lips leapt at your over sensitive core, putting not a drop to a waste.

You stared blankly at the canopy above your head, trying to gather anything left from your lungs to ease the breath. Your eyes followed intricate pattern of vines, grapes woven between always-present suns, down to Lyonel’s vigilant eyes peeking from between your legs, where he got way too comfortable, in your opinion.

“What are you looking at?” you huffed, blush dangerously creeping back on your already elated face.

“The goddess incarnated. Breathtaking, astonishing, magnificent,” each word declared with reverence worthy of a Septon, landed on the altar of your womanhood, closely followed by offerings of his lips and tongue, much to your trouble. Involuntary, your thighs closed on Lyonel’s head, trying to escape the torment that brought you pleasure moments ago.

“Stop, for fucks sake,” you whined with a laugh lingering between the words, releasing your husband from his cage, “Choose your next laurel of victory, ser, and begone for a moment.”

He slowly rose from his position and with trail of soft kisses, nimble hands tracing ghosts of bruises across your hips, belly and rib cage, Lyonel dragged his body weigh on you capturing your frame carefully, “If only I could show you how you look in my eyes, my love,” he kissed your temple and you lips soon followed the same fate. You hated how quickly he was able to hitch your breath, especially when you could taste yourself on him.

“Seven hells, I do taste good,” you bit his lower lip with wicked laugh hearing his low growl against your throat. You caught something about how improper for a lady was to act in such a manner, murmured in between kisses. For a moment Lyonel stilled above your breasts, carefully picking the prize for his efforts to join the other necklace he was already wearing.

“Give me this one,” his fingers stroked a simple gold chain, conveniently caressing your breast along the way, drawing out a soft whimper. You lifted your head for him to free the desired trinket.

Your eyes wandered around Lyonel’s face, neck, bare chest decorated with jewellery complimenting his gold earring, silently observing further shenanigans as his palms explored your skin. You were lying comfortably on the mess that was a bed some time ago, enjoying his touch and closeness of his body.

Gods, he’s beautiful, you thought suddenly, your expression softening as your fingers ran through black of his hair, gently scratching scalp. You could call Lyonel many words handsome, boisterous, sometimes pain in the ass but right now, as his head was resting on your belly, arms securely wrapped around your waist and the rest of his figure was tangled between your legs, beautiful was the only word that suited him most.

“Are you asleep, my love?” you asked softly, when his breathing got suspiciously even and you didn’t feel no more fingers digging in your sides.

“No, just resting, thinking… imagining really,” he answered, shifting so he could meet your gaze.

“What exactly? If you don’t mind sharing,” your fingers stroked his hair again.

“Just everything and nothing. What will the future bring,” you rose your eyebrow waiting for him to continue, “you know, how many babes are we having and –“

“Having?” you inquired with quiet laugher.

“Well, we fuck like rabbits in spring, I wouldn’t be surprised if a little fawn wasn’t growing in you this very moment,” you scrunched your nose at the metaphor and how eagerly he flooded your belly with attention and kisses.

“A pretty, little babe smart like its mother, and strong as its father,” he murmured with soft chuckle as if he didn’t want to stir any peace of creation that might have already been happening, “I don’t care for a boy or a girl, both is good. I’ll make a man out of anything, really.”

“Well, I don’t know how the following years will unfold but I can tell you this,” your tone and mischievous twinkle in eye caught his attention almost immediately in between the kisses, halting abruptly any movement.

“Oh?” he hummed intrigued, his lips vibrating gently just above your navel, creating a pleasant shiver running across your body.

“I’m going to tell you, what is going to happen now. One by one, yes?” Lyonel nodded silently, dragging lazily his fingers across your thigh, “I want you to fuck me properly, no more hands, no more bratty mouth of yours.”

“I thought you liked them,” his smile was devilishly troublesome as he curled his moustache, still damped with your arousal and spent.

“Hush now, husband, I’m not quite done,” you scoffed him much to his growing enjoyment, “You are going to fuck me slow and deep. Deep enough for me to feel you in my stomach, yes?”

“You like to order around today, my queen.”

“And you are exceptionally good at following,” the necklaces proved themselves to be a good enough leash to bring him closer, nudging his nose with yours, “If you want to give me your babe, you’ll nicely fuck it in me, yes?”, breaths quicken at the idea, “More than happy to oblige – oh, shut up and kiss me.”

“As my lady commands,” for a second he toyed with your anticipation, observing how you were breaking into pieces under his gaze, before crushing your lips with his fuelled with unspoken hunger and faint tint of your taste lingering on his skin.

You reached down to his hardening member and gave him much needed attention with gentle strokes, spreading glistening precum, drawing a gruff moan, “There you are,” you purred sweetly, feeling how he tensed and twitched under your touch, his head falling back.

He was getting lost in your sensation, slow and deliberate movement that created a pleasurable edge on which he could spend the whole night. His blown pupils observed intently every mimic change, every slightest whimper leaving your lips as you watched your handiwork and effect it had on him. Oh he knew, he saw how much it aroused you as well, how your hips began to move searching for any kind of release in the emptiness.

Soon. The relish of anticipation dizzied in his head better than any ale or wine he had drank. The prize of your soft and welcoming pussy, inviting and squeezing him relentlessly worked Lyonel up faster than he would like to admit, “If you continue, I’ll come undone like a green boy,” The short laugh you let out meant only trouble for him. The kind of trouble he loved to follow.

“That would be wasteful of us,” the mattress under you whispered silently as you moved, positioning Lyonel’s tip at your heat, slowly hooking your thighs around his hips, “Come to me,” you whispered and he compelled.

Nonchalantly and purposefully rolled his length into you, into the soft and wet core of yours he was fantasying moments ago. In unison you moaned at the sensation, holding one another, embracing the intimacy of it.

“Is this what you wanted?” voice above your earlobe, followed by a kiss sent a shiver down your spine. Your fingers tangled in the black of his hair, “Seven, yes,” you breathed.

Only then he began to move. Slowly, agonisingly slow for you to feel every inch of him, bullying his way into your heat. Just as you wanted it, deep to the rim, stretching you deliciously, filling you to the point your lungs protested.

Hungry eyes were feasting over your reactions, the soft moans that escaped your mouth accompanied by whispers of his name, the half lidded eyes as you embraced thrusts and each time your lashes fluttered a bit more. The feeling of your hammering heart, pounding through you as he was following your directions.

Shallow, shallow, shallow, shallow, deep

A sweet sting of a building coil in your belly left your pouty lips slightly open just enough to invite a sloppy kiss, leaving you breathless. The pace was relentless and unforgiving, destructive in its precision as he was burying himself to the shaft, balls clapping against curve of your ass.

“I thought no hands,” he noticed absence of your palm in his hair, watching it disappear between your bodies, as the other scratched toned muscles of his abdomen.

“Yours, Lyonel. Are you jealous?” you asked innocently, drawing slow circles as he fucked into you.

“A little,” a moan escaped you as he changed the angle, “Give it to me,” he captured your hand and without breaking the eye contact his tongue cleaned it off with an expression of a pleased cat, “You’re divine.”

“You’re obscene,” you would be lying if it didn’t pull another string, if that was even possible.

“Apparently, you enjoy it. I feel how you squeeze me – fuck,” his voice faltered at the sensation of you clenching around his cock.

“That feels good, doesn’t it?” you gave him a sultry smile, pulling Lyonel for yet another passionate kiss, “I want to come on your dick. I know you can do this.”

“Oh yes, gods,” your legs tightened around his waist, bringing him closer, leaving no space whatsoever.

“Mhmm… Give me my third orgasm today? Be a good fuck toy?” his moans rang in your ears as your teeth found sensitive flesh at the nape of his neck and bit into it, “Seven hells, you do enjoy that.”

You didn’t need answer, you felt him twitching and dragging out the movements just to bottom you with scandalous sounds of your arousal. You were close, you sensed it for a moment as your hips began to stutter  and welcome his movement with feverish vehemence. A pleasant warmness spread across your limbs, sending waves of shivers through and up to the top of your head.

In a swift move, one of your legs was now resting on his shoulder, palms held above your head sank in soft silk and mattress, pinned down harshly.

“Put your hand around my neck,” you breathed out with anything that was left in you, accommodating to the new position, “Squeeze it… gods, mhmm, don’t you dare to stop,” a delicious pressure around your throat, his lips trailing your jaw nearly sent you over.

But it was his voice, rasped, rugged and completely pussy-drunken confessions he was spilling in your ear as his hands tighten around your flesh, steadying you, grounding in the bed. The litany of filthy prayers that would burn ears of any septa, accompanied by your solemn moans of pleasure, crowning each forceful thrust.

“Take what you need, my doe. I can feel it, I have you,” your eyes were plastered to his visage, no thought behind them whatsoever, just the overwhelming feeling of how good he made you feel, how his cock bullied your cervix with each deep movement, tears slowly building in your waterlines. Your lips slightly agape, fighting for any chance for breathing, “Take it, take all of it. Be a good wife.”

Your loud moan was silenced by his lips, as a toe-curling wave of pleasure rushed through you, sending your eyes back. You arched pressing your body closer to his, as Lyonel firmly fucked you through your peak, prolonging it mercilessly with a self-satisfied grin plastered to his face between grunts of thrill.

“Don’t stop, I like to feel you fuck me after I come,” you begged, eyes still half lidded as you indulged in Lyonel’s penetration, again slower and more intimate in his movements, filling you even more as your muscles relaxed, “– so, so good,” you babbled riding the last remaining feeling of your peak.

“Gods, I love your cock,” he chuckled loudly at your confession, and slowly shifted, sitting up, with your legs held securely against his hips, spread for him to admire.

“I’ve heard that before,” he mumbled incoherently staring intently as you greedily took him, effortlessly swallowing his whole length, “Now, that is something I can watch for all eternity.”

If it was possible for you to blush even more, you would resemble a sun setting down, hearing his words and brothel suiting sounds, surrounding your heavy breathing. As one of his hands slithered down to tease bud of your nipple, the other was surely leaving bruises on your thigh, you felt again a coil building up.

“Gods, you’ll ruin me,” you whined under his hawk-like glare, prying on your sensitivity.

“I only do what you’ve demanded, sweetheart,” Lyonel’s voice taunted mockingly.

“I think you can use that mouth of yours again,” your fingers trailed back his palm around your breast, squeezing it light.

“Is that so? You want me to tell you how good you feel?” you nodded frantically, as he rested your legs on his shoulders, “Oh, you are desperate,” he cooed sweetly with a shade of sarcasm, lowering himself just enough to deepen his thrusts, meeting your hips with punishing pace, “Can you feel it? How well you take me? So wet and warm, so inviting,” slick noises an undeniable confirmation of the spoken words, “so good for me, you’ll be such a good mother. Just let me put a babe in you, let me round you up,” you soaked up every single word he gave you, beaming in them and tightening your slick core, demanding more of his attention with a needy moan, promptly captured by his filthy lips.

“I can already picture it, swell of your belly, full breasts barely held by any dress… Gods be good, you wouldn’t easily get rid of me,” your legs returned around his hips, creating heavenly friction with each move. Your fingers tangled in his greying hair, the other leaving unforgivable marks across his back as Lyonel held you in a secure headlock, leaving needy kisses between his words, “I would knock you up again as you carry my babe… just to feel how you milk me to the last drop… shhh, I know– I have you,” you felt yourself drifting away as your peak was slipping in closer.

“I’m barely holding love, just tell me please, tell me love,” he pleaded, his forehead resting on yours, still allowing you to boss him around. And yet, you found yourself utterly lost of words, managing a slow nod against him, “Speak to me, woman. Do you want it?”

“Yes–,” you whisper faintly, feeling a devastating wave of your fourth orgasm, steadily rushing through your body, as Lyonel with all the intensity he had left in him, pumped into you, painting your walls with his seed, groaning loudly in the crook of your neck, “Take it, take what’s yours.”

He kept urging himself deeper into you, completely buried, listening and sensing how your peak collected all your limbs, head and voice, barely allowing you to let out more than a broken moan.

After a moment all movement stopped and only laboured breaths and smell of your bodies were the only remnants of your coupling. Lyonel’s whole weight atop of you, impeding any movement except for brushing his hair, as his head rested against your chest, imprinting the beads in your and his skin.

“You worn me out, woman,” he mumbled in your breast, leaning in for your touch. You snorted lightly, wrapping your legs tighter around his waist, “Gods, your cunt must be carved by the Maiden herself, what? That’s true!” he opposed to your appalled scoff, “Also, I’m waiting for my bounty, my most precious, most outraged wife,” he allowed himself to punctuate each word with feather-like pecks left just under your sternum, impatiently waiting for the reply.

“Here, you can take the third one–, even the fourth,” you spoke as your breath steadied a bit. You unclasped two out of still, too many necklaces you had and put them around Lyonel’s neck, adding to the two he already had. Wearing them as hard earned trophies, “They suit you, you know? My pretty, little thing. Would you like some more?”

You observed, that his skin was tanned as well and the jewellery he was carrying just added something spicy to his usual look. It was not a mystery you liked to observe your husband, taking pride in him, sometimes even gawking especially at the training court but now? Seven help you, because the picture in front of you was just too tempting not to fulfil. If he could relish in your golden apparel, who were you to deny yourself the same sinful thing?

“I would be far from complaining.”

“Really? Would you like to dress up for your lovely wife? All in gold, silver and jewels?” you stretched with a pleased expression, already picturing Lyonel to your please, in nothing more but the finest, the most intricate goldsmith’s bauble, “I feel like we should explore the market morrow morning to find something pretty for my pretty boy,” your eyes lighten up with further pleasantries that flooded your imagination.

“You are looking for a trouble, my sweet angel of a wife,” a hum of content escaped you at his remark, already plotting sweet tortures to torment your man with in the morrow’s evening, if you prove yourself to be patient enough. The thrill of excitement rushed through your body as you smiled.

⋆ daeron will eat you out while he’s suffocating between your thighs. you’re sat on his face, knees planted on either side of his head, smothering him completely. there’s nothing he loves more than the burning pressure in his chest from the lack of oxygen, his mind clouding as he edges closer to unconsciousness. just when he starts to fade, you lift your hips enough to let him gasp for air — only for his large hands to yank you right back down with a frustrated whimper. his fingers dig desperately into the soft flesh of your thighs as he pulls your pussy flush against his mouth. his lips latch on hungrily, tongue fucking deep into your clenching, spasming walls, drinking up your juices like they’re the finest wine in the seven kingdoms.

⋆ maekar will eat you out until you’re crying from overstimulation. this is exactly what you get for acting like a brat earlier that day. with lips, teeth, and tongue, he’ll make sure you understand the consequences of your reckless little whims. he’ll pull orgasm after orgasm from you, forcing you to cum on his tongue again and again until you’re breathless, shaking, and your sweet pussy is swollen, dripping, and clenching around nothing. the inside of your thighs will be decorated with red, itchy marks from his rough beard, a reminder of his unrelenting hunger. he pours every ounce of his frustration into you — not just the irritation you earned, but the deep, permanent anger he carries buried inside him. if you try to tug him closer or grind against his face, he’ll nip sharply at your clit in warning, mixing pleasure and pain until you learn your manners. no matter how unruly you act, when his mouth is on your cunt, maekar has the final word.

⋆ aerion will eat you out like it’s his last meal. his hands grip your thighs possessively, nails digging into your plush flesh and leaving perfect crescent-shaped marks. he holds you spread wide open for him, teasing you with slow, taunting licks and sharp little bites everywhere except where you need him most. he ignores your desperate whines and the way you writhe beneath him, letting you suffer until you’re tugging frantically at his pale hair, begging him to put his tongue on you. only when you’ve pleaded enough does he finally oblige. and he is not gentle. aerion devours your pussy with raw hunger — grazing his teeth over your swollen clit to keep you on edge, spreading your folds with his long fingers, and fucking his tongue deep inside you. he doesn’t stop until his chin is dripping with your juices and you’re trembling beneath his mouth.

⋆ aegon will eat you out with lazy arrogance. like, this man knows exactly what he’s doing. he has your pussy memorized by now. every slow flick of his tongue makes you grind your cunt against his parted, wine-stained lips. his eyes never leave yours — those half-lidded violet pools gleaming with mischievous intent. he deliberately stops just to tease you, savoring your frustrated little moans and the sweet sting of your fingers tightening in his hair. that only makes him smile languidly against your pussy. he’ll happily spit on your already soaked hole just to feel you shudder, then flatten his tongue and drag it obscenely over your cunt, gathering every drop of your mixed juices like he has all the time in the world.

⋆ aemond will eat you out like he's a man in a mission. his tongue is merciless as it plugs into you over and over, lost in your taste and too pleased with your moans to even think of stopping. he'll guide your legs to rest over his shoulders as he chase for your pleasure and your words of affirmation, assuring him he's doing great. his long, slender fingers won't stop stroking your hips and waist, never leaving the softness of your warm body. his eye will drift up to yours with that unhinged stare of his, the one that said ‘see? there's no man on the seven kingdoms with this power over you. only me.’

⋆ baelor will eat you out until the only thing you can think about is him. until all you can focus on is the hot press of his tongue sliding between your wet folds, and the way his lips latch around your clit, sucking gently until a shuddering gasp escapes you. his hands stay firm on your waist, only moving when you try to close your legs in overwhelming pleasure. he spreads you wider, making sure every inch of you is open and available for his mouth. whenever he pulls back to press soft, lingering kisses to the inside of your thighs, he murmurs the sweetest praises against your skin — purring about how good you taste and what a well-behaved girl you are for him. he mixes tender affection with raw pleasure so effortlessly it leaves you dizzy.

The air around you felt heavy, almost as if it was warning you of something you could not quite place. It was a strange how a simple feeling could nag your mind for the rest of a day or a week.

You liked Dragonstone, that was plain for all to see, but even some days you could feel like you were drowning; despite of where you were and the company that surrounded you.

