A, kind of sad, little introduction to Azriel <3. Please let me know what you think!
I'm open to starting a taglist in case anyone would like to be notified when the next part comes out on Wednesday. Just let me know!
The Motherlist
Please refer to the masterlist for warnings. This story is 18+.
The room slowly emptied around him. Rhys lingered by the dining table, Nyx balanced on one arm while Feyre disappeared into the kitchen with Mor and Emerie, no doubt to finish off whatever dessert Elain had baked that afternoon. Cassian clapped Azriel on the shoulder as he walked past.
"Training tomorrow?"
Azriel nodded.
"Same time?"
Another nod.
Cassian studied him for a moment, as if debating whether to ask something else. Eventually he sighed, squeezed his shoulder once and headed after Nesta.
Azriel stayed where he was for another minute.
The River House had always been loud. It echoed with laughter, teasing remarks thrown across the table and conversations that overlapped until nobody could tell who had started talking first. It was one of the reasons he'd always liked coming here. The noise made it easier not to think.
Tonight, however, the silence returned almost immediately after everyone left the room.
.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙‧͙
He stepped onto the balcony. The cool evening air greeted him, carrying the familiar scent of the Sidra. His shadows drifted lazily around his shoulders as he unfurled his wings. A single powerful beat carried him into the sky. Within seconds, Velaris sparkled beneath him. Its beauty never failed to impress him, even after all these years.
Music drifted from open tavern doors. Couples wandered through the streets hand in hand, taking their time despite the late hour. Shopkeepers closed shutters while restaurant owners stacked chairs outside, laughing with one another after a long day. Somewhere below, someone started playing a fiddle.
Azriel couldn't remember the last time he'd simply flown without somewhere to be. For five centuries every flight had carried a purpose. An assignment. A warning. A battlefield. Information someone needed yesterday.
Now there was nowhere he needed to be. He hated how aimless that made him feel.
His shadows nudged him east before curling back around his shoulders.
"No," he muttered.
They knew where he was going.
So did he.
The tavern sat tucked away on a narrow street several districts from the Rainbow. It wasn't particularly nice, which was exactly why he liked it. Nobody from the Inner Circle came here, and the patrons rarely looked twice at the shadowsinger nursing a whiskey in the corner.
The bartender recognised him. She didn't greet him. Just poured the drink. Azriel wasn't sure whether that was a good thing.
He spent nearly an hour watching people come and go. A group of merchants argued over cards. Two musicians packed away their instruments after playing for spare coins. Someone celebrated a birthday in the back of the room.
Life continued around him.
Eventually someone sat beside him.
She was beautiful. He noticed that just as he always noticed everything. Long blonde hair. A scar just beneath her jaw. Fingers stained faintly blue with ink.
She smiled.
He smiled back.
By the time they stumbled through her front door, Azriel realised he still didn't know her name.
He wasn't sure she knew his either.
.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙‧͙
The room was unfamiliar.
Morning light spilled through thin curtains, casting pale lines across the ceiling above him. He stared at them.
The female beside him shifted in her sleep, rolling onto her side with a quiet sigh.
Azriel slipped from the bed as silently as he could. His leathers were scattered across the floor. Truth-Teller rested against the wall where he'd left it the night before. He dressed quickly, fastening the last buckle before glancing back towards the bed.
She hadn't woken.
Good.
He wasn't cruel enough to leave without a word. Nor was he kind enough to stay.
Closing the door behind him, he stepped into the cool morning air. Velaris was only just beginning to wake.
A baker arranged fresh bread in the shop window. An elderly couple sat outside a café sharing the morning paper. Three children chased one another along the Sidra until an exasperated mother called them back.
Azriel recognised nearly all of them. The baker had once reported suspicious activity near the docks. The old male had fought in the War. One of the children lived above a tailor's shop on the next street over.
His mind collected details without asking permission.
It always had.
He wondered what it might be like to look at people without wondering where they came from, where they were going or whether they were hiding something. He wasn't sure he knew how anymore.
.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙‧͙
The priestesses were already waiting when he reached the training ring a couple of hours later. Emerie stood near the entrance speaking quietly with Gwyn and Nesta.
The younger priestess spotted him first. "You're late."
Azriel raised an eyebrow. "I'm three minutes early."
Gwyn smiled. "Then you're only fashionably late."
He rolled his eyes. "Warm up."
The priestesses spread out across the ring.
Steel rang against steel. Footwork. Balance. Again. Azriel moved between them, correcting a stance here, adjusting someone's grip there.
"Too wide."
"Again."
"Better."
One of the newer priestesses finally managed to disarm her partner. She looked at him expectantly. Azriel gave a single nod. "Good."
Her entire face lit up. He looked away before she noticed he'd seen.
.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙‧͙
By midday the House of Wind had fallen quiet again. Azriel sat behind his desk, reports spread neatly before him. There wasn't much to report.
Beron remained Beron.
Koschei remained at his lake.
Bryaxis remained fucking impossible to find.
His shadows drifted lazily through the room as he signed the last report and set it aside. He’d already organised them twice, first alphabetically before deciding it would make more sense by date.
Silence.
He leaned back in his chair and looked out of the window. Velaris stretched beneath him, bright under the afternoon sun. Someone had spread a blanket beside the Sidra. Children were throwing crumbs to ducks. A painter sat near the bridge, completely absorbed in his work. A young couple walked past, arguing quietly before one of them started laughing. The other lasted all of five seconds before laughing too. Azriel watched them disappear into the crowd.
He knew none of their names. Yet somehow he found himself wondering whether this was what peace was supposed to look like.
People simply… living.
He remained at the window long after the reports had been finished.
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reader info / note: yn is a targaryen dragonseed, but her parentage is completely unknown on purpose so you can project however you want the only fixed thing is that you have at least one valyrian feature so silver hair and/or purple eyes, because it needs to be obvious you’ve got targaryen blood everything else is up to you
Summary: In which you come back
SPECIAL THANKS TO 🍞 WHO HELPED ME WITH MY WRITER'S BLOCK
WC:21K
The decision to return was easy. The actual returning was not.
You had imagined, in the hazy golden hours on your island, that flying back to Dragonstone would feel like coming home. That the sight of those familiar black cliffs rising from the sea would fill you with warmth, with relief, with the bone deep comfort of returning to the only place you had ever belonged. But as the morning wore on and the sun climbed higher and the endless blue of the ocean stretched beneath you in every direction, you discovered that your stomach had twisted itself into knots that had nothing to do with hunger.
The flight itself was different now. You had changed in the days you spent on your little island, changed in ways that were still settling into your body like stones finding their place in a stream bed. Your muscles had learned the rhythm of Moonfyre's wings, the way she rose and fell on the currents, the subtle shift of her weight that preceded a bank or a dive. Your hands rested firm but relaxed against her scales, no longer the desperate white knuckled grip of a girl terrified of falling. Your legs settled easily against the warm curve of her neck. Your body moved with hers now instead of merely clinging to her, a harmony you had not expected and still did not fully understand.
You did not know what you would find when you arrived. You did not know if Marta would be furious or relieved, if Valarr would be angry or heartbroken or simply gone, if the villagers would stare at you the way they always had or if they would look at you differently now that you were returning on the back of a dragon. You did not know if you were ready to face any of it. But you had to try. You owed Marta that much. You owed yourself that much.
The sun stood high and white by the time Dragonstone appeared on the horizon. At first it was only a smudge of grey against the blue, a shadow that slowly sharpened into the jagged cliffs and towering peaks you knew so intimately you could have drawn them in your sleep. The Dragonmont rose above it all, its summit lost in its perpetual shroud of mist and smoke, and the castle clung to the mountainside like something ancient and patient, its dark towers reaching toward the sky.
Your heart clenched at the sight. You had never thought of Dragonstone as beautiful before. It was too harsh for beauty, too grey, too full of wind and salt and the constant gnawing cold that seeped into your bones and never quite left. But seeing it now, after days away, you felt something complicated move through your chest. Something that might have been love or might have been grief or might have been both at once. It was your home.
Moonfyre sensed the shift in your mood. She turned her head slightly, one golden eye fixing on you with a questioning look, and you reached forward to pat her scales.
"I'm alright," you said, though the wind tore the words away before they reached your own ears. "Just nervous."
She made a low sound, a rumble that vibrated through her body and into yours, and some of the tension in your shoulders loosened. She was with you. Whatever waited below, however the village and the castle and the people in them reacted to your return, she would be with you. You were not alone anymore. You would never be alone again.
As you drew closer, details began to resolve themselves from the grey expanse of the island. The familiar curve of the eastern cliffs, where you had gathered bitter herbs a thousand times. The village itself, a huddle of stone roofs clustered against the mountainside, looking smaller and more fragile than you remembered. The castle above it, its walls dark and imposing, its banners snapping in the constant wind. And the caves, the network of tunnels and chambers that honeycombed the Dragonmont, where you had found a wounded dragon shivering in the darkness and everything you believed about yourself had been proven true.
You had planned to fly directly to those caves. That was the strategy you had worked out in your head during the long hours over the water. Land in the familiar darkness of the eastern tunnels, out of sight, where you could dismount and gather yourself and decide what to do next. You did not want to announce your return to the entire island. Not yet. You needed time to think, to prepare, to figure out what you were going to say to Marta and Valarr and anyone else who asked where you had been.
But plans, as you were learning, had a way of crumbling the moment they touched reality.
Moonfyre flew over the island, her shadow racing across grey cliffs and green slopes and the huddled grey roofs of the village below. And the people saw her.
At first, it was only a few faces turning upward. A few hands pointing at the sky. You saw them from above, tiny figures frozen in place, their mouths opening in sounds you could not hear. Then more faces turned, and more, and the pointing hands became waving arms, and the open mouths became screams that drifted up to you on the wind, faint but unmistakable.
Dragon. Dragon. Dragon.
The word spread through the village like fire catching in dry grass. You could see it happening, the ripple of movement as people dropped their baskets and their fishing nets and their tools and ran. Some ran toward the castle, seeking the shelter of its ancient walls. Some ran toward their homes, snatching up children and pulling them inside. Some simply stood frozen, staring up at the sky with faces bleached white by terror, their bodies rigid with disbelief.
The screaming grew louder as Moonfyre flew lower. You could make out individual voices now, high and thin and desperate, crying out to gods and guards and anyone who might save them from the monster blotting out the sun. You saw a woman grab her child and fling herself through a doorway. You saw an old man collapse to his knees, his hands raised in prayer or surrender. You saw a knot of fishermen scrambling to shove their boat back into the water, as if the sea could protect them from a creature that ruled the sky.
"Moonfyre," you said, your voice taut with a worry you were trying very hard not to feel. "Fly higher. Faster. We need to reach the caves."
But Moonfyre did not seem to hear you. She had gone rigid beneath your hands, every muscle in her vast body drawn tight. Her head swept from side to side, her golden eyes darting across the chaos below, and you could feel the change in her through the scales beneath your palms. She was agitated. Disturbed. The screams were reaching her, and they were doing something to her you had not anticipated and did not know how to control.
You had never seen Moonfyre around other people before. You had only ever known her in the cave and on your island, in darkness and in solitude, with no company but yours. You had assumed she would be calm. You had assumed she would follow your lead, that she would trust you to keep her safe. But the screams were waking something in her. You could feel it in the way her muscles bunched and tightened, in the way her breathing grew faster and harsher, in the way a low and threatening growl began to build deep in her chest.
"It's alright," you said, fighting to keep your voice steady even as your heart began to hammer against your ribs. "It's alright, sweet girl. They're scared, that's all. They've never seen a dragon. They don't know you're good. Just keep flying. We're almost there."
The growl deepened. You felt it vibrating through her entire body, a resonant and terrible sound that was nothing like the gentle purring she made when you curled together on the beach. This was a warning. A threat. The sound of a predator who felt cornered, who felt threatened, who was trying to decide between flight and fight.
You tightened your grip on her scales, your mind spinning. This was bad. This was so much worse than you had prepared for. You had been so focused on your own return, on what you would say and do and feel when you saw Marta and Valarr and the village again, that you had not paused to consider how the village would react to seeing a dragon for the first time in seventy years. Of course they were screaming. Of course they were panicking. To them, dragons were monsters from old stories, creatures of fire and blood and ruin. They did not know Moonfyre. They did not know that she was gentle and affectionate and liked to have the ridge behind her eye scratched. They did not know she brought you roasted goats and curled around you while you slept. They saw only the teeth and the claws and the wings that blocked out the sun.
And Moonfyre did not know them. She did not understand that their screams came from fear, not from aggression. She did not grasp that they were running away from her, not toward her. All she knew was noise and motion and a hundred pairs of eyes fixed on her, and every ancient instinct in her body was screaming at her to defend herself.
"Moonfyre, please," you said, leaning forward, pressing your face against the warmth of her scales. "Please, just get us to the caves. I can see them. We're almost there. Just a little farther."
She let out a sound that was half growl and half shriek, a piercing cry that echoed off the cliffs and made the screams from below double in intensity. You saw people throwing themselves to the ground, covering their heads with their arms, waiting for the fire they were certain was coming. But Moonfyre did not breathe fire. She just kept flying, her wings beating harder and faster, her body trembling with the effort of restraint.
The cave entrance appeared ahead of you, a dark slash in the grey face of the Dragonmont. It looked so small from the air, so inconsequential, just a shadow among shadows. But you knew it intimately. You had walked through that opening a thousand times, had trailed your fingers along its rough walls, had felt the temperature shift as you descended from the cold salt wind into the warm and motionless dark of the tunnels. It was your place. Your secret. The place where everything had changed.
Moonfyre dove. The descent was faster than anything you had experienced before. Her wings folded back, her body streamlined, the wind screaming past your ears with a sound like tearing silk. You held on with everything you had, your fingers buried in her scales, your legs clamped around her neck, your face pressed into her spine. The cave entrance rushed up to meet you, growing larger and larger, and for one terrifying instant you were certain she was going to crash into the cliff face, that you were both going to die in a shatter of stone and bone and torn wing membrane.
But at the last possible moment, she spread her wings and slowed. Her body tilted. Her claws reached out and caught the lip of the cave entrance. She landed hard, the impact jarring through your whole body like a physical blow, and then she was inside, folding herself into the darkness of the tunnel with a speed that spoke of desperation. She scrambled deeper, away from the entrance, away from the light, away from the screams that still rang outside.
You slid from her back the moment she stopped moving. Your legs buckled when you hit the stone, and you had to catch yourself against the wall, your heart slamming, your whole body shuddering with the aftermath of adrenaline. The cave was dark and warm and blessedly familiar, the walls rough beneath your palms, the air thick with the smell of sulfur and old rock. You could hear Moonfyre's breathing, harsh and ragged, and you could see her in the dim glow filtering from the entrance. Her pale scales gleamed. Her golden eyes were wild and unfocused.
She was not calm. She was anything but calm. She paced the chamber like a caged thing, her claws scraping against the stone, her tail lashing with a violence that made the air whistle. Her wings were half spread, the membranes quivering, and her head hung low, her jaws parted, that terrible growl still rumbling in her chest. Every few seconds she would whip toward the cave entrance and let out a hiss, a sharp and warning sound that lifted the hair on the back of your neck.
"Moonfyre." You kept your voice low and steady, the same voice you had used when you first found her, wounded and terrified and ready to snap your head off at the neck. "Moonfyre, it's alright now. We're safe. We're in the cave. No one is going to hurt you."
She did not seem to hear you. Her eyes remained fixed on the entrance, her body coiled and ready, braced to strike at anything that came through. The screams from outside were fainter now, muffled by the stone, but you could still hear them. And so could she. Every distant cry made her flinch, made her snarl, made her pace faster and harder.
You approached her slowly, carefully, your hands raised, your movements deliberate and unthreatening. You had done this before. You had done it a hundred times in those early days, when she was still wild and wounded and did not trust the sound of your voice or the smell of your skin. You knew how to move, how to speak, how to make yourself small and harmless. But this was different. This was not a wounded dragon too weak to fight. This was a strong and healthy dragon, terrified and agitated and not understanding what was happening around her.
"It's only noise," you said, taking another step closer. "Just noise, Moonfyre. It can't hurt you. The people out there, they're more afraid of you than you are of them. They've never seen a dragon before. They don't understand. But I understand. I know you. I know you would never hurt anyone."
She swung toward you suddenly, her head whipping around, her golden eyes locking onto your face. And for one suspended, heart stopping moment, you saw something in those eyes that was not affection or recognition or trust. You saw the wildness. The ancient, primal instinct that lived in the marrow of every dragon. The part of her that was not your companion, not your friend, but a predator. A force of nature. A creature of fire and blood and terrible, beautiful power.
Then she blinked. The wildness receded. And she was Moonfyre again, your Moonfyre, the dragon who cuddled with you on the sand and brought you roasted goats and purred like a kitten when you found the right spot behind her jaw.
She made a small, questioning chirp and lowered her head, pressing her snout against your chest. You wrapped your arms around her and held on, your hands stroking her warm scales, your voice a steady and soothing murmur in the darkness.
"I know," you whispered. "I know, sweet girl. That was frightening. That was so frightening. But we're safe now. We're safe. The cave is safe. You've always been safe here."
She chirped again, softer this time, and you felt the tension begin to drain from her body. The growl faded from her chest. Her wings folded slowly back against her sides. She was still agitated, you could feel it in the twitch of her tail and the way her ears kept flicking toward the entrance. But she was calming. She was coming back to herself, and to you.
You stayed like that for a long time. Your arms around her neck. Your face pressed to the warm curve of her scales. Breathing slow and steady until her breathing slowed to match yours. The screams from outside faded into silence, replaced by the distant crash of the sea and the whisper of wind through the tunnels. The cave was warm and dark and quiet. You were together. And that was enough. That had to be enough.
"Those people out there," you said at last, your voice still soft, your hands still moving over her scales in slow and rhythmic strokes, "they've never seen anything like you. They grew up on stories about dragons. Terrible stories. Stories about fire and death and the Dance. They don't know that dragons can be gentle. They don't know that dragons can love. They only know what the old tales told them."
Moonfyre made a low sound, almost sorrowful, and you held her tighter.
"But they're going to learn. They're going to learn that you're not a monster. They're going to learn that you're my friend, my family, my..." You stopped, swallowing against the thickness in your throat. "My everything. And if they can't accept that, if they can't accept you, then we'll leave. We'll go back to our island. Or we'll find another one. Or we'll just keep flying until we find a place where we can be together without anyone screaming and running away. You and me. Just like I promised."
She rumbled, a low and contented sound, and her tail curled around you, drawing you closer against the warmth of her body. You leaned into her, letting that heat seep through your worn cloak and into your cold and weary bones.
—
The morning had been quiet. On Dragonstone, quiet was a rare and fragile gift, one that Baelor had learned to appreciate in the long years since he had inherited the title and the burden that came with it. He had risen early, as he always did, and had spent the first hours of the day bent over the endless correspondence that poured in from every corner of the realm. Letters from King's Landing, letters from the Free Cities, letters from lords and ladies and merchants and anyone else who believed they had a claim on his attention. His quill moved methodically across the parchment, leaving neat lines of black ink in its wake, but his mind was only half engaged with the work. The other half was elsewhere, circling endlessly around the same dark thoughts, the way a tongue keeps returning to a broken tooth.
Valarr had not spoken to him since their argument in the great hall. Not a word. Not a glance. His son had thrown himself into the search for the girl with a desperation that had long since crossed the border into obsession. He spent every waking hour combing the cliffs and the caves and the shoreline, refusing food, refusing rest, refusing to accept the reality that everyone else had already resigned themselves to. The girl was dead. She had fallen from the cliffs in the darkness, or thrown herself from them in despair, or simply slipped and been swept out to sea. The details did not matter. What mattered was that she was gone, and Valarr was destroying himself trying to locate a ghost.
Baelor had tried to be patient. He had given his son space to grieve, time to come to terms with the loss in his own way. But the days kept slipping past, and the king's summons grew sharper with every raven that arrived from the capital, and Valarr was no closer to acceptance than he had been the morning they found her cloak tangled on the rocks. If anything, he was worse now. His eyes had gone hollow, dark pits in a face grown gaunt and grey. His movements were jerky and erratic, the motions of a man who had not slept in a week, who had not eaten in days, who was running on nothing but sorrow and a stubborn, desperate hope that refused to die.
It could not continue. Baelor knew that with the cold certainty that had guided his entire life. Sooner or later, he would have to intervene. He would have to drag his son back from the cliffs, force food and sleep upon him, make him accept the brutal truth of what had happened. He would have to play the villain again. The cold and practical father who valued duty above love. The man who had offered a village girl silver to disappear and had driven her, however unintentionally, to her death.
The thought made his stomach turn, but he forced it down. He had made his choices. He would live with them, and he would carry the weight of her death on his conscience until the day he died. That was what it meant to be a prince. You made the hard decisions so others did not have to. You bore the guilt so they could sleep peacefully. That was the burden he had been born to shoulder, and he would shoulder it, no matter how heavily it pressed down on him.
Jena had joined him for tea, as she often did in the late morning hours. She sat across from him at the small table by the window, her hands wrapped around a cup of chamomile, her dark hair pulled back in a simple braid that trailed over one shoulder. She was a quiet woman, Jena, possessed of a stillness that Baelor had always found deeply comforting. She did not fill the silence with idle chatter the way so many at court seemed compelled to do. She simply sat with him, her presence a steady anchor in the storm of his thoughts.
"You're thinking about him again," she said without looking up from her tea. It was not a question.
Baelor sighed and set down his quill. "I am always thinking about him. He is my son."
"He is our son." Jena's voice remained gentle, but there was a thread of reproach woven through it. "And he is suffering. He has been suffering for days, and you have done nothing but watch him tear himself apart."
"What would you have me do?" Baelor rubbed at his temples, feeling the familiar ache of exhaustion building behind his eyes. "I have tried speaking with him. I have tried reasoning with him. I have tried giving him space and silence. Nothing reaches him. He will not listen to me. He will not even look at me."
"Can you truly blame him?" Jena set down her cup with a soft click, her dark eyes rising to meet his. "You offered that girl coin to leave him. You told her about the betrothal before he had the chance to explain it himself. You..."
"I am aware of what I did." Baelor's voice came out sharper than he intended, and he softened it with deliberate effort. "I am aware. And I would do it again, if circumstances demanded it. It was the correct decision. For him, for the realm, for everyone involved."
Jena was silent for a long moment. Then she said, very quietly, "Was it? For him, I mean. Was it truly the correct decision for him?"
Before Baelor could summon a response, the screaming began.
It started faint and far away, barely audible beneath the constant crash of the waves against the cliffs. Baelor frowned, his head lifting, his hand moving instinctively toward the sword that was not at his hip because he was in his private chambers and had not anticipated needing it. Jena looked up as well, her brow furrowing, her teacup frozen halfway to her lips.
"What is that?" she asked.
Baelor rose and crossed to the window. The screams were growing louder now, more distinct, and he could pick out other sounds tangled among them. Shouts. Running footsteps. The clatter of something heavy falling. His heart began to beat faster, his body responding with the automatic readiness of a man who had fought in battles and knew the particular timbre of panic when he heard it.
"I do not know," he said, throwing open the shutters. "Stay here."
He stepped out onto the balcony, and the noise hit him like a physical force. People were screaming in the village below, their voices carrying up the mountainside in overlapping waves of terror. He could see them running, tiny figures scattering like ants from a disturbed nest. And then Baelor looked up to where they were pointing, and the blood in his veins turned to ice.
A dragon. There was a dragon in the sky above Dragonstone.
For one impossible, suspended moment, his mind refused to process what his eyes were reporting. It was a trick of the light. A peculiar cloud formation. An unusually large bird of a species he had never encountered. It was anything other than what it so clearly, undeniably was. Because dragons were dead. Dragons had been dead for seventy years, since the last of them had withered and perished in the Dragonpit at King's Landing, since the Dance had scoured the skies clean and left behind nothing but ashes and old songs. Dragons were dead, and had been dead for the entirety of his life, and the thing circling above his castle could not possibly be what his eyes insisted it was.
But it was. It was a dragon, pale and shimmering, its scales catching the morning sunlight and scattering it like scattered gemstones. It was smaller than the old books had led him to imagine a dragon of its apparent youth should be, with vast wings that stretched wide, but still bigger then two grown war horses combined. It flew low over the island, its shadow racing across grey cliffs and green slopes and the dark walls of the castle itself, and it was beautiful and terrible and utterly, incontrovertibly real.
"Gods," Baelor breathed. The word left his lips as a prayer and a curse and a cry of pure disbelief all at once.
Jena appeared at his side, her face drained of color, her hand gripping the balcony railing with a force that turned her knuckles bone white. She had followed him despite his order to stay inside. Of course she had. Jena had never been the sort of woman who remained where she was told when there was danger to be faced.
"Baelor," she said, and her voice was remarkably steady. Steadier than his own. Jena had always been the calm presence in a crisis. "That is a dragon."
"I know."
"A living dragon. Flying above our castle."
"I know."
"The girl-." Jena's voice fractured on the word."
"I know." Baelor turned from the balcony, his mind already shifting, already abandoning shock in favor of action. "I know."
He strode back into the chamber with quick, decisive steps, the decades of training and experience asserting control. There would be time for disbelief later. There would be time for guilt and regret and the crushing weight of realization later. Right now, there was a dragon on his island and his people were panicking, and he needed to act.
The door burst open before he reached it. A guard stumbled through, his face flushed and shining with sweat, his breath tearing in and out of his chest in ragged gasps.
"My prince," he said, his voice scraped raw. "My prince, there is..."
"A dragon," Baelor finished for him. "I have seen it. Where is it now?"
"The caves, my prince. It was observed entering the eastern tunnels. It..." Ser Raymund stopped and swallowed hard, the scar that bisected his face pulling tight. "It bore a rider, my prince. We saw someone on its back. A figure, small, clinging to its neck. They entered the caves together."
A rider. Baelor's heart, which had been hammering with the cold rhythm of duty and command, gave a single violent stutter. A rider. Someone had mounted that creature. Someone had tamed a dragon that had been dead for seventy years, had climbed onto its back and flown it across the sea and into the tunnels of Dragonstone.
The girl. It had to be the girl. The mad girl with the imaginary dragon that was not imaginary at all.
"Assemble the knights," Baelor ordered, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade. "And the horses. We ride for the eastern caves at once."
"Yes, my prince."
"No one is to move against the dragon without my direct command. No one attacks it. No one provokes it. No one approaches it without my explicit permission. If it breathes fire, if it assaults anyone, if it so much as looks at one of my men in a manner that suggests hostility..." He paused, his jaw tightening until he could feel the ache in his teeth. "Then we will do what we must. But not before. Not until I give the word. Is that understood?"
"Yes, my prince." Ser Raymund hesitated, and something flickered across his scarred face. Some emotion Baelor could not quite identify. "My prince, there is something else."
"What is it?"
"The young prince. Prince Valarr." Ser Raymund's voice flattened into careful neutrality, the tone of a man delivering news he knew would not be well received. "He was in the village when the dragon was sighted. He saw it. He took a horse from the stables and rode out immediately. Alone. He was observed heading toward the eastern caves."
The ice that had been threading through Baelor's veins since he first stepped onto the balcony crystallized into something sharp and jagged. "Alone," Baelor repeated. The word came out flat and dangerous.