Today was a bad day, you woke up feeling stranded, without hopes of leaving your bed, yet you forced yourself to not fell down that hole.

You knew what to do, how to manage these kinds of downs whenever they presented themselves to you; forcing yourself to distract your mind.

A change of scenery was all that you needed, doing something outside the stony walls and a good conversation could do it for you.

“I wish to go riding for a while" you informed Ser Duncan and Aegon while you broke fast “Would you mind to join me?"

Ser Duncan was quick to lower the spoon that was about to connect with his mouth, clearing his throat “Of course, we will go with you, my Lady"

"I have my lessons” Aegon said reluctantly, knowing that you were not happy when he missed out on them. “I cannot go with you, Auntie"

“Oh! That is correct" you murmured, now realizing your wandering would have to wait. You did put Aegon’s education first “That is fine, we can go another time"

Aegon did not like the way your face fell when you learned that he could not join. “I am sorry, Auntie"

You waved him off with a smile that did not quite reached your eyes, the kind you used to mask your real feelings. "Do not worry, Sweet boy, I will go read for a while. Riding can wait”

But Egg knew better. He was a little too perceptive for his age. “Perhaps Ser Duncan could join you, Auntie?”

At his suggestion, Ser Duncan's gaze snapped to the boy. It was not like he was afraid of spending time with you— or afraid of you in general— but he felt like he had no business to be in the presence of a Lady such as yourself.

Yes, you were always so kind towards him, except for that time when you were grieving your daughter so freshly, but he felt like you did not trust him nor you wanted him there. He knew his presence had been forced upon you, that maybe him joining you to Dragonstone was merely to have Egg join you as well.

You shot Aegon a smile, grateful for his input “That it is a great idea, Egg” you looked at Ser Duncan, whose eyes were shooting daggers at the child "But I am sure Ser Duncan is busy training later"

“I am sure he is not" Egg insisted, ignoring the glances Ser Duncan was shooting at him “He can join you, can't you, Ser?"

The man had no option than to accept reluctantly, nodding towards you with a tight, fake smile “Of course, my Lady. I will escort you"

…

Ser Duncan insisted on him being the one to ready the horses, he prepared a beautiful white mare for you and a hazel brown horse for him. Both of them were tame and friendly, calm and steady.

Once you mounted and started to ride away, you had hoped that Ser Duncan would follow by your side, but no, the man decided to follow a few distance behind, as a lurking guard.

“You know, Ser" your voice cut through the whispers of the wind that surrounded you “I do not bite, I am as friendly as these horses"

“I know, milady" was his answer, he offered not other words.

"Why do you think I invited you to join?” Your voice was gently, genuinely curiosity lacing your tone.

The question took him by surprise, not knowing how to respond “To guard you?"

You hummed softly, one of your hands caressing your mare's mane "Perhaps, but I enjoy company and conversations as well”

“I- I am sorry the lad could not join, but he is adamant of not disappointing you" Ser Duncan quickly muttered, his words trampling over one another.

Silence followed his words for a few moments while you allowed yourself to enjoy the view around you. If there was something you liked from Dragonstone, you could firmly say it was its views and tranquility. There, despite the constant storms and cold winds, calm was something that reigned, allowing you to hear your thoughts and form any resemblance of relaxation, too different from court.

You pulled at the reigns of your horse, stopping her calmly, waiting for Ser Duncan to join you side. He did not, he merely stopped his own horse a few steps from yours. Sometimes, the man was a little thick, but again, he was a man. They always needed things to be explained for them to hear or comprehend, you had learned as much.

“Ser, would you be so kind as to ride next to me? I like company and conversation" You asked him finally, too tired to keep hinting at him what you wanted. “On contrary to beliefs, I am not a woman who enjoys solitude"

“I believe it is not proper —" he started saying, like a parrot, a phrase you had heard a lot since you had found yourself in his company.

"There is no one here, Ser” You interrupted him, waving your hand dismissively “And I merely intend for us to resemble some kind of friendship, nothing more"

The tall man tilted his head, making him look like a lost puppy "Friendship, my Lady? I am nothing but a hedge knight”

A smile grazed your lips, it was not the kind you used when you found something amusing, rather the one that tugged at your lips without thinking about it; a kind smile. "Oh, but you are not a hedge knight anymore, are you, Ser?” you waited for the realization settled in him "You are now serving House Targaryen, remember?"

You could see how speechless the man was, obviously realizing for the first time that he was, indeed, a knight. Simply as that. He was not a hedge knight anymore.

“And that means" you continued, your expression kind and reassuring "that you answer to those from House Targaryen, am I wrong?"

“You are not wrong, my Lady” He was quick to respond. "I do think you are hardly wrong”

A small laugh left your lips, a sound rich and amused "That is the first time someone admit the truth of it"

He offered you a small smile, his teeth barely showing. It made him look young, something difficult given the volume of the man that he was.

With a tilt of your head, you dared ask “May I ask how old are you, Ser?"

"I am 20 years old, I believe” He answered you in honesty.

You could not believe your ears, you knew the Knight was young, of course, but you could not believe he was Valarr's age. Ser Duncan did look older than his real age.

With a few blinks of your eyelids, you quickly regained your words “You are my son's Valarr age, you look older” a pause "though I suppose your height has something to do with it"

Ser Duncan offered a embarrassed smile, his cheeks tainted with a faint shade of red. “So I am told, my Lady" he looked away from you, not being able to manage holding your gaze for long.

You returned his smile with one of yours, though the one you offered was filled with kindness and some traces of maternal warmth. Learning that he was as old as Valarr did something to your heart. You already had a soft spot for the Knight and the newfound information only softened your heart further.

"You are really young” You observed "Your face does give you away, that glint in your eyes too"

"You are too young to have a son my age, my Lady" he said bluntly, quickly blushing when he realized what he had blurted out "I- I mean no disrespect—”

A soft chuckle left your lips “None taken, do not worry" you paused, staring at him a way that showed him you were not bothered by his comment “Your words are indeed true but my husband's children are not mine by blood and I am indeed a few years younger than my husband"

“Oh, that…” he scratched the back of his head, looking down from your observing gaze “that makes sense"

“Come" you said, gripping my the reigns tight and heeling your mare to start walking "Let us enjoy a ride while we talk"

Ser Duncan offered a nod, now riding a bit closer but still maintaining some distance from you.

You could not help but notice how fit he was to be a Knight. Apart from the physical aspect that was in truth intimidating, he had that kind of unwavering loyalty, plus his noble intentions. It was almost sealed that he would serve House Targaryen for many years to come.

It was a while before any of you muttered a word, both too lost in each of your minds.

However, you could clearly hear the thoughts and questions swirling in his mind. He was curious but he always refrained himself from asking, from being too forward.

You decided to break the silence after a while “You can ask, Ser" a nod and a smile was sent his way “I will answer to the best of my capacities"

He quickly shook his head, “No, milady. I have no questions"

"I believe you have a lot of questions, Ser” you responded in amusement, he had so quickly denied that he could have hurt his neck. “In truth, I do not mind if you do ask"

Ser Duncan sighed slightly, apparently weighing his options, trying to convince himself to keep his mouth sealed but at last, his curiosity won. "Have you and Prince Baelor been married for long, my Lady?”

You offered him a smile, forcing your mare to slow her pace to match the one of Ser Duncan's horse "Good question” you praised his curiosity.

You liked when people was curious but not prying, being a curios people yourself. The Gods know there was only one way to satisfy your nature of good intention curiosity; by asking questions.

"We have not” you answered with a soft smile "It has been a really short time since we got married, though I am grateful I managed to be received well by his family”

He nodded with a soft smile, mirroring slightly your own. "If you do not mind me asking…” he waited for your encouraging nod to continue "You say that Prince Baelor is a bit older than you, have you been married before, my Lady?"

You offered him a shook of your head, the smile not leaving your lips "I have not, I was basically a spinster when I met my husband”

Ser Duncan blinked at you, surprised “Oh"

A smile graced your lips at his reaction “Oh, indeed" you chuckled "My House is not one of the biggest or important on Westeros, it was not easy to strike a marriage deal." you explained him with a soft voice “My parents did not mind but they still tried for me to find some sort of happiness, I guess”

"How did you met Prince Baelor?" Ser Duncan asked you, his inhibitions finally deciding to give in favor of curiosity.

"We met at a gathering in King's Landing, I was hiding in the gardens and he found me" a nostalgic smile grazed your lips while your gaze focused on the landscape in front of you. "We found ourselves intrigued with one another rather quickly" you chuckled softly, shaking your head "Three moons later, we were married”

“I always thought the marriages of high born Lords and Ladies were merely driven by political interests?” He asked in a cautious voice.

"Most of the time, they are” you nodded along, your eyes meeting his for a few moments "Though in this case Baelor had been married before, he had served his duty and King Daeron allowed him to marry me without so much as a fuzz"

Your conversation with the Knight draw long, talking about the most ordinary things and some a bit more complex. The time away from the castle helped you clear your mind, find some resemblance of peace.

Ser Duncan was a refreshing man, that much you had known since the moment you set your eyes on him, now learning that he was Valarr's age had something within you awakening, a strong feeling of teach him, guide him and make sure you do everything in your power to protect him.

Yes, you were aware that he was a big man, yet he was still so innocent to a lot of aspects of life, making you feel like a mama bear, the same way you felt about Baelor's sons as well as Maekar's children.

Sharing the day with Ser Duncan, your mind could not help but wonder to thoughts of your family, of your husband and children. Yes, Valarr and Matarys were your children, as far as you were concerned, it didn't matter if your age was a tad closer to Valarr's than to Baelor's or that you have not birthed them, you could and would give your life for them without second guessing yourself.

You just hoped they were alright, you knew it was not like they needed you, but they had you regardless.

…

“A sickness? What kind of sickness?" Maekar asked, his posture on the chair far from proper.

The Small Council was reunited in its chambers, everyone at present having been called on by Baelor as soon as he got the news of said sickness.

Present was King Daeron, Queen Myriah, Maekar, Valarr and Baelor, as well as the rest of the Small Council.

“The only thing the letter from the Maester at the Citadel said was to be careful, it is a sickness that can bring the strongest warrior down in half a day" Baelor's voice was foreign to his own ears, blood rushing and dread settling in his chest.

It was not the first time they had to gather for a matter resembling the one at hand, though the air at the moment reeked of something more than smoke and candle wax. It reeked of something rooting, of insecurity and knowledge of things too far for them to handle.

"What are our options?” Asked Queen Myriah, her tone laced with worry.

“Close the roads as everyone has done, avoiding for the sickness to spread” Baelor murmured from his place at the table.

“What about the docks? Merchants and fishers would try to come here to sell their products” Valarr pointed out, bringing the fact to the other's attention.

"That would present a problem” Maekar murmured, slugging in his chair, receiving a scolding look from his mother.

Baelor rubbed his forehead, his mind swirling with ideas for trying to find a solution of the problem at hand.

“We close those to, station guards to avoid any entrance of people. We cannot let this sickness to extend" King Daeron suggested, his already aged face looking more wrinkled in favor of stress and concern.

“What about your Lady wife, Baelor?" Queen Myriah asked her oldest in concern, knowing her Good-daughter was practically alone in an island far from them.

Baelor clenched his jaw, not wanting to think of you alone in Dragonstone “I will send word for Dragonstone to be closed, the sickness will not reach her"

The chambers of the Small Council fell silent, everyone could see the sheer passion Prince Baelor held for his wife, how set he was on protecting her for any kind of harm.

"Mayhaps that could be a solution” Maekar murmured after a few moments of silence "Dragonstone, I mean”

“What do you mean, Maekar?" King Daeron asked, his head slightly tilted to look at his youngest.

“Dragonstone is far safer than King's Landing" Maekar said with a shrug, as if it was obvious “Perhaps it would be wise for you to go there" he said directly looking at King Daeron.

“A king must not desert his people in times of crisis" King Daemon said firmly, his voice not leaving any room to discussion. “Though I must admit, you might not be wrong, Maekar"

A frown was etched in his younger son's face, as well as in many others in the room.

“What can you mean, Grandsire?" Valarr dared to question.

“While a King must not desert his people, I believe my duty it is to protect the stability of the Realm." King Daeron stayed silent for a few moments, weighting his options “My heirs must be put at safe. Baelor and Maekar," he turned to look at both his sons, his gaze full with the softness he reserved for them “you shall take your children and travel to Dragonstone effect immediate"

Various complaining voices were heard as soon as King Daeron uttered those words, of course his children did not want to leave him in King's Landing and leave for Dragonstone, they thought him insane.

"We will not leave, Father” Baelor voice was firm “We stay together as a family, you want to send the children away, that is fine" he shared a look with Maekar before nodding “but Maekar and I are staying"

King Daeron smiled at both of his boys as if they were still little, "Oh, but I am not asking as your father, my boys. I am commanding you to leave for Dragonstone as soon as possible.”

Baelor clenched his jaw, he could not go against his King's wishes. Maekar, however, had a very different opinion on the matter. “Fuck that, we are not going anywhere!"

Maekar could instantly hear a lot of chiding around him, he payed them no mind. They should be used to his blunt mouth by now.

“I am your King and I am commanding you to do something, Maekar!" King Daeron’s voice was firmer, staring at his youngest son dead in the eye. "I will not risk you or your children”

“But you will risk yourself!" Maekar threw back at him “You are the Crown, you are the one we must protect!”

“No, I am already old and if I die it would make no difference” King Daeron exclaimed firmly “My sons and grandchildren are the future of the Crown. I need to secure my heirs’ security"

“Make no difference, he says" Maekar murmured in anger “Of course it would make a difference!"

“I am destined to die sooner than later, you still have years on you.” King Daeron's words were firm, coming from a place of utter love "You are to still meet any grandchildren you are gifted with”

"Grandfather, we could stay here, help manage the crisis that is set to come” Valarr said with diplomacy and calm, trying to convince the King.

King Daeron held one hand up, halting anyone's words before they dared to even open their mouths "I have made my mind up” he turned to look at his wife, Queen Myriah "And you shall take your mother with you"

“Absolutely not" Queen Myriah's words were sharp and firm, facing her husband with her chin raised high. “I am staying with you"

"My Dear Sun—”

“Save your sweet words, Daeron. I am staying by your side" Queen Myriah said, cutting off her husband.

After a few moments of staring into her brown eyes, King Daeron finally nodded, knowing there was no way to winning that argument against his wife.

He then turned to address his sons "As for you, my mind has not been changed. I want you and your children to part for Dragonstone in no longer than two days”

King Daeron stood up, a clear signal that the meeting was adjourned, Queen Myriah following him, not before shooting her sons a gentle smile.

Once the heavy doors of the chambers were closed, Maekar turned to glare at Baelor "You cannot agree with him!"

"I don't” Baelor confirmed, a sigh leaving his throat “yet there is nothing that I can do to change his mind"

"You are his Hand, you are supposed to offer him your counsel!” Maekar snapped at him, furious with the arrangements— rather command— their father had set up on them.

Baelor collapsed on a chair, already too tired, with too many thoughts and emotions messing his head "I offered my counsel, but not even I can refuse an order from my King”

Everyone who was still in the Small Council's chambers could see the toll it was taking on both brothers to listen to King Daeron's orders. It was a hard decision, yes, but they could not say they disagreed. Those who had feelings on the line were the ones having a hard time accepting it.

Every Lord knew it was a smart move, having the heirs in safety meant securing safety for the Realm after hard times that were set to come.

"Maybe I could persuade father for me to stay back with them” Maekar murmured deep in thought, more to his brother than to anyone else still in the room "After all, the direct heirs are you and your children”

“I do not think father is going to bend his arm to your will this time, Maekar. Have in mind that his concern is not only for the Realm" Baelor's voice was calm, even if beneath the calmness everything that was feeling at the moment was hiding.

At his brother's words, Maekar left out a heavy groan, knowing he was right. "I despise when you are correct”

“What heaviness of such burned" Baelor murmured, massaging his temples to try to release a bit of the ever growing pressure in his head. “We must prepare, we part for Dragonstone in two days time, as ordered” he said to his brother and eldest son.

With reluctant nods, everyone left the Council's chambers to ready whatever it had to be prepared.

Baelor followed suit, but instead of going to his chambers, he went on towards his solar. He had been avoiding his chambers ever since you left, in his eyes, there was no reason for him to be there if you were not with him.

Besides, his haunting nightmares were persuasion enough to be away from there.

Once in his solar, he took upon himself to respond to matters that had to be tended to. Yes, most of that responsibilities had fallen under Maekar when he was set to leave for Dragonstone to apologize, but since he was not able to follow as planned, he might as well finish them.

He worked on his duties for hours, not stopping to even glance up, he needed to get his mind away from worry and other concerns or he would explode. Besides, it was his way to fight sleep, keeping focus on things that really needed it.

Sooner than later, all those sleepless night caught up to him, leaving him feeling tired and drowsy. He tried to fight against it with all his being, though it was proven impossible.

He started to snooze off on his chair, his hand still holding the quill that he was using to respond to Lord Tyrell’s worrisome letter and soon enough, sleep pulled him to darkness.

…

A dark room. Entirely dark, except for the single lot candle.

It was all Baelor could see, it did not matter if he moved, if he walked; he reached nothing. It was never ending darkness that surrounded him.

He kept walking, looking around, holding the candle. Hoping to reach something, someone, somewhere.

It was futile, there was no one there with him, he was alone.

“Hello? Is there someone here?" Baelor heard himself asking into the silence.

No sound could be heard, even when he kept calling at the darkness.

He kept on walking, hoping to find something more than darkness.

A flickering light caught his eye, it was far but there. It was as if it called his name.

Baelor decided to follow, looking for a clue of where he was. The air around kept him feeling weary and alert, as if waiting for something bad to happen.

Once he got closer to the light, he made sense of the figure; it was an old woman holding a lamp.

She was staring at him under a hood, though he could not see her eyes, he could feel them settled in him.