"Yes, my prince. He would not wait. He simply took the horse and rode. By the time anyone thought to restrain him, he was already gone."
Baelor closed his eyes. For one brief moment, he allowed himself to feel the full immensity of the situation. The dragon. The girl. His son riding toward both of them with grief and desperation and gods only knew what else driving his heels into the horse's flanks. Then he opened his eyes again, and his face was hard and set, the face of a man who had made terrible decisions his entire life and would make them again now.
"Then we ride faster," he said. "Get the horses. Get the knights. We leave immediately. And Ser Raymund?"
"My prince?"
"Pray to whatever gods you keep that we are not too late."
—
You had almost managed to calm her down. Almost.
Moonfyre's growling had subsided to a low, uneasy rumble, the kind of sound that still vibrated through your bones and set your teeth on edge but no longer promised immediate violence. Her muscles remained rigid beneath her pale scales, hard as carved stone, but she was no longer coiled to strike. Her tail had stopped its furious lashing and now only twitched occasionally, the spaded tip flicking back and forth with the irritable rhythm of a cat who had been interrupted mid nap and was not pleased about it. Her golden eyes stayed fixed on the cave entrance, watchful and wary, but the wild, panicked edge had receded. She was listening to you now, her great head tilted slightly toward the sound of your voice, her breathing gradually slowing to match the deliberate, steady rhythm you were setting for her. Every few seconds she would huff, a sharp exhale through her nostrils that sent small grey puffs of smoke spiraling toward the distant ceiling, but she was no longer baring her teeth. She was no longer kindling that terrible, deadly glow at the back of her throat.
"That's it," you murmured, your hand moving along the warm scales of her jaw in the rhythm you had learned she preferred. Slow and even, tracing from the sensitive ridge behind her eye down to the corner of her mouth and back again. "That's it, sweet girl. We're safe now. It's only noise out there. Only frightened people making frightened sounds. They can't hurt you. I won't let anyone hurt you. You know that, don't you? You know I would never let anyone hurt you."
She made a small, questioning chirp, a sound so soft and incongruous that it still startled you every time. This creature who could level a village, who could turn stone to slag with a single breath, chirping like a hatchling asking for reassurance. You pressed your forehead against her snout and let the heat of her scales seep into your skin. For just a moment, you closed your eyes.
Then you heard the footsteps. Your eyes snapped open. Moonfyre's head lifted with a sharp, sudden motion, her body going rigid beneath your hands. The growl surged back into her chest before you could draw breath to stop it. Her wings half spread, the pale membranes catching the dim light of the cave and glowing faintly, and you saw the fire kindle once more at the back of her throat. Someone was running, the footsteps frantic and uneven, making no attempt at stealth. Someone who was thinking of nothing but reaching this chamber as fast as humanly possible.
Valarr burst into the cavern. He looked like a corpse given motion. Eyes so red rimmed and shadowed they appeared bruised. Dark circles that looked more like wounds than exhaustion. His hair was a wild snarl, his clothes rumpled and stained with days of wear, and there was a half healed cut across his forehead that had scabbed over but not closed. He looked like he had not slept in days. He looked like he had not eaten in days. He looked like a man who had been running on nothing but grief and stubborn, irrational hope and had burned through both of them down to the dregs.
And he had a sword in his hand. The blade caught the faint light and glittered, and his knuckles were bone white around the hilt, and his mismatched eyes were fixed on Moonfyre with an expression of absolute, primal terror.
"Y/N!" His voice tore on your name. "Y/N, get away from it! Get away!"
Moonfyre roared. The sound hit you like a physical blow, reverberating through the stone and your bones and the very air in your lungs. She lunged forward, placing her body between you and the threat, her vast wings spreading wide enough to brush both walls of the chamber. Her jaws opened, and you saw the fire blooming at the back of her throat.
"STOP!" You threw yourself in front of her, your arms spread wide, your heart beating so hard you could feel it in your teeth. "Moonfyre, stop! Don't!"
Valarr had frozen mid stride. His sword was still raised, his chest heaving, his face a mask of terror and disbelief. He stared at Moonfyre as if the world had cracked open beneath his feet, and you watched the realization strike him like a physical force. She was real. The dragon was real. Everything you had told him, everything you had tried so hard to make him believe, was standing in front of him with teeth like daggers and eyes like molten gold.
"Valarr." Your voice cut through the growling and the pounding of your heart, sharp as a blade. "Drop the sword. Right now. Drop it and kick it away."
He did not move. His eyes stayed fixed on Moonfyre, wide and glassy with shock.
"Valarr!" you shouted. "She thinks you're going to hurt me. She is scared and she is furious and if you do not drop that sword in the next three seconds she will incinerate you where you stand. Do you understand me? Look at her teeth. Look at the fire in her throat. You cannot fight her. You cannot protect me from her. The only thing keeping you alive right now is the fact that my body is between you and her. So drop. The. Sword."
Something in your voice reached him. He blinked, his eyes finally moving from the dragon to your face, and for a long, suspended moment he simply stared at you as if you were a ghost.
"Y/N," he breathed. "You're alive. We found your cloak on the rocks, there was blood on the stones, I thought..."
"The sword, Valarr!"
He looked down at his hand as if noticing the blade for the first time. Slowly, with the jerky movements of a man in shock, he lowered it to the stone floor. He straightened, his hands raised, and kicked the weapon away into the shadows where it clattered against the wall and lay still.
"I'm not going to hurt her," he said, his voice shaking. He was speaking to Moonfyre now, his eyes fixed somewhere near her feet rather than meeting her gaze. "I would never hurt her. I'm sorry. I thought she was in danger. I thought you had taken her, I thought you were..."
Moonfyre growled again, low and threatening, a sound like boulders grinding together deep underground. You turned back to her and pressed both hands against her snout, forcing her to focus on you.
"Hey," you said, your voice softening. "Hey. Look at me. Look at me, sweet girl. He is not a threat. He is an idiot, but he is not a threat. I need you to stay here while I go talk to him. Can you do that? Can you let me handle the idiot?"
She huffed, a warm blast of air that stirred your hair, and you chose to read it as agreement. You pressed a kiss to her snout and then turned and walked toward Valarr.
He was trembling. His hands were still raised, still shaking, and his eyes were fixed on your face with an intensity that made your chest ache. He looked at you like you were a miracle. Like you were something he had been praying to see and had never expected to find.
You stopped a few feet away from him. Close enough to touch. Not touching. You opened your mouth to say something, though you had no idea what, but before you could form a single syllable he closed the distance and pulled you into his arms.
It was desperate. Crushing. His arms wrapped around you so tightly that you could barely draw breath, one hand fisting in the back of your dress, the other pressed flat against your spine like he was trying to feel your heartbeat through your skin. His face buried itself in your hair, and you felt his tears hot and wet against your neck, felt the way his entire body was shuddering against yours.
"You're alive," he choked out. "You're alive. We searched everywhere, we couldn't find you, I thought you fell, I thought you drowned, I thought you were dead..."
And maybe it was the shock of seeing him. Or the adrenaline still surging through your veins from the flight and the screams and the near disaster of his arrival. Or maybe it was the fact that you had spent days alone on an island with nothing but a dragon for company and you had done a great deal of thinking, a great deal of feeling, a great deal of sitting with your grief and your anger and your hurt. Maybe it was all of those things at once. But instead of melting into his embrace, instead of weeping with relief and telling him everything was forgiven, you felt something hard and hot and furious rise up in your chest.
Your hands, which had been hanging limp at your sides, came up to his chest. And you pushed. It was not a hard push. Just enough to create a few inches of space between you. Just enough to look him in the eye. His arms loosened reluctantly, his hands sliding to your shoulders, and he gazed down at you with those red rimmed, desperate, hopeful eyes, and you felt the anger surge up your throat like bile.
"Don't," you said. Your voice came out rough and scraped raw. "Don't you dare hold me like that. Don't you dare cry on my shoulder as though you are the one who has been wronged."
He flinched. Actually flinched, as if you had struck him across the face. His hands dropped from your shoulders, hovering uncertainly in the air between you. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"Y/N," he managed at last, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have believed you. I should have..."
"Oh, you're sorry." The words came out bitter and cutting, sharp edged as broken glass. You stepped back, putting more distance between you, and his hands fell to his sides like dead things. "You're sorry. Well, that fixes everything, doesn't it? the whole time, the entire time, you were looking at me like I was a child telling stories about fairies. And now you're sorry."
"I was wrong." His voice cracked down the middle. "I was so wrong, and I know that now, and I..."
"You know that now." You laughed, and it was an ugly sound, hollow and humorless. "You know that now because you saw her with your own eyes. You know that now because the evidence is standing twenty feet away from you, breathing fire and very nearly ending your life. Tell me, Valarr. If she hadn't come back, if I had stayed on that island forever, would you have gone to your grave believing I was mad? Would you have told your children about the crazy village girl you once humored, the one who thought she had a dragon?"
"No." He shook his head violently, his tangled hair falling into his eyes. "No, I would never. I didn't think you were crazy. I thought you were lonely. I thought you needed something to believe in, and I didn't want to take that away from you. I thought I was being..."
"Kind." You spat the word like poison. "You thought you were being kind. Do you have any idea what that felt like? Do you have any idea what it is like to pour your heart out to someone, to share the most precious thing in your life with them, and to watch them nod and smile and ask polite questions while behind their eyes they are thinking poor thing, she really believes it, how terribly sad?"
Valarr's face crumpled. "That's not what I thought. I never thought..."
"I stood in front of your father," you continued, your voice shaking now, "and he offered me silver to disappear. Silver. Like I was a stain on his floor. Like I was a problem to be solved and discarded. And I refused it. Do you know why I refused it?" You did not wait for him to answer. "Because I believed what we had was worth more than silver. Because I believed you loved me. But you didn't, did you? You pitied me. There is a difference. There is a very great difference."
"That's not true." His voice was hoarse and raw, scraped down to nothing. "That's not. I love you, Y/N. I have loved you since the moment I met you in the market, when you told me I was terrifying in a different way and made me laugh for the first time in weeks. I love the way you talk too much when you're nervous. I love the way you embroider flowers on your cloak even though you think they're ugly. I love the way you care about everything and everyone, the goats and the herbs and the old women in the village and the dragons that everyone else was certain were dead. I love you. Not some sad, broken version of you I invented in my head. You. The real you. The you who is standing in front of me right now, furious and beautiful and so alive it makes my chest ache."
He reached for you then, his hands coming up to cup your face with a gentleness that seemed impossible after the violence of the last few minutes. His thumbs brushed across your cheekbones, catching tears you had not realized you were shedding, and his eyes searched yours with a desperation that made your breath catch.
"I was wrong," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I was so wrong about so many things. I should have believed you from the beginning. I should have trusted you when you told me she was real. I should have told you about Kiera the moment I knew how I felt about you instead of hiding it like a coward. I should have done a hundred things differently, and I did none of them, and you got hurt because of it. You got hurt, and you ran, and I thought you died. I thought you died believing I pitied you. I thought you died thinking you meant nothing to me. And I have been living in hell for three days, Y/N. Three days of believing the woman I love was dead at the bottom of the sea, and it was my fault."
His voice broke on the final word, and a tear slipped down his cheek, trailing over his thumb where it rested against your skin.
"Don't," you whispered, but your voice had lost its sharp edge. "Don't you dare cry. You don't get to cry. I am the one who was wronged. I am the one who gets to be angry."
"Then be angry." His thumbs traced the curve of your cheekbones, feather light and trembling. "Be as furious as you need to be. Shout at me. Strike me. Tell me everything I did wrong. I will stand here and accept all of it. I will accept anything you throw at me, as long as you are here to throw it. As long as you are alive."
"I am angry." Your voice wobbled dangerously. "I am so angry, Valarr. I am angry about the dragon, and I am angry about Kiera, and I am angry that you let me find out from your father instead of from you."
"I know." His voice was barely audible now.
"No, you don't know. Not yet. Not until I've said it all." You pulled back from him, your hands still twisted in the front of his tunic, your eyes burning into his. "Do you know how humiliating that was? Standing in that room while your father told me you were promised to someone else as if it was nothing? As if I was nothing? I had to hear it from him, Valarr. From a stranger who looked at me like I was dirt on his boot. Not from you. Not from the man who claimed to love me. You let me walk into that room completely unprepared. You let me be blindsided and humiliated, and you weren't even there to see it."
"I know." His face was ashen. "I know, and I hate myself for it. I should have told you myself. I should have told you the first time I kissed you. The first time I realized I was falling in love with you. But I was a coward. I was so terrified of losing you that I did the one thing guaranteed to make it happen."
"You kept me in the dark." Your fingers twisted tighter in the fabric of his tunic, your knuckles pressing against his chest. "You let me believe there was a future for us. You let me hope and plan and dream, and all the while there was a girl in Tyrosh with your ring on her finger. You were never going to be mine. You were never going to choose me."
"That is not true."
"Isn't it?"
"No." His voice was fierce suddenly, his hands tightening on your face. "It isn't true. I did choose you. I chose you when I told my father I would not marry her. I chose you when I told him I would abdicate. I chose you when I said I would give up the throne, the crown, my birthright, everything I had ever been raised to value, if it meant I could be with you. He said yes, Y/N. He said if I found you alive, I could marry you. Not Kiera. Not some political alliance. You."
You stared at him. The words hung in the air between you, heavy and solid and impossible.
"You abdicated?"
"I told him I didn't want it. Any of it. Not if it meant losing you." His eyes burned into yours, fierce and desperate and blazing with a sincerity that made your heart stutter. "He was furious. We shouted at each other for an hour. He told me I was throwing away my future, my birthright, everything I had ever been raised to be. And I told him I didn't care. I told him none of it mattered without you. I told him I would rather be a farmer or a fisherman or a beggar on the streets of King's Landing, as long as I had you by my side."
"Valarr." Your voice came out as a whisper. "You cannot simply abdicate. You are the heir's heir. The future of the realm depends on..."
"The future of the realm can hang itself." His voice cracked, but his gaze did not waver. "I don't care about the realm. I care about you. I have spent my entire life doing what was expected of me, being what everyone else wanted me to be, and the only time I have ever felt like myself was when I was with you. You are the only real thing in my life. Everything else is politics and duty and masks."
"That isn't fair." You pulled back further, shaking your head. "You cannot put that on me. You cannot make me responsible for your entire sense of self. That isn't love. That is..."
"I know what it is." His voice was steady now, steadier than it had been since he entered the cave. "It is love. Messy and desperate and probably unhealthy, and I don't care. I am not asking you to fix me, Y/N. I am not asking you to be my salvation. I am telling you that you showed me what it felt like to be seen, and I am never going to stop being grateful for that, whether you take me back or not."
You stared at him. The anger was still there, hot and hard and stubborn, but it was fading now, slowly and reluctantly, replaced by something else. Something that had been there all along, buried beneath the hurt and the betrayal, waiting to be found again.
A long silence stretched between them. Moonfyre made a soft sound behind you, and you realized you had been standing with your back to her this whole time, trusting her not to attack while your attention was elsewhere. You turned to look at her and found her watching you with those golden eyes, her head tilted, her tail twitching with what might have been impatience or might have been curiosity.
"Your father is probably on his way here right now," you said, turning back to Valarr. "With knights. With swords. With orders to kill her if she so much as looks at anyone the wrong way."
"Probably."
"And what are you going to do when he arrives? Stand between her and his men? Fight your own family?"
"If I have to." His voice was quiet but absolutely certain. "I will not let anyone hurt her. I will not let anyone hurt you. Not my father. Not the Kingsguard. Not anyone."
"You're an idiot," you said at last. Your voice came out thick and unsteady.
"I know."
"A complete and utter fool."
"I know."
"You broke my heart, Valarr. You shattered it into a thousand pieces, and I had to fly across the sea on a dragon's back to put it back together. Do you understand that? Do you understand what you did to me?"
His face went pale. "I..."
"I'm not finished." You reached up and pressed two fingers to his lips, silencing him. "You hurt me. And I am still angry. And I am going to be angry for a while, probably. You're going to have to be patient with me. You're going to have to prove to me that you mean what you say. Every day. For a long time. Do you understand?"
He nodded, his lips moving against your fingers.
"And if you ever lie to me again," you continued, "if you ever keep a secret from me again, if you ever look at me with pity instead of trust, I will leave. I will get on my dragon and fly away and I will never come back. I mean that, Valarr. I will not give you a third chance."
"I understand." He said the words against your fingers, his breath warm on your skin. "No more secrets. No more lies. No more pity. Ever. I swear it on my life."
You held his gaze for a long moment, searching his face for any sign of hesitation, any flicker of doubt. You found none.
"Alright," you said quietly, and you lowered your fingers from his lips.
He blinked. "Alright?"
"Alright. I'm willing to try. But you're going to have to earn back my trust. Every day. For a long time. Possibly years."
A sound escaped him, something between a laugh and a sob. "I can do years. I can do decades. I can do the rest of my life."
"It might take that long."
"Then I'll spend the rest of my life earning it." He pressed his forehead against yours, his breath warm on your lips. "Every day. Every moment. I'll prove to you that you made the right choice. I'll prove to you that I'm worthy of the chance you're giving me."
"You'd better," you murmured, and then you pulled him down and kissed him.
It was not a gentle kiss. It was fierce and desperate and full of all the grief and fear and love that had been building between you for days. His arms wrapped around you, pulling you against him with that same crushing desperation, and your hands fisted in his tunic, and you held onto each other like the world was ending and this was the only thing that mattered.
When you finally broke apart, you were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against yours, and his hands were still cupping your face, and he was looking at you with an expression of such pure, unguarded joy that it made your heart clench.
"I love you," he said. "I love you, Y/N. I should have said it a thousand times before, and I'll say it a thousand times now to make up for every time I didn't. I love you. I love you. I love you."
Behind you, Moonfyre made a sound. A soft, questioning chirp that was so incongruous with her size. You turned to look at her and found her watching you with those golden eyes, her head tilted, her tail twitching. She did not look angry anymore. She did not look threatened. She looked curious, and perhaps slightly disgruntled that your attention was focused on someone other than her.
"It's okay, sweet girl," you said, reaching one hand toward her. "He's with me. He's mine. Just like you're mine. And I know you two got off to a terrible start, but I'm hoping you can learn to tolerate each other. Because I'm not giving up either of you."
Moonfyre huffed, a puff of smoke escaping her nostrils, and then she lowered her head back down to rest on her front claws. Her golden eyes stayed fixed on Valarr, still watchful, still wary, but the killing fury had faded. She was willing to give him a chance.
Valarr let out a shaky breath. "Is she going to let me live?"
"For now. But I'd stay on her good side if I were you. She's very protective."
"I noticed." He looked at Moonfyre, then back at you, and a smile spread across his face. The first real smile you had seen from him since he burst into the chamber. It made him look younger, lighter, like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. "She's magnificent. Terrifying, but magnificent. Just like her rider."
"Flattery won't save you if she decides she doesn't like you."
Moonfyre blinked at him slowly, her golden eyes unreadable. Then she made a sound, a low rumbling that was not quite a growl and not quite a purr, and closed her eyes, apparently deciding he was not interesting enough to warrant her continued attention.
"I think that went well," Valarr said. "All things considered."
You laughed, and the sound surprised you. Bright and warm and full of a joy you had not felt in days. "She'll come around. She just needs time. Like me."
"Time." Valarr turned back to you, his hand finding yours and lacing your fingers together. "Time, I have. All the time in the world."
You heard them before you saw them, the thunder of hooves on rock, the metallic jangle of tack and armor, the low, urgent murmur of many voices trying to speak quietly and failing utterly. They were outside the cave now, assembling in the narrow ravine that led to the entrance, and the sound of them echoed through the tunnels like water rushing through a gorge, building and building until it reached you in the deep chamber where you stood with Valarr's hand still laced in yours and Moonfyre's warmth still pressed against your back like a living furnace.
Then Baelor's voice cut through the noise, sharp with a fear he was trying very hard to conceal and not quite succeeding.
"Valarr! Valarr, can you hear me? Are you in there?"
Valarr tensed beside you, every muscle going rigid. His hand tightened around yours with a force that would have been painful if you hadn't been so grateful for the anchor of it, and you felt him draw breath to answer, felt the relief flooding through him at the sound of his father's voice. You squeezed his fingers before he could speak.
"Wait," you whispered.
He looked at you, his brow furrowing, the question already forming on his lips. "What is it? He's worried. He thinks I'm dead."
"I know." You pulled your hand free of his, gently, but with purpose and turned to face Moonfyre. She had lifted her head again at the sound of the voices, her golden eyes fixed on the tunnel that led to the entrance with an intensity that made your stomach clench. Her body had gone rigid with that same tension you had worked so hard to calm, every scale and sinew coiled tight as a spring. The growl was not back yet, but you could feel it waiting just beneath the surface, a tremor in her chest that vibrated through the stone floor. "But if you call him in here, he won't come alone. You know he won't. He'll bring his knights. He'll bring their swords. And she just barely accepted you. After hours of work and two near-death experiences. She won't accept a dozen armed men."
Valarr's face shifted as understanding took hold, the relief draining away and leaving something harder in its place. "You're right. You're right, of course." He turned toward the tunnel, squared his shoulders, and raised his voice. "Father! I'm in here. I'm alive and I'm unharmed. But you need to stay where you are. Do not bring the knights inside."
A pause. The kind of pause that stretches out like a held breath. Then Baelor's voice came again, closer this time, he must have dismounted and walked to the very mouth of the cave, close enough that you could hear the edge of an echo. "Valarr, thank the gods. Is the girl with you? Is she safe?"
You stiffened at the word. The girl. Even now, even after everything he couldn't be bothered to use your name. Valarr shot you an apologetic look, the kind that said I know, I'm sorry, he's like this, and called back, "She's here. She's safe. But Father, listen to me carefully. The dragon is also here, and she is very protective. She nearly killed me when I came in carrying a sword, and the only reason I'm still breathing is because Y/N here talked her down. If you bring armed men into this cave, there will be blood, and it will not be hers. Do you understand?"
Another pause. Longer this time. You could almost hear the calculations running behind it, the prince's mind turning over the tactical realities of the situation and finding them wanting. When Baelor spoke again, his voice had shifted the sharp edge of command giving way to something more measured, more careful. The voice of a man who understood that he was not in control of this situation and was intelligent enough to accept it.
"What do you propose?"
Valarr looked at you. You took a breath and stepped forward, your hand finding the warm scales of her shoulder and resting there, drawing courage from the contact.
"Prince Baelor," you called out. Your voice was steadier than you expected it to be, given the circumstances. Given that you were addressing the man who had tried to buy your disappearance with a pouch of silver. "Moonfyre does not like crowds. She does not like humans in general, if I'm being honest. She barely tolerates your son, and it took me the better part of an afternoon to convince her not to turn him into ash. If you want to come inside, you will come alone. No knights. No weapons. No sudden movements. No raised voices. If you can accept those terms, you may enter. If you cannot, then you will wait outside until I decide otherwise."
The silence that followed was so complete you could hear the wind whistling through the ravine outside, the distant cry of seabirds, the soft whisper of Moonfyre's breathing. You imagined Baelor standing at the cave mouth, his scarred face unreadable, his mind turning over the unprecedented reality of being given conditions by a village girl and her dragon. Being given orders. Being told to wait.
Then he said, "Very well. I will come alone. Ser Raymund, you have command until I return. No one follows me inside. No one acts without my direct order. No one so much as draws a blade, no matter what you hear. Is that understood?"
A murmur of assent, reluctant and nervous, the sound of men who did not like what was happening but knew better than to argue with that tone. Then the sound of a sword belt being unbuckled, leather sliding through metal, the distinctive clank of a blade being set down on stone. Footsteps, slow and deliberate, echoing through the tunnel. One man. Alone.
You stroked Moonfyre's jaw, feeling the heat of her beneath your palm, the vibration of that barely-suppressed growl. "He's coming alone, sweet girl. Just one man. No weapons. Just like the other one. Can you be calm for me? Can you trust me one more time?"
She huffed, a warm breath that stirred your hair and smelled faintly of smoke and something older, something that made you think of the heart of a mountain. Her great golden eye fixed on the tunnel entrance, the pupil contracting and expanding as she tracked the sound of footsteps. But she did not growl. She did not kindle the fire at the back of her throat. She simply watched, and waited, and trusted you.
Baelor emerged from the darkness of the tunnel and stopped dead at the edge of the chamber. He looked different than the last time you had seen him, his eyes were fixed on Moonfyre with an expression that stopped the breath in your throat.
Wonder. Pure, unguarded, absolute wonder.
He stared at her the way a scholar might stare at a lost text thought destroyed centuries ago, the way a septon might stare at a miracle he had prayed for but never expected to witness, the way a man who had grown up on stories of dragons and had accepted long ago that they were only stories might stare at proof that the stories had been true all along. The stories had been true, and she was magnificent. His lips parted slightly, as if he wanted to speak and had forgotten how. His hands, which had been clenched into fists at his sides, slowly uncurled, the fingers spreading wide in an unconscious gesture of surrender or reverence or both.
Valarr cleared his throat, the sound startling in the quiet. "Father. Are you alright?"
Baelor blinked, visibly shaking himself out of his trance with the effort of a man surfacing from deep water. He looked at Valarr, then at you, then back at Moonfyre. When he spoke, his voice was rough with something that might have been awe, or might have been the beginning of tears.
"She's real. The dragon is real."
"She's real," you confirmed. Your voice came out flatter than you intended, edged with something you didn't bother to disguise. "She has been real this entire time. Her name is Moonfyre. Not that anyone believed me when I told you all." The bitterness crept in despite your best efforts, old and familiar and impossible to fully suppress. "Not that anyone thought I was worth listening to."
Baelor's eyes met yours. He held your gaze for a long moment, and you saw something shift in his expression, a crack in the armor, a crumbling of some internal wall.
"My lady," he said, and the words came out heavy, weighted with something that sounded almost like humility. "It appears that I owe you a great many apologies. And I suspect we all owe you a great deal more than that."
You had not been expecting that. You had been steeling yourself for anger. For demands. For the cold, dismissive authority he had wielded so easily in his hall, the assumption that everything and everyone existed to serve the interests of House Targaryen. You had prepared yourself for a confrontation, for the need to plant your feet and defend Moonfyre and yourself against a man who had already tried to remove you from his son's life, who had looked at you and seen nothing but an obstacle to be cleared. You had not prepared for an apology. You had not prepared for the way his voice caught on the word, or the way his shoulders had dropped, almost imperceptibly, as if setting down a burden he had been carrying for a very long time.
"An apology," you repeated, your voice carefully neutral. Not accepting. Not rejecting. Just waiting.
"Several, in fact." Baelor took a step closer slow and deliberate and stopped when Moonfyre's tail twitched warningly against the stone, a rattle of scales that echoed through the chamber. He raised his hands slightly, palms out, a gesture of peace that looked almost strange on a man like him. A man built for command, not for supplication. "I misjudged you. Profoundly. And my failure to see it—my arrogance, my blindness—very nearly cost my son his life and this family something more precious than I can put into words."
He turned back to Moonfyre, and the wonder returned to his face, softening the hard lines of his scars, making him look younger and older all at once. "A dragon. A living dragon. In the caves of Dragonstone. After seventy years of emptiness and silence." His voice cracked on the final word, splintering like old wood. "Do you understand what this means? Do you understand what you have done?"