“Baelor Targaryen" the woman called, her voice firm and void of any gentleness. " You have failed them”

His breath hitched, staring at the woman with fear.

“Them?" he dared ask. He knew who she was referring but curiosity still got the best of him.

She started walking, prompting him with a wave of her hand to follow her. With each step, their surrounding began lightening up, showing light from candles and from the sun.

"You failed them” She said once again when she finally stopped, he could feel her gaze on him again.

The old woman moved, showing to him what she meant for him to see.

In front of him, a heartbreaking picture.

He could recognize the room, it was the chambers were you reside in Ashford Meadow, you were sitting in the bed with a white night gown. There was a handful of people around you but all he could focus on was you.

You, with your hair messed and damped, face flushed. Sweat ran down your face and neck. The looks of you were ones of pain, your brow scrunched up and your breathing labored.

You were screaming something, you were screaming at someone…

“You failed her" The old woman repeated her words once again and Baelor could finally make the resemblance. She was the Crone.

He could recognize her now, the face of the Crone of the Faith of the Seven.

His eyes quickly found your suffering form again, this time, he could hear everything that was happening.

You were screaming in pain and calling for him.

"I need Baelor” you sobbed, screaming in pain.

"Get out! This babe will not be born today!” you cried, doubling from the intense pain that you were feeling.

Baelor's heart was screaming at him to do something, anything, but he could not move, could not do anything.

“I need Baelor" you cried "Bring me Baelor, I need him, please” you begged in desperation.

“I cannot do this without him" you sobbed, groaning in pain.

Baelor took a step forward, wanting to reach for you. "I am here, my love!”

The Crone hold his forearm, stopping him from walking further. “There is nothing you can do for her now”

He gulped the knot in his throat, his eyes shining with unshed tears “Let me hold her, help her, please"

"There is nothing you can do” The voice of the old woman told him once again, firm and cold. “You already failed them, this already happened"

His gaze found your form once again, he could watch the way you cried in agony, fear was palpably taking hold of you “I can't, I can't do this alone" he could hear your painful words.

After torturous minutes, he could heard how they instructed to push, final one, they said. He watched in real time how you brought your beautiful baby girl into the world.

His breath paused in his lungs, his face mirrored yours when he realized there had not been a cry.

“No" he whispered, his voice broken “You have to cry, baby girl. Do it for your mama, she needs you"

He longed for a noise, a fuzz, a cry. It did not come, he could see the Maester and midwives move around, trying to aid the little bundle to breath, to cry. All of it turned to be unsuccessful.

Baelor turned his gaze away from the team working on your daughter, turning to look at you instead. He did not know which scene was more devastating.

He tried, with all his being to reach for you but something kept holding him back, stuck in his place.

Baelor had to watch when they handed you your baby girl, how you had wept and screamed in pain. He could see her now, your baby. Oh, she was beautiful.

“You failed them” the Crone said once again. "You failed them. You failed them, you failed them!”

…

Baelor woke up in a cold sweat, his heart hammering inside his chest while a shiver ran up his spine.

Those dreams kept plaguing his mind every time he fell asleep, even for a few moments.

This exact same dream he did not take slightly, he was more than convinced that it was a way the Gods found to not letting him forget his failings.

Sometimes it was that exact same dream, sometimes it was a dream of you drowning or you throwing yourself from a window.

He had been avoiding sleep as much as he could lately, he did not want to replay your suffering again and again but it was not something he could control. Most of the time he fell asleep when he was too tired to fight it, snoozing off onto his desk or on a chair.

He could not bear it, it was becoming too much for his fragile mind but he knew he had to find it within him to do it. He was not near put through the suffering you were, a right to complain or to quit was not something he had.

He shook off the remaining of sleep that still clawed at him, standing up from the chair he was sitting in and walking to pour himself a cup of Dornish red, it would help him to calm his mind, he hoped.

The headaches were another thing he could not seem to shake since he got back from Ashford Meadow, it always started as something light, merely a bother and then grew to something almost unbearable.

Of course, the nightmares didn't help, on the contrary, his head never failed to hurt when he was startled awake by it.

He hoped that, with time, it all would go away— both nightmares and headaches— but hoping was not the same as making it a reality. He very well doubted he would be able to get rid of it.

…

Everything was ready, at least that was what it appeared. Baelor could not help but feel something nagging at the back of his mind.

He could feel that something was wrong, he could not quite place what it was, but regardless, that feeling had him on edge.

Baelor was observing how everyone readied his things, his parents were staring at them from a distance. Maekar was making sure his children got together and were calm enough to make it to the docks. Valarr and Kiera were holding hands beside him, while Matarys was by his grandmother's side, not too contempt with leaving them behind.

Everything seemed in place, until it wasn't.

He had noticed before, how quickly the sickness was spreading, news of the people of King's Landing falling sick with it were quick to get to them, prompting them to close the castle to anyone until them could make the travel for Dragonstone.

Baelor had hoped it would not get to them, they had been careful, they had. The only thing that was expecting them was Dragonstone and then his sons would be safe, he remained himself as much.

Even then, the pit in his stomach only continued to grow as time kept advancing, he merely brushed it off as his lack of sleep or his prominent headaches. He considered it was some kind of nervousness because he would be in front of you, facing you, sooner than later. It wasn't.

He should have known better, he should.

Valarr had been looking pale since the day before, but again, the matter at hand had them all at the edge of their seats, stress eating at them slowly but surely.

Baelor had thought nothing of the paleness that seemed to cling to his son's skin, he should have been paying attention.

“We are almost ready to depart, my Prince" Ser Donnel informed Baelor, nodding respectfully.

Baelor nodded back, his mind mostly preoccupied "Yes. Thank you, Ser Donnel"

Time passed progressively quick, while the ones set to travel said their goodbyes and tried not to hard to think about what it meant leaving the reigning monarchs behind, the health of one of their own kept decaying without anyone to notice.

It was not until said person fell to the floor, in a fit of coughs he could not longer hold back that everyone got to the gruesome realization of what the sickness truly meant; something horrifyingly scary.

Everyone present tried to make their way to help the one fallen, yet he raised a hand in midst of his coughing fit "Do not—”

“Valarr" Baelor tried to help his oldest son “Let us—"

"No!” he coughed again, forcing himself to stand on shaking legs "I will not have you get sick” he wheezed as the cough threatened to make him fall again.

Baelor wanted to cry, he wanted to drop to his knees and ask for the Gods’ forgiveness, ask them to let him pay his dues, to spare his family.

His first born, his son that most resembled him, his baby was sick, and there was nothing he could do to make it better.

Finally he understood what the Crone kept telling him in his dreams.

You failed them

And sadly, he had not only failed you, but everyone around him.

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©yawnlovescookies.

Baelor is always protective in that specific way that doesn’t make you feel stupid or irresponsible. It’s the same when he explains something to you – doesn’t matter if it’s exactly  his interest or something that you imagine you should already know – he never makes you feel bad. He never lectures, he just suggests and asks. Not because he thinks he knows better… Well, even if he does, it’s not better than you, just better than others, better than the world. After all, in his age, he doesn’t have that much faith in the world anymore. He finds himself to be some sort of a protector, apparently. You and the world with him in between, it seems.

Somehow, when the heavy summer and heatwaves hit, his protective nature grows thicker. Usually, it even makes you chuckle, and the smile on your face brings up one of his as well. It makes him realize that perhaps he’s treating some burned skin like the end of your life, and he panics inside a bit too much. Usually. Sometimes he’s so serious that you can literally feel his anxiety in the air.

Still, he worries that you'll get burned. Prepare for Baelor buying you every cosmetic with SPF that you could manage to think of. He’s restless in asking you to move from the sun into the shadow, reminding you to drink and everything.

Funnily, he seems to be unbothered by the heat himself most of the time. As long as the weather doesn’t turn in something truly hell-ish, he actually enjoys it. And honestly? There is nothing more beautiful than seeing his calm face, a bit tired but happy, in the light of a golden hour after the deathly heat goes away.

Perhaps he just forced himself to accept the weather and suffer inside because he refuses to change his quite elegant style…

Even though he works in an office, he tans pretty quickly himself. It often makes him look like a man who has an outside job. You’d swear he blushes when you tease him about it, mentioning how attractive he looks. Like a hot blue collar husband. It’s hard not to stare when he wears short sleeves or shows off his arms in the rolled up button-ups he loves so much.

Again, he never lectures, but that being said, he is also awfully strict about drinking alcohol in the sun. He won’t hear out any explanations, any assurances that you’re fine, until you move inside or take cover. He can’t stop you, of course, but prepare for him to stare like he could actually influence you with the strengths of his mind and complain, insist and talk, talk talk… It’s for his peace of mind, after all, so why wouldn’t you calm him and finish your wine or other drink indoors?

Baelor loves watching you rest on a beach or somewhere near the water. Perhaps you have a trip to a lake with his sons. They would surely get lost somewhere with their friends, leaving the two of you to yourself. He can spot when the sound of the water and soft conversations makes your eyelids heavy.

He picks you up with particular carefulness, scoping you in his arms, to carry you off the beach and off the heavy sun. 

Speaking about vacations and free days…

You know those videos that compare young couples’ behaviour and those who've been together for 10+ years? Baelor doesn't mind both. He is a romantic soul, surely, he likes meaningful gestures, but what he loves the most is seeing you enjoying yourself. And if by that you mean playing in the hotel's pool then, hell, so be it.

Prepare for Baelor taking many, and I mean many, pictures of you.

With all his sense of injustice in the world and the weight that he carries, Baelor has trouble sleeping that seems to get worse in the summer. It's not rare that you wake up to him prompted on his elbow, watching you carefully with a gentle smile as if it was the only sight that could calm him and the sheets kicked down to his feet. Or you find the place by your side to be empty. There is something deeply gracious in the way Baelor sat on the balcony. He stares somewhere in the dark, clearly his thoughts making the look more interesting. He appreciated it every time you get out of bed and slide into his lap.

Even more if he can feel the skin of your back against his bare chest. Skin to skin, palms slowly moving to caress and trace.

Strangely, you think that those short, awful nights during the heatwave bring something depressive in your older boyfriend. 

If he stays with you in the bed, you can find him sitting with his back against the wall and head thrown to the side a bit. His beautiful features are lit either by the moon or dim in the darkness, somehow in pain or worry as if he was forced to bear it all alone. “Just a headache,” he’ll mutter when you ask or throw some other easy explanation. Like, he was thinking about the non-fiction book he just finished, and it will lead him into hours of soft conversation with you.

Even when you're in your apartment or when Valarr is out for the night you both speak in hushed voices. It’s an unnecessary habit that provides some unexplainable comfort. And if it does, then why get rid of it?

Sometimes you think that seeing you so miserable actually provides him some entertainment. You would think it’s cruel if he wasn’t so damn smooth about it.

“Does my baby want some distraction from this suffering?” He asks and your breath hitch because you know that voice. The sound of it is somehow even more steady than usually, quiet and warm. Still, you did not expect the feeling of his rough beard rubbing over the skin of your inner thighs. You didn’t really comprehend the situation until he was pressing his tongue into your core and mouthing. He let you feel the groan that left his throat when you ran your fingers through his hair. “Do it again,” he asked, no, ordered hoarsely. God, you thought of something else but you weren’t complaining. It was surely rather distracting.

One day you stumble upon an animal locked in a car in the parking lot and, god, you don't even have to mutter any word of worry because your boyfriend is already on it. He is a very rational person but in moments like this he turns into the calmest version of rage known to men. His face shows a deep grimace, his voice turns even quieter but certainly more rough. As if he screamed before and now suffered from a sore throat.

You saw the focus in his eyes and the worry when he instructed you how to help. After contacting the local services and no sign of the owner around, you both decided that there's no other option than to get inside no matter what. With a brush over your back Baelor tells you to step away then rolls up his sleeves and picks up a big rock. He crashes the window with the skill of someone who did it before even though he swears he never did.

He's even more furious if the owner decides to show up eventually. The person snaps at you, trying to get the animal curled up in your arms back, and Baelor almost loses his mind. Well, that's at least how he sees it because on the outside he's still a picture of calmness. Only you could see something was wrong by how his hands shook a bit, his forehead frowned and eyes were adorned by more wrinkles. “Don’t worry, darling,” you mutter to him, “we will wait until the police get here, no need to get mad.”

“I know,” he grunts before apologizing for getting mad when he makes sure you are far enough from the idiotic owner. “They almost hit you, though…” he pointed out with his jaw clenched as if you didn’t see the fist going your way yourself. “I’m lucky you were there, yes? I’m perfectly fine,” you assure and he nods.

Yeah, consider yourself new animal owners after this! Imagine Baelor sitting still for hours because the pet rests their head on his lap or chest and he refuses to move and disturb it…

Park picnic dates where he reads to you!

He also makes sure to ask and plead for you not to go on your runs and training in the biggest sun. “I will lock you in the bathroom,” he threatens jokingly when you rolled your eyes.  “Please, my love. You can go in the evening when it's colder,” he tries to reason. “But I will be too lazy to go in the evening…” you complain, “also… it will be dark. Do you want me wandering around in the–” Baelor cuts in before you can finish. “Of course not. I will go with you. Is that alright?” That makes you smile brightly. “More than that. Who am I to turn down the chance of seeing you all sweaty and…”

He chuckles deeply, but you don’t fail to notice a faint blush on his cheeks. His lips brush your collarbone as he breathes in your scent. “Yes, likewise, dear.”

This is how it started: you leaving your keys in the fridge and the milk by the key stand; you waking him up in the middle of the night because you couldn’t remember the way to the bathroom; you forgetting little things, dates and appointments and reminders. Things that most people wouldn’t give a second thought. 

            But then it got worse. Then it became you crying in the middle of the night because you didn’t remember the way to the bathroom and it took too much time and eventually it was too late. It became him running the shower and helping you clean up, fresh pajamas and soothing words. It became a million things and he knew. He came to understand that your mind was forgetting, fading. That your life was becoming a million Polaroid photos that were slowly disappearing, fading, only imprints until nothing. 

            It started with simple things, but it became everything. 

            It became the day you got married, the day your sons were born. It became your birthday. It became your sons. It became him. 

            It became your life erasing itself. 

            And he was there, all the while, falling to pieces, watching as he was erased from you while you remained, forever in him. 

            “I’ll remember everything you no longer can,” he would whisper to you when you were asleep, the light turned off. “I’ll hold onto it all even when you can’t.”

            The day was warm, the sun was bright and the streets were crowded. Too crowded, bodies crushed together, the fabric of each other’s coats and clothes rubbing on one another’s skin. Baelor hates these kinds of days, the ones where everyone seems to all be going to the same place. 

            “Yes, Dad,” he says, the phone held to his ear, the tray of coffees held in both hands, the phone held to his ear by a bent neck and popped shoulder. “I understand the details and, yes,” he pauses, dodging around a pedestrian who has stopped in front of him. “I have the coffee.”

            “Get here quick,” his father says, tone curt, abrupt, no doubt something else, something more important has been brought to his attention. He opens his mouth to say something, anything that would make him sound like less of an idiot, but nothing seems to come to mind before the beep echoes in his ear. 

            Call ended. 

            He shifts the coffees to his other hand, pulling his phone from the vice of his shoulder, slipping it into the pocket of his slacks, returning his hand to the cardboard tray, the rough kind of cardboard that pills and peels while scraping against the soft skin of your hand. 

            “’Scuse me!” he hears a voice behind him. “Coming through!” The voice is one that seems to stop his heart, a sound like that of something that he has to hear more of, that he can’t let slip away. It feels strange and when he gives voice to it, it sounds even stranger in his head, but he glances back over his shoulder, looking, looking, looking. 

            He scans the crowds of hunched down bodies, people busy, going places, his eyes falling on you. You stride through the crowd, a tied-up band shirt and flowy skirt on, leather heeled boots clicking on the cracking concrete sidewalk, a cardboard cup of coffee with a protective sleeve on it in one hand, the other holding a briefcase. You’re an unusual sight to him, someone trendy and hip yet holding two things that to him and his experience with the corporate crowd, signals a corporate job. 

            “Get out of my way!” you cry, pushing through the crowd with both hands, moving people aside, steps rushed and hurried, the metronome of your boots on the sidewalk speeding up and speeding up. 

            “Do you need some help?!” he calls out to you across the crowd of people, the veritable sea that holds you back from him. He watches as you glance over at him, lips curving into a small smile as you nod, eyes tracing him. He wonders what you make of him, in his button-up shirt, the one with the top buttons popped, a bit of his chest exposed, the shirt tucked into plain beige slacks, shoes that of simple patent leather ones.

            “Always,” you tell him and he likes the smile in your voice. He likes the way you smile, he likes the way you speak. You make it sound like forever exists as crazy as that is. He crosses through the crowd of people, muttering apologies when he bumps into people, heading to you. 

            “What do you need help with?”

            “Two hands are better than one for pushing people out of the way, don’t you think?” The smile you give him is one he wants to see forever. It’s one that shines brighter than any sun, any star or moon or anything because it’s unique. It’s yours. 

            “I’m Baelor,” he says, holding out one hand to, noticing the sheen of sweat on it and the pilled bits of cardboard. He pulls it back, wiping it off on his slacks before presenting it to you again, a sheepish kind of look crossing his face, but all you do is smile and accept it, shaking it in a way that is vigorous and gentle at the same time before whispering your own name.

            “Well, Bae,” you say and he can feel his heart stop at the way you shorten his name right away, as if you know him. As if it’s easy to care for him, easy to be near him. “What do you say we get these people out of our way?”

            “She doesn’t remember us,” Valarr hisses, his face creased in sorrow as he watches you move through the room, watches the way your face is creased with confusion as you look over every detail, fingers trailing over all the surfaces as if you’re walking in a dream. “How can you stay?”

            “How could I leave?” Baelor replies and his son, his eldest, turns to look at him, mismatched eyes that you would call wolf’s eyes, ones that matched his own, gleaming with tears. 