You stiffened. The old fear rose up in your chest, sharp and immediate and viscerally familiar, the fear that had been with you since you first decided to return to the island instead of fleeing across the Narrow Sea. The fear of being separated from Moonfyre. The fear of her being taken away locked up in some pit like the dragons of old, turned into a weapon, reduced to a symbol for a house that had forgotten how to love the creatures it claimed to revere. Your hand tightened on her scales, the edges pressing into your palm.
"She is not a thing to be used," you said, and your voice came out sharper than you intended, honed by months of fear and loneliness and desperate love. "She is not a weapon. She is not a political tool. She is not a symbol for your house or a prop for your restoration. She is my friend. My family. The only family I have ever truly had. And I will not—I will not—let anyone take her from me. I don't care who you are. I don't care what throne you sit on. I will burn that throne to ash before I let you use her."
Baelor turned back to you, and something in his expression softened further—not the condescending softness of an adult humoring a child, but something gentler, something almost sorrowful. "No one is going to take her from you, my lady. I give you my word on that, and I do not give my word lightly. I suspect anyone who tried would find themselves facing both a very angry dragon and my son, and I am not eager to lose either of those confrontations. Nor would I wish to."
"He's right." Valarr moved to stand beside you, his hand finding yours again, his fingers interlacing with yours in a grip that was steady and sure. "No one is taking her from you. No one is taking you from here. You're safe. Both of you. I swear it on everything I am."
"Then what did you mean?" You looked at Baelor, your eyes narrowing, the fear still coiled in your chest like a serpent waiting to strike. "What does it mean? What do you think I have done?"
Baelor was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was slower, more deliberate, the voice of a man choosing his words with extreme care and measuring their weight before he let them fall.
"For seventy years, House Targaryen has been without dragons. Our power, our identity, our very reason for existing—it was all tied to them. When the last dragon died, something in us died with it. Something essential. We have been lesser ever since. Diminished. Clinging to a throne through nothing but tradition and politics and the fading memory of a greatness we could no longer claim and could never seem to reclaim." He paused, his eyes moving back to Moonfyre with that same stunned reverence. "You have returned that greatness to us. You found a wounded creature in the dark and you healed her. You showed her love when anyone else would have shown her a saddle, and she loved you in return. You did what none of us could do, what none of us even thought to try. And I suspect that says more about you—about your heart, your character, your worth—than it says about any of us."
You stared at him. The words were so unexpected, so far from what you had braced yourself to hear, that you did not know how to respond. You had prepared for a dozen different versions of this moment, and none of them had looked like this.
He drew a breath and continued, his voice growing steadier even as it grew quieter. "When I offered you coin to leave my son, I told myself I was protecting him. Protecting him from a mistake, from an entanglement beneath his station, from a girl who could bring him nothing but complications. And protecting you as well, or so I told myself, from future heartbreak when the world inevitably tore you apart." He shook his head slowly, the gesture heavy with self recrimination. "I was wrong. Not just about the dragon. About you. About what you are worth. About what you mean to him—and what he means to you." He glanced at Valarr, and something passed between father and son, something complicated and pained and long in the making. "My son abdicated for you. He stood in my hall, in front of my entire court, and told me he would give up everything—his title, his inheritance, his future, his place in this family—for the chance to be with you. And I thought he was being a fool. A romantic fool, throwing his life away for a village girl who had no family and no name and no value beyond what he had imagined in her."
"But she has a dragon," Valarr said quietly. His voice was calm, but there was steel beneath it, a blade wrapped in silk. "And now suddenly she has value. Now suddenly she matters. Now suddenly you're standing here apologizing and calling her 'my lady' and speaking of greatness."
"That is not what I meant."
"Isn't it?" Valarr's voice was hard now, the silk falling away. "If she had returned without Moonfyre, if she had come back alone with nothing but the truth, would you still be standing here apologizing? Would you still be calling her 'my lady' and speaking of returning greatness? Or would you be trying to find some other way to remove her?"
The silence that followed was brutal in its honesty. Baelor did not answer immediately, and his failure to do so was an answer in itself, a confession written in hesitation.
Then he said, very quietly, "I would like to think so. I would like to think that seeing you nearly destroy yourself with grief would have been enough. That hearing the truth from you—really hearing it, without my own prejudices in the way—would have been enough. But I cannot say for certain. I cannot stand here and claim a virtue I am not sure I possess. And that uncertainty is a failing I will have to live with. A failing I will have to work to overcome." He turned to you, meeting your eyes directly, and you saw something in his face that you had never expected to see there: vulnerability. "My son is right to be angry with me. And you are right to be angry with me as well. I treated you poorly. I treated you as something disposable, something to be swept aside and forgotten. I did not see you as a person. I did not give you even the basic dignity of using your name. I was wrong, and I am sorry. Truly sorry. Not because you have a dragon. Not because circumstances have changed. But because I failed, and you deserve better than what I gave you."
You looked at him for a long moment. At his scarred face and his windblown hair and the dust on his fine clothes. At the way his hands hung open at his sides, unthreatening, fingers slightly curled as if he were holding onto something invisible. At the way his eyes kept drifting back to Moonfyre not with greed or calculation or the cold assessment of a military asset, but with that same stunned wonder, the wonder of a boy who had grown up on stories of dragons and had never stopped mourning their loss.
"I don't trust you," you said bluntly. The words came out flat and unadorned, a simple statement of fact.
Baelor nodded slowly, accepting it. "I understand. I have given you no reason to trust me, and every reason not to. I would not expect you to forget what happened between us. But I hope—genuinely hope—that in time, I might earn your trust. Earn it the hard way, through actions rather than words. The way my son is earning it." He paused, glancing at Valarr with something that might have been pride or sorrow or both. "He is earning it, I take it? Given that he is still standing here, and the dragon has not eaten him?"
"The dragon came very close to eating him," you said, and despite everything you felt the corner of your mouth twitch, an almost-smile breaking through. "He walked in waving a sword around like an absolute idiot."
"It was a mistake," Valarr muttered, his ears going red. "I already admitted it was a mistake. I panicked. I thought you were dead and I was going to avenge you, and I wasn't thinking clearly."
"You could have died."
"But I didn't." He squeezed your hand, his thumb tracing a circle on your palm. "Because you stopped her. Because she listens to you. Because you're remarkable, and I am the luckiest fool who ever lived, and I am never going to stop being grateful for either of those facts."
Baelor watched this exchange with an expression that was difficult to parse, something between bemusement and approval and a kind of wistfulness, as if he were watching a language being spoken that he had never learned. Then he cleared his throat, the sound deliberate and slightly awkward.
"I realize this is a great deal to ask, given our history and how recently you've been through an ordeal. But I would like to discuss what happens next. With you, with the dragon, with my son. Not here, perhaps—not with half my household guard waiting outside and the entire village in a state of panic and my knees slowly giving out on this stone floor. But soon. When you are ready. When she is ready." He inclined his head toward Moonfyre, who had lowered her head slightly, still watching him with those unblinking golden eyes. "I would like to do this properly, if you'll permit it."
"Not today," you said, and your voice came out steadier than you felt. "Today I need to stay here with her. She's been through a lot. We both have. She was frightened, and she needs me, and I'm not going to leave her alone in the dark. But soon. I'll come to the castle when she's calm enough to be left, when I know she'll be alright without me for a few hours."
Baelor nodded immediately, no hesitation. "That is more than fair. More than I expected, honestly. Take whatever time you need." He hesitated, something flickering across his face, uncertainty, perhaps, or the effort of a proud man trying to learn humility in real time. Then he added, "For what it is worth, my lady, I am glad you are alive. Genuinely and without qualification. My son has been a ghost without you, a hollow thing going through the motions of living, and it was terrible to witness. I would not have wished that grief on him for anything. And I am... I am sorry that my actions contributed to it."
"Thank you," you said, because it seemed like the thing to say, even if you were not entirely sure you meant it, even if a part of you was still bracing for the other shoe to drop. It was a start, at least. Small and fragile and tentative, but a start.
Baelor turned to go, his footsteps slow and reluctant. But he paused at the edge of the chamber, where the tunnel opened into the darkness, and he looked back at Moonfyre one last time. That wonder crossed his face again, softening the hard edges, erasing the years and the scars and the weight of command until all that remained was a man standing in the presence of something he had believed lost forever.
"A dragon," he murmured, almost to himself, his voice barely above a whisper. "After all these years. After all this silence. A dragon in the caves of Dragonstone." He shook his head slowly, the gesture full of something that looked almost like prayer. "Welcome home, Moonfyre. Welcome home."
And then he was gone, his footsteps fading into the darkness of the tunnel, leaving the three of you alone in the warm glow of the lichen light. Moonfyre let out a long breath and lowered her head to rest on her foreclaws. Valarr pulled you closer, his arm coming around your shoulders. And for the first time in days, in months, in what felt like a lifetime, you allowed yourself to believe that everything might, somehow, be alright.
Then Valarr let out a breath that sounded like it had been trapped in his chest for days. He turned to you, and before you could speak, before you could even think, his arms were around you again. Not desperate this time. Not crushing. Just holding you, his face buried in your hair, his hands spread warm and steady against your back.
"Thank you," he murmured against your temple. "Thank you for that. For hearing him out. For giving him a chance when you had every right to turn him away."
You let yourself lean into him, just slightly, your cheek pressing against the rumpled fabric of his tunic. "I didn't do it for him."
"I know. You did it for me." His arms tightened. "You didn't have to. After everything I did, after everything he did, you could have told us both to go to hell and flown away on your dragon. I wouldn't have blamed you. No one would have blamed you."
"I considered it," you admitted. "When you burst in here waving a sword around like a character from a bad ballad, I very seriously considered it."
He laughed, a soft huff of air against your hair. "I really did make a spectacular first impression on her, didn't I? Charging in with a blade drawn, shouting at the top of my lungs. She's never going to forget that. I'm going to be the idiot with the sword for the rest of her very long life."
"Probably." You pulled back just enough to look up at him, and the expression on his face made your breath catch. He was looking at you with such naked adoration, such desperate, disbelieving gratitude, that it was almost painful to witness. "But she didn't kill you. That's a good sign. She only kills people she really doesn't like."
"Then I'll take it as a compliment." He cupped your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing across your cheekbones with that same impossible gentleness. "I meant what I said before. What I told my father. You are the most remarkable person I have ever met. You tamed a dragon with kindness. You came back here even though you were terrified, even though you had no idea what was waiting for you. And you gave me a second chance when I deserved nothing but your contempt."
"You're right," you said, and you felt your lips twitch. "You didn't deserve it. Neither did your father."
"No. We didn't." His voice was utterly sincere. "What you gave us in this cave today is far more than either of us earned. Far more than I ever could have hoped for. And I want you to know that I understand that. I understand how much it cost you to stand there and listen to him. I understand how much it cost you to let me hold you after what I did. And I am not going to forget it. Not ever."
He leaned down and pressed his lips to your forehead, soft and lingering, like a promise. Then your cheek. Then the corner of your mouth. Each kiss was deliberate, reverent, as if he was trying to communicate through touch what words could not quite capture.
"I love you," he said against your skin. "I know I keep saying it, and I know words aren't enough to fix what I broke. But I'm going to keep saying it anyway. Every day. Until you're sick of hearing it. Until you believe it as completely as I do."
You reached up and covered his hands with your own, holding them against your face. "I believe you. I'm still angry, and I don't trust your father as far as I could throw him, and if you ever lie to me again I will feed you to Moonfyre myself. But I believe you."
"That's all I ask." He kissed you properly then, soft and slow and full of a tenderness that made your chest ache. When he pulled back, his eyes were bright. "More than I deserve. Far more."
You pulled back from Valarr's embrace, though his hand stayed laced with yours, his thumb tracing slow circles across your knuckles. The warmth of the moment still lingered in your chest, but the thought that had been nagging at the edges of your mind since you first saw Dragonstone rising from the sea finally pushed its way to the forefront.
"I need to go to the village." The words came out before you'd fully formed the thought. "I need to see Marta. She probably thinks I'm dead. She probably thinks I fell off the cliffs or got swept out to sea or—"
"Y/N." He caught your hand, his fingers warm and steady, and you stopped, your breath coming too fast. "I know. We'll go. But first—" He glanced at Moonfyre, who had lifted her head and was watching you with those golden eyes, her tail twitching. "You need to tell her where you're going. Otherwise she might follow you, and I don't think the village is ready for that."
He was right. Of course he was right. You turned back to Moonfyre, her scales shimmered in the dim light, pale and beautiful, and her eyes met yours with an intelligence that still took your breath away.
"Hey, sweet girl." You approached her slowly, your hand outstretched, and she lowered her head to press her snout into your palm. The gesture was so familiar now, so automatic, that it made your chest ache. "I have to go. Just for a little while."
She made a sound, a low, questioning rumble, and her tail curled around your legs like she was trying to anchor you in place.
"I know. I know, I don't want to leave you either. But there's someone I need to see. Someone important." You stroked the ridge of her eye, the way she liked, and felt her lean into your touch. Moonfyre blinked at you slowly. Her tail tightened around your legs, just for a moment, and then released. She made another sound, this one lower, more grudging—the dragon equivalent of a sigh.
"I'll come back," you promised. "I'll always come back. You know that, don't you? After everything we've been through, you have to know that."
She huffed, a puff of warm air that stirred your hair and smelled of sulfur and something sweet. Then, slowly, deliberately, she lowered herself back down onto the stone floor, her head coming to rest on her front claws, her eyes still fixed on you. It was surrender. Reluctant, begrudging, but surrender all the same.
"Rest," you told her, pressing a kiss to her snout. "You've had a long day. We both have. Rest, and I'll be back before you know it."
She rumbled, and her eyes slid half-closed. Not quite trusting, not quite relaxed, but willing to let you go. You felt a lump rise in your throat as you pulled away, your hand lingering on her scales until the last possible moment.
Valarr was waiting for you at the entrance to the chamber, his expression soft. "She really does love you."
"I know." You wiped at your eyes with the back of your hand. "I love her too. That's why this is so hard."
"Leaving her?"
"Leaving her alone. She's been alone so much. I don't want her to think I'm abandoning her."
Valarr was quiet for a moment. Then he reached out and took your hand, his fingers lacing through yours. "She knows you're coming back. She trusts you. You've proven that to her a hundred times over."
You nodded, swallowing the lump in your throat. "Let's go. Before I change my mind."
The walk down from the caves was strange. Familiar and unfamiliar all at once. The path was the same one you had walked a thousand times, the rocks worn smooth by your feet, the wild onions growing in the gully, the Dragon's Tooth looming above you like a sentinel. But everything felt different now. The air was sharper. The colors were brighter. You had flown across the sea on a dragon's back. You had slept on a beach under the stars. You had come back to find your world turned inside out, and now you were walking down a path you'd known your whole life, holding hands with a prince, on your way to apologize to the woman who had raised you for disappearing without a word.
"I took care of her," Valarr said quietly, as if he could hear your thoughts. "While you were gone. Marta, I mean."
You looked at him sharply. "What?"
"After we found your cloak. After we thought..." He trailed off, his jaw tightening. "I went to see her. To tell her what had happened. She was—" He paused, searching for the right word. "She was not well. The news hit her hard. She couldn't stop shaking. She kept saying your name, over and over, like she was trying to call you back."
Your throat tightened. "Valarr..."
"I stayed with her. That first night. I didn't know what else to do. She made me tea, even though her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the kettle. We sat in her cottage and we waited. She told me stories about you. About when you were little. About the time you fell in the river chasing butterflies, and she had to pull you out. About the time you tried to adopt a stray cat and it scratched you so badly she thought you'd need stitches. About the way you always talked to the goats like they could understand you." He smiled, a small, sad smile. "She loves you so much, Y/N. It's like watching the sun love the moon. She talked about you like you were the only good thing she'd ever done."
You couldn't speak. Your eyes were burning, and your throat was so tight you could barely breathe.
"I made sure she ate," Valarr continued. "I made sure she had firewood. I sent someone to check on her every day while I was out searching for you. I know it wasn't—I know I couldn't replace you. No one could. But I couldn't just leave her alone. Not when I knew how much you loved her."
"You did all that?" Your voice came out as a whisper.
"Of course I did." He looked at you, his mismatched eyes earnest and steady. "She's your family. That makes her my family too. Or it will, if you'll have me."
You didn't know what to say. You had spent so many hours being angry at him, holding onto your hurt like a shield, and now here he was, telling you he had taken care of your mother while you were gone. He had sat with her in the dark and listened to her stories and made sure she ate. He had done the things you should have been there to do.
"Thank you," you managed. "I don't—thank you."
"You don't have to thank me." He squeezed your hand. "Just don't disappear again. I don't think either of us could survive it a second time."
You walked the rest of the way in silence. The village appeared below you, huddled against the mountainside, its grey roofs and narrow streets looking smaller and more fragile than you remembered. There were people moving around down there, going about their business, but the atmosphere was different. Tense. You could see clusters of villagers gathered in the square, talking in low voices, their heads bent together. You could see guards on the outskirts, more than usual, their armor glinting in the afternoon sun. Word of the dragon had spread. Everyone was on edge.
You didn't care about any of them. Your eyes were fixed on the cottage at the edge of the village, the smallest and shabbiest of them all, with its worn wooden door and its overgrown herb garden and its chimney that always smoked when the wind blew from the east. Home. It was still standing. It was still there.
You let go of Valarr's hand and started walking faster. Your legs were tired, your body aching from the flight and the confrontation and the long, emotional day, but you didn't care. You broke into a jog, then a run, your boots slapping against the packed earth of the path, your heart pounding in your chest. The cottage grew closer and closer, and you could see the light burning in the window, could see the thin wisp of smoke curling from the chimney. She was home. She was home, and you were almost there.
You burst through the door without knocking.
Marta was sitting at the table, her gnarled hands wrapped around a cup of tea, her grey hair escaping from its braid in wisps that the wind had tugged free. She looked up when the door slammed open, and her sharp old eyes went wide with shock.
For a moment, no one moved. No one spoke. The only sound was the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the distant cry of gulls outside. Then Marta set down her cup with a clatter and rose to her feet.
"You stupid girl."
Her voice was rough, scraped raw by worry and sleepless nights, and there were tears streaming down her weathered cheeks. She crossed the room in three quick strides, faster than you had ever seen her move, and then her arms were around you, pulling you against her with a strength that belied her age. She smelled of woodsmoke and chamomile and the sharp, herbal scent of the poultices she made for the villagers. She smelled like home.
"You stupid, reckless, foolish girl," she said, her voice muffled against your hair. "You gave me a heart attack. A heart attack, do you hear me? At my age, that's practically a death sentence. I've been worried sick for days. Days! I thought you were dead. I thought you'd fallen off the cliffs. I thought I'd lost you."
"I'm sorry." The words came out choked, barely audible. You were crying now, tears streaming down your face, soaking into the rough fabric of Marta's shawl. "I'm sorry, Marta. I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't mean to leave. I just—"
"And then I hear you're alive." Marta pulled back just enough to look at your face, her hands cupping your cheeks, her thumbs brushing away your tears with a gentleness that made your chest ache. "Do you know how I found out? Not from you. Not from a message. I heard the screaming. The whole village was screaming, and I went outside, and there was a dragon. A dragon, Y/N. Flying over my house. And I thought—I thought, that's her. That's my girl. She's gone and done something impossible again."
"I was going to tell you. I was coming to tell you right now."
"A dragon." Marta shook her head slowly, her eyes still wide with disbelief. "All those times you told me about Moonfyre. All those times I nodded and smiled and thought you had an imaginary friend. And she was real. She was real the whole time."
"She was real." Your voice cracked. "I tried to tell you. I tried to tell everyone. But no one believed me."
"I know." Marta's face crumpled, and fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. "I know, child. And I'm sorry. I should have believed you. You've never been a liar. You've never been one for tall tales. I should have known you were telling the truth."
You couldn't speak. You just held onto her, your face pressed into her shoulder, your body shaking with sobs you hadn't realized you'd been holding back. All the fear and the grief and the loneliness of the past days came pouring out of you, and Marta held you through it, her gnarled hands rubbing slow circles on your back, her voice a low, soothing murmur in your ear.
"Shh," she said. "Shh, child. I've got you. You're home now. You're home."
"I left without telling you." The words came out muffled against her shawl. "I just went to the cave, and I was so sad, and I fell asleep, and when I woke up Moonfyre was there, and she took me away, and I didn't even think—I didn't even say goodbye—"
"You came back." Marta's voice was firm. "That's what matters. You came back."
"I was so scared you'd hate me."
"Hate you?" Marta pulled back again, her hands still cupping your face, her eyes fierce despite the tears. "Y/N, I could never hate you. You're my daughter. Not by blood, maybe, but in every way that counts. I raised you from a squalling infant. I taught you to walk, to talk, to gather herbs and milk goats and stand up for yourself. I have loved you every day of your life, and I will love you every day of mine. Nothing you could do would ever change that. Do you understand?"
You nodded, your throat too tight to speak.
"Good." Marta released your face and pulled you into another hug, this one gentler, longer. "Now. You said you flew on a dragon. A dragon, Y/N. You could have fallen. You could have slipped right off her back and fallen into the sea. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"
"She wouldn't let me fall." You pulled back, wiping at your eyes with your sleeve. "She's careful with me. She's never let me get hurt."
"Never let you—" Marta shook her head, a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob escaping her. "Only you, child. Only you would tame a dragon and then talk about her like she's a particularly large horse."
"She's not a horse. She's much smarter than a horse."
"I'm glad you're home, child. I'm glad you're safe. And I'm glad you brought the prince. Even if he does hover."
"I don't hover," Valarr protested weakly.
"You hover," Marta and you said in unison, and then you looked at each other and laughed. It was a watery, unsteady laugh, but it was real, and it felt like the first real laugh you'd had in days.
"Come here, Prince." Marta beckoned him over, and when he was close enough, she reached up and patted his cheek with her gnarled hand. "You took care of her mother while she was gone. That's not nothing. I don't know what you did to upset her before she left, and I'm sure you deserved it, but you've earned a second chance in my book. Don't waste it."
"I won't." Valarr's voice was quiet but steady. "I swear it."
She was already moving toward the hearth, her gnarled hands reaching for the kettle. "Sit down. Both of you. I'm making tea, and then you're going to tell me everything. Every single thing. Starting from the beginning."
You sat at Marta's table with a cup of tea warming your hands, the familiar smell of chamomile and honey filling your lungs, and for the first time in days you felt something close to safe. The fire crackled in the hearth, Marta was bustling around the kitchen muttering about how thin you'd gotten, and Valarr was sitting across from you, his chair tilted back against the wall, his mismatched eyes watching you with a quiet intensity that made your stomach flutter.
But the warmth of the tea couldn't mask the fact that you were absolutely disgusting.
You'd been wearing the same clothes for three days. Your dress was stiff with dried seawater and dragon sweat and probably a dozen other things you didn't want to think about. Your hair was a wild, tangled nest, matted with salt and sand and the faint, lingering smell of Moonfyre's sulfurous breath. There was dirt under your fingernails, a scrape on your elbow you didn't remember getting, and what might have been goat grease smeared across your collar. You looked, in short, like you'd been dragged backward through the Dragonmont and then set on fire.
"I need a bath," you announced, setting down your cup. "Marta, is the washtub still—"
"In the back, where it always is." Marta didn't look up from the pot she was stirring. "There's water heating over the fire. I put it on as soon as I heard the screaming start. Figured if you were alive, you'd need it."
You blinked. "You put water on to heat before you even knew I was coming back?"
"I hoped you were coming back." Marta's voice was gruff, but you caught the tremor in it. "I've been heating water every day. Just in case."
Your throat tightened, and you had to look away. "I'll go wash up, then."
You rose from the table, your legs still shaky, your body aching in places you hadn't known existed. Flying was hard work. Flying while terrified was even harder. You'd been running on adrenaline and stubbornness for so long that the exhaustion had become background noise, something you'd learned to ignore. But now, in the warmth of Marta's kitchen, with the fire crackling and the tea settling in your stomach, it was catching up to you.
At the door to the back room, you paused and turned. Valarr was still sitting at the table, still watching you. He looked as tired as you felt, his hollow cheeks and dark circled eyes a testament to the days he'd spent searching for you. His tunic was rumpled beyond saving, his hair was a wild mess, and there was a smear of dirt across his forehead where he'd wiped his brow at some point.
"You should go home," you said. "Get some rest. Wash up. Your mother's probably waiting for you."
Valarr didn't move. "I'm not leaving."
"Valarr, I'm just taking a bath. I'll be fine."
"I'm not leaving," he repeated, and there was something in his voice that hadn't been there before. Something harder. Something that sounded almost like steel.
You frowned. "What are you talking about?"
He rose from his chair, crossing the room to stand in front of you. Up close, you could see the exhaustion in his face, the red rims around his mismatched eyes, the way his jaw was set with a determination that seemed almost out of place in Marta's cozy kitchen.
"You're the first dragonrider in seventy years," he said quietly. "Do you understand what that means? Not for House Targaryen, not for the realm. For you. For your safety."
"I have a dragon. I think my safety is pretty well handled."
"Your dragon is in the caves. You're here." He stepped closer, his voice dropping even lower. "The whole island saw you fly in. The whole island knows what you are now. Word is going to spread—it's probably already spreading. Merchants in the harbor, fishermen heading out to sea, ravens flying to every corner of the Seven Kingdoms. By tomorrow, everyone is going to know that a girl from Dragonstone tamed a living dragon."
"Valarr—"
"And most people will be awed. Most people will be grateful. But some people won't." His hand found yours, his fingers lacing through your cold ones. "Some people will see you as a threat. Some people will see you as a weapon to be stolen. And some people are just stupid enough to think that if they get rid of you, the dragon will be up for grabs."
You stared at him. "You think someone in the village is going to attack me while I'm taking a bath?"
"I think I'm not taking any chances." His grip on your hand tightened. "I spent three days thinking you were dead, Y/N. Three days of believing I'd lost you forever. I'm not going to let something happen to you now because I was too careless to stand guard while you washed your hair."
"That's ridiculous."
"Maybe. I don't care."
"You can't just stand outside the door while I bathe. That's—" You felt your cheeks flush. "That's not appropriate."
"Then I'll wait in the front room. With Marta." He tilted his head, his eyes searching your face. "But I'm not leaving this cottage tonight. Not unless you really want me to. And even then, I'd probably just camp outside the door."
You wanted to argue. You wanted to tell him he was being absurd, that you'd survived a dragon and a flight across the sea and a confrontation with his father, and you could certainly survive a bath without a prince hovering nearby. But there was something in his expression a tightness around his eyes, a tension in his jaw that made you stop. He wasn't just being protective. He was scared. Genuinely, deeply scared. Three days of thinking you were dead had done something to him, carved a wound that hadn't started to heal until he'd burst into that cave and seen you alive.
"Fine," you said, and his shoulders sagged with visible relief. "But you're not allowed to loom. Marta doesn't like looming."
"I don't loom."
"You definitely loom."
"I have never loomed in my life."
"You're looming right now."
Marta's voice cut through from the kitchen. "He's looming. I can feel it from here."
"You're standing like a guardsman outside a treasury," you told him, and despite everything, you felt the corner of your mouth twitch upward. "Relax. I'm just getting clean."
His expression softened, the hard edges smoothing away. "Go take your bath. I'll be here when you're done."
You nodded, pulling your hand free from his, and slipped into the back room. The washtub was there, just as Marta had promised, already filled with steaming water. A bar of rough soap sat on the edge, and a clean towel was draped over a stool nearby. You peeled off your filthy clothes, wincing at the soreness in your muscles, and lowered yourself into the water.
It was glorious. The heat seeped into your aching body, loosening the knots in your shoulders and the tension in your spine. You closed your eyes and let yourself sink deeper, the water rising up to your chin, and for a long moment you just breathed. The steam filled your lungs, warm and clean, chasing away the last traces of salt and smoke.
You could hear Valarr's voice from the other room, low and steady, and Marta's answering chuckle. You couldn't make out the words, but the tone was companionable, familiar. Like they'd been doing this for years instead of days. You thought about what he'd said, that he'd taken care of her while you were gone, that he'd sat with her and listened to her stories and made sure she ate. You thought about the way he'd looked at you when he said it, like it was the most natural thing in the world, like taking care of your family was just something he did.
You thought about a lot of things. And when you finally emerged from the bath, clean and warm and wrapped in Marta's towel, you found Valarr exactly where he'd promised to be. Sitting at the table, a cup of tea in his hands, not looming. Waiting.
"Better?" he asked.
"Better," you said, and you meant it.
Later that night Valarr had settled into a chair by the door, his sword propped against the wall within easy reach, his long legs stretched out before him. He'd insisted on taking the first watch, even though Marta had told him repeatedly that no one in the village was going to attack her home.
"Old habits," he'd said, and Marta had snorted and told him he wasn't old enough to have habits.
Now the fire had burned down to embers, and the cottage was quiet except for Marta's soft snoring from the back room and the distant whisper of the sea. You were curled on your pallet, wrapped in the same worn blanket you'd used since childhood, your body heavy with exhaustion. Valarr's silhouette was just visible in the dim orange glow, his head tipped back against the wall, his breathing slow and even. You thought he might have fallen asleep sitting up, and the thought made something warm bloom in your chest.
You were just drifting off, your mind going soft and hazy at the edges, when the screaming started.
It was distant at first, muffled by the cottage walls, but it grew quickly voices raised in panic, the sound of doors slamming, a woman's high-pitched shriek cutting through the night. You were on your feet before you were fully awake, your heart hammering, your hand reaching instinctively for a weapon that wasn't there. Valarr was already up, his sword in his hand, his body positioned between you and the door.
"What is that?" you breathed.
"Stay here." His voice was sharp, alert. "I'll check—"
But you were already moving, because you knew. You didn't know how you knew, but you did. There was a feeling in your chest, a pull, a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire. It was the same feeling you'd had in the cave, when Moonfyre had come back to you. The same feeling you'd had on the island, when she'd returned with a goat and dropped it at your feet. A thread of connection, invisible but unbreakable, tugging at the space behind your ribs.
You threw open the door and ran outside.
The village was in chaos. People were spilling out of their homes in various states of undress, clutching children and makeshift weapons, a broom, a fishing gaff, a cast iron pan. Some were running toward the source of the commotion, others away from it. Lanterns bobbed in the darkness like fireflies, their flickering light casting wild shadows across the cobblestones. And in the center of it all, in the narrow lane between Marta's cottage and the baker's house, was Moonfyre.
She was enormous in the confined space, her pale scales reflecting the lantern light and scattering it like jewels. Her wings were folded tight against her body, her head low to the ground, her tail curled around her haunches. She wasn't growling. She wasn't snarling. She was just... there. Crouched in the lane like a cat that had decided to nap in an inconvenient doorway, her golden eyes scanning the crowd with an expression that was more wary than aggressive.
But the villagers didn't know that. They saw teeth. They saw claws. They saw fire flickering at the back of her throat, because of course she was nervous, of course she was agitated, there were people everywhere and they were screaming and waving things at her, and she didn't understand.
"It's the dragon!"
"She's come to burn us!"
"Get the children inside!"
"Someone get a spear!"
"No!" You threw yourself between Moonfyre and the crowd, your arms spread wide, your voice cutting through the chaos with a force that surprised even you. "Stop! Everyone stop! She's not going to hurt you!"
The crowd faltered. Faces turned toward you, faces you recognized, faces you'd known your whole life. Old Tom the fisherman, his gaff still raised. The baker's wife, clutching her rolling pin. The blacksmith, bare chested and holding a hammer. Neighbors. People who had known you since you were a child, who had called you the Silver Lark and humored your stories about dragons.
"Y/N?" The baker's wife lowered her rolling pin, her round face pale with shock. "Y/N, is that you? We thought you were dead!"
"I'm not dead." You kept your arms spread, your voice steady even though your heart was pounding. "I'm fine. She's not going to hurt anyone. She's just—she's scared, and she doesn't like crowds, and she came looking for me. That's all. She came looking for me."
Moonfyre made a sound behind you a low, plaintive chirp that was so at odds with her size that several villagers actually flinched backward. You turned to look at her, and she was watching you with those golden eyes, her head low, her tail twitching nervously. She looked... anxious. Not aggressive. Not threatening. Just anxious. Like a child who had woken from a nightmare and gone looking for their mother.
"Oh, sweet girl," you murmured, and you stepped toward her, your hand outstretched. "What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay in the cave."
She chirped again and pushed her snout into your palm, her warm scales pressing against your skin. You felt the tension in her, the fine tremor running through her body, and you understood. She had been alone. She had been alone, and she hadn't wanted to be, and so she had come to find you. It didn't matter that she'd been fine sleeping alone in the caves for months before you'd ridden her. Something had changed. The bond between you had deepened, solidified, become something more than it was before. She didn't want to be apart from you. Not tonight. Maybe not ever again.
"It's alright," you said softly, stroking her snout. "It's alright. I'm here. You found me."
Behind you, the villagers were still frozen, still watching with wide eyes and white knuckles. You turned to face them, one hand still pressed against Moonfyre's scales.
"She's not a monster," you said, and your voice carried in the night air. "She's my friend. She's not here to attack you. She's here because she wanted to be near me."
"Near you?" Old Tom's voice was incredulous. "That thing is the size of my boat!"
"She's not a thing. Her name is Moonfyre." You looked at him steadily. "And she's going to sleep outside my house tonight, and she's not going to bother anyone. Is that going to be a problem?"
A long silence. The villagers exchanged glances, fear and uncertainty warring on their faces. But no one raised their weapon. No one shouted. No one lunged forward to attack.
Finally, the baker's wife let out a long breath and tucked her rolling pin under her arm. "Well, if she eats my chickens, you're paying for them."
A startled laugh escaped you. "I will. I promise."
Slowly, reluctantly, the crowd began to disperse. Some people went back to their homes, casting nervous glances over their shoulders. Others lingered at a safe distance, watching with a mixture of terror and fascination. But the immediate danger was over. No one was screaming anymore. No one was threatening violence. Moonfyre had stopped trembling, her breathing evening out as she pressed closer to you.
"Alright, sweet girl," you murmured, stroking her scales. "If you're going to stay, you need to settle down. Can you do that? Can you lie down and be quiet?"
She made a soft, rumbling sound and, very slowly, lowered herself onto the ground beside Marta's cottage. There wasn't much space the lane was narrow, and she was far too large for it but she managed to curl herself into a crescent shape, her tail wrapping around the side of the house, her head coming to rest near the front door. Her wing spread slightly, creating a sheltered space against the cottage wall, and she looked up at you with an expression that was almost hopeful.
"You want me to sleep out here with you," you said. It wasn't a question.
She blinked at you slowly, and her tail twitched, and you knew that was exactly what she wanted. She had flown across the island to find you. She had braved the screaming and the lanterns and the crowd of strangers. And all she wanted was to curl up beside you and feel you close, to know that you were safe and near and not going anywhere.
"Alright," you said, and you pressed a kiss to her snout. "Alright. Give me a minute."
You slipped back inside the cottage. Marta was standing in the doorway, her shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her expression caught somewhere between terror and wonder. Valarr was right behind her, his sword still in his hand, his face pale.
"She came looking for me," you said, and you couldn't quite keep the amazement from your voice. "She didn't want to be alone."
"I gathered that." Marta shook her head slowly. "Only you, child. Only you would have a dragon showing up at your doorstep like a stray cat."
"She's not a cat."
"No, cats are smaller and less likely to set the roof on fire." But her voice was warm, and there was something almost like pride in her eyes. "Go on, then. If she needs you, she needs you."
You turned to Valarr. He was still holding his sword, still tense, but the panic had faded from his face. He was looking at you with an expression you couldn't quite read.
"She's anxious," you said. "Something's changed. I don't know what, but she doesn't want to be alone. She wants me nearby. I have to stay with her."
"I know." He sheathed his sword and stepped toward you. "I'm coming with you."
"Valarr—"
"I told you. I'm not leaving you tonight." His voice was quiet but firm. "If that means sleeping outside under a dragon's wing, then that's what I'm doing."
"She might not let you. She barely tolerates you."
"Then I'll ask her nicely."
You stared at him for a moment, at his tired eyes and his set jaw and the stubborn determination in every line of his body. Then you shook your head, a reluctant smile tugging at your lips. "You're ridiculous."
"I've been told."
You went back outside, Valarr following close behind. Moonfyre's head came up when she saw him, a low rumble starting in her chest, but you pressed your hand against her scales before it could grow into a growl.
"He's with me," you told her. "He's staying. I know you don't like him much, but I do. So you need to be nice. Can you do that? Can you let him stay?"
Moonfyre looked at Valarr for a long moment. Her golden eyes were unblinking, assessing. Valarr stood very still, his hands at his sides, his posture open and unthreatening. He didn't reach for his sword. He didn't flinch. He just waited.
Then, slowly, Moonfyre let out a huff and lowered her head back to the ground. Her wing lifted, just slightly, creating a space against the cottage wall. An invitation. Or at least, not a refusal.
"I think that's a yes," Valarr said quietly.
"I think it's a 'fine, but I'm watching you.'"
"That too."
For a long moment, you just sat there, your back against the wall, Moonfyre's wing sheltering you, Valarr warm and solid at your side. Above you, the stars were scattered across the sky like seeds of light. The village was quiet again, the panic faded, the only sound the distant crash of waves and the slow, steady rhythm of Moonfyre's breathing.
"She came all the way here," you said quietly. "She flew across the island because she didn't want to sleep alone."
"She loves you." Valarr's voice was soft. "You saved her life. You're her person."
"I think... I think something changed. When I rode her. When we flew together." You paused, trying to find the right words. "Before, she was fine being apart from me. She'd stay in the cave and I'd go home and we'd see each other the next day. But now..." You looked at Moonfyre, at her golden eyes reflecting the starlight. "Now she doesn't want to be apart. Like the bond got stronger. Like she needs to know I'm close."
"That makes sense." Valarr shifted beside you, his arm brushing yours. "The old stories say that when a dragon bonds with a rider, it's for life. It's not just friendship. Like a bonding of the soul. Something that changes both of you. I read that when dragonriding women gave birth their dragons also screamed and roared in pain along with them."
You turned your head to look at him. "You read about dragons?"
"I read about a lot of things. Especially recently." A small smile flickered across his tired face. "I am a Targaryen, reading about dragons is a requirement."
Something warm bloomed in your chest, and you leaned into him, letting your head rest against his shoulder. He was solid and warm and steady, and he smelled of woodsmoke and leather and something clean that you couldn't name. His arm came up to wrap around you, pulling you closer, and you felt him press a kiss to the top of your head.
"Sleep," he murmured. "I'll be here. She'll be here. Nothing's going to happen."
And for the first time in days, you let yourself relax completely. Moonfyre's wing was warm above you, her breathing a steady rhythm beneath the sound of the waves. Valarr's arm was around you, his heartbeat steady against your ear. You were safe. You were loved. You were home.
—
To His Grace, King Daeron II Targaryen, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Protector of the Realm,
Father,
I write to you with news that I scarcely know how to put into words, though I have rehearsed this letter a dozen times in my head and discarded each version as inadequate. Perhaps the simplest way is best: a dragon has returned to House Targaryen.
Not a skull. Not an egg turned to stone. A living dragon, pale as sea foam with a purple undertone that catches the light like dusk on the water. She is young and she is healthy and whole and utterly, breathtakingly real. I have seen her with my own eyes. I have stood in the same chamber as her and felt the heat of her breath. This is not a rumor, not a peasant's fancy, not a clever mummer's trick. This is truth.
She was found in the eastern caves of the Dragonmont, where she had hidden herself away after sustaining a wing injury. How she came to be there—whether she hatched from some long-dormant egg or migrated from some place beyond our knowledge—I cannot say. What matters is that she was found, and healed, and claimed.
And here, Father, is where the story becomes something stranger than any maester's account.
She was found by a girl. A village girl, no older than sixteen, a bastard of Dragonstone with no family name and no prospects beyond the goats she tended for the old woman who raised her, she bears our look, though which of our kin planted that seed, I cannot say and she does not know. She came to me when I first arrived on the island, seeking an audience at the petitions. She told me there was a dragon in the caves. She told me she had been feeding it, healing it, that it had let her touch its scales and sleep beside its warmth.
I did not believe her.
I will sit with that shame for the rest of my life, Father. I looked at this girl—earnest and hopeful and wearing a cloak that was more patches than original fabric—and I saw only what I expected to see. A lonely child with an imaginary friend. A bastard reaching for something to make herself feel special. I humored her. I smiled, and I nodded, and I told her she could keep her dragon as a gift from the crown, because I thought I was being kind. I thought I was being generous to a girl who was not quite right in the head.
She was telling the truth. All of it. Every word.
Her name is Y/N. She lives with an old healer woman named Marta who took her in as an infant and she saved a dragon's life through nothing more than stubbornness and kindness, because she could not walk away from something that was hurting, even when it tried to bite her head off.
I know what you must be thinking. A common girl. A bastard. This is not how dragons are supposed to return to us. They are supposed to be claimed by princes and princesses, by trueborn children of our line, by people who will use them to restore our house to its former glory.
But the dragon chose her, Father. The bond between them is as real as any in the old histories. Perhaps more so. She did not claim the dragon through blood or fire or conquest. She claimed it through love.
I am not so foolish as to think this will not complicate things. A dragon bonded to a common girl, a bastard with no name and no title, is not what any of us would have chosen. There will be those who say she cannot be trusted with such power. There will be those who say the dragon should be taken from her, by force if necessary, and bonded to someone more suitable.
I am writing to tell you, as plainly as I can, that I will not allow that to happen.
Not only because it would be wrong—though it would be. Not only because the dragon would likely kill anyone who tried—though she would. But because I have seen this girl, and I have spoken with her, and I believe with all my heart that she is the best thing that could have happened to this dragon and to our house. She does not want power. She does not want gold or titles or lands. She is more noble than half the lords I have met at court, and she has nothing to her name but a worn cloak and a dragon who loves her.
My son has fallen in love with her.
I did not encourage it. At first, I did everything in my power to discourage it. I reminded him of his betrothal to Kiera of Tyrosh. I told him, in terms that left no room for ambiguity, that a prince of the blood could not throw away his future for a village girl with an imaginary dragon.
The dragon, as it turns out, was not imaginary.
Valarr has made his choice, Father, and I have made mine. I have given my consent for him to marry her. I know this is not what we planned. I know the alliance with Tyrosh was carefully negotiated, and Kiera's family will be insulted, and there will be political consequences that I will spend the next several years managing. But I am asking you—as your son, as your heir, as the man who has spent his entire life doing what was expected of him—to trust me on this.
A dragon is worth more then any coin or fleet the tyroshi can give us.
And her children will be Targaryens.Do you see it, Father? The path forward? Valarr's children— trueborn children, born of his marriage to this girl—will carry our name and our blood and, if the gods are good, the bond with this dragon. A dragon who will, in time, produce more dragons. Eggs, perhaps, if the old stories are true and dragons can shift their sex as need requires. Or perhaps there are more out there, hidden in the caves of the Dragonmont, waiting to be found. But even if Moonfyre is the only one, she is a start. She is hope. She is the first living proof in Seventy years that our house is not finished, that the fire has not gone out, that the blood of Old Valyria still carries its ancient power.
I will write to the Archon of Tyrosh myself. I will explain the situation and offer what recompense I can. Perhaps we can salvage the alliance by betrothing Kiera to Matarys instead—he is younger than Valarr, true, but not by so many years that the match would be unseemly. He is charming and handsome and will make a good husband to someone, even if that someone was originally promised to his brother. It is not a perfect solution, but it is something. A branch to catch us before we fall entirely.
I know you will have questions. I know you will have concerns. I will answer them all when I return to King's Landing, which I expect will be sooner than originally planned now that the situation here has grown so complicated. But for now, Father, I am asking you to sit with this news and consider it carefully before you respond. The dragon has chosen her rider. The rider has chosen my son. And I have chosen to stand with them, however messy and inconvenient that choice may be.
Author's Note: here's the inspo source. I thought it was cute as hell. Brendon and Reader obviously are not pushing their child to exercise as they love their chubby baby. Brendon was just having fun bonding. This is set a little after Baby Shark Bites
Summary: Brendon Park is a gym bro, right? Well his baby wants to be a part of it, too, even if she can't walk yet.
Word count: 598
Read it on AO3
After a day out with friends, you weren't quite sure what to expect when you got home. Oh, you didn't expect the house to be a mess or anything, no, you trusted Brendon in regards to that. You just didn't know what he and the one-year-old had gotten up to that day. One day you had come home to the two of them sitting in a blanket fort watching Finding Nemo and…eating goldfish crackers? That didn't quite track for “fish are friends, not food” but whatever. You snapped a photo for posterity.
The house was mostly quiet when you got inside. You heard faint music in the distance and figured Brendon was working out while your daughter napped. A peek into the baby's room said that was not the case. That meant the baby was in her play area in the home gym Brendon had set up.
Yet again, you were wrong as you stepped into the gym. Instead of her dancing to the late 90s music Brendon usually listened to, you found Brendon sitting on the floor at the head of his bench, one leg on either side with the baby laying on the bench holding a “barbell”, laughing at her father who was making silly faces. Brendon smiled wide as you walked in. “We went shopping,” he said cheerily.
You furrowed your brow. “I see. What led to all this?”
Brendon moved back from the bench and sat the baby in his lap before he handed the barbell to you. It was a thin PVC pipe with two slices from a pool noodle on either end. “I tried to work out this morning and she wasn't having it. She wanted to be involved. Obviously I wasn't going to let her play with even my small weights. So we went shopping and got creative. She has a barbell and two dumbbells.” Brendon reached for his phone nearby to show you the picture of her trying to gnaw on a dumbbell. “There's still progress to be made.”
You sent the photo to yourself. “I see that, so you two were working on her chest press?”
Brendon nodded. “Want to see?”
“Of course.”
Brendon put the baby back on the bench. “She's gonna be the strongest kid at pre-school one day.”
You rolled your eyes. “Let's not rush things,” you told him and handed him the barbell. Brendon laid the baby down and she laughed looking at him upside down. He placed one of her tiny hands on the bar and put one of his own fingers over her hand to help her hold it before doing the same with the other hand. He then moved it up and down like she was lifting the bar. “See, just like Daddy does it.”
You took a picture of their set up. “Very cute. What else have you done?”
“She was the weight for weighted squats. She had more fun than I did,” he explained, taking the bar from the baby and helping her sit up.
“I'm sure, she's a solid little roly poly,” you said and took your baby from the bench. “Maybe we can workout by going on walks and strengthening these little legs,” you said, squishing her thighs.
“Cardio is very important. We can do cardio at the park and then get ice cream,” Brendon said nodding to the baby. She nodded back not knowing what she was agreeing with. “It's two against one. We have to now.”
“You didn't give me time to agree with you,” you muttered and headed for the door family in tow.
Author's Note: not a scribble! This is just the product of procrastinating on a Monday.
Summary: Baby Park just can't help herself sometimes
Word count: 461
Find this on AO3
Brendon walked into the ER room to you profusely apologizing to the nurse while his baby sat on the bed between them, completely unbothered but with a large knot on her head. The child was absolutely delighted to see her father walk in and attempted to crawl to him.
He picked her up before she could take a dive off the bed and kissed the uninjured side of her head. “What happened?”
The nurse seemed a bit surprised to see him appear as they were trying to reassure you. “Oh, Dr. Park! The patient came in with a hematoma but -”
“No,” he interrupted, “why were you apologizing?” He asked, stepping closer to you. You had already texted him about what led to an ER visit.
You let out a huff. “Your child bit the nurse. They were just trying to get vitals and apparently their arm seemed appetizing.”
Brendon turned his attention to the baby who was trying to pull off his badge. “Did you bite them? That wasn't very nice. Did you apologize?”
“No, but I did a bunch of times,” you sighed. Brendon rubbed your back gently. His parents had told him a few times how they hoped he had a child like him, but he thought they meant it positively. He didn't think he'd been a bad kid.
The nurse broke out of their daze at the notorious Shark talking so sweetly to the baby. “It's really no big deal. It happens. She didn't break the skin. It was more…unexpected than anything.” They hadn't been expecting to feel little teeth clamp onto their forearm, even briefly.
Brendon shook his head and listened to the nurse explain what they had accomplished before the baby bit them. At least, he listened until little teeth found his index finger. This was his fault. He had let her gnaw on his finger when she had first started teething, before it became painful.
The nurse stepped out with reassurance that orders would be put in for a CT scan as a precaution and that the doctor would be in soon. You moved to sit on the bed as Brendon stood holding the baby. “She gets that from you,” you said.
“What?” He asked.
“The biting.”
“Contrary to popular belief about me being an asshole, I don’t go around biting nurses.”
You gave him a pointed look. You were a nurse, just not at that hospital.
“You’re the exception.”
You just rolled your eyes. “You do have the nickname here though…Shark.”
Brendon sighed and held the baby at eye level. “Are you being like Daddy? Are you just a baby shark? Are you going to go around scaring people when you get older?”
The baby chose not to answer the question at that time.
i see your requests are open and that you love dunk as much as i do…
i like fluff, i like sweetness, i like smut; i will take anything and everything. i don’t have a fully-fleshed out request, just dunk
once the giants are asleep;
the day had been eventful, to say the least.
dunk moved out of one bedroom and into another, peeking in on where his little girl slept. you had taken charge of tucking her in, and the sight softened him. her huffy snores, her inability to stay confined in one position. a sight of innocence, it was, and she was the easiest among her brothers, only needing a song or story to lull her into a goodnight’s rest.
stepping back, he wondered if you had decided to take yourself to bed or clean up, as you’d mentioned in passing. dunk was one to fret over such things, wanting to help so he could get you to himself quicker. better yet, he'd rather do it all himself to give you more time off your feet.
the thought carried him to where you may be. he quietly closed the door and set out to search for you.
just as in his mind you stood near the table which hadn't been entirely cleared. dirtied plates lay around, and a tray of lemon cakes sat untouched. the children ate plenty, but you also made plenty too.
dunk crept up behind you, the floor creaking with every step. you had a lemon cake in your hand now, savoring the quiet as you ate a little more.
“what’re you doing, sweet girl?” he kept his voice low, hushed in the event one or more little giants came stumbling out of bed. the twins were still too young to do so, but they had good lungs on the inside. their cries could turn a man as large as dunk upside down.
"finishh...mm," you were mid-swallow. “supper…cleaning…”
“aye, you could call it that,” dunk chuckles, his hands sliding around your waist. he shuffled closer, pressing himself fully against your back. “give it here.”
“say please.”
“please.”
you turned enough to guide the rest up. dunk took a bite, missing your fingers by an inch.
dunk groaned, the sound registering against your back with a pleasant tingle. his head fell into the crook of your neck soon after, the taste making him melt into you. you could undo him no matter what—between what you gave and what you took. even the mere sight of you had his head turn to complete mush.
he kissed your skin, hands rubbing slowly as they traveled up your body. dunk didn’t push for anything, only wanting to feel you were real, like this was a prolonged dream he’d wake from. sometimes, still, he couldn’t believe much of this was true.
“are the twins asleep?” you asked, chewing down the last bite of lemon cake.
he hummed.
“rafe, too?” you sounded pleasantly surprised.
“aye. him, too.”
oh, it had never been that easy.
you turned, hands coming to his arms as he pulled back some to meet your gaze. he was still hunched over, and he looked every bit as tired a hedge knight ought to be.
and he, despite the exhaustion that clouded his mind, could see the light twinkling in your eyes.
“…is that so?” you asked once more, dragging your hands to his shoulders. “that doesn’t seem right.”
“i could show you,” he offered, a small smile growing across his lips. “though…that may wake—“
dunk was yanked down, forced into silence at the sudden strength of your grasp. he groaned into you, mouth slotting against yours in a desperate kiss.
“love—“ he couldn’t focus properly, his body helpless to every pull. one moment you were tugging his hair, the next you were clawing at his tunic like an animal.
you shushed him, only sparing a breath before kissing him again. the children were asleep, the cottage was quiet, and dunk had too much fabric covering his skin.
he knew the rules, and you were insatiable.
dunk lifted you, unable to find rationality when you were so close. he would take you to bed—or take you on the floor, depending on whether he could keep his few wits about him.
he wasn't one to complain. dunk was right where he wanted to be.
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English is not my first language. Also, don't worry, Az will be there soon! Let me know what you think :) I will update this twice a week.
The Motherlist
Please refer to the masterlist for warnings. This story is 18+
When I was young my parents used to take me on camping trips every summer. I remember spending my free time from school making flower crowns for my family, painting rocks I found during our hikes and playing games with my brother Tom. Our days would be filled with laughter and hanging out with friends we’d make during our stay.
But then we grew up. My brother traded camping trips for beach vacations somewhere between law school and becoming a father of two.
I guess it was no surprise to anyone when I decided to attend college in Scotland. I always loved our life in California, don’t get me wrong, but by the time I was eighteen I was itching to go explore a different place. One that had actual weather, preferably. I packed my bags, found a part time job as a barista near campus, hit the jackpot with my flatmate Mateo and adopted the sweetest golden retriever from the shelter. I never looked back, I’d been here for 10 years by now. Unless it was to visit my family of course, although they made it a point to fly out to Scotland whenever they could. My mom couldn’t get enough of the countryside, and my dad laughed in pubs with strangers like he’d lived here all his life.
So here I was, cozy in my shared apartment with a steaming cup of tea in my hands. Rain was softly clattering against the windows, and I thanked God that I managed to squeeze in a short walk with my furry friend Hendrick before it started coming down. He was currently curled up between my legs on the couch, completely covered by the blanket I had thrown over me. How he was able to breath under there, I had no clue, but I heard him sigh dramatically and he shifted on his side to get more comfortable. Guess he’s fine.
I heard the door unlock, Mateo entering the small hall and kicking off his shoes. “I swear to God, this country pisses me off more every day.” He complained as he made his way over to me, pressing a kiss to my head once he was close enough.
“Wanna talk about it?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“No, it’s okay, just in a pissy mood today. It’s nearly June and the sun’s still not out. Our camping trip is next weekend and it’s just gonna be raining, I’m not built for this.” He kept ranting as he moved through the small apartment towards his bedroom, throwing his backpack next to the dining table and shrugging off his wet jean jacket.