            “She’s forgetting everything, Dad,” Valarr whispers, his face cracking the way it always did, the way it always has. He stays stoic like a statue for the most part, but when he cracks…he shatters. “I’m watching my mother disappear.”

            “I’m watching myself get erased, but I will never leave her,” he tells his son, his eyes finding you, your body frozen in the centre of the living room, eyes trained on the large wedding picture he had insisted on having. 

            “That’s…me,” you whisper, your hand reaching up, ghosting over the image of yourself, the smile on your face and the way your hair is messy, blown by the high wind that happened that day. “And that’s…Baelor…but,” you turn to him, your perfect eyes that always gleamed with understanding and intelligence, now gleaming with confusion, with tears, “but we’re not married yet. How does this picture exist?”

            “Don’t you remember, love?” he says, his voice quavering as he watches you turn to him, confusion in your eyes, a confusion so strong, so potent that it’s painful to both you and him. “Baelor wanted you to take pictures early, just in case the weather was bad on the day.”

            “Oh,” you whisper, looking down at your hands, the ones that are twining and twisting together, rings on the fingers, but not the right ones. “It must have slipped my mind.” Those words ring through the house, the truth of just how much slipping from your mind sitting in the room with you, watching you with tears in eyes, vision blurry from the erasure of themselves from someone who should never have had to forget them. 

            Baelor can feel that thickening of his throat, the one that threatens tears, that threatens sobs, things he’s long since stopped giving attention too, things he’s long since stopped doing because they don’t help anything. They don’t make anything better; they don’t give you your memory back. 

            “Did I ever tell you,” he whispers, his voice husky with the tears growing in his eyes, lining and blurring his sight, “how I met your mother, Valarr?” He looks over at his son, taking in the way his eyes have never left your form, never left the hallway that you disappeared down, face cracking like a little boy still waiting for his mother to walk through the door for his birthday. Even when she never will. 

            “No, Dad,” Val whispers, eyes still trained on the hallway, waiting, waiting, waiting for a day that will never come again. “You haven’t.”

            “Well,” Baelor sighs, shifting in his seat, looking down at his hands where they rest on his lap, fingers interlaced, his ring on the proper finger, still tethering him to you. He doesn’t want to lose you even though he knows he already is, is watching the woman that he knew slowly disappear, a person erasing themselves every minute of every day with every forgotten word and memory and lapse of judgement. “It was a morning and the sidewalk was crowded,” even now, he can feel the press of people, the rough cardboard in his hand from the drink tray, the pilling of it on his skin, “and I’m just off a call with my father, he’s irritated and I’m slipping my phone back in my pocket when this…this voice cuts through the air, telling people to get out of their way.”

            “Mom,” Valarr says and Baelor looks at him, at the young boy looking at him with eyes that are far too serious for a boy his age. “It was her, right?”

            “Yes,” Baelor whispers, the image of you pushing past people with that flowy skirt flashing before him, superimposing over the image of the living room as if you of the 90s is right there before him. “And I called out to her, asking if she needed help and she said always. I cut through the crowd to her and helped her get people out of her way and then…then she was running down the street, her flowy skirt behind her, tangling with her legs as she ran and I…I followed her…and I have been following her every day since. How could I leave her now?”

            “Dad,” Valarr whispers, but he doesn’t get any more words out, instead dissolving into tears, sobs that crack his body over and over. Baelor stands, walking over and settling beside his son on the couch, pulling him against him and just holding him, his tears soaking through his shirt. 

            “I know, son,” he whispers, one hand rubbing circles on his back, the other resting on the back of his head like he’s done since he was a child. “I know.”

            Baelor is nervous, impossibly nervous, as he smooths out his shirt for the fifth time, straightening his tie for the seventh time and checking his fly for the eighth time. He has exactly ten minutes before he needs to get in the car and drive to your house to pick you up for the date and he’s nervous. 

            The kind of nervous that ties your stomach into knots and makes your palms all sweaty, your head all dizzy and your mouth dry like a dozen cotton balls have been shoved inside. It’s the kind of nervous that sinks into your bones and your veins making your very blood seem fizzy and your lungs just two pools of fire, every breath burning as your mind races, races, races like a hamster on a wheel with nowhere to go. 

            It’s the kind of nervousness that is the reason he doesn’t hear his phone until the fifth ring and then the kind that has him diving for it, where it sits on his dresser, your number flashing on the blue screen. 

            “Hello?!” he says, his voice high-pitched, slightly squeaky, but all the way nervous. “Is…is something wrong?”

            “Kind of,” he hears you say, your voice just slightly tinny. “I’m finding that I’m really nervous sitting here with all this time so…are you busy?”

            “Uh—n-no,” he says, his voice more of a squeak than anything else. “Do you…do you, uh, want me to pick you up now?”

            “Yeah,” you say, drawing out the syllables, your nervousness shining over the phone, soothing something inside of Baelor. 

            “I’ll be right there,” he promises, sprinting from his room to the mudroom of his apartment, pulling on his jacket and shoving his keys into the pocket, the phone still held to his ear, your light, breathy chuckle still echoing through his head. That is a sound he’d like to have recorded on a CD, one that he could play repeatedly, pressing the play button whenever the CD reached its end. 

            “Stay on the line?” you ask, the question so simple and yet so much that he can feel his palms get all sweaty again, his head get all fuzzy. 

            “Of course,” he vows and then he’s sprinting from the door, keys fumbling in his hand, slipping through his sweaty fingers when he tries to lock his door. He takes a deep breath, trying to do so quietly, the phone still held to his ear with one hand as he bends down, lifting the keys up, metal clicking against metal from the nervous tremble in his hand as he slides the teeth into the lock, twisting it, blowing the breath out as quietly as he can. 

            “It’s okay to be nervous, you know,” he hears you say, your voice calmer than it was when he answered the phone. “I think it means you like me a lot if you are.”

            “I do!” he blurts out, voice too loud for the narrow hallway, his cheeks burning as he tucks his keys back into his pocket and taking off down the hall, to the stairs, taking them two at a time, running as fast as he dares, wanting to reach you, see you. 

            He wants to see your smile. 

            “Me too,” you tell him and he swears his heart stops right there, in that moment, in the dim, dark stairwell of his apartment building, sneakers scuffing against the dirt-stained honeycomb tiled stairs. 

            But then it starts again when you whisper, “and I can’t wait to see you.”

            You are both the cause of his life and his death. His beloved paradox. 

            Baelor feels like everything inside of him is stopping, just ending. It’s not easy this life, caring for a wife who can barely remember her own name, let alone anything else in her life. Let alone him or their sons, their young sons. 

            It’s not easy caring for the woman he fell for, the woman who was always standing at the door, holding out his keys or his coffee, or whatever else he had forgotten, when you’re disappearing. You always remembered what he couldn’t, his mind never one for holding onto details and yet it is you who is cursed to lose that memory. 

            You were the one who held onto every detail and now he must be the one who holds onto them for you. Because you are forgetting everything and he is not. He cannot. 

            He remembers when you first noticed something was wrong, when you kept losing your keys. You came to him and asked to see the doctor; you told him something was wrong. Very, very wrong. You asked to see the doctor because you didn’t trust yourself enough to book the appointment yourself. 

            He remembers, watching you as you shift in your sleep, whispered words slipping past your lips, how you were when the doctor told you. 

            “You mean,” you had whispered, “I’m going to lose it all? Every bit of it? My life?”

            “Unfortunately,” the doctor replied. “I wish there was a different prognosis, I wish I had a different answer, but I don’t. It will start small, like it has, leaving your keys for example in strange places, forgetting dates and appointments and names of people you’ve met but don’t really know. Then…it will progress. It will get worse and worse. You won’t remember the faces of your loved ones, you won’t remember your life. You’ll lose words, you won’t remember…some patients forget how to do daily things…like brushing their teeth or…eating. We find that people with early-onset such as you…progress faster, but every case is variable.”

            “How long before I forget myself entirely?” you asked, your hand squeezing Baelor’s so tightly, just like when you gave birth to Valarr, forgoing the epidural because you didn’t think it would help. 

            “I can’t tell you,” the doctor said, “because every case is different, but…an estimate, perhaps, one, maybe two years.”

            “And when that happens? What do we do?” The doctor had looked at you and then at him, eyes shadowed before shrugging and sighing. 

            “A home,” they had said. “I would recommend putting you in a home with people who know how to care for you. It’s not easy on you to be surrounded by things you can’t remember. We find patients get aggressive, sometimes violent, especially when they can’t remember the right words or…any. It’s also not easy on your caregivers,” they had nodded at him, their lips pressing into a thin-lipped, sympathetic smile, “because you’re forgetting them and they love you but they’re forced to watch you disappear. A home supplies you with the care you need and care that has no emotional history.”

            “And my sons?” you asked. “Will they have this?”

            “There is a test we can do, one we can run. It’s a genetic test that will tell us if they’ll develop it or not. They may or may not develop it, it’s not cut and dry.” You had insisted on bringing Valarr and Matarys in, pulling Matarys out of high school for the afternoon and Valarr drove down that weekend to take the test. 

            Valarr’s was negative. Matarys’ was positive.

            The guilt you had had in that moment was the first time that Baelor was ever glad for your diagnosis because as you forgot them all, you would forget the guilt you felt over passing it on to him, of giving him a legacy of living a life he’ll never remember. 

            “I don’t want to forget you,” you had sobbed that night, your body curled into his, the two of you laying on the bed. “I don’t want to forget our life.”

            “Then here’s what we’ll do,” he’d told you. “You tell me everything you want to remember and we’ll have Matarys write it into a story. One I can read to you when you’ve forgotten.”

            “What about Matarys? What can we do for him?” 

            “I’ll make him a book. My remembrances of him, Valarr can add what he wants and in the next few days…you can tell me what you want him to remember of you, okay?”

            “I’m going to lose my entire life,” you’d whispered, “but that’s not the worst part.”

            “What is?” he’d asked, drawing you closer and tucking the comforter tighter around you. 

            “Knowing that my son will forget his life, forget me and you and his brother and anything he does…because Igave him that.”

            “But you gave him life, period,” he’d said and you pulled your head off his chest, looking at him, a single tear slipping down your cheek. 

            “He’ll never remember.”

            “Neither will you.”

            The ring box is heavy in his pocket, heavy from the weight of what he’s about to ask you. He’s fallen in love with you, steadily and surely over this past year. He’s fallen for the way you fall asleep, slowly and cautiously before falling all at once. 

            He’s fallen for the way you laugh and the way you smile. The way you say his name and call him Bae. The way you dance and pull him along with you. The way you’ve seemed to fall seamlessly into his family as if you were always there. 

            The way you love him. 

            “Bae?” you call out and he swallows hard on reflex, his hand drifting back to his pocket, hand flexing over it for a moment before he turns around, turns to you, orienting himself like you’re his North Star. “What’s up? I got your text.”

            “Can you sit down, please?” he asks, his tone stiff, awkward. Overly formal. He knows before he sees you that, hears you, that’s it’s come out all wrong, sounding like something is wrong. 

            “What’s up?” you say as you step towards the table, stepping on your tiptoes as if you’re trying to make your steps soundless, to take up less sound and space. Your voice is wavery, quivering just slightly. 

            “I have a…I have a very important question,” he says as you sit down on the dining room chair that you like, the one that doesn’t match any of the others, the one you picked up at a flea market, loving the way the mahogany was carved to form spines, dragons carved on the very top as the handle. A very Targaryen chair, you’d said. 

            “Alright,” you tell him, your one leg coming over the other, hands interlocking around the knee, barefoot jiggling in the air. “Out with it, love.”

            “Um,” he swallows hard, sinking down before you on knee, pulling the small dark red velvet box from his pocket, holding it before you in one hand, the other hovering, waiting to open it. “I love you. And…well…I mean, I really love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you so…do you want to spend the rest of your life with me?” He opens the box, the ring he’d spent ages picking out resting in the midst of the crushed velvet bed, a silver band carved with scales and a dark blue diamond nestled in the centre, surrounded by smaller rubies. 

            “Holy shit!” you cry, your voice not a yell, more a whispered exclamation, your hands clamping down on your mouth as you look at the ring. He can feel heat rising inside of him, rising from his neck to his cheeks to his ears as you stay silent, relieved that his beard covers the blush for the most part. His heart pounds so loudly he can hear it, the only sound he hears until your voice whispers, “a thousand times yes.”

            And then he sighs, a sigh so long and loud and hard that it makes you giggle, a light silvery peal as he pulls the ring from the box, sliding it onto your finger as you pull him up, pressing a kiss against his lips, one hard and fast and rough. 

            “Where’s Baelor?” you call out, your voice high-pitched and angry, worried. Scared. “Where am I?!” He blinks his eyes open, taking in the living room, your form just above him, arms wrapped around your stomach as if you’re holding yourself together. 

            “You’re…” he pauses, at a loss for words, the digital clock reflecting 3:00 AM at him, in blinking green numerals. His mind is foggy with sleep and he wants to just hold you, to hold you against him like he used to, fall asleep with your body beside him. He doesn’t sleep well anymore without you beside him. 

            “WHERE AM I?!” Your scream is loud and earth-shattering this early in the morning, but of course it is, because here you stand in a room you don’t remember, looking at an old man you can’t remember. At him. 

            “You’re at my house,” he says, pushing up from the couch, his bones and back protesting the movement. “I’m a friend of your father’s. You’re in town because Baelor’s going to be in town but all the hotels were booked so you called me.” He watches as you calm down, wherever in time you are, returning. 

            “Oh,” you whisper, looking around at the living room, down at your body, the clothes that aren’t what you would have worn before the children. “Did I forget my pajamas?”

            “Yes,” he says. “My wife…she lent you her clothes, but she…” he can feel the tears in his throat because you are his wife, yet you cannot remember. “She had to go visit her mother. Her mother’s sick.”

            “Oh,” you said again, your brows drawing together. “Could you help me back to my room? I seem…I seem to have forgotten the…the…” he can see the frustration growing on your face, the way you can’t remember the words. 

            “The way?” he asks and it’s like sunlight breaking through clouds. 

            “Yes! The way,” you cry and he nods, standing and offering you his arm which you take, your touch still the one he remembers, the callouses on your hands in exactly the same places. It’s like he expects your body to have changed and erased and smoothed over, just like your mind. He feels when you stop, pausing on the stairs, pausing at the one photo he’s forgotten to take down. “Is that—”

            “It’s not anything important,” he says, but his heart isn’t in the words because yes, it is important. It is you laying in a hospital bed, holding Valarr close to you, smiling at the camera, your beautiful, perfect eyes, the ones you passed onto Matarys, gleaming with pride amid exhaustion. 

            “It’s me,” you whisper, your hand reaching out to ghost over the image, pausing at Valarr. “My son…” you turn to him and he can see the light in your eyes and he’s reminded why he refuses to leave. Because of these moments, where you come back to him. “Baelor,” you whisper and then you’re there, your hands reaching for his face, thumbs tracing over his cheekbones, fingers trailing across his beard. 

            You look at him like you know him and for one precious moment, you do. You remember him. 

            “I remember you,” you whisper, your voice breaking, tears slipping down your cheeks as you look at him. “But I won’t for much longer.”

            “I know,” he whispers, his hands coming to rest atop yours. “But I’ll remember even you can’t.”

            He thinks he’s died and gone to heaven when you step through the doors of the chapel, a bouquet of blue lilies in your hands, bound together with a lacy red cloth, your dress white and perfect, pearl beads lining the bodice, lining the break between it and the full skirt. You father walks with you, guiding you towards the altar where Baelor waits, heart in his throat. 

            “Hi,” you whisper, letting go of your father’s arm and stepping up onto the altar, stepping up towards him. 

            “Hello,” he replies, his lips curving up in a smile at the way you look, a tiara on your head in place of a veil. You’d said that veils were just more trouble than they were they worth. Personally, he prefers the tiara, the crown because it’s a sign today that you’re his queen. Except that being the most powerful piece on the chessboard puts you in danger. 

            And you are the one thing he will never sacrifice. 

            Will never lose. 

            He doesn’t realize yet that sometimes things happen that you cannot control. 

            “Dearly beloved,” the minister says, his voice loud, echoing over the crowd. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the union between these two people, to celebrate their love.”

            Baelor thinks the love will always last. 

            But sometimes love has to fade. 

            Matarys is just standing there at the stage, looking lost, waiting for his turn, yet not seeming to be there at all. Baelor knows this isn’t what he wanted, what he expected, that now he lives with a burden on his shoulders, a shadow over his life. He’s living a life he’ll never remember with no idea when the timer will run out. 

            He looks out over the crowd and Baelor sits up straighter, hoping that his son will see him, that he’ll be enough, but he knows he won’t, the seat beside him holding not Matarys’ mother, not you, but his brother. 

            Baelor watches as his son’s face cracks open just as the principal announces him, announces Matarys Targaryen, Valedictorian.

            “Hi,” he says when he’s at the podium, hands gripping the sides of the podium so tightly that it looks like his hands are breaking, knuckles popping through skin. “My name is Matarys and many of you know me, but not many of you know me. Two years ago, my mother was diagnosed with…” he pauses, swallowing hard and Baelor can feel the tears slip down his own cheeks, heart squeezing. “With Early-onset Alzheimer’s. Over the course of these two years, I have learned a lot, watching my mother disappear. 

            “One of the things I have learned is that loving someone is not a burden, but a miracle. Because there are days when my mother comes back and she looks at me, not with vacant eyes but with eyes that see. And she knows me. There are days though, when she yells, when she screams. When she doesn’t remember. I have watched her forget her name; I have watched her forget words and heard her speak in the most basic of sentences. I have watched the woman who taught me to read, to spell, to speak, disappear. 

            “But I have also witnessed a miracle. Because with everything she has forgotten, somehow, someway, she has never completely forgotten the idea of my father. And he has not left her. He says he won’t. And that is a miracle to me because most people would leave, would send her to a home but he doesn’t. He won’t give up on her yet. 