We’d finally make our way to Skye the day after tomorrow. I'd been wanting to visit for a while now, and our little friend group finally found some time to go down there for a long weekend. Mateo and his boyfriend, Bryan, were taking his parents’ RV, whereas the rest of us would be staying close by in tents. I preferred it that way, and I know Hendrick enjoyed the coziness of the tent, using it as an excuse to absolutely invade my personal space.
I heard the shower turn on shortly after and I chuckled to myself, taking another sip of my tea and turning on the Netflix on the absurdly large TV Mateo insisted we needed. I was still scrolling when Mateo plopped down on the cushion furthest from me, Hendrick jumping up from his nap and moving around to peak his head from underneath the blanket at my feet.
“Hi Henny, how was your day?” Mateo grinned as he started petting Hendrick enthusiastically. Earning himself a couple of slobbers across his cheeks. “I know you missed me!” He yelled dramatically. I laughed at Hendrick excitedly grabbing a toy from his basket and making his way back over to Mateo. “Have you made a packing list yet?” He asked me while attempting to tug the toy from Hendricks mouth.
“You’re only asking that because you’re too lazy to make your own and want to use mine,” I argued.
“Of course, so you have it?”
“Obviously. I’ll send it to you.”
“Thank you, my bestest, sweetest, smartest, most generous fri-”
“Oh, shut the fuck up Mateo.”
He let out a loud laugh but kept his mouth shut nonetheless.
.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙‧͙
The next day was, to put it mildly, a drag. Work was slow, as most people took off with their families for the summer. Me and Mateo spend the day ‘working’ from home. We were spread out on the couch with our laptops in our laps, making sure to stay online on Microsoft Teams while sending each other TikTok after TikTok. Adult life could be such a joke sometimes.
“If we know what’s good for us we’d start packing right now so we don’t have to do everything tomorrow morning.” I stated.
“Yeah… but do we know what’s good for us?” Mateo sent me a pleading look that said ‘please don’t make me get up right now’.
“I’m not sure yet.” The couch was very comfortable.
We fell back into a comfortable silence. But after 15 more minutes I made up my mind and sprung up from the couch.
“No, you cannot do this to me.” Mateo whined from the couch.
“Just because I’m packing now doesn’t mean you have to pack right now.” I rolled my eyes at him.
“Yes it does, because sitting on the couch while you’re running around being productive makes me feel like a lazy ass.”
“You are a lazy ass, Mateo.”
“I thought we were friends, I thought you’d have my back.” He dramatically put his hands in his hair and let his head fall back against the couch.
“Get up dumb ass, we can have this done within an hour.” Hendrick was excitedly leaping at my feet, undoubtedly sensing something was going on and wanting to be a part of it.
By 5 pm, our bags stood packed by the front door. “See, now we don’t have to stress tonight.”
“Babe, you’re always stressed. This prevented nothing.” Mateo said dryly before plopping back down on the couch. “Also, you’re cooking tonight, for making me pack.”
I threw my head back in laughter. “Whatever you say, baby,” I managed to get out. “I’ll grab a pizza from down the street later.”
.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙‧͙
By 10 pm I found myself freshly showered in bed with Hendrick (to Mateo’s disgust, “you really need to find yourself a man so you can stop sleeping in bed with an animal.”). I’d scolded him, arguing Hendrick was the only man I’d ever need. But he’d hit a sore spot. I was not lucky when it came to love. Somewhere along the way I'd stopped trying so hard. Dating had become exhausting rather than exciting and I found myself cancelling first dates more often than going on them. Maybe I was too anxious or too dreamy for most people. Or maybe I simply hadn't met the right person yet.
Sleep didn’t come easy tonight. Hendrick’s quiet snores sounded from the end of my bed, but I could not summon sleep. I had never told Mateo about the fear of rejection I had developed over the years, so I could not blame him for his earlier comment. But it hurt anyway.
Turning on my side, I glanced from the window up to the stars that now painted the night sky. My dad once tried to tell me that we’d be looking up at the same stars however far apart we were, but I know for a fact that was a load of bullshit as it was currently daytime in California. I loved the night sky still, it offered a kind of peacefulness to my mind when it could not do so itself.
Sleep finally started pulling at me, my thoughts growing slower with every passing minute. Sometimes I wondered what life would've looked like had I been born hundreds of years ago. Somewhere quieter perhaps. Somewhere greener. Somewhere I could spend my days outdoors instead of staring at a computer screen and sitting in meetings that could've been emails.
based on this idea! a big thank you to @bornasfools for letting me cook — also the photos are not mine, credits to the owners <3
part 3 of ?
first part / second part
warnings: valarr gets jealous and finally snaps, some deception in the relationship, reader is conflicted between duty and desire, kiera x daeron actually have a good relationship despite his alcohol issues, reader is a baddie but she gets shy from compliments of men (same girl), slight mentions of blood magic/alchemy, outfit description, SMUTTT MINORS DNI
taglist: @outpostsworld
a/n: I know I said possible slowburn but hahaha… also I had way too much fun writing this chapter, I love having the free will to do what I want. a little longer than my usual but nevertheless I hope you enjoy. I have been insanely overwhelmed and blessed by all the likes, comments, follows, and repost, thank you so much everyone!
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
The danger of your feelings slipping through the cracks started almost half a year since you had a place at the royal court during a visit to Highgarden, where House Tyrell reigned as leige lords in the Reach, to attend their annual spring ball.
It was the first time you would travel to attend a celebration since you assumed a position at the royal court. Kiera had never been before either and had spared no details in enlightening you, telling you of all the things she heard about the castle seemed to bloom flowers throughout all the seasons. After House Lannister, House Tyrell was the richest noble house in the Seven Kingdoms so the parties held in Highgarden were of the upmost luxury.
“It will be so exciting,” She beamed as the two of you took a walk through the royal gardens, soft pink hair tumbling down her shoulders in beautiful curls. “We can come up with a theme together and piece together our costumes to match. Maybe you will get to show off your hair.”
“My hair?” You seemed amused at the mere excitement of something you were used to seeing in the privacy of your bedchambers — at dawn and dusk every day.
“You always cover it behind those head coverings and veils,” She nodded to the lilac one you wore today lined with gold bangles. “I know it is customary with your sisterhood faction but I can’t help but wonder what your silver-gold hair would look like under the glowing light in the ballroom.”
You couldn’t help but laugh. It was nice to be with Kiera — you felt like a girl who could be merry with her life and worry about the simpler things. You had pieces of that in The Sisterhood but there was always this high purpose of serving the prophecy of Azor Ahai that was always a lingering tension between every action and conversation. And a small, selfish part of you did not want to go back to that life. You wondered if that had anything to do with the luxury you were living: would you be saying the same things if you lived among merchants in King’s Landing? Most likely not if you were a peasant from Flea Bottom. “Why don’t we focus on your hair, My Lady? Don’t you want to your lord husband to abandon his wine cup at the mere sight of you in all your glory?”
“He already will. He had promised me,” Kiera affirmed, a smile on her lips while her dark brown eyes shined with a sense of mirth. “I did promise a passionate night of love-making if he did not drink the whole night but that is beside the point.”
You grunted, squinted your eyes shut. “I did not need that kind of imagery in my head.”
“Do not be jealous.”
“I am not jealous.”
“Are you sure?” Kiera looked at you. “Are you going to deny that you do not want a certain affections of a particular prince at the festivities?”
You coughed suddenly, as if the air slipped from your lips and you had briefly choked on your spit. You patted your chest rapidly before looking to her with the
She raises her eyebrows, unbothered. “The Young Prince spends more time with you these days than his own father. That alone speaks for itself.”
It’s not like you could deny her. By this point everyone at the royal court knew of how often Valarr spent time with you. It seemed like, despite the occasional whispers and rumors, associating with the Heir’s heir gave you a sense of protection. But that could also be the fact that the royal family has grown to trust you as time has passed since you stepped in to interfere. You weren’t followed everywhere heavily guarded anymore and you even visited Myriah from time to time at her request in her little court in the Queen’s Ballroom where she and all the women of the royal family, along with their ladies-in-waiting, chatted and sipped tea while also working on embroidery pieces. You had cemented your life here in the inner circle as The Sisterhood had wanted and the Head Lady had instructed.
And even after everything, you still had failed a crucial part of the mission: seduction.
It wasn’t like you haven’t tried. There would be nights where you would dress yourself in a way that called eyes to you and summon Valarr to your bedchambers to share wine by the hearth in the fire — with the initial attempt to get him to bed you like The Sisterhood had wanted. But then something always happened, a book would fall on a floor, a servant would burst into the room only to squeak her apologies profusely at the sight reserved for privacy, or even an attendant was sent asking for the Young Prince, and then you knew you had back off. Cowardly or Honorable, you still weren’t sure.
After he left, politely kissing your hand like the gentleman he was even when you weren’t officially a highborn by Westerosi standards, you laid in bed at night absolutely wracked with guilt. Manipulating the game is what you trained to do and yet with Valarr. You also worried he would never talk to you but if he picked up on something he never mentioned. He would just see you later that week and acted like he always did, an apprentice with questions once more, and the two of you never spoke of what almost happened.
So maybe he just wasn’t attracted to you.
Yet your body was in no doubt attracted to him for every time you smelled the prince’s mouthwatering scent of jasmine and pine you had inwardly chide at yourself to calm down instead of pushing against the nearest wall and kissing him breathless. You also woken up on more than one occasions with a particular sense of heat between your legs after dreaming of the heir’s heir taking you on a silken bed — rolling his hips against your sweaty skin while a fire gleamed in his eyes as you made long, delicious markings down his naked and toned back. It was getting to a point where you were almost embarrassed on how you, and your body, was acting. Who knew you would be so easily swayed by a gentlemanly prince with a handsome face?
But it also didn’t stop there — he also was stubbornly climbing his way into your heart. He stayed resilient, honest, forthright, and so goddamn charming through everything that he made you feel things: powerful things. And that terrified you more than anything else.
You know what the sisters would tell you if they ever heard what you were saying. Duty above all, they would remind you. Do not be weak to cave to your desires. Azor Ahai is our upmost priority. So you repeated those things like a mantra in your mind whenever you felt yourself slipping to close to the line of boundaries where you would snap.
You could tell the Head Lady was getting frustrated with your lack of progress in her letters. She demanded updates and you were running out of excuses — and time. It would not be long before she sent a messenger demanding what was going on at present or demand you leave. Maybe she would even kill you? You hoped that last train of thought was merely a vivid speculation of your own imagination. You had enough friends, allies even, in The Sisterhood.
Right?
Your heavy train of thought is cut off by a gentle hand on your own. You hear Kiera’s soft voice.
“Are you alright? I did not wish to upset you.”
You shake it off quickly, patting her hand back as you force a smile. “I am alright. It seems the heat is getting to me — that is all.”
She remains unconvinced but says nothing as you change the topic at hand:
“If you want to match, what theme did you want to choose?”
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
Planning for such a fun event takes up more time than you realize.
While you offer ideas and input it is ultimately Kiera coming up with the costumes after realizing she had a little more availability than yourself — and she seemed more than pleased to do so. She also offered to have dresses made for the both of you using the silks she had gotten from Lys as well as ornaments from Myrish, embracing At first you refused as some of it were gifts from her family. However, the Tyroshi noble looked so crushed that you ended up relenting in the end. She was knew what she was doing of course — Kiera could be a cute little sly fox in sheep’s clothing when she really, really wanted something.
She was charming that way.
The journey to Highgarden ended up being a little longer than Ashford but it seemed significantly more enjoyable, at least on your end. The last time you were in the Reach you were navigating your footing on foreign land among people who did not trust you entirely. Not yet. Now you felt more confident about your life in the Seven Kingdoms as well as the people you were with, for the most part at least. You had become close and comfortable with your strawberry-roan courser by then and had even given her a name: Summer Rose. When the royal family, and their entourage, finally arrived to the land of the liege lords in the Reach what bestowed before you held you in quite a shock.
A beautiful land worthy of enriching storytelling.
Endless green fields stretched on as far as you could see on the Roseroad into the capital with bountiful produce that seemed to shine under the beaming sun in the all blue sky. The colors were so vibrant: everything seemed full of life and like a spitting image of the fairytales some of you and the other trainees in The Sisterhood would read on your beds late at night when everyone was supposed to be asleep. Butterflies of all kinds of shapes seemed flutter across every trace of land in this area of the Reach and small animals bustled across growing farmland to peek their little heads over small bushes in order to look at all the guests that were arriving this time of the year.
And the home of House Tyrell was breathtaking.
Mazes of tall gardens wrapped the beautiful castle of gleaming white marble like an extra layer of protection and sense of beauty. It was warm — warmer than King’s Landing — and so the thicker fabrics of those in the royal caravan were shed to wear lighter, more flowing pieces of dress with thinner fabric at hand. The women at the court in Highgarden also displayed more low-cut, backless dresses that showed off their airbrushed skin — smiling charmingly behind lacy fans while their elegantly coiffed hair was threaded with shimmering gold fabric, flowers, and glinting beaded jewelry.
Once Lord Tyrell joyously greeted House Targaryen, and the formalities of introductions were underway, everyone was able to steer off to their visiting chambers to unpack and rest for the day before they underwent the chaos of the festivities later that week. After taking a bath and changing into fresh clothes you met Kiera by her private bedchambers, which were conveniently close to yours, so the two of you could explore the beautiful castle along with its massive garden. And then, after checking out all the fountains and cluster of flowers in each section of the both the two of you ran into a predicament: you got lost.
Naturally.
“Maybe we should have taken a guard with us,” You mused as Kiera led the both of you in a circle once more. “Or one of your ladies. Or all of them.”
The Tyroshi girl did little to argue with you, only seeming to sigh at the sign of the sun dipping lower in the sky and casting hues of purples, pinks, and red. “We are going to be late for dinner. Do you think we could find a guard from House Tyrell to lead us back?”
Luckily, the two of you didn’t need to comb far for help at hand. As if the gods heard you a clear voice called on the other end of the courtyard.
“Ladies — are you lost?”
One of Lord Tyrell’s sons came walking toward the both of you, graced and poised as his stylish green and gold seemed to shine under the sunlight. His curly brown hair was short and seemed to frame his heart-shaped face with a strong nose and high cheekbones. You remember him from this morning — he had made some of the ladies-in-waitings blush and giggle after he charmingly kissed their hands and even winked at you in passing, despite the fact that you were more in the back with the attendants. He seemed like a noble who was honorable enough, only with a flirty edge.
A little too flirty for your liking.
He bowed to Kiera, who tipped her head politely, while you made a quick curtesy. “Forgive us, Ser. We wanted to explore these gardens and seemed to have lost our way. Do you mind having sending someone to show us where the Great Hall is so we can spare House Targaryen’s reputation of being poorly-timed guests?”
“I have a better offer,” He added, chin angled up high as he clasped a hand on the chest of his richly embroidered doublet. “I can take you there myself.”
You dipped your head. “We wouldn’t want to impose on your current activities.”
“Nonsense,” He waved your concerns off with a simple wave of his hand. “Rescuing two women from the luxuries of my family’s gardens is the kind of thing. Two very beautiful women in fact.”
Kiera smiled courteously, looked amused at your particular expression when you rolled your eyes at his turned back. “Follow me, Ladies,” He called over his shoulder.
While he initially acted a little insufferable Boras Tyrell, as he introduced himself on the journey back, had redeemed himself on the walk into the castle and eventually, to the Great Hall. He was respectful of the fact that Kiera was married and very much a dutiful wife, their conversation more of friendly banter than. As for you, well, if he knew you weren’t a highborn he spoke little of it. He actually treated you like a person he hung out with and barely seemed to lift his eyes when he pieced together who you were.
“So you revived Baelor Targaryen with blood magic?” He said aloud, struggling to overcome his shock as the two of you entered the Great Hall in conversation, the loud sound of clinking metal and large crowds of people talking as they gathered to eat. “That is impressive.”
“Not to all,” You admitted aloud honestly. “They call me the Valyrian Witch at the royal court and for awhile were not too happy at my existence.”
“Why not? Any use of magic and alchemy is impressive.”
You turned to him in light surprise, as he looked confused at the weight of your stare.
“What?”
“Forgive me, My Lord,” You looked away, quickly clearing your throat as you tried to shake off your visible emotion. “I assumed you practice the Faith of the Seven.”
“I do.”
“So you don’t find my ways immoral or evil?”
“I’m a man of faith, not a religious zealot.” He bumped your shoulder teasingly, causing you to freeze briefly from the casual use of contact. “And you don’t need to call me, My Lord. You can use my name as I wish to use yours.”
“If you wish it…” You hesitated, causing him to lift his eyebrow. “Boras.”
The third-born son of House Tyrell grinned brightly, his dazzling smile seeming to send rays of sunshine across the richly decorated room. He then grabbed your arm before tugging on it eagerly. “Come sit with me. I want to hear more of this.”
You looked over at Kiera, watching all of this with a shit-eating grin on her face. Fuck. She was definitely going to give you a hard time when the two of you were alone again. “Is that alright, My Lady?”
“Go on, lovebirds,” She waved her hands in a shooing matter, dark brown eyes twinkling merrily before she tucked a pale pink curl behind her ear. “I need to check on my lord husband anyway. Make sure he doesn’t spoil himself on all that Arbor gold wine.”
“Give him my best regards,” Boras added merrily before walking off, pulling you along with him before you can properly protest. The two of you sit towards the front by the head table where House Targaryen and House Tyrell have joined but find spots a few seats below with some of the other nobles. When you ask him why, the man shrugs and claims that he prefers the company of the ones who serve his family because they feel more authentic and real. You comply, seeing it as reason enough.
The two of you eat dinner together as he introduces you to some of his friends of noble blood, who nod their heads to you politely enough, while he asks you questions about The Sisterhood and Old Valyria. He seems genuinely enraptured with what you have to say as the both of you find yourself in a deep conversation as you help yourself to the endless food full of all kinds of delicious food and wine at that table.
The only problem is the burning holes you feel on the back of your head the whole night.
When you finally leave the Great Hall for the night with Boras offering to escort you back to your chambers with his arm like a proper gentleman, the last thing you see in that massive room is the heated gaze of Valarr’s intense stare: expertly cutting his food without glancing down and lifting his goblet to drink the wine as he never took his eyes off you — his expression taking that hauntingly attractive yet absolutely unreadable nature once more.
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
The day of the spring ball, everyone bustling in their rooms to get ready as they were dressed and out the final touches on their outfits, you were able to be convinced to forgo your usual head coverings so your silver-gold hair could be properly styled.
“Just this once,” You said offhandedly as Kiera started brushing your hair with a sense of excitement, taking on the task of personally styling your hair while her ladies worked on hers. “I haven’t been to a ball before so it is only fair that a little fun is ensued.”
The pink-haired beauty leaned over your shoulder to press her cheek sweetly against yours, clasping both of your shoulders with her hands, the golden ring glimmering under the soft candlelight. “You will not regret it.”
In the end she did a wonderful job — not just with the hair, which was a beautiful interwoven style of braids and flowing tendrils, but also the costumes themselves. The two of you went as the sun and moon, gleaming hues of gold and silver respectively, and she had led the charge on creative choices so phenomenally that you couldn’t help but feel breathless at the sight of yourself in the polished mirror carved with ornate roses in her private bedchambers.
Wrapped in silver silks, midnight blues embroidered with constellations of the night sky, elaborate headpieces that sparkled with the different aspects of the nightfall, and the variety of jewels glittering among the silver jewelry you were generously given, you had felt yourself at a loss for words as you examined you reflection in the mirror. Kiera stood off to the side with her bejeweled hands clasped happily to her mouth — looking equally as stunning in stunning hues of gold dipped into red and orange, embroidery of suns with a dragon’s outline flying across her waistline while her elegantly coiffed updo is framed by a spiky gold headdress that reflects the traveling light of the rays on the sun while sparkling gold flecks are dusted on her cheeks and eyelids.
“You look absolutely beautiful.”
“So do you,” You reach out to link arms with her as the two of you take a moment to revel at your reflections. “You did a wonderful job, Kiera. Thank you — truly.”
The noble woman beamed at you. “I just wanted to show you that true beauty shines no matter where you are from. And tonight, every highborn at the ball will turn their heads and never forget this.”
She was not wrong. As the two of you descended down the stares you felt whenever the both of you walked past were long and heavy. You weren’t sure if it was the hair or the costumes but you tried not to think on it.
Daeron and Valarr had decided to meet the two just outside the doors leading into a massive courtyard where the ball would be held, the latter politely offering himself as an escort so you would not have to enter alone with the married couple. Ever since the interaction with Boras earlier that week, and the son of Lord Tyrell taking most of your time to show you different parts of Highgarden, the Young Prince had seemed distant. Never impolite but definitely more internal and reserved than usual. He kept his conversations with you brief and he seemed like he had so much on his mind that when Boras materialized during gatherings in the garden or after breakfast fast to pull you away Valarr almost seemed relieved that you were leaving.
However, as the two of you approach them, the Heir’s heir is absolutely shocked at the sight of you: stunned beyond words as he simply freezes at the sight of all your rarity, glowing under the light in the warmly toned castle. Daeron seemed just as starstruck, taking in the sight of his wife as she walked over to him holding her skirts, beaming like the angel she was.
“By the Gods, My Love, just take me right here.”
Kiera reached out to swat his arm, though she seemed pleased by his response that reflected pure awe, while you to try, and fail, in holding back a laugh at the sight of the prince attempting to move away from her physical berating. Valarr broke from his stunned trance and cleared his throat. You turn to look at him as he finally said your name, soft and awestruck.
“You look simply radiant.”
You felt your cheeks flush at his sincere compliment, tipping your head as your internally chided yourself for acting so flabbergasted by the compliments of a prince so easily. Even if it was Valarr. “Thank you, My Prince. You are also a sight to behold before sore eyes.”
And he was. Foregoing his usual house colors for white and purple, the latter bringing out the mesmerizing color in his left eye, he had black dragons richly embroidered across his tunic while his cropped dark hair seemed to curl in waves under a bejeweled circlet that made him seem almost otherworldly. Paired with a velvet shoulder wrap of rich wine and polished boots that shined as if they were crafted just this morning, he was also a sight to behold. Yet a dazzling smile ghosted his lips as if he had never heard this before before he extended an arm out to you, which you accepted as the two of you followed an excited Kiera and amused Daeron outside.
Despite the sun having set hours ago, the air outside was warm and refreshing, a light breeze allowing. The courtyard among the maze of gardens outside Highgarden, which was decorated for the ball, was full of light and magic. Fireflies fluttered around in the air to fill the outside air with light along with the gleaming bronze braziers lining the edge of the large white cobblestone floor. A grand fountain stood in the middle of Ser Alester, the ancestor of House Tyrell, and from the top of his head across to the balcony’s edge that overlooked the main courtyard were beautiful streams of flowers, silken ribbon, and crafted work of all shapes and sizes.
Nobles milled about on the floor, dressed in colorful clothes with all kind of lavish adornments and ornaments. A band of musicians were playing a merry tune by the table of the biggest array of food you had ever seen in your life while the attendants of House Tyrell milled about to refill golden wine chalices with a mere gesture of hands. The sight was stunning and it took you a moment to stop reveling at the scenery before you and collect yourself with the proper sense of decorum that was always expected at Westeros.
The four of you had made your way to the food table, everyone turning to greet the members of the royal family with a sense of flattery you were used to hearing constantly. However, you all had barely eaten some sweets and gotten some fresh goblets of wine when you heard a clear voice calling your name.
Boras appeared by your side as he greeted everyone with the proper formalities, beaming and dressed in revelry of pale green that was embroidered with golden leaves that match the earrings glinting under the firelight buzzing a few mere feet above your heads. You foolishly fail to see the smile slip from Valarr’s lips as he stiffens at the sight of the Tyrell noble as you politely smile at him in greeting.
“Boras.”
“My Lady,” He nearly gasps as he turns to loook at you, taking your right hand as he brings it up to his lips. “You are a marvelous sight to behold at this party.”
You shift awkwardly at his dramatic declaration, though you bow with a courteous manner while Kiera watches with a bemused expression, noticing Daeron gives Valarr a quick look over his shoulder. “Thank you. You are quite a picture yourself.”
“You flatter me,” He smiled charmingly, linking arms with you before looking at the other three. “Mind if I steal her for a dance?”
He stared down at Valarr in particular, an eyebrow raised. What the fuck.
The Targaryen prince does not cave into the chiding remark and look, although something shifts in his gaze. “That is of her choosing rather than mine.”
The son of Lord Tyrell gives you a pleading look, causing you to sigh.
“One dance.”
“You won’t regret it!”
As much as you didn’t mind his company you find that you do, feeling a pair of eyes burn the back of your head once more.
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
He ended up dancing with you for much longer than he promised.
The night is beautiful with the sense of music, trickling of water sparkling under the moonlight, and laughter filling the air as the benefits of remaining apart of the royal court truly began to shine on days like these.
Regardless of Boras’s hovering you were enjoying yourself, though you couldn’t help but feel relieved when a familiar figure appeared behind the Tyrell boy, tapping his shoulder smoothly as throngs of bodies dressed in the absolute finery swirled around you to the beat of a cheery tune full of laughter and smiles.
“I would like to dance with the lady, if it is all the same to you.”
A flash of irritation pricks Boras’s eyes but as bold as he is, he is also wise enough not to challenge a man of royal blood and the Heir’s heir at that. So he tips his head and steps back, allowing Valarr to assume his place. Your heart can’t help but flutter as the two of you assume the position, shivering lightly as his lightly calloused fingers ghost against the curve of your back, while his other hand is interlaced with your own.
Soon, the silence is broken by the Targaryen’s observation.
“He seems quite taken with you.”
You look up at Valarr as he moves you around to the beat of the music. “You think so?”
“I know a besotted man of little virtue when I see one.”
A smile curved your lips despite the even expression on the Young Prince’s face. “Little virtue? You must not like Ser Boras, My Prince.”
He seemed to pout slightly at your use of formalities for him, breaking his serious expression. “I thought I told you to call me Valarr.”
“I simply wanted to address you properly before your people.”
“We are talking in High Valyrian — no one can understand us.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Except your family.”
“Oh forget them,” The Heir’s heir exhaled rather dramatically, looking so charmingly boyish that it caused you to chuckle in spite of yourself. “Who cares?”
“You seem unlike yourself, Valarr. Almost like you are jealous at the attention every lady has been receiving from the third-born son of Lord Tyrell.”
“Not with every lady,” His beautiful two-toned eyes connect with you, the hand at your waist gripping the thin silken layers with a tighter grasp than usual. “Just one.”
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
The night ended with Kiera getting drunk, funnily enough.
It took everything in you not to die laughing as you help her into Daeron’s arms, watching him grumble crankily about how he had touched not one drop of and yet she was too wasted to honor her end of the bargain.
“Now you know how it feels,” You found yourself teasing, the prince giving you a look as his wife wrapped her arms around him, face pressed against his neck as she tried (and failed) to stifle her giggles.
After you got to the point where the one they the Drunken was waving you off, saying he would be fine taking care of Kiera from here, you decided to take a walk through the gardens once more as the ball begins to fade along with the firelight’s glow — as it is well past the Hour of the Wolf.
A sudden desire is felt to feel the soft grass on your skin so in the shadows behind a tall, amassing bush that was elegantly cleaned and polished you stripped off your stockings and pulled off your shoes. You can’t help but exhale in relief at the cold feeling of the ground on your skin: it was such
As you walked quietly through the royal gardens, you found your mind traveling to the beautiful night. Especially the Young Prince’s subtle confession.
You remember how much it shocked you then, needing a moment to process before the tune changed and your interlocked gaze was interrupted by a noble lady from House Lannister asking if she could steal a dance from the prince. You forgot in moments like those how vied after he was — both politically and physically — since unlike Boras, Valarr did very little to play with the affections of ladies who sought after him, though he was never impolite.
Naturally, it only made him more attractive.
You sighed, torn once more as you strayed from a path to walk towards a darkened veranda overlooking the endless farms and beautiful source of provisions House Tyrell profited so highly from. After spending so much time with these people, these wonderfully lovely people despite their high-rank and class that gave them every reason to be snobbish and rude, you felt like your calculative edge was slipping. It was hard to accept though you wouldn’t trade the memories for anything.
And then you see him.
Standing alone on an elegantly carved balcony overlooking the Reach, a wine goblet in hand as he sipped the sweet Arbor gold everyone praised constantly in Westeros. The air around him seemed melancholy, staring off in the distance as the loosened tunic he wore shined a soft purple.
His conveniently turned to face you while you were still there, staring at him, and just like that his face changed. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” You walked over to him as you found no use in turning away and hiding. “I thought you would be retired in your bedchambers after all the dancing.”
The Young Prince shrugged. “I was restless. I am not ready to sleep yet.”
You hummed in agreement, leaning foreward as you rested your hands on the cold marble, titling your head up to feel the night breeze ghost your face gently. “It’s nice isn’t it? Feels like a dream to live here.”
Valarr stiffened again. He keeps doing this what is going on with him? “I’m sure you can find ways to be of use here if you enjoy Highgarden so much.”
“What?” You looked dumbfounded, a tad hurt by his words. “Why would you say that?”
“Are you serious?” The Targaryen prince turns to look at you almost sourly, handsome face darkening slightly. “That Tyrell flirt has been peeled to your side since the moment you got here. If you negotiate through terms of marriage I’m sure you could find a place to be of use here.”
You scoffed. Unbelievable. “And here I thought you were a gentleman. Remind me never to trust the charming whims of a prince like yourself so easily.”
“I am a gentleman,” He turned toward you, eyes glinting under the fading moonlight. “That is why I am giving you an alternative. He seems fond of you and you would be happy here.”
You laughed incredulously. “You are unbelievable, My Prince. Just because I enjoy the Reach does not mean I want to live with a suffocating player.”
Now it’s his turn to look confused. “You dont share the same affections for him?”
“I am fond of him in terms of kinship and conversation,” You crossed your arms, annoyed and bathed in a beautiful light of silver with your dress from the ball glinting under the light. “He is actually interested in what I do as a member of The Sisterhood as opposed to immediately deeming me wicked and avoiding me like the plague.”
He hesitated briefly before speaking once more. “It’s just you have been avoiding me since we got here.”
You shrugged, eyes downcast even if you wanted to protest otherwise. Why should you even be ashamed? It’s not like you could refuse a man of high rank. Not in this world. “You seemed withdrawn: I didn’t want to bother you. Boras also seemed to want to interrupt every engagement where we were talking and I am in no place to question the motives of nobility, or so I am taught.”
The Heir’s heir was quiet to your confession, suddenly feeling foolish and immature. After a moment he sighed deeply. “Forgive me. I made a hasty judgement. It was unfair of me.”
“It was.”
Valarr sighed again, rubbing his face with his palm. “I am not like this. Unsensible, brash, impulsive. And yet you bring out this side of me: one that I think I am often incapable of, except in my own mind.”
You dipped your head. “Forgive me.”
“That is not what I meant.” He dropped his head dejectedly for a moment before angling it back at you. “You have an effect on me unlike anyone else. I should be careful and wary. And yet the more I know of you, the more I am drawn to you, utterly unable to let go.”
Suddenly the tension shifted, like a viper sliding in the shadows. You felt him move after a groan that sounded like a final resolve that was making its choice, taking steps until you were less than a few feet away from each other. You turn to look at him, suddenly feeling warm.
Very warm.
The heat is radiating off Valarr’s skin as his face lingers mere inches from yours with the hunger in his mismatched eyes being unpalatable, his perfect lips parted as his tongue flicked out to lick the skin subconsciously, smelling sweetly of fresh wine.
Then something activated and his confidence took over. The dragon blood in his veins, or so it seemed. Whatever it was, it could have had you tremble in fear but coming from Old Valyria, it just made you hot. Hotter than ever before, actually.
“Do you truly think I haven’t noticed this whole time?” He backed you against the nearest marble wall, hands lightly gripping your arms as he forced you to press your back against the smooth surface. “How you beckoned me like an enchanting siren only to pull away at the last moment and leaving me to resort to menial provide my own release?”
His words cause heat to flush to your cheeks once more. You tried to say something, anything, but what could you do? You were scared to him the real reason as to why “I didn’t know you wanted it.”
“Of course I wanted it,” He moved to grip your chin, firm but not overpowering, as he tilted your head to the side to run the bridge of his nose against your neck. “I want you. I desire you.”
Heat pooled at your belly with such a declaration, your eyes following the beautiful and haunting side profile as he inhaled the sweet perfume Kiera insisted you dappled on every inch of your exposed skin. “Are you sure, My Prince? What if I bring you pain and suffering with the burdens I bear?”
He falters, drawing back to look at you with a gaze that is sweet once more, though the heat and lust never quite fades away. “Let me decide that.”
“But I’m not—”
“I don’t care.” His voice almost sounds bitter and angry, although deep down you know it’s not at you. “Let those stupid nobles try to come between us and try to seize my father’s throne. By the gods, let my father or even my grandsire try to separate us. I would rather die than not have you.”
It was a bold declaration wrapped in a wave of desire. But it didn’t matter anymore: such a confession made you realize that you wanted him, plain and simple. And you weren’t going to sit here and wait while you process such a thing — not anymore. No, you were going to seize the opportunity and take what you truly wanted.
You hook your arms behind Valarr’s neck and bring his lips to your own.
The Young Prince responds greedily, his hands moving instantly to cradle your cheeks. Moans echo from both of you as the kiss becomes hungry and passionate, chins dipping to explore inch of both of your mouths at every angle. Your hands move from the back of his neck to hold onto the collar of his beautiful tunic, gripping so tightly that your knuckles go white.
“Take me please,” You mumble in High Valyrian the moment the kiss breaks in heavy pants. “Take me right here. Spread my legs and fill me up with your cock so no one ever claims me again. Be the dragon I know you are.”
That seemed to activate a primal side of him that was absolutely feral. A dark look glittered in his eyes as he scooped you up, which threw you off entirely, causing you to yelp in surprise.
“What are you doing?”
“We are going to fuck among nature as the gods have intended,” He declared almost proudly, holding you close as you instinctively hook your legs around his strong waist. “I’m going to have my moon princess under the stars and no one, not even my grandsire the king, is going to stop me.”
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
You laid against the soft grass under the gleaming moonlight, a blanket, as Valarr thrusted into you with a sense of pleasure unlike anything you had ever felt before.
Beautiful silks were kept on, bunched down to your waist to reveal your breasts to be fondled and licked to the Young Prince’s content while you fumbled with the lacing of his breeches to pull them down to well past his knees. His lips traveled against every inch of your skin, hands that were not pinching your nipple coming to lace with yours against the soft ground of nature in the garden.
Just like the dreams you had woken to.
He whispered praises under his lips in High Valyrian, nearly shuddering every time the two of you communicated in the language during the heat of the moment, his nose brushing against yours as he stole a kiss between every roll of his hips against your sweaty skin.
“I got you, My Love,” he whispered as he felt the whine slipping from your lips at the feeling of the pressure building, the peak creeping closer by every moment. “Let go for me.”
So you do. Your orgasm hits you in a wave of emotions: you scream his name and he follows not too long after, with a grunt.
You think it is the end until Valarr starts kissing down your stomach.
“Valarr?”
“I must have a taste,” He confesses, eyes full of desire as he kisses your left inner thigh. “I need that beautiful cunt in my mouth.”
A lick against your folds cause you to moan and hunch your back, one hand thrashing out to grip whatever strand of grass you can hold while the other moves to hold Valarr’s head so you can roll your hips against his face. His tongue makes quick work of exploration, flicking your clit with a sense of expertise that makes your eyes roll to the bad of your head.
“Fuck, don’t stop.”
He doesn’t. Instead he works harder, gripping your thighs as they wrap around his head while he laps your sweet juices that only seemed to pool out. The wave of your second orgasm is quicker than your first and while you all but scream loudly in ecstasy, your left fingers comb through his silver streak, tugging on it accidentally. It elicits a shudder through his body as he lifts his head up to look at you with a hooded gaze, your release still coating his chin as he licked his lips eagerly.
Oh.
In moments Valarr ends on his back, now the one looking confused as you swung your other leg over to straddle his lap, though his arms eagerly wrapped around you, leaning foreword to press hot kisses against your collarbones.
“What is this?
You look down at him, a light in your eyes dancing wickedly. “The dragon has claimed me. It is only right that I ride him properly.”
ser john price who haunts the kitchens to satisfy his sweet-tooth--
the leather of his sword belt creaking as he leans over your shoulder at the bench, his beard grazing your temple as he reaches across with thick grubby fingers and swipes a steaming tart straight off the rack. so handsome, so charming, scars of his hands telling the tales of his bravery. he's always crowding your space when you're down in the kitchens, never seems to need anything until he catches your hips swaying in front of the ovens.
there's bramble jam at the corner of your mouth and he drags his thumb through the sticky purple sweet of it, holds your gaze as he brings it to his own lips and sucks it clean -- 'sweet,' he murmurs low against your temple, breath coasting the shell of your ear, 'bet it's nothin' on the rest of you, though, hm?' your face goes hot and the other girls are all trying their hardest not to giggle behind their flour-caked hands.
he gets you in the broom cupboard, backed against the shelves, on his knees ducked under your skirts -- the biggest man in the keep starved and groaning against your cunt like the taste of you is a mercy. his tongue ravages through your slick, slurping you up and drinking you down, his beard rubbing raw against the thin skin of your inner thighs, the round tip of his nose bullying your puffy clit as he slips his tongue into your sopping hole. and poor you, fully dressed, sweating more than you do in front of the fires, clutching onto a shelf, biting down on your lip to stay quiet. 'ser john,' you whimper a whispered warning, 'ser john, this is- this is sooo inappropriate,' you moan -- and your skirts move with his shoulders when he chuckles.
he doesn't stop when your body convulses the first time, or the second time -- he does polietly do so when you've gone limp and the only things holing you up are his hands beneath your fleshy bottom. he leaves one kiss to the beard-burn he's chafed into your thigh and emerges from your skirts with a crooked, shiny-wet grin. he fixes your apron straight and kisses you so you can taste yourself -- 'sweetest treat in this keep, love.' he plants a fat one on your cheek before leaving you wobbly-legged in the cupboard.
and you know he'll be back again. tomorrow are the lemon-poppy cakes.
IT'S PART TWO BABY!! I can't believe so many of you liked the first part, thank you all so much! <3 also it's really long again lol
The Motherlist - part one
Summary: a chance encounter at Rita's leads Azriel and a female to an unexpected friendship. As their connection deepens, both must confront old wounds, quiet fears, and the courage it takes to let someone in.
Azriel arrived twenty-three minutes early. Not intentionally, at least, that was what he told himself. He'd left the House of Wind with every intention of taking the long route through Velaris, allowing himself plenty of time in case he was delayed. Instead, his feet had somehow carried him directly to the little restaurant they'd agreed on. The same one as last time. "We're taking it back!" She'd proclaimed.
One of his shadows drifted lazily around the hanging lantern above the entrance before circling back towards him. "...Don't." It bobbed once. Smugly.
He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the stone wall beside the restaurant. The evening was warm, the last traces of sunlight painting the buildings lining the Sidra in soft shades of amber. Couples wandered hand in hand along the river. A musician played somewhere farther down the street, the melody floating lazily on the breeze.
Normally Azriel would've catalogued every face that passed him without thinking.
Tonight... He found himself wondering whether she'd arrive early too. The thought had barely crossed his mind when he spotted her.
She was almost half a street away, walking towards him with the same slightly hurried pace she'd adopted every time she thought she might be running late.
She hadn't seen him yet. He smiled before he could stop himself.
A shadow brushed teasingly against his shoulder. "I know."
As if hearing him, she looked up.
The moment her eyes found his, her entire expression brightened. She broke into a grin - bright and unrestrained, like a child in a candy store.
Simply because he'd been the one waiting there. Azriel felt something warm settle beneath his ribs again.
"Hi," she said when she reached him.
"Hi."
She stopped in front of him, looking faintly embarrassed. "...How long have you been waiting?"
He considered the question. "Not very long."
One of his shadows drifted pointedly towards the clock mounted above the restaurant door.
She noticed. "So... that's a lie."
Azriel sighed. "...A small one. I've been here twenty-three minutes."
"You counted?"
"I always count."
She tilted her head. "I know." She smiled. "You counted how many times I looked towards Rita's that first night."
"I did."
She stepped a little closer. "I was early too."
"You were?"
She nodded. "I walked around the block twice because I didn't want to look overeager."
He looked at her. "Really?"
"I absolutely did."
Something about the confession made him laugh. She stared at him for a heartbeat.
"What?"
"I like that laugh."
His ears warmed immediately. "I don't laugh very often."
"I know." She said it so gently that it didn't sound like criticism, just an observation. She held the restaurant door open before he could move. "I think this one's on me."
He looked almost offended. "No."
"You paid for dinner last time."
"I invited you." He shook his head. "I can't let you pay."
She folded her arms. "Can I ask why?"
The question caught him slightly off guard. He thought about it for a moment. "...I don't know."
She smiled knowingly. "I think you do."
He sighed. "I was raised to."
She nodded. "Alright." Then she reached for the handle again. "You can pay."
His shoulders relaxed. "...Thank you."
"But," she continued. He immediately became suspicious. "The next one is mine."
He looked at her. "The next one?"
She smiled innocently. "I am hoping there will be one."
His heart stumbled in exactly the same strange way it had the night she'd taken his hand.
"I'd like that."
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The restaurant was quieter than the last time they'd been there. A handful of tables were occupied, candlelight flickering softly between them while conversation hummed gently through the room.
They were shown to a table tucked beside the windows overlooking a square. For a little while they simply talked, about work, about books, about the baker she'd somehow convinced to sell her yesterday's bread at half price because she "looked trustworthy", about Cassian accidentally breaking another chair.
By the time their meals arrived, Azriel realised something. He wasn't waiting for the conversation anymore, instead he was participating in it without thinking about it.
She was telling him about a young boy who had insisted dragons absolutely belonged in the gardening section because "they liked caves, and caves are outside."
Azriel found himself smiling. "I think he had a point."
She looked scandalised. "You can't encourage that."
"I'm merely saying his logic was consistent."
"It was terrible logic."
"It was internally consistent."
She pointed her fork at him. "I liked you better when your controversial opinions were limited to vanilla ice cream."
"I stand by vanilla."
"I know you do."
"I always will."
"I've accepted that I can't save you."
He laughed again. Gods. She really did make him laugh.
Somewhere during dessert, conversation slowed naturally. Neither hurried to fill the silence.
She traced absent-minded circles against the rim of her glass. "Can I ask you something?"
"You always do."
She smiled. "I do." Then her expression softened. "I've been thinking about... everything."
His smile faded.
"So have I."
"I figured."
She looked down at her hands. "I don't want you to think I'm waiting for something."
He frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean..." She searched for the words. "I don't want every time we're together to feel like you have to wonder whether I'm expecting you to kiss me."
He hadn't realised until that moment how much he'd been wondering exactly that.
She continued quietly. "I like being with you." She looked back up. "I'd be perfectly happy if all we did for now was argue about ice cream and walk around Velaris."
Something inside his chest eased noticeably. He hadn't realised how tightly he'd been holding himself. "I don't know how to do this." The confession escaped before he'd decided to say it. She waited. "I've never..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't think I've ever had something that started like this." She didn't interrupt. "So I think..." He looked out towards the river beyond the window. "I need to take this slowly." The words felt strangely vulnerable. "I don't want to run again."
She was quiet for a while, and then she smiled. She didn't look disappointed, or impatient. It was simply understanding. "I was hoping you'd say that."
He blinked.
"You were?"
She nodded. "I don't want to rush either."
"You don't?"
She laughed softly. "Azriel."
"Hm?"
"I've liked you since you yelled at your shadows." She said. He stared at her. "I've liked you through terrible vanilla opinions." She grinned. "I've liked you through accidentally taking me on two dates." His cheeks warmed. "I think..." She reached across the table. She rested her hand near his, not touching but just close enough that her fingertips rested lightly against the wood between them. "I'd quite like getting to know you." She smiled. "Properly."
He looked at the tiny distance between their hands, she was close enough to reach.
She wasn't touching him, not yet. This time, he reached first. Slowly, his scarred hand settled over hers. Then he waited. Half expecting old instincts to tell him to pull away, but they never came.
She turned her hand over beneath his. Their fingers intertwined naturally, as if they'd always belonged there. She didn't comment on it. She simply continued telling him about the elderly male who'd spent three weeks insisting someone had stolen his favourite poetry collection before discovering he'd accidentally donated it himself.
Azriel found himself listening intently. Really listening, and it wasn't because the story was particularly remarkable - it wasn't - but because she was.
At some point he realised they were still holding hands. He smiled quietly to himself. He didn't immediately wonder how long it would last. He simply enjoyed that, right now, she was still there.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The following weeks settled into something neither of them had planned.
It started innocently enough. Azriel found himself taking his lunch break a little later than usual on Tuesdays. Then Thursdays. Before long, it had become difficult to remember exactly when his visits to the library had stopped being 'accidental'.
He always arrived carrying paperwork.
She always raised an eyebrow.
"You know," she joked one afternoon as he settled into the chair opposite her desk, a stack of reports tucked beneath one arm, "I'm beginning to suspect you don't actually work here."
He set the reports down. "I merely appreciate the atmosphere."
She looked slowly around the library. The rows upon rows of books. The elderly female asleep in one of the reading chairs. The young male attempting to hide a romance novel inside a history book. "You appreciate... this?"
"It's quiet."
She laughed softly before returning to repairing the spine of an old book. Azriel opened the first report. For several minutes neither of them spoke. The only sound was that of pages turning, pens scratching softly across parchment, quiet footsteps of visitors wandering between shelves.
He'd always believed silence belonged to solitude, but now it felt like it simply belonged to them.
It became strangely easy to predict one another. By the third week he knew she always arrived carrying a paper bag from the little bakery two streets away.
Sometimes it contained a pastry, sometimes bread, occasionally both.
She never finished all of it. Without asking, she'd slide whatever remained across the table towards him. At first he'd refused. "I've already eaten."
"You've had coffee."
"It counts."
"It absolutely does not."
"I'm not hungry."
She'd stared at him. Then calmly broken the pastry in half. "Now there are two."
"...That changes remarkably little."
"It changes everything."
He'd looked at the pastry before looking back at her. Then sighed. "...Fine."
She'd smiled with entirely too much satisfaction. After that, she'd started placing food beside him every time. She never commented, and he never asked for it, but somehow he always ended up eating it.
She learned things too. She learned he drank his coffee black. That he'd forget it existed the moment he started reading reports. More than once she'd quietly exchanged his cold cup for a warm one before he noticed.
The first time it happened, he'd looked down in confusion. "I thought..."
She looked up from her book. "Hm?"
"My coffee was cold."
"It was."
"It isn't anymore."
"No."
He stared at the steaming mug. "...How?"
"You looked busy."
He took a careful sip. He looked at her over the rim of the mug. "Thank you."
She smiled without looking up from her page. "You're welcome."
One afternoon she found him staring thoughtfully at a shelf. "What are you doing?"
He tilted his head. "Looking."
"I gathered."
She stepped beside him. He pointed towards one of the higher shelves. "Those books aren't in alphabetical order."
She blinked. "...They're not?"
"The third one should be over there."
She looked where he pointed. Then climbed onto the small ladder kept beside the shelves.
A minute later she looked down at him. "...You're right."
"I know."
"You noticed that after being here for ten minutes?"
"I noticed it last Tuesday."
She stared. "You've been thinking about it for a week?"
"It seemed impolite to rearrange your shelves."
She laughed so suddenly she had to grip the ladder to steady herself. "You are unbelievable."
"I've heard that before."
"I'm beginning to understand why."
She climbed back down. Instead of moving the books herself, she stepped aside. "Go on."
"What?"
"Fix them."
"I couldn't."
"Why?"
"I don't work here."
She folded her arms. "I give you permission."
Azriel hesitated for exactly three heartbeats. Then reached up and started moving the books around. Then adjusted a last one by perhaps half an inch. "There. They're correct now."
She looked at him for several long seconds before laughing again. "I think you were born a thousand years old."
"I'll choose to take that as a compliment."
"It absolutely was."
His shadows adapted even faster than he did, at some point they'd stopped staying near him, instead they wandered quietly through the shelves while he worked. One occasionally perched atop a bookcase, another liked curling around the brass reading lamps.
The boldest one had developed an unfortunate fascination with bookmarks. She caught it trying to steal one late one afternoon. "Excuse me." The shadow froze. "I saw that."
It drifted innocently back towards Azriel. She looked at him. "Did you teach them this?"
"I most certainly did not."
"They're thieves."
"They're curious."
"It stole a bookmark."
"It borrowed one."
"It was taking it away."
"It hadn't decided where yet."
She shook her head. "They're impossible."
"They've spent too much time around Cassian."
One shadow immediately darted behind Azriel's shoulder. Another floated indignantly in front of him.
She laughed. "I think I offended one."
"You definitely offended one."
She leaned closer to the shadow. "I'm sorry." It hovered uncertainly. "I still like you." The shadow immediately drifted towards her. Azriel watched it wrap lazily around her wrist before settling there contentedly. He should probably have called it back. Instead he just smiled. It wasn't because of the shadow, it was because she'd apologised to it as if its feelings genuinely mattered.
She looked over at him. "What?"
"Nothing."
"You're smiling again."
"I am."
She smiled too, neither of them said anything after that, silence settling comfortably between them once more.
Outside, Velaris carried on as it always had. Inside the little library, surrounded by old paper, afternoon sunlight and the quiet turning of pages Azriel realised he was beginning to know what certainty felt like.
The simple certainty that tomorrow, he'd probably see her again.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
A few days later, Azriel found himself walking towards the library with Cassian beside him.
It hadn't been intentional. At least not entirely. They'd finished training earlier than expected, and Cassian had insisted they stop by one of the cafés along the Rainbow for a cup of coffee.
Azriel hadn't objected. Mostly because the café happened to be two streets away from the library.
Cassian glanced sideways at him. "...You're smiling."
"I'm not."
"You are."
He immediately straightened out his face. "I wasn't."
"You were."
Azriel sighed. "I don't understand why this has become everyone's favourite observation."
They continued walking. The Rainbow bustled around them, artists displaying fresh paintings beneath colourful awnings while musicians filled the air with soft melodies. Children darted between market stalls, laughing as they chased one another through patches of afternoon sunlight.
Cassian took a sip of his coffee. "So."
Azriel knew that tone. "No."
"I haven't even asked the question."
"You were about to."
Azriel looked straight ahead.
Cassian grinned. "So… Does she know you're incapable of admitting when you're happy?"
Azriel pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am perfectly capable."
"You've spent the last five hundred years proving otherwise."
"I haven't."
"You have."
"I smile."
"You've smiled more this month than the previous century."
"That seems statistically unlikely."
Cassian barked out a laugh. "There he is."
Azriel shook his head. "You are exhausting."
"I know."
A comfortable silence settled between them. After a moment, Cassian spoke again. "I'm glad." Azriel looked over. Cassian wasn't smiling anymore. "I'm glad you've got someone."
The words landed differently than Azriel expected. There was no teasing. No knowing grin.
"I don't know what we are."
"I know."
"We're taking things slowly."
"I know."
"I don't even know if-"
Cassian cut him off with a gentle nudge of his shoulder. "You don't have to explain it to me." Azriel frowned at him before Cas continued. "I've watched you spend centuries convincing yourself that wanting people was dangerous." His voice remained light, but something beneath it wasn't. "If you've found someone who makes you want to stick around after dinner instead of disappearing onto a rooftop somewhere..." He shrugged. "...I think that's worth protecting."
Azriel looked away. The words settled quietly somewhere deep inside him. Worth protecting. He hadn't thought of it like that.
They turned the next corner, the familiar stone building coming into view.
Cassian noticed immediately. He followed Azriel’s gaze toward the square, where the library stood just across the way, sunlight spilling over its stone steps. Then he looked back at Azriel. Then at the library again. "...You planned this."
"I didn't."
"You absolutely did."
"I genuinely didn't."
Cassian studied him for another heartbeat before laughing quietly. "You know what, I actually believe you."
Azriel lifted his brow. "You do?"
"You've got the subtlety of a brick when it comes to her."
"I do not."
"You were looking at the library the moment we stepped into the square," Cassian said, nodding toward the building. "And somehow we ended up right in front of it."
"I wasn't thinking."
"I know." Cassian's grin returned. "That's how I know you're in trouble."
Azriel opened his mouth to object. The library door opened, and she stepped outside carrying a stack of books almost high enough to block her view. Azriel moved before he realised he'd decided to.
He crossed the distance between them in a few quick strides. "You've got-"
She looked up. "Oh." A smile spread across her face so quickly it almost made him forget what he'd been about to say. "Hi."
"Hi."
She adjusted the stack awkwardly. "I was taking these next door."
"I can carry them."
"You don't have to."
"I know." He waited. After a moment she surrendered the books with a small smile.
"...Thank you."
He balanced the stack easily against one arm. Only then did she notice Cassian. "Hello."
Azriel turned. "Cassian."
Cassian stepped forward, offering an easy smile. "So you're the female who's been making him smile."
Azriel closed his eyes. Cassian immediately winced. "...Too much?"
"A little," Azriel muttered.
She laughed. "No," she said. "That's alright."
Cassian looked between the two of them. Then something softened in his expression. It was subtle, so subtle Azriel almost missed it. "It's nice to finally meet you," Cassian said.
"It's nice to meet you too." She glanced sideways at Azriel. "Are you the one that allowed him to eat vanilla ice cream for five centuries?"
Cassian gasped dramatically. "Cauldron."
"You too?" She gasped.
"No, never! But I've been trying to fix that male for centuries."
"He seems resistant."
"He's hopeless."
Azriel sighed. "I am standing right here."
Neither of them appeared particularly concerned. For the next few minutes they walked together towards the little bookshop waiting for the delivery. Cassian carried exactly one book. Azriel carried the rest.
She noticed. Without saying anything, she quietly lifted the single book from Cassian's hands and tucked it onto Azriel's pile. Cassian stared, Azriel looked at her. She smiled innocently at them. "I figured we were redistributing responsibilities."
Cassian laughed so loudly several people turned to look. "I like you."
Heat crept unexpectedly into Azriel's cheeks.
She smiled. "I was hoping you would."