            “We know that one day she’ll reach a point where we can’t care for her, but that’s not today. Today…we watched her feed herself and dress herself, only needing some assistance on the buttons. Today, we watched her smile at the story of my birth. Today, I heard a letter that she wrote me for today two years ago. And it’s what I want to share because I know my fate is the same as my mother’s, that one day I will forget all of this. I will forget myself. But that’s today and I think, all of you, need to hear what she told me. A bit of it. 

            “So, here it is: my son, today you’re graduating and I will not be there. I will be gone. Not physically but I will be gone. Because I will not remember and what is living, but remembering? It’s hard, forgetting my life, harder than I thought. Because even when you don’t remember, you know. You know that you’ve lost something. You know that something is gone and that you cannot get it back. You know that you’re losing things. 

            “You know you’re losing everything. And I am sorry that what I have given is a life that you will not remember, but what consolation I can give you is that everyone else will. I may be forgetting my life, everything I ever lived, ever did, but everyone else will remember even when I can’t. Your brother will remember me as his mother and your father, he’ll remember everything that he was there for. I have friends who will remember my part in their stories so I will not be gone. It will be like I am dead but you will remember for as long as you can and I hope, oh I hope, that you find someone who is willing to remember everything for you. 

            “It’s not an easy road to travel losing everything. But it’s not a lonely road either, just the ending is. But I started this saying, what is life but remembering and while that may be true in some way, it is not the most truthful thing I could have said. Here is the real truth, what is life but finding people who are willing to carry what you cannot? Find your people, hold them close and don’t let them go, don’t push them away. Because you’ll need them. Even if you could remember everything you ever saw, you need other people to help share that weight. You can’t do it alone. Life isn’t meant to be lived alone. It’s meant to be shared.

            “Those were the words of my mother, a woman who even forgetting herself puts everyone else first. So, my friends, my classmates, what do I want you to take away from this? I want you to remember that while life can change in an instant, it doesn’t have to end. Find your people who will help carry your burden. Help remember you. Find the people who won’t leave you. That’s the best advice, I could ever give you.” And as Matarys walks down the stage, his face tear-streaked, applause deafening, all Baelor can think is a small letter to the woman who once was and never will be again. 

            He graduated today, honey. He graduated and spoke only of you, of your strength. You’d be so proud.

            He can almost convince himself that he heard you answer, whispering I always am. 

            “You know,” you whisper, looking over your shoulder at Baelor, your hand rubbing absent-mindedly on your belly, the bump that now protrudes, “I don’t even know them and I already love them. More than they’ll ever know.”

            Baelor can feel tears in his eyes, a thickness in his throat as he steps up to your, his hand joining yours, the small baby kicking against your stomach, the motion echoing through his hand. 

            “Me too,” he whispers and you turn your head, smiling at him with a watery, proud smile. 

            “And I’m so proud of them,” you whisper and he can feel his brows knit together, his breath catch and heart rate change. 

            “For what?”

            “For living. For being here. They’re my child and I’m proud of them because I can be. And I will be proud of them as long as I live.”

            “…and when she held the baby in her arms, her other child, her young son peering at her, eyes wide, she felt something she’d never felt before. Not complete, but changed. She felt like something had been missing and then slotted into place, her shape changing, re-aligning. She could feel a kind of love she’d never felt before and when she looked over at the man, her husband, asleep in the chair beside her bed, a line of drool on his chin, drying white against the black of his beard, she laughed.

            “She laughed because it was so perfect and she was seeing it all for the first time almost. She felt something that ever mother feels, the feeling that your children are everything and even if you cannot remember them, that love is not something anything can erase. It’s on your heart, always,” Baelor pauses, looking at you curled up in bed, blankets tucked in around you, your head leaning against the headrest. 

            He has no choice now but to place you in a home. You can no longer speak in full sentences, sometimes struggle to eat and dress and shower and he can’t help you. You’ve slapped him before and he knows that he just makes it harder for you. But he wasn’t lying a year ago when he told Valarr that he’d follow you anywhere. 

            He’ll visit you every day at the home, never leaving you alone, without him. He can’t. 

            “What do you think this story’s about?” he asks you and he knows that it will not be a sentence, but a single word, words on their own all you are capable of, but he’s curious. He wants to know if any part of you remains true. 

            “Me,” you say, the motion strange and sound oddly elongated, but real. True. 

            And it’s enough because as you look at him with glimmering eyes, the ones that glimmered with pride and joy with the boys, he sees you. 

            His you. 

            The one he remembers for.

            “Promise me something, Bae,” you whisper to him now, voice urgent. He knows you feel strange, that you’ve been forgetting things lately, but he’s not worried. He knows you. 

            “Anything,” he says, adjusting the hem of his shirt as he climbs onto the bed beside you, pulling you against him. 

            “Promise me that if I—” you break off, voice cracking as you draw in a deep breath, shaking your head just slightly before looking back at him, eyes glimmering with desperation, “if I forget, you’ll remember for me.”

            “I promise,” he says and you shake your head, poking one finger into his chest. 

            “Say it.”

            “I’ll remember everything you no longer can. I’ll remember whatever you can’t for you.” You relax against him and he relaxes with you, unaware that it is a promise he will uphold. 

            A promise that he’ll say, every day, until you both are gone. 

Because the last time you had been at a party and ended up drunk with Daeron, Maekar knew what happened. His jaw made that specific movement at remembering that the mole on your right underboob was common knowledge for both Daeron and him.

He did not want a repeat of that exact sequence of risk, even though the outcome had ultimately worked out in his favour years later. Mostly because he did not believe in pressing his luck twice.

"Fine," he'd said. Flatly. "I'll drive."

"You don't have to come in," you'd said.

"I'm coming in," he'd said, in the tone of a man who had already lost this argument with himself and was simply informing you of the result.

Which was how Maekar found himself standing against the wall of a club at eleven-thirty at night, arms crossed, wearing a black button-up that he had clearly put some thought into despite his ongoing and vocal disapproval of the entire evening, looking like a man personally offended by the bass-boosted music.

"You look thrilled," you said, handing him a water you'd bought him without being asked.

"I look like a man in a club," he flatlined his voice.

"Same thing, with you."

The almost-smile. Brief. Gone before you could enjoy it.

Daeron appeared with two drinks, deposited one in your hand, and surveyed his father with the expression of a man assessing a situation for comedic potential. "He's been standing like that for twenty minutes," he reported. "Like a bouncer who hates the bar."

"I'm doing you both a favour," Maekar said.

"You're doing yourself a favour," Daeron said. "You'd have spent the whole night at home wondering if we were dead in a ditch. Or worse."

Maekar didn't dispute this, which was as close to a confession as he was likely to offer.

You drank your drink. Daeron drank his. Maekar stood against the wall radiating the specific energy of a man counting down the minutes until he could reasonably suggest leaving, and you looked at his sour expression and felt a small, specific, entirely deliberate idea begin to form.

You looked at Daeron. Daeron, who knew that look, grinned immediately.

"Oh, we're doing this," he said.

"We're absolutely doing this," you smiled widely.

The plan, such as it was, required very little explanation, because Daeron had been waiting his entire adult life for an excuse to mess with his father and required no convincing whatsoever. You had to admit, as Maekar's eyes followed his son, that the kid had courage.

You pulled him onto the dance floor. Close. Closer than strictly necessary for two people who were, definitionally, just friends — your back to his chest, his hands loosely at your hips in the universal gesture of platonic dance-floor chaos, both of you grinning at each other like co-conspirators, because you were.

You did not look at Maekar.

You didn't have to. You felt it. The specific quality of attention from across the room, the bass thudding and the lights moving and underneath all of it the very distinct sensation of being watched by someone whose patience was finite and currently being tested on purpose.

Daeron spun you, laughing, entirely too pleased with himself. "He's physically vibrating," he reported, over the music. "I can see it from here. He's doing the jaw thing."

"Good," you said, and let Daeron dip you slightly, theatrically, both of you committing to the performance with the full enthusiasm of people who knew exactly what they were doing and were prepared to suffer the consequences just for the comedy of it.

You didn't get much further than that.

Maekar crossed the dance floor in a way that should not have been physically possible at that speed for a man his size, and his hand closed around your wrist — not roughly, but with absolute finality — and the next thing you knew you were being pulled away from Daeron and into Maekar's chest with the kind of decisiveness that left no room for negotiation.

"Having fun?" you said, looking up at him.

"No," he almost growled.

"You looked very calm from over there."

"I was not calm," he said. His jaw was doing the thing. His hand had moved to your waist, broad and certain, and he was looking down at you with an expression that was several things stacked on top of each other — irritation at the surface, and underneath it something much less composed and hungry.

"Daeron's just dancing with me," you said. Innocent, doe eyes. Devastatingly so.

"Daeron," Maekar said, without looking away from you, "is going to regret this."

From several feet away, Daeron — who had not stopped grinning since the wrist-grab — called out, "Worth it!"

Maekar exhaled through his nose. Then his hand at your waist tightened, slightly, and he pulled you in against him properly, his height and his size doing the thing they always did, surrounding you, and his voice dropped low enough that only you could hear it over the bass.

"Need I remind you who you belong to?" Flat. Certain. The same way he always said it, except now with an edge underneath that hadn't been there before.

"I know," you said.

"Then don't make me cross a dance floor like that again."

"You didn't have to."

"I did," he said, "and you knew I would, which is why you did it."

You smiled at him. He looked at you for a long moment with the specific expression of a man who knew exactly what had just happened and could not entirely bring himself to be angry about it, the almost-smile threatening at the corner of his mouth despite his best efforts.

"You're such a brat," he said.

"You love it."

A pause. Something flickered behind his eyes — the specific complicated thing that happened whenever the word love came anywhere near a sentence about the two of you, even sideways, even teasing. He didn't deny it.

"Dance with me instead," he said. Not a request, exactly. More an instruction with the faintest edge of something that might, in a different man, have been called asking nicely.

"You never dance," you said.

"I'm making an exception," he said, "so Daeron stops getting any ideas."

You let him pull you in properly. He was not, strictly speaking, a good dancer — more a man standing very solidly in one place with his hands on your hips, swaying with the controlled minimalism of someone applying engineering principles to a problem he hadn't anticipated solving tonight — but it was effective, and it was his, and you were significantly more interested in this than in continuing the bit.

From the edge of the dance floor, Daeron watched the whole thing with the expression of a man who had just witnessed peak comedy and intended to discuss it at length for the rest of the night.

"I'm telling Daella about this," he said as he passed both of you on his way back to the place you had been occupying.

"Don't," Maekar said, without turning around.

"I'm telling everyone about this."

Maekar's jaw worked as Daeron disappeared. His hands stayed exactly where they were, on your hips, and he looked down at you instead of dignifying his son with a response.

"Worth it?" you asked him quietly.

The almost-smile, finally allowed through. "Don't push it," he said, but his hands had gone soft at your waist, and that told you everything his words weren't going to.

Daeron, watching from a safe distance with a drink in each hand and an expression of pure unfiltered delight, simply said to himself, "Short fuse on that man. Absurd. Iconic."

remember how i told you yesterday that i'd be out of order until Sunday? yeah, well...

The sound reached you as though from underwater, distant and distorted, carrying none of the joy it ought to have possessed. Instead, it settled within the dream like a warning.

You knew this place. Not because the dream informed you of its name, but because Dragon Dreams seldom wasted time with such trivialities. Knowledge simply existed inside them, fully formed and unquestionable until you woke up.

Ashford Meadow stretched before you exactly as it stood beyond the stone walls of Lord Ashford’s castle, yet transformed by that peculiar dream logic that rendered familiar places strange. The sunlight shone too brightly. The colors appeared too vivid. Every shadow seemed to conceal something waiting patiently to emerge like a serpent readying to strike.

And somewhere amidst the shifting sea of faces stood Baelor.

The certainty of it struck you with such force that relief flooded through your chest before you had even found him. You felt his presence long before your eyes looked upon him. An intimate thing. You had spent half your life seeking him in crowded halls and empty chambers alike, discovering him almost naturally amongst hundreds of others or when it was simply the two of you. Some childish part of you had once convinced itself this meant something. Some divine tether stretching invisibly between your souls. Age has done little to cure you of such romantic foolishness.

When at last you saw him, he stood precisely as memory insisted he should. Broad-shouldered and firm amidst the chaos surrounding him, his dark hair caught sunlight in bronze highlights inherited from the mother whose Dornish blood had forever marked him as different from the silver-haired brothers standing beside him.

Even from a distance there remained something reassuring about the sight of him. Baelor possessed that quality like no other. The ability to make disorder appear temporary. To stand in turmoil and convince others that reason would prevail in the end.

You tried to move toward him, but as dreams often did, the vision altered itself without warning. He disappeared; one moment he occupied the space before you, and the next he simply didn’t.

Panic rose immediately as you searched for him amongst the multitude, your gaze darting desperately from blurring face to blurring face as the crowd thickened around you. Voices merge into an incomprehensible murmur until the pitch ascends into ear piercing screams.

The dream continued to unravel around you.

You glanced to your feet; beneath your soles a dragon banner dragged through the dirt. Its threads had been torn somewhere along its length, the black fabric stained dark with something that might have been mud were it not for the way it glistened beneath the sunlight. Nearby lay a helm half-buried in dust, the back grotesquely caved in. The sight of it filled you with inexplicable dread. Your gaze lingered there only a moment before another image demanded your attention. A spear, its shaft nearly split through the center. Broken. You didn’t know why it horrified you, only that it did.

The crack came a heartbeat later. A violent sound that echoed across the dreamscape with enough force to rattle through your very veins. Steel striking steel rang sharply in your ears, the splintering of bones hidden beneath it.

The crowd fell silent then, and the sunlight dimmed.

And somewhere beyond the dust, banners, and deafening screams, a dragon fell shrieking through the sky.

You woke with a start, your pulse hammering against your ribs. The faraway sound of screams still ringing in your ears as your hands fisted the thick covers.

The darkness of your temporary chambers greeted you slowly, reality reassembling itself piece by piece around the lingering fragments of the illusion. Heavy curtains stirred faintly in the predawn breeze. A candle guttered upon the bedside table, its flame reduced to a tremble, drowning in its own wax. Next to you, still lost to his own much simpler dreams, lay Baelor. The tight coil around your heart loosened just slightly at the sight of him.

Beyond the stone walls of Ashford Castle came the distant sounds of a waking tournament camp. Horses, wagons, voices; ordinary noises belonging to an ordinary morning. Yet your vision remained, as always, like a specter of smoke.

You could never remember them like one would a memory. They faded soon after you woke, dissolving into phantasm spells you were never certain you dreamed at all. What lingered the most was the feeling and the brief flashes of blurry images. The conviction that something had been placed into your hands without explanation and you were expected to make sense of it.

Your journal waited within reach like it always did. As though some part of you understood long ago that there would never come a morning when you did not require it.

Carefully, so as to not wake your husband, you inched yourself off the canopied bed. By the time your fingers closed around the worn leather cover, you were already reaching backward through the fading dream, grasping desperately at the details before they escaped forever.

Dust in sunlight.

Screams.

A helm caved in.

A broken spear.

A dragon shrieking as it fell from the sky.

The phrases assembled themselves beneath your quill in hurried strokes, joining hundreds of others recorded across years of restless nights. Some of them had proven insignificant, mere occurrences that held no darker meaning, but enough had proven true to terrify you. At the moment, one in particular rang like a bell through your skull.

The dragon was dying again.

Somewhere beyond the castle walls the first rays of dawn spread across Ashford Meadow. Though you could not have said why, a terrible certainty settled heavily into the hollow space under your ribs. And that apprehension only grew in strength as you gazed at your husband’s sleeping form. Something was coming. Not today, perhaps, but soon.

Soon enough that you could almost feel the shadow of the Stranger moving toward you through the darkness, patient and inevitable as fate itself. And what else was the fate of every living thing but to die?

For a long while you simply sat there, the journal resting open upon your lap as the ink dried in uneven slants across the page. The words already seemed strangely detached from you. Urgent enough to drag themselves from your sleeping mind only moments before, yet now they sat trapped on parchment. Stripped of whatever terrible significance they had possessed in the dream.

Beside you, the bed shifted. The movement was slight, yet after years spent sharing chambers with him, you recognized it instantly. He woke slowly, unlike you. There was never anything abrupt about him. Even his consciousness seemed to arrive with deliberate purpose.

One arm reached across the sheets, no doubt seeking your warmth in the morning air. When he did not find you, he rolled onto his back, two-toned eyes blinking against the dim sun filtering through the curtains in rivers of light.

You watched and waited as his gaze found you. You saw him trail his eyes over you, taking in your sleep-mussed form with a domestic kind of affection. Next he found the journal, and alert understanding followed immediately.

It was always astonishing how quickly he knew. The realization streaked across his face like a shooting star in the sky. No questions were necessary, no explanations demanded. After so many years together, the sight of that book in your hands meant only one thing. 

Baelor pushed himself upright, the blankets gathering around his waist as he sat against the headboard, one hand dragging absently over his head of dark hair. Even now, with age and responsibility carving themselves into the planes of his face, there remained something reassuringly familiar about the sight of him half-awake and rumpled by sleep. Something that never failed to ease the swirling panic your dreams left behind. 

The kingdoms knew Baelor Breakspear as a prince, a warrior, and the heir to the Iron Throne. You knew him as this. The man who reached for you in his sleep. The man who made you sick with longing when he wasn’t around. The man who woke every morning and looked for you before anything else.

He murmured your name softly, concern already threading through the roughness of his voice. “Is all well?”

The question settled heavily between you. Not because you lacked an answer, but because you possessed too many, and none of them held any sense. Instinct urged you toward dismissal as it always did. A lifetime of skepticism and sideways glances had trained the reflex into you long ago.