Cassian looked sideways at Azriel. For the briefest moment, their eyes met. No words passed between them, none were needed. Cassian's expression said everything. She's good for you.
Azriel found himself smiling again. This time he didn't even try to hide it.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
"I have to stop by the House."
She looked up from locking the library doors. "Oh."
"I need to hand these in." He lifted the bundle of reports tucked beneath one arm.
She nodded immediately. "That's alright."
He hesitated. "You could..." The words stopped. She waited patiently. "You could come with me."
He frowned almost immediately afterwards. "I mean- You don't have to."
"I know."
He looked at the reports. Then back at her. "It shouldn't take long."
Her smile appeared so naturally that he wondered why he'd been nervous to ask. "Okay."
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The House of Wind was unusually quiet. Most of the Inner Circle was scattered throughout the house somewhere, though Azriel hadn't particularly thought about who might be home. He simply led her through the front doors.
She stopped. "This is beautiful."
He looked around. He'd never really thought about it, the polished wooden floors, the enormous windows overlooking Velaris, the warmth that somehow always seemed to linger inside these walls, the coziness of it. "It is."
She smiled. "It feels..." She searched for the right word. "Lived in."
Azriel found himself smiling. "That's probably because it is."
A laugh echoed faintly from somewhere upstairs. Followed almost immediately by Cassian loudly declaring something had been "entirely Rhys' fault."
She looked towards the ceiling. "Should I be worried?"
"Probably not."
"That's not very reassuring."
"No." He led her towards his room. "You can wait here."
She stepped inside slowly. Bookshelves lined one wall, maps another.
His desk sat beneath a large window overlooking Velaris. There were no unnecessary decorations, it seemed like everything had a purpose.
Except... She tilted her head. "You've got flowers."
Azriel blinked. "I do."
A small vase sat in the corner of the windowsill. He genuinely couldn't remember putting it there.
Then he remembered. Elain had declared a week ago that his room looked 'aggressively depressing', apparently flowers had been her solution. "I forgot those existed."
She laughed. "I don't think that's how flowers work." She wandered towards the window while he crossed to his desk.
"I'll only be a minute." He returned to the reports. Somewhere behind him she quietly wandered around his room, she wasn't snooping, just looking around. She paused beside one of the bookshelves. "You've actually read all of these?"
"Most."
She turned around. "I like that."
The words settled pleasantly somewhere beneath his ribs. A knock sounded against the open door. Neither of them had heard the footsteps. Feyre stood in the doorway.
She looked first at Azriel, then at the female standing beside his bookshelves. Surprise flickered across her face for perhaps half a heartbeat before disappearing behind an easy smile. "I was looking for you. But there’s no rush."
Feyre's attention shifted towards his companion. "Hi."
"Hello."
"I'm Feyre." She said.
She introduced herself with the same warmth she offered everyone. "It's nice to meet you."
"You too."
For a moment the three of them simply stood there. Feyre glanced towards the reports covering Azriel's desk. Then towards her again. "You've rescued him from his paperwork?"
She laughed softly. "I don't think anyone could rescue him from paperwork."
"That's true." Feyre smiled. "We've tried."
Azriel sighed. "I am, once again, right here."
"I know." Both females answered at exactly the same time. They looked at one another and started laughing.
Azriel stared at them. "I don't think this is fair."
Feyre's smile softened almost imperceptibly. She'd known Azriel for years. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen him quite so relaxed. His shoulders weren't tense, his shadows drifted lazily around the room instead of watching every corner. Most telling of all, every few moments, almost unconsciously, his eyes flicked towards the female beside the bookshelf.
He wasn't checking where she was, he was checking that she was comfortable. He'd done it six times in the last minute. Feyre smiled to herself. "You two have fun."
She didn't wait for an answer. She simply took the reports from Azriel, quietly closing the door behind her.
The moment she reached the corridor, she paused. Rhys appeared beside her a heartbeat later. "Well?"
Feyre looked back towards the closed door and smiled. "She's lovely."
Rhys followed her gaze. "And him?"
Feyre's smile widened. "I don't think he's realised it yet."
She didn't need to say what she meant out loud.
Because the way Azriel had looked at her already answered the question.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Summer settled gently over Velaris.
The Rainbow stayed busy long after sunset now. Lanterns hung between buildings like tiny stars, musicians filled the streets with lively melodies, and artists displayed fresh paintings beneath colourful awnings. The scent of roasted chestnuts drifted through the evening air, mingling with flowers overflowing from every balcony.
She loved evenings like this. Azriel... tolerated them considerably more than he used to. "You're getting better."
He looked sideways at her.
"At crowds."
"I am?"
"You haven't looked for the nearest escape route once."
"I did."
"When?"
"Immediately."
She laughed.
"I just chose not to take it."
"Progress."
"I suppose."
She nudged his shoulder lightly as they continued through the market. They walked close enough now that their hands brushed every few steps. Neither reached for the other's hand immediately anymore. There wasn't the same uncertainty there had been weeks ago.
Sometimes they held hands. Sometimes they didn't.
She paused in front of a stall overflowing with hand-bound journals. Azriel stopped beside her. "I know that face."
"What face?"
"The one that means you're about to buy another notebook."
"I don't have that face."
"You absolutely do."
"I need these."
"You've said that about the last four."
"They all have different purposes."
He folded his arms. "I'm listening."
She pointed. "One is for work."
"Mhm."
"One is recipes."
"You don't cook."
"I'd like to."
He nodded solemnly. "Aspirational notebook."
She laughed. "Exactly."
"And the others?"
She hesitated. "...One is because the cover had flowers."
He couldn't stop the smile. "I thought so."
The elderly female running the stall looked between them with quiet amusement. "You should let him buy it."
She blinked. "Oh, no."
Azriel reached for his wallet anyway.
"I can pay for my own notebook."
"I know."
"You don't have to buy me things."
"I know."
"Then why are you already handing her money?"
He looked genuinely puzzled. "Because you wanted it."
She opened her mouth. Closed it again. "...You're very difficult to argue with."
"I've heard that."
She accepted the notebook with a small shake of her head. "Thank you."
He only nodded. As they stepped away from the stall, she bumped his shoulder. "You know... I might start pretending to like very expensive things."
"You'd feel guilty within five minutes."
"Probably."
"You'd probably sneak them back into my room afterwards."
She stared at him. "...How do you know me this well already?"
He looked almost surprised by the question. "I pay attention."
The answer was so simple that it stole every clever reply she'd been about to make. She smiled instead.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
They'd nearly reached the bridge spanning the Sidra when it happened.
It wasn't dramatic. Just unpleasant.
A broad-shouldered High Fae male stumbled sideways from one of the taverns, laughing loudly with two companions. He wasn't paying attention until he clipped her shoulder hard enough to make her stumble.
"Oh!" She caught herself before falling. "I'm so sorry," she started automatically.
The male looked down at her. "You should watch where you're going."
She blinked. "I..."
Before she could finish, Azriel stepped forward. One movement, that was all. He simply placed himself between them. His shadows rose silently around him.
The warmth she'd come to associate with them vanished. They became something ancient. Sharp, hungry. The street seemed to grow quieter.
The drunk male looked up, recognition hitting almost instantly. The colour drained from his face. "...Shadowsinger."
Azriel didn't say a word.
He simply looked at him. The silence stretched.
Then the male swallowed hard. "I apologise."
Azriel remained perfectly still.
The male looked towards her instead. "I'm sorry."
She nodded. "It's alright."
"It won't happen again."
"No," Azriel said quietly. It was the first word he'd spoken. The male's companions had already taken several careful steps backwards. "...It won't."
They left almost immediately. Just three male disappearing into the crowd considerably faster than they'd entered it.
Silence settled again. The market slowly resumed around them. Music returned. Conversations picked back up. Azriel remained exactly where he was for another heartbeat before his shadows slowly relaxed. Only then did he look at her. "Are you alright?"
She blinked. "...I'm fine."
He looked at the shoulder she'd bumped against. "Did he hurt you?"
"No."
He frowned. "You stumbled."
"I was surprised."
He still looked unconvinced. Carefully, she reached for his hand. His attention dropped immediately, she gave it a gentle squeeze. "I'm okay."
He finally nodded. "Good."
They started walking again. Eventually she looked sideways at him. "You frightened him."
Azriel's expression remained unreadable. "...Yes."
"Do you like that?"
The question caught him completely off guard. He thought about it, longer than she expected. "No."
She waited. "I like when people leave you alone." His answer was quiet, and honest.
She stopped walking. "So that's why."
He looked at her.
"I thought..." She smiled gently. "I thought maybe you enjoyed everyone being afraid of you."
A humourless laugh escaped him. "I've spent most of my life wishing they weren't."
Something tightened painfully in her chest. She stepped closer. Not because he needed protecting, but because, somehow he looked lonely. She slipped her hand back into his. "I wasn't asking because I was frightened. I was worried about you."
His brow furrowed. "Me?"
"You looked..." She searched for the words. "...Sad."
For a long moment he simply stared at her. No one had ever called him that. They would call him dangerous, cold, efficient, terrifying, necessary, but never sad. Something inside of him shifted almost painfully. He glanced down at their joined hands and intertwined his fingers with hers. "I wasn't sad."
She smiled. "No?"
He considered it. "Maybe a little."
She leaned her head briefly against his shoulder as they continued towards the river. "Well."
"Hm?"
"I'm here now."
The words were simple. She probably didn't realise how deeply they landed.
Azriel swallowed. His fingers tightened around hers ever so slightly. "You are"
Tonight, the streets of Velaris didn't feel like somewhere he had to keep watch over. They felt like somewhere he simply got to walk beside her.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Azriel picked up the habit of helping her close the library on days he was there. Right now, he was helping her reshelf books that were brought back by people during the day. By the time they'd finished the last trolley, the grandfather clock near the entrance chimed seven times.
She stretched both arms above her head. "I think..." She yawned halfway through the sentence. "...I'm officially done."
Azriel smiled. "You've said that three times."
"I meant it this time."
"Mhm."
"I did." Another yawn interrupted her.
He walked towards the kettle tucked into the tiny staff room. "Tea?"
She smiled gratefully. "Please."
She settled into one of the oversized reading chairs beside the window, carefully placing her hot tea down next to her. "I just need..." She looked at the final ledger balanced on her knees. "...Five more minutes."
Azriel took the chair opposite her. Rain continued drumming softly against the glass. Somewhere upstairs, old pipes creaked. The library smelled faintly of parchment, lavender and wood polish.
She wrote another line. Then another. He opened his book again. Several pages passed before he realised he'd stopped reading. Something had changed. The scratching of her pen had stopped.
He looked up, the ledger had slipped sideways onto one arm of the chair. Her head rested against the cushion. Eyes closed, asleep.
He remained perfectly still. One of his shadows drifted curiously towards her before settling lightly across the back of the chair like a dark ribbon.
He should probably wake her. She'd complain about her neck. She still needed to go home. Instead he watched another raindrop slide slowly down the window.
Minutes passed. His gaze drifted back towards her. A loose strand of hair had fallen across her face. Before he could think better of it, he leaned forward. He brushed it gently behind her ear.
She stirred, and his heart stopped, but she only sighed softly before settling deeper into the chair. One corner of the blanket draped over the back had slipped onto the floor. He picked it up and laid it lightly across her. His movements felt strangely uncertain. As though gentleness required a different kind of courage than battle ever had.
He sat back down. One shadow floated towards him. It nudged lightly against his shoulder. "...I know," he whispered.
The shadow settled there contentedly. He smiled. The kind that reached his eyes.
He realised he wasn’t staying because she had asked him to. He was staying because leaving sounded like the worse option. And somehow, that no longer felt frightening. It felt like home.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The changes happened so gradually that Azriel couldn't have said when they began.
One afternoon she laughed at something he'd said and, without thinking, caught his forearm to steady herself. Neither of them reacted.
Another day they crossed one of the busier bridges over the Sidra. Before he'd consciously decided to, his hand had settled lightly against the small of her back, guiding her through the crowd.
It felt natural. He removed it again the moment the streets opened up. The following day he did it again. Then again. Eventually she stopped looking surprised by it.
Instead she simply leaned almost imperceptibly into the touch, trusting him to steer them through the tide of people without either of them needing to say a word.
Somehow that small gesture became theirs. He never questioned it, and she never pulled away.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The House of Wind became part of their routine.
It started because it was quieter than the cafés scattered throughout Velaris. Then because she liked borrowing books from the enormous library. Then because neither of them felt particularly inclined to leave once the sun had started setting over the mountains.
Some evenings she read while he worked. Others she wandered between towering shelves, occasionally emerging to read aloud a sentence she'd found particularly beautiful.
He discovered he liked listening to her voice when she forgot anyone else was in the room. It softened, lost the careful politeness she carried with strangers. Sometimes she would trail off halfway through a paragraph. He would glance up from a report. "What?"
She'd smile sheepishly. "I forgot you were listening."
"I was."
"I know."
"Keep going."
She always did.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Touch became easier
She hugged people, not everyone. The people she loved. The elderly librarian when she left for the evening, or her brother when she spotted him across the Rainbow, children who came crying because they'd torn a favourite book.
She hugged as naturally as breathing.
Azriel did not. The first time she'd hugged him goodbye, he'd frozen. She'd immediately stepped back. "Oh, I'm sorry. I should have asked."
Only then did he realise she'd let go. He frowned. "...You don't have to apologise."
"You looked startled."
"I was."
"Oh."
"I've just..." He rubbed the back of his neck.
She understood before he finished. "I can stop."
He looked at her. Then, surprising himself as much as her, quietly said, "I'd rather you didn't."
The smile she gave him stayed with him for days.
After that, it became normal. Not every time, and never expected. Sometimes when they met. Sometimes when they said goodbye. Sometimes after she'd had a particularly difficult day at the library. Sometimes when he'd returned from a patrol that had lasted longer than expected.
Short hugs. Long ones.
At first, he remained stiff for the first few seconds, still learning that affection didn't have to be earned. That it didn't always come with conditions attached. But gradually, almost without noticing, he found himself relaxing into them. His arms settled around her a little more easily each time.
She always smelled like parchment. It was the first thing he noticed whenever she stepped close enough for him to wrap his arms around her. Old books clung stubbornly to her clothes after long days at the library. Beneath that lingered lavender, faint enough that he only caught it when she rested against him.
And underneath both there was vanilla. Just her. He found himself recognising the scent before he saw her. A week later he realised he'd begun associating it with safety. He had been walking around Elain's garden and stumbled upon a lavender bush. The thought had unsettled him enough that he refused to examine it further.
Every single time she hugged him, Azriel felt himself relaxing a little sooner.
Every single time... Letting go became fractionally harder.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
One evening she wandered into his room while he finished writing a report. Every time she entered the room she was blown away by how neat it was. Almost painfully so. Books were stacked with military precision, boots aligned beside the door, every weapon looked clean, and every surface orderly.
She smiled to herself. "Your room looks like you."
He looked up. "Is that a compliment?"
"I haven't decided yet."
He huffed a laugh. She settled cross-legged on top of the blankets with one of the novels she'd borrowed from the House library while he continued working at the small desk beneath the window.
Time slipped quietly past them.
Azriel finished the final report long after darkness had settled outside. He flexed stiff fingers before standing. "I think-"
The words died in his throat. She'd fallen asleep, the book resting open against her chest, one hand still loosely held the corner of a page.
He smiled despite himself. She didn't stir.
He crossed the room quietly, and carefully lifted the book from her hands before marking the page with the ribbon sewn into its spine. He set it on the bedside table.
For a long moment he simply looked at her. She looked peaceful, and safe.
His room had never looked lived in before. Now there was a discarded cardigan draped over the end of his bed. A half-finished cup of tea on the windowsill. A novel lying beside his pillow.
Small things. Ordinary things. And somehow they transformed the room completely.
He should wake her. She'd be more comfortable in her own bed. Instead... He sat down carefully beside her. Only for a minute. Just until he decided how best to wake her. She shifted in her sleep. Without opening her eyes, she instinctively leaned sideways until her head rested lightly against his shoulder.
Azriel stopped breathing. He didn't move. He didn't dare. After another moment she sighed softly, one hand coming to rest against his forearm as though she'd done it a hundred times before.
His heart stumbled somewhere inside his chest. Outside, rain tapped quietly against the windows. Inside, the House of Wind had grown still.
He realised he was tired. Not exhausted or worn down, but sleepy.
It was an unfamiliar feeling, one he'd started to associate with her presence.
He leaned his head back against the pillow. Just for a moment.
Safe in the quiet certainty that, when he opened his eyes again she would still be there.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The first thing Azriel noticed when he opened his eyes was that he felt rested. Actually rested. Not the kind of exhaustion where his body had simply given up after days without sleep. Not the heavy, dreamless unconsciousness he'd grown accustomed to over the centuries.
He felt light. He lay perfectly still for a long moment, staring at the ceiling of his room.
The House of Wind was quiet around him. Somewhere in the distance someone laughed. Morning sunlight spilled lazily across the floorboards, warming the edge of the bed.
Then he remembered why. Very carefully, he turned his head. The other side of the bed was empty. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. She was probably already awake.
He pushed himself upright, still smiling faintly. "Morning?"
No answer. He frowned.
The room still carried the faint smell of her. Her cardigan was gone from the foot of the bed. The teacup she'd abandoned on the windowsill had disappeared too.
She must have tidied before leaving the room. Of course she had.
He stood, running a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. The House was already awake by the sound of it.
She was probably downstairs. He pulled on a clean shirt and wandered into the corridor. "Morning, Az."
Mor walked past carrying a mug of coffee. "Morning."
She slowed. "You look..." She tilted her head. "...Happy."
He sighed. "You too?"
She laughed. "Is it becoming a problem?"
She disappeared down the hallway before he could answer.
Azriel made his way towards the dining room. Empty. Only a few abandoned mugs remained scattered across the long table.
He looked around. Nothing. Perhaps she'd gone to the library already. No. She wouldn't have left without saying goodbye. Would she?
His smile faded slightly. He checked the kitchen. The balcony. The library. Nothing.
One of the priestesses looked up as he stepped inside. "Can I help you?"
Azriel hesitated. "I was looking for someone."
"I'm afraid there's nobody here."
He nodded once. "Thank you."
Outside again. Still nothing. His shadows drifted restlessly around his shoulders. One brushed against the sleeve of his jacket. Another slipped ahead into the corridor before returning moments later.
Empty.
His chest tightened. No. She'd gone into the city. That made sense. She had work. He relaxed fractionally.
Until he remembered. Today wasn't a work day. His steps slowed.
Perhaps she'd gone home.
Perhaps she'd remembered something.
Perhaps...
He stopped walking.
His thoughts had begun moving too quickly.
Too many possibilities. Too many explanations. He descended into Velaris.
The streets bustled with the comfortable rhythm of late morning. Market stalls overflowed with flowers and fruit. Children chased one another beside the Sidra.
Everything looked painfully ordinary.
He checked the library. It was locked. He stood staring at the closed door longer than necessary.
One of the neighbouring shopkeepers smiled politely. "They're closed today."
Azriel looked over. "They are?" He nodded. "Thank you."
He walked away. His shadows had stopped drifting lazily. Now they searched. One disappeared down a side street. Another skimmed across rooftops. A third circled high overhead. They returned one by one. Nothing.
His breathing had become noticeably shallower. This is ridiculous. He knew that. She had a life. Friends, family.
Plans that existed long before he'd stumbled onto a bench outside Rita's.
He knew all of that. So why... Why did everything suddenly feel wrong?
He crossed the Sidra. Passed the bakery where they'd shared pastries before sunrise. The little courtyard she'd shown him. The bench outside Rita's.
Empty.
His footsteps slowed. One memory followed another with cruel precision.
Five hundred years. Mor leaving.
Again.
Again.
Again.
The garden.
Elain walking away.
The cell.
The silence after footsteps disappeared.
His breathing caught.
No.
This wasn't the same.
He knew it wasn't. He knew-
His shadows gathered tightly around him. Agitated. They were mirroring him.
He closed his eyes. She'll come back. The thought arrived. Immediately another followed. What if she doesn't?
His eyes snapped open. The city suddenly felt too loud. Too full. Too empty. He turned sharply and launched himself into the sky. He didn't decide to fly to the training ring. His body chose before his mind had caught up. The impact of his landing cracked the packed earth beneath his boots.
He stood there breathing hard. Trying. Trying desperately to think logically. Trying to remember every conversation they'd had over the past weeks.
Had she seemed distant? Had he missed something? Had he said something wrong? Had he-
The first practice post shattered beneath his fist before he realised he'd moved. Wood exploded across the ring. Rhys would not be happy, he had just replaced the last ones he destroyed.
His scarred hand throbbed. He welcomed it. Because physical pain was simple. The fear blooming inside his chest wasn't. Another post, another crack echoing across the mountains.
His shadows recoiled before surging back around him almost frantically. "I know." His voice sounded unfamiliar. Hoarse. "I know."
But they didn't. Neither did he.
All he knew was that he'd woken believing someone would still be there. But she wasn't.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Morning sunlight warmed her face before she was fully awake. She frowned slightly, not recognising the room around her at first.
Books. Dark wooden furniture. The enormous window overlooking Velaris. Then she felt the steady rise and fall beneath her cheek.
Azriel. Very carefully, she lifted her head. He was still asleep. She'd never seen him like this before.
His face looked younger somehow. Softer. The lines that usually settled between his brows had disappeared entirely, his breathing slow and even as morning light spilled across the bed.
He didn't stir. She studied him for another moment. It felt strangely intimate. Not because they were sharing a bed, because he'd trusted her enough to fall asleep beside him.
She doubted he even realised he'd done it. Slowly, she slipped from beneath the blankets as carefully as she could. Azriel shifted once. She froze. A soft breath escaped him before he settled again.
She let out a relieved sigh. The room looked exactly as they'd left it the night before. She smiled to herself as she gathered her cardigan from the end of the bed. She carried her empty teacup downstairs before quietly thanking Cassian who'd already begun preparing breakfast.
"Leaving already?" He asked kindly.
She nodded.
"I promised my brother I'd meet him."
He smiled knowingly. "I'm sure you'll be back. I'll help you down"
Heat crept into her cheeks. "Thank you, and probably."
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Her brother was already waiting outside their usual bakery. She breathed in the crisp morning air. The city shimmered beneath the early sunlight. She couldn't stop smiling.
He looked up as she approached. "...Well."
She frowned. "What?"
"You look suspiciously cheerful."
"I always look cheerful."
He snorted. "No you don't."
She laughed despite herself. "I had a nice evening."
"I gathered."
He held the bakery door open for her. "So, you slept over."
She nearly walked into the doorframe. "...How do you know that?"
"You've got bed hair." She instinctively reached for her hair. He grinned. "And you're wearing yesterday's dress. You also didn't come home last night."
She looked down. "...Oh."
"And you've been smiling since I saw you." He laughed outright. "I've never seen anyone discover evidence against themselves in real time."
She nudged his shoulder. "Be nice."
"I am being nice."
"You absolutely aren't."
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Breakfast passed easily. He asked, and she answered. Mostly. The rest of her thoughts remained somewhere else entirely. She wondered whether Azriel had slept well. Whether he'd laugh when she told him she'd accidentally stolen one of his blankets during the night.
Whether- Her eyes widened. "Oh no."
Her brother looked up from his coffee. "What?"
"I left."
"...Yes."
"I just..." She stared at him. "I left."
"...I'm still following."
"I didn't leave a note."
Silence. "...Do you normally leave notes?"
"No."
"...Then why would you?"
She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Because it wasn't normal. Because it was Azriel. Because- "I should go." She was already standing.
Her brother blinked. "You've barely touched your breakfast."
"I'll eat later." She hurried towards the door before stopping abruptly. "What day is it?"
"...Monday."
"The library's closed."
"...Yes."
She watched understanding slowly spread across his face. "You think he'll look for you."
"I..." She swallowed. "I don't know. But if he does..." She smiled weakly. "...I wasn't exactly easy to find."
She searched anyway. The Sidra first. Then the library, despite knowing it would be closed. The little courtyard behind the painter's workshop. The café they'd argued about pigeons in.
Nothing.
By early afternoon she'd begun chewing nervously on the inside of her cheek. She'd seen Azriel anxious before. She hated thinking she might be the reason again. A blanket of guilt and shame draped over her shoulders, adding about a million pounds to each of her steps.
"Excuse me?"
She turned. Rhysand. He'd landed so quietly she hadn't heard him.
He looked between her and the empty street. "...You're looking for Az."
She nodded. "I think he might be looking for me too."
Something changed in Rhysand's expression. The easy grin faded. "When did you last see him?"
"This morning."
"...You left?"
"I had breakfast with my brother."
Rhys stared. "...Did you tell him?"
"No."
"...Did you leave a note?"
Her stomach sank. "No." Her voice broke.
Rhys closed his eyes for exactly one second. When he opened them again, there wasn't any humour left. "Come here."
She blinked. "What?"
He crouched slightly. "We're flying."
"Flying where?"
He met her eyes. "I've known Azriel for over five hundred years." A beat of silence. "I know exactly where he is."
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The sound reached her before the training ring came into view.
Wood splitting. A heavy impact. Silence. Then another crack.
Rhys landed lightly beside the ring. He didn't step any closer. Instead he looked towards her. "I think..." He hesitated. "...He needs you more than he needs me."
She swallowed.
Beyond the entrance, broken practice posts lay scattered across the packed earth. Splintered wood. Shattered targets. One entire weapons rack had collapsed onto its side. In the centre of it all stood Azriel. His back faced them. His wings were half flared, breathing hard enough that each inhale visibly lifted them.
Another practice dummy disappeared beneath his fist. The wood exploded. Silence settled over the mountains once more.
Rhys quietly stepped back. "I'll be nearby." Then he was gone.
She suddenly wished he hadn't left. For a long moment she simply stood there. She'd never seen Azriel like this. Not even after he'd rejected her. He looked… Lost.
She took one cautious step into the ring. "Azriel?" His shoulders remained rigid. Another step. "Az."
Still nothing.
He picked up another practice sword. The blade bent almost double as he drove it into the remaining target. Metal screamed.
She flinched. "Azriel."
This time he stopped moving. The silence that followed felt almost louder than the destruction had. Very slowly he turned around.
For one terrible heartbeat she wasn't sure he recognised her. Then his eyes found hers. Everything else disappeared.
The sword slipped from his fingers, landing in the dirt with a dull thud. His wings folded instinctively behind him. His breathing remained uneven.
She looked around the ring, smelling the faint metallic tang of blood. Her gaze snapped back to him. His knuckles were split open again. She crossed the remaining distance before she could think better of it.
He didn't step back, but didn't step forward either. He simply stood there watching her. As if afraid that blinking might make her disappear again. She stopped close enough to see the exhaustion carved into his face. "You've been looking for me."
It wasn't a question. His jaw tightened. For several long seconds he said nothing. Finally… "Yes." She reached for one of his hands. He flinched. Not away from her. From himself. "I shouldn't." His voice was rough.
She frowned. "What?"
"My hands."
She ignored the protest completely. She took them anyway. Fresh blood streaked across his scarred skin. Tiny splinters remained embedded across his knuckles.
She looked up. "You did this."
He nodded once. "I know."
"No." Her thumb brushed gently across one swollen knuckle. "I mean..." Her voice softened. "You did this to yourself."