You ought to have been well practiced at deception by now. Yet it never worked where your husband was concerned. Perhaps he knew you too well. Perhaps some stubborn part of you had never truly wanted to hide anything from him.

"It was nothing," you said anyway, lowering your eyes to the journal. The lie lasted less than a breath.

His silence met it with all the patience that had made him both your greatest comfort and your most infuriating adversary. He did not challenge you, nor did he point out the obvious falsehood. He simply waited as though he knew you would tell him eventually. As though he understood that whatever walls you attempted to build between the two of you would always collapse under their own weight. And predictably, they did, as easily as the moon changes its shape.

You exhaled softly as your fingers drifted across the edge of the journal before closing it. “I dreamed,” you murmured, the same admittance you owned a dozen times over.

His expression softened by what he already knew. "What did you see?"

"There was a tournament,” you began slowly. Already the details felt uncertain beneath your tongue.

“Ashford?” Baelor asked, trying to help clarify the missing pieces.

“I think so,” you sighed, the doubt frustrating you. Moments ago the images had seemed so vivid. Now they scattered like seeds in the wind whenever you attempted to examine them directly. You frowned as you tried to bring forth more. “There were clouds of dust and━” The cries that had split your skull returned with a violent jolt, reminding you of the panic mounting in their wake.

Reaching forward, you clutched Baelor’s hands with trembling fingers. He gripped them with a silent comfort, his thumb brushing along your knuckles. With wide fearful eyes and parted lips, you continued, “There were screams and I was afraid.”

His brow knitted slightly. “Afriad of what, my dear?”

“I don’t remember,” you chafed, voice sharpening more than you intended. The admission left behind a bitter taste. It was the same answer you had been giving since childhood. The same helpless lack of knowledge that haunted every vision. If the gods intended Dragon Dreams as gifts, they possessed a cruel sense of humor, for they offered revelation without understanding and expected gratitude in return.

“I cannot remember now,” you repeated more calmly, “but I was scared, and there was a dragon banner torn in the mud. And a helm.” The recollection of its gruesome destruction made your stomach churn. “The back of it was crushed inward.”

He brought your still quivering hands to his mouth. A kiss was pressed to the top of each as he willed you to keep going. The feel of his lips and the warmth of his breath a grounding solace. “Is there more?”

"There was a spear as well. Broken almost completely through the middle." Your gaze drifted downwards to the sheets where the morning light had begun spreading across the bed in pale ribbons of gold.

“The screams, Baelor,” Your cadence faltered as the ghost of them echoed in your mind. There were no words; you were not able to recognize them by voice. They were merely filled with anguish, raw and terrible anguish.

“It felt like death.” You swallowed, a tear you hadn’t even known had welled fell down the swell of your cheek. “When I woke, it was as if The Stranger himself stood over our bed.”

Your husband shifted closer until the warmth of him wrapped around you like a flame of endearment. One arm settled over your back as he drew you to him. The other came up to wipe away the stain of tears, the pad of his thumb a tender sweep across your skin. He cradled you against his chest, rocking as your unsteady palms clutched at him.

"The dream frightened you," he said gently, but you could hear the frantic underlying distress packed beneath his legendary composure. He was well versed in aftermaths like this, but you both knew each other well enough by now to pick up on one another’s tells.

As much as the dreams pained you, seeing you like this troubled him just the same.

You deepened your breath, tilting your face up to meet his. “That seems an understatement,” you whispered begrudgingly.

A faint smile tugged quickly at his mouth before disappearing again. “Then let us begin there.”

A soft groan escaped you before you could stifle it, and despite the heaviness of the morning, something almost resembling amusement flickered across his features. It never lasted long on mornings like these, though. Not when your pulse still raced beneath his hands and the remnants of the illusion clung to you like cobwebs hanging from rafters. Even so, he seized upon the opening with the same determination he always did. As though any crack in the wall of your fear was worth widening.

Others sought to ‘soothe’ your visions through denial. They dismissed them outright or treated them as symptoms of a maddening affliction best ignored. 

Baelor had never done either. Perhaps because he had witnessed too many of them unfold precisely as you foretold. Perhaps he had been there often enough to watch you wake trembling from dreams that later manifested in the waking world with dreadful veracity. Whatever the reason, he had long since developed a different strategy. He approached your fears not as delusions of a mad woman but as puzzles to be examined carefully and methodically. He separated what you knew from what you feared. In doing so, he widely succeeded in making the terror manageable.

“As I recall,” he said after a moment, his voice muffled against your hair. “Three months ago you dreamed of the Red Keep being overtaken by the sea.”

You narrowed your eyes suspiciously. “Yes?”

“The sea in question turned out to be water from the garden fountain splashing when Rhae dropped her castle toy into it.”

“That is true,” you sighed, “but when I dreamed of flames swallowing the stables, Aerion set a stable boy on fire the next day.”

A dark shadow passed over his face. “He did,” your husband conceded with a nod.

Grasping the front of his shirt, you looked up at him with worry-stricken eyes. “I dreamt of my mother dying hours before the gods took her. Only I did not know I did until it was happening.”

“My dear,” he started, hand smoothing over the back of your head.

“I know,” you interjected sharply, “what it feels like when I’ve dreamt of a death.”

Baelor’s hand did not still where it rested against your hair, nor did he immediately offer the reassurances that hovered so often on the edge of his tongue. He regarded you with the same grave attentiveness he had worn from the beginning of the conversation. Allowing the weight of your words to make home between you rather than rushing to sweep them aside.

Of all the cruelties your dreams inflicted, this was the worst. Not the visions themselves, or even the fear. It was the uncertainty that bled slowly into truth as you watched it become reality.

His gaze drifted toward the journal lying forgotten on the bed beside you. The worn cover looked almost ordinary in the birthing daylight, betraying none of the years of sleepless nights contained within its pages. Thousands upon thousands of predictions, warnings, nonsense, and tragedies. Entire futures reduced to disconnected phrases and broken observations.

When he spoke again, his voice carried a thoughtful weight that told you he was choosing his words carefully. “I know what it’s like when you’ve dreamt of death as well.”

When you drew your eyes back to him, his expression had softened into something melancholy. “There is a look you wear afterwards.”

“What look?” You asked, frowning.

A weary sort of affection touched his features. “As though you must wait for the sword to fall.”

The observation struck with uncomfortable accuracy. He was right. You spend so much time trapped inside your own mind that it was easy to forget how thoroughly he knew its workings. Easier still to forget that he watched you just as closely as you watched him. 

“I don’t know what it means yet,” you said, lowering your gaze, “but something horrible is coming.”

“My girl,” he consoled, bringing you to sit within his lap.

Your head rested upon his shoulder as his hands dragged up and down your back. Quiet words were spoken between you while the sun made its journey in the sky. In muffled voices Baelor tried to help you untangle your vision, offering theories of what the pieces might mean.

Eventually the demands of the morning intruded on the conversation. Servants arrived, clothes were selected, and water was brought for washing. The habitual act of preparation slowly reclaimed the chamber as the day strengthened beyond the windows.

You allowed your ladies to fuss over your hair while Baelor dressed nearby, fastening belts and buckles with soft clinks that reminded you too much of the sound of steel against steel. You listened, though, as he spoke of the day’s events. The tournaments being held, which lords would no doubt request an audience, mundane concerns belonging to the waking world.

And for a short time the gentle lilt of his voice settled you. The dream retreated farther and farther away, and the panic subsided to a dull throb in the corners of your mind.

Yet as you caught yourself staring at Baelor as he adjusted the cuffs of his doublet, sunlight lancing briefly across the dark bronze tones of his hair, a phrase returned with maddening persistence.

The dragon was dying again.

THE SPECTERED SMOKE OF THOSE WORDS FOLLOWED YOU THROUGH THE DAY. They lingered in every conversation and smile offered in passing, bleeding into your thoughts like wine clouding through water. No amount of reason could entirely banish them. Baelor’s steady reassurances had dulled the sharpest edges of your fear, but they had not removed it. They never truly did. The comfort he offered functioned more as an anchor. Something solid to grasp while the storm lashed around you.

Perhaps that was why you loved him so much. Though love felt absurdly inadequate even now, after a few years of marriage. The truth was both simpler and infinitely more embarrassing. You had worshiped him long before you ever loved him.

As a child, there had been no distinction in your mind between your uncle—Prince Baelor Targaryen—and the heroes who populated the stories told by your septa. He had seemed larger than life in those days. Noble where others were cruel, patient where others grew frustrated. Stable in a family renowned for volatility. While your younger brothers wielded wooden swords and provoked each other with tempers inherited from generations of dragonlords, you had wandered through the Red Keep corridors like a ghost.

While you were a child, you idolized your uncle. As you grew into a young lady, that glorification flowed into admiration. Which became an almost all-consuming love as you reached adulthood.

You remembered it with painful clarity. The way your heart leapt whenever he greeted you. The ridiculous care with which you had chosen your dresses for dinners. The countless hours spent lingering wherever he happened to be, pretending coincidence while desperately hoping for his attention. At the time you had not recognized those feelings for what they were.

You had simply known that his presence soothed something restless inside you. He made the world seem less frightening when he occupied it. That unlike nearly everyone else, he listened to you.

When you realized the depth of your devotion to him, the longing almost drove you to the madness you’d been accused of your whole life. For a niece to be fond of her uncle was one thing. For her to be sickeningly in love with him was something else altogether. You had yearned for him. It tormented you, and there had been moments where you genuinely believed yourself afflicted by it.

Marriage prospects came and went with increasing frequency as your reputation spread through the Seven Kingdoms. Noble lords feared your dreams and what they implied. A few merely found you strange. Meanwhile, your heart had already chosen its ruin.

Not that he made matters easier. He should have dismissed you; any sensible man would’ve, but he did not. He remained a grounding solace. The one person who never looked at you as though madness lurked beneath your skin, never reducing your visions to hysteria. Over time he had become your refuge so completely that you scarcely noticed it happening.

Looking back, it seemed almost inevitable. A tragedy years in the making or a love story to be told generations to come. The distinction depended entirely upon who was telling it.

After your marriage to Baelor, you became less plagued. The dreams remained as they always would, but their aftermath no longer consumed entire weeks of your life. He helped gather the scattered pieces when you could not. He listened when panic threatened reason. He stayed beside you through every sleepless night.

In many ways he had become the barrier standing between you and the abyss.

You suspected that may be why the most recent dream unsettled you so profoundly. Because somewhere within its tangled imagery lay the unmistakable sensation of losing something irreplaceable.

By midday Ashford Meadow had transformed into the spectacle everyone expected. Knights crowded the lists in armor polished to mirror brightness. Nobles filled the stands draped in fine fabrics and jewels. Banners snapped proudly overhead while merchants shouted from cramped stalls lining the tournament grounds. 

The entire meadow seemed alive with movement and noise, a celebration unfolding under cloudless skies. To anyone paying attention, it appeared a perfect summer day.

Yet unease continued prickling at the back of your neck. You found yourself searching the crowds repeatedly. Looking for signs from the vision, or whatever devil had birthed it.

Baelor noticed as he noticed everything. Several times throughout the day his hand found the small of your back as he sought to ground you. Once he leaned close enough to quietly ask whether you were well.

You brushed it off, and he pretended to believe you for the time being. The arrangement would suit both of you until you said otherwise. Unfortunately, the gods had never shown much regard for mortal arrangements.

The afternoon deteriorated steadily thereafter. Each passing hour carried with it another small irritation that accumulated under your skin until everything seemed to vibrate with tension. The atmosphere began to sour around you.

You remembered watching your brother ride that afternoon. Aerion’s armor had gleamed darkly beneath the summer sun, every inch the image of a dragon prince. The crowd cheered when he entered the field. For a moment, he appeared precisely what he should’ve been. Then he reminded everyone who he truly was.

You had been seated beside Baelor in the royal viewing box when your brother deliberately angled his lance downward at the last moment. The strike had not been aimed at Ser Humfrey Hardying, but at the man’s horse.

The poor animal had screamed, a horrible sound. The horse’s leg had tangled under it as momentum carried both rider and mount violently into the ground. Ser Humfrey had been thrown with such force that the crack of breaking bone echoed all the way to the royal seats.

The crowd grew angry. You had watched outrage spread through the spectators like wildfire consuming dry brush. Voices multiplied rapidly until the entire meadow seemed on the verge of erupting. The Kingsguard had been forced to intervene before that outrage transformed into something uglier. 

Even now, hours later, you could still remember the expression on Aerion’s face as he removed his helm. Smug, amused, and utterly pleased with himself. As if crippling another man for sport had been a clever jest.

The memory left a bitter taste in your mouth.

Which was why, when the chamber doors burst open shortly after sunset and a Kingsguard entered with visible urgency, your first reaction was to cringe and wonder what fresh hell had descended now.

Your father sat near the hearth with the rigid posture of a man perpetually prepared for disappointment. Though, you said he had every right to be irritable, as Daeron and Egg had still not been found. And he had likely wasted an entire day looking for them. Baelor occupied the chair beside him, quietly discussing the day's events with Lord Ashford. You were working distractedly on a piece of embroidery that had long since ceased receiving your attention.

The arrival of the Kingsguard shattered the mood in the Great Hall.

“Your Grace, my prince,” he addressed your husband and father at once. "There has been an incident involving Prince Aerion."

A muscle jumped in your father’s jaw. The poor man looked neither surprised nor alarmed, merely exhausted. “Of course there has,” Maekar muttered.

The Kingsguard hesitated before continuing. As the details emerged, a dreadful picture began assembling itself before you. There had been a puppeteer, a Dornish girl. Aerion took offence to the show and reacted as he always did, with cruelty and humiliation. A hedge knight named Ser Duncan had intervened, striking your brother many times.

“Also, my prince,” the Kingsguard directed at your father. “The prince Aegon was present.”

“Egg has been found?” you perked up, speaking for the first time.

“Yes, Princess,” the Kingsguard nodded. “The boy was with the hedge knight.”

You felt a fraction of relief where your youngest brother was concerned. He was alive and well and had apparently gone on some sort of adventure.

“Take Ser Duncan to the castle cells,” your husband ordered. “Ensure Aegon is seen safely inside.”

You watched him from your seat, seeing as he had already begun piecing together the shape of the disaster before it arrived. The firelight painted a warm cast across the hard lines of his face as he leaned forward, forearms resting upon his knees. Ever the thoughtful and composed heir. Entirely unaware that every time you looked at him your stomach twisted.

The dragon was dying again.

The words whispered through your skull as you forced your gaze away.

What seemed like an eternity later, you were seated at the table of a hastily put together trial board in the castle study. Your husband, as heir and Hand of the King, presided over the group made up of Lord Ashford, Tyrell, and your father. Aerion was in attendance as well, seated at the end of the table cracking nuts with the hilt of his knife. 

The repetitive noise grated on your already frazzled nerves.

You sat tensely beside Baelor, your hands folded in your lap as you observed the proceeding. Though no one suggested you leave, you suspected Lord Ashford and Tyrell wondered why you remained. Women rarely attended such matters. Then again, people rarely possessed prophetic dreams either, and your family had long ago ceased expecting you to conform to ordinary customs.

The chamber door groaned open, and Ser Duncan was escorted inside. The hedge knight looked even larger in the confined space than he had seemed from the recounting of the attack. Broad shouldered and towering in his simple clothing. Despite his intimidating size, though, there remained an almost endearing awkwardness about him.

It was silent for a moment, the only sound being your brother's irritating consumption of walnuts. Ser Duncan quickly darted his eyes over the gathering at the table before stuttering, “T-Trial by combat. That is my right.”

“I refuse,” Aerion said immediately, his tone petulant and childish as he continued to chew.

Your father let out a slow breath through his nose. The sound every bit the mark of a man losing his patience. "You cannot refuse,” his voice rumbled.

“Any knight accused of a crime has the right to demand as such.” Baelor calmly pointed out, turning to face your brother. “Unless you withdraw your claim.”

Aerion just smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant grin or even a subtle one. It was the smile he wore whenever some fresh cruelty occurred to him. “A trail of seven,” he declared. “That is my right, I do believe.”

Your father spoke something, sharp and perplexed, but you could not hear him. Even when Baelor began explaining something, the words did not rise above the sudden roar inside your skull.

Dust clouded around you as screams split your ears. You heard the splintering of broken wood and the metallic clang of steel on steel. The image of the falling dragon blinked in and out of your vision. It all came on so violently that your breath snagged in your throat. Something painful lurched inside your chest. The sensation was so powerful you forgot where you were, and the words escaped before you realized you had spoken.

"The dragon is dying again."

The sentence emerged scarcely louder than a whisper. Yet somehow everyone heard it, and heads turned as your stomach dropped. You wanted to disappear into your own embarrassment while Lord Ashford and Tyrell abruptly became fascinated by random objects in the study. Poor Ser Duncan simply looked utterly bewildered.

The same could not be said for your family, though. Baelor's head snapped toward you immediately; concern darkened his features. Your father frowned at you. Aerion laughed with unmistakable delight at your expense.

"The dragons are already dead, sister," he said lazily. "Have been for some time now." His violet eyes gleamed with familiar malice. “Or did it slip your simple mind?”

The words landed exactly as intended. Your brother had spent years finding inventive ways to mock you. Madness, your dreams, your reputation, and marriage—nothing remained beyond his reach. Ordinarily you would have ignored him. Tonight, however, the dream sat too close to your skin. Dust still swirled in your eyes, and you could still hear wailing.

At the same moment your father reached across and struck Aerion sharply across the back of his head. The crack echoed through the hall. Aerion jerked forward with a curse.

"Enough," Maekar growled.

Under the table, Baelor’s hands sought yours, warm and protective. You had not realized your hands were trembling until his fingers closed gently around them. He had done this very thing hundreds of times, but tonight it only served to make matters worse. The instant his skin touched yours, another image flashed through your mind. The damaged helm, steel caved in like jagged teeth.

You sucked in a sharp breath, yanking your hand from his.

He battled with his urge to reach for you again. He knew to crowd you in such a state would do no good, though. “My love?” he softly called instead.

You could hear him, but focusing became increasingly harder. The study blurred around the edges. The walls seemed farther away than they ought to have been, and the air felt suddenly difficult to breathe. You pushed your chair back, the legs scraping loudly along the stone floor. Every eye in the room returned to you.

“Excuse me,” you said, voice strained.

Baelor was halfway to his feet before you had finished speaking. The worry on his face only worsened the panic. "I will escort you,” he offered.

"No,” the word came out sharp as a dragon's tooth. You regretted the clipped tone instantly. “I only need a moment,” you assured him.

He nodded reluctantly, allowing you the dignity of retreat. 

You gave hurried apologies to the room and gathered your skirts before turning towards the door. The moment it closed behind you, the careful mask of composure started to crack. The corridor lay empty and silent, glowing with flickering torchlight. Your footsteps echoed as you rushed to your chambers, one hand pressed tightly against your ribs as if it might contain the dread building there.

Again and again and again. You were plagued by the damnable phrase. 

The dragon is dying again.

BY THE TIME YOU REACHED YOUR CHAMBERS, YOUR PULSE WAS THUDDING SO FIERCELY YOU COULD FEEL IT BEHIND YOUR EYES. The door closed behind you with a heavy thud as silence followed quickly. At first it felt like relief. Too soon did it become its own kind of torment.

You crossed the room aimlessly and then crossed it again. The restless fuzz beneath your skin refused to settle. It felt as though your body understood something your mind had yet to grasp. Every instinct howled that danger approached while reason struggled desperately to identify from where.

Stopping in front of the hearth, you peered into the flames. Amber light danced wildly across rough stone like a ballroom of cinders. Ordinarily the sight might soothe you. Fire possessed a peculiar intimacy for those descended from the destruction of the Doom. Something ancient lingered within it. A reminder of old blood and older histories.

You thought of Valyria, of dragons, and the death of both. You wondered if this was how Daenys had felt. Pondering if the Dreamer had spent days upon days within the Freehold pacing chambers much like these. If she too had been haunted by fragments she couldn’t fully understand. Whether she spent sleepless nights plagued by images of fire and death.

The histories spoke only of certain facts. Daenys foresaw the Doom, and her father listened. The Targaryens fled, and Valyria perished. Simple and neat, the sort of story people preferred telling generations later. You doubted reality had been so accommodating, seeing that dreams never were.

You pressed trembling fingers to your temple, trying to cast out the endless torment. But the conviction remained. You knew it with the very same instinctive knowledge that came with every true dream you experienced. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, irrevocably wrong.

Sinking into a chair near the fire, you tried forcing yourself to breathe evenly. You mused over the pieces of the dream that would not leave you be. The thought that perhaps the business with Aerion and Ser Duncan might be the root of it. You dreamed of a tournament, a destroyed helm, and a broken spear. All things that would be present in a trial by combat or trial of seven; whatever they had agreed upon. But that would mean someone must die because when you feel death in a vision, that’s always the case.

The Stanger does not make mistakes.

A crack split your heart at the thought of anyone dying, even Aerion, cruel as he may be. Restlessness drove you to the window overlooking the darkened grounds. The land had become little more than a sea of shadows writhing in the moonlight. Here and there isolated torches glowed among the encampments like fickle beacons of hope.

The sound of the door opening nearly made you jump. You turned immediately as Baelor entered the chamber. The moment you saw him, some part of the panic eased. Not much, but enough to remind you why his presence had always felt like coming home. You wanted to rush to him, throw yourself into his arms until all your troubles ran away frightened from your brave husband. But your shame from your earlier episode kept you riveted to the stone.

He closed the door quietly behind him before looking across the room to you. He regarded you with tender heed as if he expected to find you in this exact state.

“My love,” he greeted gently so as not to startle you.

“I am alright,” you said immediately, the lie sounding pathetic even to you.

Baelor sighed, and though you knew it wasn’t from irritation, the young girl in you wanted to weep at the notion of vexing him.

“My dear wife,” he murmured, low and affectionate. “I love you too greatly to believe that.”

Slowly, he crossed the floor until he stood before you. His gaze studied your expression as he reached for you in case you might pull away again. When you allowed him to grasp your hands, he smiled gratefully as he eased your body to lean into his. “I take it the dream still ails you,” he remarked, thumbs smoothing along your hips.

Your eyes burned unexpectedly with the tears of a dozen fires. “I cannot stop thinking about it,” you admitted, the vulnerability impossible to hide.

“What frightens you the most?” He asked, his eyes softening around the corners.

Everything.

The answer sat precariously close to the edge of your tongue. You were afraid of everything. The dream, the omen of death, the inexplicable feeling that he himself was in danger. The anguish clawing at your ribs with talons that felt as if they were shredding you from the inside.

“I keep seeing a dragon dying.” You say instead, swallowing back your emotions. Baelor listened without interruption even as you took a long moment to gather the rest of your words. “I fear… I fear that it means someone in our family will die. I thought perhaps Aerion giving the business with that hedge knight, but—”

Your throat closed up with the revolting things you were about to say. “There is a dark cloud hanging over you, my love.” When you finished speaking, silence settled thickly between you.

“My heart,” he murmured, drawing you closer to press you into an embrace. There was a sort of desperation in his hold that surprised you. As if some great sorrow had claimed him while you were separated. “My precious girl,” he continued, “I am not going anywhere. I am here; right here.”

The fabric of his ebony doublet rubbed against your face as you buried yourself into his chest. Your hands fisting the material as you tried tirelessly to believe him. The Stranger’s shadow still draped over you, though, imposing and demanding.

“You have spent a lifetime enduring the weight of dreams that would break most people,” your husband spoke again. “You are stronger than most men, but you don’t have to bear it alone.”

“You say that now,” you whispered into his warmth. 

“I have said it for years,” he countered, fingers threading through your hair.

Lifting your head, you gazed at him thoughtfully. "Because you are impossibly patient."

“That may be true,” he smiled.

Despite yourself, a weak laugh bubbled over the turmoil. His grin widened at the sound of it.

“There she is,” he softly celebrated. “I have longed for your smile all day.” 

The affection in those words hurt almost as much as it comforted. Because all you could think was that your dream wanted to take him from you. But you banished the thought with a violent internal shake of your head. That was the one thing you could not bear. If the gods snatched him from you, that would truly rid you of the last of your sanity. You were not certain you could live without him anymore.

Baelor noticed you spiraling. Without hesitation, he cupped your face in his hands, pulling you into him once again. His lips stamped along your jaw in small grounding kisses. Eventually he reached your ear, planting one more to the shell of it before he spoke.

“You need sleep.”

You giggled faintly as his breath tickled your skin. “I think sleep may be the problem.”

"Perhaps,” he mused, his hand moving slowly down your back. "But exhaustion has never improved a prophecy."

After several more minutes of coaxing, he finally convinced you to surrender. You allowed him to settle you beneath the blankets before climbing in beside you. You were drawn together immediately, his arm wrapping around your waist. You shifted in as close as you could get, back resting fully to his chest, his soft breaths ghosting along your neck.

His embrace and the low glow from the fire caused your eyes to finally grow heavy. The last thing you remembered before sleep claimed you was the sound of Baelor's heartbeat beneath your ear.

AT FIRST THERE WAS ONLY DUST.

Golden clouds of it that rose from tournament grounds beneath pounding hooves and booted feet. It whipped like a storm through shafts of sunlight, suspended within the summer air like motes of brass.

You stood in the middle of it all. The dust wrapping itself around your ribs, cloying to tissue as it dragged you deeper within it. Your pulse sounded in your ears like the striking of a smith’s hammer upon the anvil. Turning frantically, you searched the field, panic simmering in your blood.

Men thundered across the land in armor as horses squealed. The splintering of wood scattered through the air as lances shattered on impact. Steel flashed blindingly in the sun while shouts of pain and exertion blended over one another. A crowd erupted into gasps and cheers as the horrors persisted around you.

You knew he was here somewhere. The same way you always knew things inside your dreams. You caught sight of him in the blurring sunlight. The three-headed dragon worked into his breastplate, unmistakable even through the haze of dust and movement. The sight of him was like taking breath after nearly drowning.

The vision continued, and the gods, in their infinite cruelty, finally granted you the clarity you had been begging for. The fragments that had tormented you suddenly began fitting together.

The dust, the broken spear, the helm, and the falling dragon. All of it finally joined in a single horrifying picture.

Everything around you faded away as it happened. All you could see was him and the mace that came down upon the back of his head with a sickening impact. He stumbled, a hand going to his skull. The fingers came away bloody. He seemed confused at the very notion. Baelor fell to the ground, his back hitting dirt with the jarring sound of finality.

You cried out, a raw and gut-wrenching noise that startled you. Sometimes you could scream until your lungs bled and no sound would emerge.

The dream broke around you, and with your own cries splitting your ears, you knew he was dead.

You woke up shrieking. The sound tore from your throat so violently it left your chest burning. Your heart pounded so hard it rattled your teeth. You choked around your tears, air refusing to enter your lungs like a stubborn mount resisting the reigns.

Strong hands caught your shoulders. “My love—”

You fought against your husband without truly meaning to. Panic had consumed every rational thought in your mind. 

“No!” The word broke apart around a sob. "No, no, no—"

He spoke your name sternly, one of the only times he would ever address you in such a tone.

His voice reached through the deluge of terror. A gasp of relief so strong it all but sliced open the flesh of your throat spilled out. You twisted toward him so quickly the blankets tangled around your legs. The solace of his presence struck so hard it became agony.

Before you realized it you were clutching handfuls of his nightshirt with both hands, holding him as though you might hold together his very blood and bones.

"My heart," he murmured, pulling you closer. "Easy now."

You buried your face into his shoulder. The panic refused to release you, causing your limbs to shake with the strain. Every time you closed your eyes, you saw him falling again; his copper coated fingers.

“Hush now,” he consoled, hands rubbing soothing circles on your back. “It is alright.”

Those words felt almost laughable, or maybe you were simply that deep into a state of hysterics. But how could that possibly be true? How were you supposed to tell the man you loved more than your own life that you had just watched him die?

It took a long while before you could speak. Longer still before the frenzy loosened enough for coherent thought to return. And Baelor remained with you through it as your tears soaked his shirt.

Eventually your breathing slowed enough that he gently tilted your chin upward. He regarded you with the same tender heed as before. “What happened?” he asked softly.

The question cracked what little composure you had managed to recover. Fresh tears flooded your eyes.

“I saw it,” you whispered, voice trembling. “It is clear now.” You had to gather every ounce of courage to even allow the next words to make it out into the air. “You… you died.”

Confusion flickered briefly across his face. “What do you mean?”

You swallowed hard against the bile that wanted to spew from your mouth. “You were there,” you said unevenly, your fingers tightening on his sleeve. “On the tourney field fighting in the trial.”

A shadow passed over his features like a storm cloud. It was more than enough to have dread immediately coil stricter inside your stomach. You suddenly felt very cold, as if you’d trudged through northern snow in nothing but your nightgown.

“Baelor…” His name was spoken with thinly veiled agitation. Had you been in a sounder mental state, you would have felt guilty for it. “Why would you be fighting?”

The silence that followed seemed to stretch forever. Your husband would not look at you, and that wasn’t like him. The pit in your stomach deepened.

When he finally spoke, his voice carried the tone of a man choosing his words with great deliberation. "I intended to tell you tomorrow."

“No,” you shook your head so fiercely it hurt. You leaned away from him as fear replaced every drop of blood in your veins.

"The hedge knight is unlikely to find six men willing to stand beside him,” he reasoned, reaching to bring you back to him.

You flinched away, and you saw the hurt blink in his eyes, but you could barely think. It felt as though a butcher had strung you up and began dismembering you for a feast.

“He defended an innocent against cruelty,” Baelor continued with overflowing gentleness. “Whatever else may come of this, Ser Duncan acted honorably.”

You stared at him, unable to think or breathe. “You cannot be serious,” you accused. Horror surged through you at the mere thought of him in that battle. “Baelor—”

“It is not yet decided,” he assuaged. The words were meant to console, but they only made something inside you splinter farther.

As though there remained doubt. As if you had not just seen it with your own eyes. As though the gods had not ripped open your skull and forced the vision into it.

“But you intend to do it.” Your voice sounded strange, thin and fragile.

Baelor’s expression softened further, which somehow only worsened the ache clawing your chest to ribbons. “If Ser Duncan cannot find the men he needs, then yes.”

The room seemed to tilt as if you were falling down some great hole that you would never find your way out of again. You stared at him, certain your eyes held the violence of a dragon flying to war.

“No,” you said. The word emerged like a plea and a command all in one.

“Listen to me—”

“No,” you argued, pushing away from him entirely this time, scrambling across the bed to put several feet between you.

The movement startled him.

Good. You thought. 

He needed to be shaken. You wanted him frightened, anything that might make him understand the sheer magnitude of what you saw.

“You cannot fight,” you insisted. 

He raised his hands in front of him, meaning to pacify you. "My love—"

“You cannot!” Your voice cracked around the wail. The tears had returned entirely now, streaming freely down your face. Why didn’t he understand? Why was it now when he chose to disregard one of your dreams?

“I saw it,” you said, hands coming to clutch together at your chest. “I saw you die.”

The words echoed through the darkness of the chamber.

“Ser Duncan defended an innocent,” Baelor said carefully. “If honorable men abandon him now, then what becomes of justice?”

The words struck you like a slap. They were far too reasonable, and reason had no place here. It couldn’t save him. It couldn’t change what you had seen.

“You are not listening to me,” you cried. The desperation in your voice was becoming unbearable. You could hear it, the edge of full delirium taking over. “You will die.”

“I know what you saw,” he murmured, tilting his head. The look he gave you was solemn enough to send your heart racing more than it already was.

“No, you don’t,” you said, shaking your head. “If you did, you would not still be entertaining such an absurd idea.”

You rose from the bed so abruptly your legs nearly fell out from under you. The need to move was strong, the tremors wracking your body deeming it impossible to remain still. “I saw you fall. I watched you die, and you’re speaking to me of justice?”

Baelor stood slowly with a great deal more grace than you. He approached you like one would a frightened animal. It made you want to scream.

“I must do this, my love,” he said. There was a sorrowful tone to his voice. It only served to heighten your distress. 

 You laughed, a horrible sound that was sharp and wet with tears. The breaking of a dam overwhelmed by floodwaters. “You must? Must!”

“Honor demands—” he tried, but you interrupted him.

“Honor?” The word burst from you as your hands flew up helplessly. The gesture was wild and frantic. Every bit the crazed princess half the realm already believed you to be. You did not care. Dignity felt utterly meaningless when compared to the prospect of losing him. “What honor exists in dying for a man you've met twice?”

The question pierced the room with the force of a thrown dagger. Baelor did not hesitate, though. Steadfast in his resolve to forfeit his own life, it seemed. “The honor of doing what is right.”

A nearly inhuman noise tumbled from your throat. “And what of me?”

You saw the guilt flicker through his eyes. He took a quick step towards you, but you retreated further into the room. You could see the visible pain your withdrawal caused him. But he persisted, moving for you again. He reached toward you, the gesture coming from his instinct to comfort you. Under any other circumstances you would have fallen into it instantly.

Instead, when his fingers grazed your arm, something inside you finally snapped. Your hand moved, swift like lighting a match, and cracked across his cheek. The force caused his head to whip to the side as your palm stung. The silence that shadowed was absolute. You both froze, and for a daunting moment neither of you breathed.

You hadn't meant to. The strike had been born from desperation rather than true anger. Regret chilled over you as you brought that same hand up to cover your mouth. “I—”

His head turned slowly back to face you. A red mark had already begun appearing against his skin. He looked more determined now than he had the whole argument. That somehow made everything worse.

He reached for you again. In your fractured state, you shoved him, both palms pushed on his chest. It was not enough to move him. Nothing ever moved Baelor when he decided to stand his ground. Still, you shoved him again. The effort was pathetic and childish. Entirely born from the helplessness that had haunted you your entire life.

For as long as you could remember, the dreams came and people died. There was never anything you could do to stop it. You had learned to live with it the best you could. But this time the Stranger was coming for the man who held every breath you took in his hands.

“Enough.” He caught your wrist before you could push him again. The motion swift and firm as his voice rumbled with steel-backed command. “Enough, wife.”

You couldn’t protest when he pulled you forward into him. Every ounce of fight vanished as your body went slack against his. A torrent of sobs tore through you. Your forehead struck his chest as your knees threatened to buckle. 

Baelor wrapped both arms around you, their solid strength the only thing keeping you upright.

You clutched handfuls of his nightshirt, your nails digging desperately into the fabric. As though enough force might keep him anchored to the world; keep him alive.

“Please,” you begged, the word dissolving into a wail. “Please.”

His embrace tightened and you felt his nose nudge into your hair. His lips brushed your temple, and still you cried and shook. Still you clung to him as if he was bleeding out already in your arms.

Eventually his hand slid beneath your chin, patient and soft. He tilted your face up, forcing you to look at him. Moonlight spilled across his face. Those familiar mismatched eyes and the features you knew better than your own.

“You cannot leave me,” you whispered. A doomed bargain offered to uncaring gods.

He stared at you, something raw and aching unfurling in his eyes. Slowly he nodded, as though he believed he could keep that promise. Then, with all the reverence he held for you, he leaned forward and kissed you. It was a hard press of his mouth to yours, the sort that said words not meant for the open air.

“The gods themselves could not tear me from you,” he rumbled. The sound coming from deep in his chest, enveloping your trembling frame with the warmth of his breath. He pulled away only an inch, just enough to permit himself to breathe you in.

Your blood still sang of the atrocity to come, but your heart thrummed hard in your chest for an entirely new reason. Your lungs expanded in quick, short breaths, not due to fear but all encompassing desire.

“But my vision—”

“Shh,” Baelor urged. “We will discuss it, but let me care for you, my sweet wife.”

As his lips descended on yours once again, you could do nothing but fall into him.

His hands came to rest on your waist, his thumbs digging into each of your hipbones. Your mouths move together as his tongue finds the seam of your lips, begging entrance. You part for him, and he licks into your mouth, the heat pouring from him to you and from you to him. The blood of the dragon mingling and mixing.

You edge closer to him, tipping up on the points of your toes. Baelor, knowing your needs so well, perceived what you wanted. He hooked his hold around the backs of your thighs, hoisting you into his arms. Hands fly to his shoulders to find solid muscle to grip. Your legs circled his waist, tightening around him as he carried you to the bed.

His two-toned eyes stoked the fire building in your core as they met yours once he settled you on the sheets. He knelt at the foot of the bed, pulling his nightshirt over his head. The slow reveal of his skin was a teasing torture, the dark salt peppered hair on his chest tempting your composure. The garment was lost to the floor once he was free of it.

You surged forward, palms sliding and exploring the planes of his chest. A hiss leaves his kissed red lips when your nails dig into the flesh of his pectoral, some of your earlier discontent breaking through.

He captures your hands with quick movements, binding your wrist as he pushes you back down to the mattress. The skirt of your nightgown rucked up in the descent, the soft warmth of your thighs now bare for his hungry gaze. Releasing your wrists, his hand ran up the side of one leg, drawing it up to bend at the knee. 

“Baelor,” you gasped, breathless, fisting the sheets beside you.

He positions your other leg before making home between them, his shoulders bearing the weight of them. The thin gauze of your nightgown is bunched completely at your ribs, your stomach quivering as his breath tickled. He kisses the plush flesh there, moving steadily downwards.

“Baelor,” you whine again.

He hushes you, fingers soothing along your hip. “Tell me,” he says, adding another kiss right above your core. “I won’t deny you anything; you need only tell me what you want.”

His touch continued to tease with light brushes across sensitive skin. He knew full well what you craved, but he wanted to hear you say it. He would not take you unless you voiced your desires. It stemmed from his need for consent but also the guilty pleasure he found from hearing such words from your sweet lips.

A shiver ran through you as his head dipped lower to bend towards the junction of your thighs. You took in an uneven breath, gathering the words in the back of your throat.

“Please, husband,” you pleaded. “Your mouth… I need you.” Your hips rose just slightly, urging him to close the distance. “Banish the dream from my mind.”

“Gladly,” he rasped, the scruff of his beard burning your inner thighs as he parted your folds with his tongue. “It has been too long since I’ve tasted you, my love.”

Gods, it had been quite long. The journey to Ashford and even some time before that. Too long had you gone without the heat of his tongue feasting on you. 

You whined as his mouth pressed deeper into your warmth. His strong hands gripping the pliant flesh of your thighs, his tongue teasing your entrance. Warm and wet, it licked a path up to that swollen bundle of nerves at the apex.

He groaned into you, the sound a heavy vibration against your core. “Sīr dōna, ñuha ābrazȳrys.”(So sweet, my wife.)

His arms drew you closer, a moan clawing up his throat as he lapped at your arousal. He opened you to him with a desperation that convinced you he truly was trying to dispel the vision from your thoughts. He was nothing if not devoted to you, especially when he was between your legs.

Your hands flew to his head, nails piercing his scalp when his lips wrapped around your clit. He sucks it into his mouth, lathering the tip of his tongue over it in maddening strokes. Each caress of it has your lungs seizing, breath stalling, as little moans escape from you. You can feel the tension building inside of you, low in your stomach. You cry out when he pulls away, relief and frustration threading together.

He moves back down to your entrance, dripping with spit and slick alike. He eases the tip of his tongue inside, and your head falls back into the pillows as your thighs close around his head. 

“Baelor,” you gasp his name into the writhing shadows.

His warm breath ghosts over your aching core as he pulls away. Untangling himself from your limbs takes several minutes, but once he does, he’s quick to pry your legs back open. He does nothing at first. Pleas and a thousand begging words are ready to spill from your mouth, hips bucking towards him.

“If you want my mouth, wife, you must keep your legs open,” he orders, voice firm and grounding.

They shake as you widen the space between them, but mercifully he returns. His lips find you again quickly, his tongue plunging inside you before you could react. It curls up, pushing deeper within your walls, and you moan, hips jumping closer to his sweet torment. 

His nose nudges against your clit as he grunts, tugging you further into him. Both his arms coiling strong around your thighs, hips lifting off the bed while he buries his face into your cunt. He groans again, and the tremor of his deep lilt seeps through your stomach to the place where the knot of your pleasure grew tighter.

It is too much and not enough all at once. Your hands grapple at his shoulders, fingers unsteady, as you search for something to hold onto. The scratch of his beard as he brings you to the edge sends small sparks of pleasure dulled pain down your spine.

He must feel it in the quiver of your body because he speeds up the motion of his tongue. The muscle thrusts and flicks rapidly as you clench around it. Your hips rocked into him while he pushed as you pulled.

“Come for me, my love,” he urged, the sound of it muffled where he was pressed against you. His thumb finds your clit, rubbing it in quick circles.

“Please— oh gods,” you spoke into the air, a whimper accompanying the words as your peak crashed over you. Heat spreads from your core up through your veins, your body shaking through the release. He guides you through it, tongue slowing its movements as it subsides. 

“That’s it, sweet girl,” he soothes as you slowly relax back into the sheets. Kisses are stamped across the expanse of your belly. His lips, slick with your arousal, gave offerings of his love for you. As he paid his homage upwards, he rested his head on the sweat-slick skin of your chest, grazing your breast with his mouth.

He gazed up at you, beard and chin covered in your essence. His eyes shimmered with the reverence of a thousand disciples. “Not even death could take me from the honor of seeing you like that.”

Fresh tears welled up in your eyes as your hands ran up the length of his back, trying to remind yourself that he was still here. He hushed you softly when he saw, lips moving to your face to make his expedition across the flushed skin. His hips rocked into yours, his cock sliding along your sensitive folds. Your breaths grew more ragged with each kiss of his mouth as your legs bent to cradle him.

His lips found yours again, covering your mouth in a deep kiss that tasted of the intoxicating mix of him and you. Your teeth knocked together as he leaned his body to cover you, close and safe and warm. He kissed the last traces of tears away, putting in their place the joining of you both. He drank in your gasp when his fingers slid down, dipping between your slit. Two fingers spread you open, teasing your already soaking entrance.

“Baelor, please,” you beg, drawing back to take in a few short breaths. 

He coos at you softly, his eyes burning your flushed skin with their heat. A smile graces his features as he watches you, his fingers moving up to circle your clit. The pressure is heavy and firm, making your thighs tense on either side of his hips.

“I’ve got you,” he soothes, his free hand coming to smooth back your hair. His head falls to your neck where his tongue swipes across the sweat beaded on your collar bone. A low groan rumbles in his chest at the taste. He continues to lick along your skin, lips stamping searing kisses here and there. His digits shift from your clit downwards to play at your opening. You barely have time to steal a breath before those two thick fingers slip inside. You gasp around a moan, the stretch of them welcome and familiar. 

They move, sinking to the knuckles before curling up. Your walls clench around them as they find a steady pace, surely meant to bring you to another pinnacle. The warmth of that promised pleasure traveled over your skin like fire as he pumped them in and out. 

“Sīr bāne, sīr ȳrda syt nyke,” Baelor murmurs into your throat. (So warm, so tight for me.)

“Oh gods,” you moaned at his words, head tossed back into the pillows. You clutch at him, nails digging into the tanned skin of his back. You feel the flesh break when he nudges that spot deep within you, your eyes screwing shut against the mounting tension. It was happening quickly, your second climax sneaking up on you while your husband drove it closer and closer.

Your limbs tremble as he works, your blood all but singing in your veins. The wet muscle still at your neck is scorching, as if he intended to brand his possession there. When he raises his face, his eyes watch with rapt attention as your lashes flutter and your lips part with your impending release.

“Let go for me, my heart,” he orders, fingers quickening their relentless pace, pressing hard against that magical spot at the end of you. “Māzigon syt aōha valzȳrys.” (Come for your husband.)

A high-pitched whine slips through your lips as his words send you over the edge. It climbs higher and higher until it finally peaks with rushing heat. Your back arches with a cry of his name loud enough to reach the dark halls and any specters lingering in them. The exquisite feeling of clenching around his fingers rolls through you, the digits curling up a few more times as he helps you through it a second time. He gazes adoringly at you, thighs shaking, chest heaving, your slick running down his wrist.

“Beautiful,” he whispers as he removes his fingers. You bite back a quiet sound as your release drips from you like sweet syrup. 

You meet his eyes as he sits back for a moment. He looks distraught, sick with need, and longing. You almost want to weep again at the sight of him. The stress from the day past and the way in which he took you apart ignited your already frazzled nerves. “Valzȳrys—” (Husband.)

He hummed, cutting off your whimper of his one of many titles. Draping his body back over yours, he thumbs under your eyes, ridding your waterline of unshed tears. “None of that,” he insists gently.

There was no space between you as he peppered soft kisses to your cheek and down by the corner of your mouth. “You are so good for me,” he breathes, elbow bracing by your head so as not to crush you with his weight. “My pretty wife.”

“Baelor, I…” You barely manage the words, your body and mind heavy with exhaustion.

“It’s alright,” he reassured, “I know.”

He leans away just slightly, his hands covering your thighs once more, caressing the soft damp skin. Palms splay out around the backs of them, spreading you open for him. The cool air hits and you shiver as he hauls you down closer to where he wants you. You do not have the strength to fight his direction, not that you would want to. Giving into him was one of the easiest things you had ever done aside from loving him.

The length of his cock rests on your thigh as he settles back between them. He takes it in his hand running the tip up and down your folds. You whine softly, head reeling, already humming with overwhelming sensation. Your breath grows heavy when he lines himself up with your entrance, the broad head parting your cunt so he might slide the rest of the way in.

He eases the length of it inside slowly, chest swelling with deep breaths. His brows were heavy set as he guided you through taking each inch, always so careful with you. He huffs out a low groan of your name once you reach the hilt, the hair at the base tickling your swollen clit.

“There we are, dōna riña,” he murmurs. (Sweet girl.)

His hips roll with the first thrust, shallow and testing, before he pulls almost all the way out. He enters you again with a deep drive that knocks the air from your lungs. Wrapping your legs around his waist, he angles your hips to take him deeper. The pace he sets is near obsessive worship, sliding you along the sheets with each plunge. 

“Oh,” you cry out as his cock nudges against that perfect spot inside you.

Fire dances along your body everywhere his hands touch you. A taut knot of pleasure tightens in your stomach, seeping into the very marrow of your bones. All you can feel is him, the solid pressure of his weight atop you as he savored every gasp and moan you gifted him. You can hear how wet you are and feel it dripping from you as it welcomes his cock inside you.

You want only this for the rest of your life, him alive and with you. The mere thought of it being taken from you made your lips tremble and your arms throw themselves around his shoulders. You tugged at him until he came down to meet you. 

“My love,” he rasps, his eyes glimmering with his own need.

Without warning, your husband flips you, sitting up as he settles you into his lap. You gasp with the momentum, palms steadying yourself on his shoulders. His chest presses against your breast, warm and heavy. His cock remained inside you, your cunt sucking him deeper in this new position.

Every drop of air leaves you in a rush. His hands go to your hips, pulling you into him, rolling your body with his as he thrust upwards. The deep drag of him pulled keening sobs from your throat as your eyes began to burn. You could feel him in your womb almost, each ascending drive of his cock fervent and devoted to bringing you pleasure.

“On me,” he demanded, forehead coming to rest on yours. “Think of nothing else hae mazeman ao apart va ñuha orvorta.” (as I take you apart on my cock.)

 No other words were spoken as he rocked your hips into his. It was a slow, agonizingly deep grind that turned your body to liquid heat. You felt boneless as he tilted his hips upwards, meeting you with a languid press that seemed to reach the very center of your being. Your breath came in heavy pants against his mouth as your arms coiled tighter around his shoulders, hands going to rest over the crown of his head.

The thick heat builds in your belly, growing as it spreads to your core, gushing like blood from a fresh cut. You can feel his cock twitching inside you when your walls clench around the length.

“One last time, ñuha jorrāelagon,” he manages through heavy breaths. (My love.) He was nearing his end; you could tell in the way his chest heaved and his sounds of pleasure flew more freely. “Can you do that for me?”

You nodded frantically as the feathered mattress bounced on the creaking bedframe. “Yes, please, Baelor,” you whine, nails piercing his scalp.

His movements, still deep and aching, struck up against that toe-curling place again and again. The pleasure came over you like a fever, hot and all-consuming. Tears threatened to fall as a sharp gasp tore from your throat. A ringing takes over your hearing once that knot of molten fire shatters. Your legs tremble with the force of your release, cunt spasming around his cock, your back arching, pushing your breast more firmly against his sweat-slick chest.

“There we go, take it,” he moans, jaw clenching with the oncoming of his own climax. His thrusts grow sloppy, his hands tighten at your hips as his breaths become interrupted with deep sighs and groans. You can feel the desperation clawing at him, the need to fill you up impossible to ignore.

His head falls to your chest, face buried in your breasts as he fills you with his cock. A deep, drawn out moan of your name leaves his lips when he spills himself inside you. Hips jumping up until they slowed, the warmth of his seed spreading inside you making you whimper.

You stayed just how you were for a time, Baelor’s hands stroking lines up and down your back as you both allowed your pulses to return to normal. Your cheek rested on his shoulder, and your finger had traced the same freckle numerous times now. You never wanted to move again. And you would not have if it weren’t for your husband deciding for you.

Lifting you off his lap slightly, he freed himself from you before laying you back among the pillows. He stretches out beside you, quick to pull you into his arms. He gazed down at you, eyes heavy and lidded, as he placed a single kiss to your forehead.

Tiredness crept up on you, your eyes growing droopy as your head lay on his chest. You could feel his fingers playing with your messy hair, undoing the tangles while a thick cover of the unspoken settled over you. It prickled at the back of your mind, but you couldn’t gather the strength to bring it to voice again.

“Sleep, my love,” Baelor urged, his fingers in your hair and the slow strokes up your back lulling you further into the rest. “I am here.”

As the hand of sleep pulled you under, you held on to the sound of his breathing. A quiet prayer sent out to any deity that would listen that the fates had gotten this one wrong.

THEY BURNED HIM BEFORE SUNSET.

The pyre stood alone within an open field beyond Ashford’s walls, where the summer grass bowed softly beneath the afternoon wind. It seemed unsuitable for a prince of the realm. Entirely too unassuming for the remarkable man he had been. Dry timber had been stacked carefully according to ancient custom. Baelor lay at the center of it, wrapped in white linens much like the sheets you woke up alone in this morning.

For a single blissful, arrogant moment you had thought all had turned out well after all. But then your hand had drifted across the bed in search of him, only to be met with the chill of absence. He had been gone for some time before you woke, the blankets long since void of his warmth. 

The realization had struck with nauseating force. He had left you sleeping as he went to the place where you had seen his death. 

Your knees ached from where you had fallen as you threw the blankets aside so violently they had tangled around your ankles. Dignity had become a luxury you no longer possessed since you had darted from the chamber in nothing but your nightgown, your hair still loose and messed from the pleasure of the night before.

The guards and servants populating the halls had been startled. You could not blame them. You surely looked quite shocking, but even now, afterwards, you had no will to care.

The castle had been a blur around you; every corridor felt impossibly long. You had rounded a corner at a near sprint when you collided with something solid. The impact stole the breath from your already overworked lungs as strong hands caught you by the shoulders to stop you from falling.

When you looked up, you had been met with the face of your father. He still wore his armor, the steel smeared with dirt and dust. A shallow gash crossed one cheekbone, dried blood tracing its way toward the edge of his jaw. Another cut marred his brow where sweat had washed crimson into thin rivers across his temple.

Grief had been hiding in his violet eyes, so concealed you might have missed it if you didn’t already know what had happened. He didn’t need to say anything, didn’t need to give voice to what you had seen with your own eyes. The strength had vanished from your legs, and you collapsed. Your father caught you, his arms closed around you, though you felt the slight hitch in his breathing as your weight struck him.

Perhaps for the first time since you had been a little girl frightened of storms, you had clung to your father without hesitation.

He had been awkward in his comfort, but he gave it nonetheless. Now, as you glanced toward him at your side, you thought maybe he needed consoling in the moment as well. 

The pyre caught slowly. Flames licked hungrily at the lower logs before climbing higher, consuming dry wood with soft crackling sighs. You tried not to think too hard about your husband within those flames being eaten away by their heat as smoke rose high to the heavens in slow, twisting ribbons.

Dragonlords returned to fire as they always had. Even now when the dragons have been gone from this earth for decades.

The Septon’s words reached your ears without meaning. You felt nothing as you stared into the fire, the sorrow too vast to comprehend. It had hollowed you from inside until there seemed little left besides the aching cavity where your heart had once lived.

Yesterday you had wondered whether Daenys the Dreamer had felt the same as you had, carrying the burden of prophecy. Now you wondered whether the gods granted such visions for any purpose beyond cruelty.

You had seen his death because they had deemed it. You had begged and wept until your throat bled. You surrendered every scrap of dignity before the man you loved in hopes of changing what was to come. None of it mattered. Fate had listened to every desperate plea and answered with silence. You didn’t know who you were angrier at: Baelor and the gods.

The flames rose higher as heat washed across your face. You couldn’t look away even when those in attendance began to leave. You remained because you knew once you left you would never again be in the presence of him. You couldn’t bear to walk away yet because beyond that fire laid the man who had taught you that your dreams need not be faced alone. Yet he had left you to suffer them without him. After promising he would never part from you, he had left you utterly by yourself.