His eyes closed. "I know."
Silence settled again. She waited. She'd learned something about Azriel over the past weeks. If you filled every silence… He retreated. If you let it exist, eventually he'd walk through it.
So she waited. Nearly a minute passed.
"I woke up." His voice barely carried across the ring. "You were gone." Another silence. "I knew..." He swallowed. "I knew there were explanations." She didn't interrupt. "I knew you had a life." A bitter laugh escaped him. "I knew anything was more likely than..." He stopped.
She squeezed his hand gently. "...Than what?"
His eyes remained fixed on the ground. "...Than you leaving because of me."
She frowned. "Az-"
"But that wasn't..." He laughed again. It sounded painfully tired. "...That wasn't what my head believed."
She understood. Every goodbye that had come before she'd ever met him. She stepped one fraction closer. "You thought I wasn't coming back."
He nodded. Once. Small. Ashamed. "I knew it didn't make sense." Another pause. "I still believed it."
She felt her heart break a little. Not because he'd doubted her. Because he hadn't. He'd doubted himself.
Very gently she lifted one of his injured hands until he had no choice but to meet her eyes. "Azriel." He looked at her. "I came back."
His breathing caught. "I know."
"No." She smiled sadly. "I don't think you do."
Another long silence. Then she did the simplest thing she could think of. She took one more step. Close enough that she could see every tiny fleck of amber hidden inside his hazel eyes. Close enough that, if he wanted to… He could close the distance.
She didn't. She left it to him. He looked from her eyes… To her mouth… Back to her eyes again.
His breathing became uneven all over again. His hands trembled slightly inside hers.
"So..." His voice cracked. He cleared his throat. Tried again. "So you're..." He laughed once at himself. "...You're still here."
She smiled. "I told you."
"No." His eyes shone unexpectedly. "You didn't." Another pause. "You just..." He looked at her as though he still couldn't quite believe she existed. "...You came back."
Neither of them moved. The wind swept quietly through the mountains. Below them, Velaris glittered beneath the afternoon sun. For the first time in his life… Azriel realised someone had left… And chosen to return.
He drew a careful breath. His thumb brushed hesitantly across the back of her hand.
He whispered. "Can I please kiss you?"
She smiled. The same small smile he'd fallen in love with on a bench outside Rita's. "I was beginning to think you'd never ask."
He laughed. Actually laughed. Disbelieving. The sound lingered between them as he closed the final inches.
Slowly. Giving her every chance to change her mind.
She didn't. Their foreheads touched first. Then their noses.
He closed his eyes. "So this is alright?"
She couldn't help smiling wider. "Azriel."
"Hm?"
"Kiss me."
He moved slow - so achingly slow it felt like the world itself had paused to watch. His hands rose first, almost uncertain, as though he didn’t trust what he was allowed to do. One of them hovered near her waist before settling there carefully, like she might vanish if he held too tightly. The other came up to her face, fingers trembling just slightly as they cupped her cheek.
Warm. Real. She was real. And she was here.
The moment his palm met her cheek, something inside his chest detonated, quiet but absolute. It wasn't fear this time.
It was fireworks.
Bright, reckless bursts of it, like his entire body had been waiting for this exact second without ever daring to believe it would come.
She didn’t move away. Instead, her own hand lifted, sliding into his hair at the nape of his neck, anchoring him there as if she’d decided he wasn’t allowed to disappear either.
That was what broke him. The staying.
He closed the final distance like he was stepping off a ledge he’d been standing on his entire life.
Their lips met softly at first - barely there, a question more than an answer. He hesitated for half a heartbeat, as though even now he was afraid of taking too much.
Then she kissed him back and something in him unraveled.
The world narrowed until there was nothing but her, her breath against his, the faintest tremor in her fingers, the way she tilted her head like she already knew him.
Like she had always known him.
His grip tightened just slightly at her waist, not enough to trap her, only enough to make sure she was still there. Still real. Still choosing him.
Every second stretched, molten and slow, like time itself had forgotten how to move.
It wasn’t just a kiss, it was relief so sharp it almost hurt. It was every lonely night, every silence, every fear he’d never said out loud collapsing into something impossibly soft and alive.
When he finally pulled back just enough to breathe, his forehead rested against hers, his hand still cradling her face like he couldn’t quite convince himself to let go.
His breath shook.
So did hers.
And for the first time in what felt like forever Azriel didn’t feel like he was falling apart. He felt like he’d been found.
you were awoken, rather abruptly, by the sound of toys clattering down your side. blinking sleep away, you groan softly, before you’re face to face with your little toddler, her little ringlets messy and sticking up in every direction. she blinks at you. you blink at her.
“g’mo’ning, mama,” she says, in something akin to a whisper, but it comes out more just like hot toddler breath in your face. you can smell coffee wafting from the kitchen.
“mm, baby, what’re you doing?” you croak, lifting a sleepy hand to move the sheets off of you when you’re instead met with a small plastic toy car. then, a little train. then — ah! another toy! this time, in the form of a small cloth bee stuffed with pellets. there’s a damp spot on its antennae, where your darling daughter had no doubt chewed on it just moments ago.
she blinks at you again, extending a little pointer finger towards the collection of trinkets now placed on your stomach. “play.”
“play?” you ask, as she hands you yet another toy from her chubby fingers. she must’ve gotten out of her crib somehow, and judging from the fact that jack’s side of the bed is empty, that’s probably how. “where’s papa?”
“ou’side.” she says, walking the little bee plush along your blanketed stomach. “mama, play.”
“mm.” you groan slightly. you give her one last look before resigning to your newly appointed role as a play-mat. the books did say to encourage spontaneous play. “m’kay.” you pick up the little car, rolling it along your torso as she mimics the buzzing of a bee.
her cheeks are flushed a sleepy pink as her brows furrow in concentration. freckles dust her little nose, and the person who gave them to her walks into the bedroom. jack, still in his sleep shirt and plaid pajama pants leans against the doorframe, as a warm smile graces his aged features.
“there you are, buggy,” he says, as your daughter’s head whipped over her shoulder to look at him. jack cocks his head behind him. “pancakes’re ready,” he smiles.
then, your daughter turns to you. “mama, pancakes.”
“mm, i’ll be there in one sec, baby,” you nod, still wearing off the last of your grogginess as you sit up, the toys clattering into your lap. your daughter, sweet and full of energy as she is, waddles her way out of the bedroom with the soft pitter-patter of her feet following her. as she rounds the door into the hallway, jack extends a hand to cup the back of her little head, gentle.
then, he turns to you, a bright glint in his eyes. “she wanted to play.”
a little smile graces your lips. “yeah, she did,” you murmur, stretching your arms over your head.
rubbing your sleep from your eyes, the comfortable silence is broken by the sound of your toddler shouting, “mama! papa!” from the kitchen, the clumsy clanging of her plastic utensils against her paw patrol plate joining her.
you can’t help the laugh that leaves you, and jack’s chuckles join you.
“she’s a tyrant,” you sigh with affection, kicking the duvet away from you as you stand, approaching jack. you rest your hand on his lower back as his drapes over your shoulder, and he presses a soft kiss to your forehead before walking the both of you out in the hall, muttering, “yeah, but, i mean, look at her,” he says, nodding in the direction of where she tries to climb into her high chair. “she makes for a pretty fuckin’ cute one.”
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I totally intended for this to be a one shot but I might have to turn this into a short series because I don't feel like I'm done with them oh my god. LMK if you want a part two in the comments! I wrote this in one night when I couldn't sleep last weekend, so bear with me. Might go back in and edit mistakes later.
The Motherlist - part two
Word count: 12000 (this got out of hand)
Summary: a chance encounter at Rita's leads Azriel and a female to an unexpected friendship. As their connection deepens, both must confront old wounds, quiet fears, and the courage it takes to let someone in.
He lasted fifteen minutes before hurrying outside. The second the door to Rita's closed behind him, the music dulled into a distant thrum. It was still loud enough that he could feel the bass vibrating faintly through the soles of his boots, but it no longer threatened to split his head in two.
A cool breeze rolled off the Sidra, carrying with it the scent of river water, fresh bread from a bakery that had started preparing for the morning, and the faint sweetness of blooming flowers hanging from windowsills above the street.
Azriel closed his eyes for a moment. Better. Inside, there had simply been too much. Too many conversations overlapping until they became impossible to separate. Too many heartbeats. Too many emotions. His shadows had spent the entire evening weaving restlessly around him, unable to settle. Out here, they slowed.
One drifted lazily away from his shoulder, skimming low over the cobblestones before circling back. Another stretched itself towards the river as though enjoying the breeze.
He followed the row of benches lining the water until he found one tucked beneath a lantern whose flame had burned low. It overlooked the Sidra, the water reflecting ribbons of gold from the lights lining the opposite bank. Perfect.
He sat down with a sigh that escaped before he could stop it and leaned his forearms on his knees.
Five minutes. He'd give himself five minutes before Mor inevitably came looking for him, complaining that she'd barely seen him all evening.
"Ehm... hello."
Azriel nearly jumped out of his skin. "Fuck!" His head whipped towards the voice so quickly something in his neck protested.
A female sat beside him. Not directly beside him, there was still a little space between them, but close enough that he should have noticed. She looked almost as startled as he was.
Wide eyes met his, and whatever colour they were caught the lantern light for the briefest moment before she looked away again.
"Oh, gods. I'm sorry." She sounded genuinely horrified. "I thought..." She gestured awkwardly between them. "I assumed you sat here because you wanted to talk."
Azriel blinked. Then looked around the bench as though trying to work out how she had appeared there. He noticed everything. That wasn't arrogance, it was simply years of training. People didn't sneak up on him, his shadows didn't let them. One brushed sheepishly against his cheek. He narrowed his eyes at it. "You didn't think to warn me?" He murmured. The shadow slipped behind his shoulder. Traitor.
"...Are you talking to me?" the female asked carefully.
He looked back at her. "No."
A pause. "...That's somehow more concerning."
A laugh escaped him before he could stop it. Not loud, just enough to surprise them both.
Her shoulders relaxed a fraction. "I really am sorry," she said. "I wasn't trying to scare you."
"You succeeded."
"I gathered that." She smiled. Small enough that he almost missed it. It changed her entire face, not because it was dazzling, but because it looked unpractised. As though she didn't smile for strangers very often.
He realised he was staring again. Gods. "Sorry," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I've had a long day."
"Me too."
Silence settled between them. Not awkward. Simply... quiet. She looked back towards the river instead of filling the space with nervous chatter. Azriel found himself doing the same.
Across the Sidra, a ferry drifted lazily beneath one of the bridges, its lanterns swaying gently with the current. Somewhere farther downstream, someone laughed loudly enough that the sound echoed across the water before disappearing into the night. His shadows, who had been restless since sunrise, now floated around him without urgency. Strange.
"So..." the female said after a while, still watching the river. "Bad night?"
He usually hated questions like that. Not because they were rude, but because they invited conversations he had no interest in having. Yet something about the way she'd asked made him pause. There hadn't been any expectation behind it. No insistence that he answer, just curiosity.
"My friend insisted I celebrate her birthday."
"And you'd rather be anywhere else."
He huffed a quiet laugh. "Is it that obvious?"
"A little." She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear before immediately hiding her hands back inside the sleeves of her oversized sweater. "I'm only saying that because I recognised the expression."
He glanced sideways. "You escaped too."
"My brother dragged me here." She rolled her eyes affectionately. "He's been travelling around Prythian for months. Came home yesterday. Apparently celebrating requires thirty people and music loud enough to wake the dead."
"So you ran."
"I strategically retreated." She shrugged. "Very different things."
"They're absolutely the same thing."
"They're not."
He raised an eyebrow at her. "They are." She raised one back. For a heartbeat they simply looked at one another. Then she laughed first.
"Okay," she admitted, "maybe I ran."
"I thought so."
"I'm choosing to believe you're insufferably smug in general and not just because you won that argument."
"I did win."
"One argument."
"I'll take what I can get." The words left his mouth before he'd considered them. He wasn't entirely sure why he'd said them. Or why it felt easy. Usually conversations with strangers felt like work. Questions, answers, polite excuses to leave. This one didn't. He realised, with some surprise, that he wasn't waiting for an excuse to end it. Quite the opposite.
When silence returned, he didn't find himself looking towards Rita's. He found himself hoping she would ask another question.
She did. "So..." she began, pulling one knee up onto the bench and wrapping both arms around it. "Do you always talk to shadows?"
He glanced sideways at her. "Only the rude ones."
"They can be rude?"
"They can be incredibly rude."
"I thought they just... floated."
"They mostly do."
"So why are these ones rude?"
"They let you sneak up on me."
She looked at the shadows circling lazily around his shoulders, her head tilting slightly as though trying to make out where one ended and another began. "They're awfully unapologetic about it."
"They know I'll forgive them."
"They sound spoiled."
"They are."
One shadow drifted between them as if protesting the accusation. She smiled at it. Her eyes didn’t fill with caution. The shadow lingered for a heartbeat before retreating behind Azriel's shoulder. He couldn't remember the last time someone had reacted to them like that. Most people either pretended not to notice them or watched them with poorly concealed unease. She'd greeted them as though they were mildly mischievous pets.
"They seem to like you," she said quietly.
"They tolerate me."
"I don't think that's true."
"No?"
She shook her head. "They keep trying to get your attention." He looked at the shadows. One immediately darted away. Traitors.
A soft laugh escaped her. The sound was quieter this time, almost absent-minded, as though she hadn't realised she'd done it. He found himself smiling again.
Cassian would be insufferable if he saw this. The thought drifted through his mind almost lazily. Normally that alone would've been enough to remind him he ought to head back inside. Instead, he remained exactly where he was.
"You know," she said after a while, "I don't actually know why I came out here."
He frowned.
"I thought you said the music was too loud."
"It is."
She looked out across the Sidra again.
"But I think..." She hesitated, searching for the words. "Sometimes I just need somewhere that doesn't expect anything from me."
Azriel didn't answer immediately. He understood the feeling. Entirely too well. "The river doesn't ask much," he said eventually.
"No. It mostly just keeps flowing." She nodded. "My mother used to bring me here when I was little."
He looked over. She wasn't looking at him anymore, her eyes followed the lights dancing across the water. "If I'd had a bad day, we'd walk along the Sidra until I forgot why I was upset."
"Did it work?"
"Usually." A faint smile crossed her face. "But I think she mostly distracted me with ice cream."
He let out a quiet huff of amusement. "That's one way to solve a problem."
"It's a very effective way."
"I'll have to remember that."
"You should."
Another comfortable silence settled between them. Azriel realised he hadn't checked the time once since he'd come outside. He usually counted minutes without thinking. Measured every conversation. Every meeting. Every mission. But now, the night simply existed around them. The music spilling from Rita's faded each time the door swung shut. Lanterns reflected off the river in wavering ribbons of gold. Somewhere across the water a boatman called out to another, his voice carrying easily through the cool air.
"So..." she said eventually. "What do you do?"
He almost laughed. There it was. The question. He usually dreaded it, he felt like there was never a good answer.
I'm the Spymaster of the Night Court. I torture people. I disappear for weeks. I know everyone's secrets.
None of those tended to make for pleasant conversation.
"I work for Rhys." He decided.
"As?"
He rubbed the back of his neck. "...Mostly security." It wasn't exactly a lie.
She nodded as though that answered everything. No further questions. Just acceptance.
"And you?"
"I work at one of the libraries." She shrugged. “The library by the Rainbow.”
His eyebrows lifted. "I know the one."
"I sort books."
"That's all?"
She laughed. "I knew you'd say that."
"I didn't mean-"
"No, it's alright." She smiled. "Everyone says that." She drew absent-minded circles against the wooden bench with the toe of her boot. "I catalogue new arrivals. Repair damaged books. Help people find things." She shrugged. "I like it."
"I can see why."
She looked over. "You can?"
"You don't seem like someone who enjoys crowds."
Her laugh was immediate. "No."
"So a library makes sense."
"I think this might be the longest conversation I've had all week."
He blinked. "...Really?"
"I spend most of my day surrounded by people who actively don't want me interrupting them."
He smiled. "I suppose that's fair."
"What about you?"
He considered lying. Instead he found himself saying, "Probably."
She frowned slightly. "Probably?"
"I don't usually..." He searched for the right words. "Talk."
She looked genuinely puzzled. "You seem perfectly capable."
"I am."
"So why don't you?"
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Because he didn't know. Or perhaps he knew too well. Talking had never been necessary, listening had, observing, waiting, speaking only when there was something worth saying. Silence had become less of a habit than a second skin.
"I suppose," he said eventually, "I've never had much to add."
She looked at him for several seconds. "Somehow I don't believe that."
He met her gaze. She wasn't trying to flatter him. She sounded as though she'd simply stated a fact. Something in his chest shifted. Small enough to ignore. Large enough that he noticed it.
She pushed herself to her feet, dusting invisible specks from the back of her sweater. "My legs are falling asleep."
He looked up at her.
"I think that's my cue to leave before I lose all feeling in them."
He nodded and rose as well.
For a brief moment they simply stood there, facing one another beneath the glow of the lantern.
"Well..." she said.
"Well."
Neither moved.
She glanced down one end of the river. "I should probably head home."
He looked the opposite way.
The streets were quieter now than when he'd come outside. Most of the restaurants had emptied, though a handful of cafés still glowed warmly behind fogged windows.
He could go back inside. Mor was probably wondering where he'd disappeared to. Cassian would undoubtedly have several inappropriate comments waiting for him. Instead he heard himself ask, "Would you like to walk for a bit first?"
The question surprised him almost as much as it seemed to surprise her. Her eyes widened slightly.
"You don't have to." He quickly added.
"I know." She breathed out.
"You barely know me."
"I know." A tiny smile returned. "I suppose that's true both ways."
"It is."
She looked down the riverside path stretching into the heart of Velaris before looking back at him. "...Alright."
He felt the shift in his chest again, relief coursing through his body. He swallowed and gestured for her to lead the way.
She fell into step beside him, leaving just enough space between them that their shoulders never quite brushed.
Neither of them noticed that, when they reached the first crossroads, they both instinctively chose the longer route.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
By the time Azriel reached the House of Wind, the first rays of sunlight had begun spilling over the mountains surrounding Velaris. The streets were quieter than he'd ever seen them. Shopkeepers were only just beginning to lift shutters. Bakers carried trays of fresh bread into their windows, filling the air with warm, buttery scents that clung to the cool morning breeze. Somewhere in the distance, bells chimed the eighth hour.
Eight.
Azriel stopped in his tracks. Eight? He frowned.
He looked back towards the city. How… They'd left Rita's when the city had still been alive with music and laughter. They'd wandered the Sidra until the restaurants closed around them. Somehow that had turned into walking through the Rainbow, where she'd insisted on showing him a tiny courtyard hidden behind a painter's workshop because "the flowers bloom ridiculously early." They'd argued over whether pigeons deserved their terrible reputation, watched a pair of drunken musicians attempt, and fail, to serenade an elderly female walking her dog, and somehow ended up sharing pastries from a bakery that had opened before sunrise.
He hadn't looked at the time once.
A shadow nudged his shoulder. “I know.” He breathed.
He opened the front door, the smell of coffee greeting him immediately.
"There he is." Cassian's voice sounded.
Azriel looked towards the dining room, everyone was there. Rhys sat at the head of the table, nursing what looked suspiciously like his third cup of coffee. Feyre leaned against his shoulder, still wearing yesterday's clothes. Mor had her forehead resting dramatically against the tabletop, one hand wrapped around a mug.
Nesta looked entirely unaffected. Amren appeared vaguely annoyed to be awake.
Cassian grinned. "There he is," he repeated. "The male who abandoned us."
"I didn't abandon you."
"No?"
Cassian leaned back in his chair. "I seem to recall turning around to tell you something." He pointed dramatically towards the empty air beside him. "And you were gone."
Azriel rolled his eyes. "You were busy."
"I can multitask." Cassian argued.
"No," Nesta said flatly. "You can't."
Cassian ignored her. "So?"
"So?"
"Where were you?"
Azriel removed Truth-Teller from its sheath and laid it on the sideboard before shrugging out of his leathers. "Walking."
Silence.
Cassian blinked. "...Walking?"
"Yes."
"For..." Cassian glanced towards the window. "...roughly eight hours."
Azriel frowned. "It wasn't eight."
Rhys lifted an eyebrow. "It was."
Azriel looked towards the clock. Gods. It had been eight.
Mor slowly lifted her head from the table. "I'm sorry." She held up a finger. "I need to make sure I'm not still drunk." She squinted at him. "You voluntarily walked around Velaris all night."
"Apparently."
"With who?" She immediately followed up.
"A female."
The room became unnaturally still, Cassian nearly inhaled his coffee. "A female?"
"Oh, no." Cassian pointed at him triumphantly. "You've already said too much."
"It was a conversation." He tried to save the situation.
"With a female."
"Yes."
"All night."
"...Yes."
Rhys hid a smile behind his mug. Feyre failed entirely.
Mor was sitting upright now. "A name?"
"No."
"You don't know her name?" She raised her eyebrows at him just to immediately start rubbing her temples to soothe the headache that was starting to act up.
"I do."
"So?!"
"I'm not telling you."
Cassian slapped a hand against the table. "You know this is the most interesting thing that's happened in centuries, right?"
"I tortured someone three days ago." Azriel mumbled.
"Exactly."
Azriel pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm going to bed."
"Oh no you're not." Mor pointed at an empty chair.
"You are sitting down and telling us absolutely everything."
"I'm tired."
"Whose fault is that?"
"...Yours."
Mor gasped. "My fault?"
"You insisted I come."
She considered that. "Fair."
Rhys chuckled. "Let him sleep."
Cassian looked personally offended. "We're just letting him leave?"
"He looks exhausted."
Only then did Azriel realise he probably did. His shoulders felt heavier than usual. His eyes burned. He'd been awake for nearly twenty-four hours. But strangely, he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this tired without also feeling utterly drained. This was different. Pleasant, almost. As though his body was exhausted while the rest of him… wasn't.
"I'll train later," he muttered.
Cassian barked a laugh. "No, you won't."
"I will."
"You'll collapse halfway through warm-up."
"I won't."
"You absolutely-"
"I'm going to bed." This time no one stopped him. As he climbed the stairs, he could still hear Cassian saying, "I'm telling you, something happened."
Mor answered, "I've literally never seen him smile that much."
Azriel frowned.
Smile?
He hadn't been smiling.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The next few days passed exactly as they always did. Azriel made sure of it.
He rose before dawn, long before the rest of Velaris stirred. The training ring was quiet at that hour, the only sounds were the rhythmic scrape of boots against packed earth and the whistle of blades cutting through cool morning air. Normally the routine settled him. Every strike had purpose. Every movement had been repeated enough times that his body no longer needed conscious thought to perform it.
Today his concentration fractured.
Cassian ducked beneath one of his swings before driving an elbow into his ribs. "You're distracted."
"I'm not."
"You missed."
"I adjusted."
"You missed."
Azriel rolled his eyes.
Cassian twirled the practice sword lazily over one shoulder. "You've missed three times."
"I haven't."
"You've missed four now."
Azriel looked down. His blade had stopped several inches short of where he'd intended.
"...Five." Cassian's grin spread slowly. "Should I be worried?"
"No."
"Should I be excited?"
"No."
"Can I be both?"
Azriel sheathed the practice blade with perhaps a little more force than necessary. "We're done."
"We've barely started."
"I'm done."
Cassian watched him leave with an expression that suggested he'd just been handed the most entertaining mystery of the year.
**
Later that day, Azriel sat at his desk. Reports waited for him, stacks of them. Smugglers along the western coast, an Illyrian dispute, two suspicious merchants arriving from the continent.
Normally he'd have finished them before evening fell. Instead he found himself reading the same paragraph three times.
His shadows drifted lazily across the desk.
One paused beside the window. It lingered. Then slipped through the crack between the curtains.
Azriel didn't look up. "Come back."
Nothing.
He sighed.
A few minutes later it returned. It carried the faint scent of old paper. And lavender.
He frowned. "Libraries." The shadow bobbed once. "You went to the Rainbow." Another small bob. "I didn't ask you to." It curled smugly around his wrist. Traitor.
He flicked it gently away. "We are working."
The shadow drifted back towards the window.
"No."
It froze. Then, with obvious reluctance, returned to the desk.
Azriel stared at the report in front of him. He already knew where the library was. He certainly didn't need confirmation that she worked there. He definitely didn't need to know whether she'd been there today. So why… Why had the knowledge settled somewhere warm beneath his ribs?
He exhaled sharply. Ridiculous.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Three more days passed. Nothing happened. At least, nothing unusual.
He trained.
Worked.
Attended meetings.
Flew patrols.
He did not walk past the library.
He did not take the riverside route home.
He certainly didn't glance towards the bench outside Rita's every time he happened to be nearby.
He absolutely did not.
Unfortunately, his shadows had developed opinions. One peeled away from him halfway across the Rainbow. Azriel didn't stop walking. It returned moments later, excited. He could feel it.
"What?"
The shadow brushed insistently against his shoulder.
"No."
It nudged him again.
"No."
It floated several feet ahead before turning expectantly.
"I said no."
People passing in the street gave him odd looks. He ignored them.
The shadow refused to move, Azriel pinched the bridge of his nose. "You are behaving like Cassian."
The shadow seemed oddly pleased with that comparison.
He sighed, again. "Fine."
He followed it exactly three streets. The shadow slipped around the corner. Azriel followed, and immediately stopped.
Across the square, tucked beneath the shade of an old sycamore, she sat on the library steps with a book balanced on one knee.
She wasn't reading. An elderly male occupied the seat beside her, speaking animatedly with his hands while she listened with complete attention.
Then she laughed. Even from across the square he recognised it instantly. Quiet. Unforced. The elderly male laughed too. She said something that made him shake his head fondly before patting her shoulder as he stood to leave.
Azriel remained exactly where he was. Hidden behind the corner of a nearby building. His shadows gathered around him expectantly. As if waiting.
He looked at the square. She was alone now. She hadn't seen him. He could walk over. Say hello. Continue the conversation they'd started.
Instead- "No." The word came quietly, mostly to himself.
He turned around. His shadows remained stubbornly pointed in the opposite direction. "We're leaving."
They followed. Reluctantly.
Halfway home he realised that he was smiling. Again.
Shit.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
"You look happier."
Rhys said it so casually that Azriel almost missed it.
They stood alone on one of the House of Wind's balconies after a meeting, the late afternoon sun painting Velaris in shades of amber and gold.
Azriel leaned against the stone railing. "I do?"
"A little."
"I hadn't noticed."
Rhys smiled faintly. "I don't think you have."
Silence settled between them. Comfortable, it had always been comfortable with Rhys.
"You don't have to tell me what happened the other night."
Azriel looked sideways. "I wasn't planning to."
"I know." Rhys folded his arms across his chest. "But I wanted you to know that you don't owe us an explanation."
Azriel remained quiet.
"If," Rhys continued, looking out over the city below, "there's something, or someone, that's making you smile for reasons that have nothing to do with this court..." He smiled to himself. "...I'm happy for you."
Something unexpectedly tightened in Azriel's throat. He wasn't used to conversations like this. Not directed at him.
He settled for a nod.
Rhys clapped him once on the shoulder before heading back inside.
He stopped in the doorway.
"Oh."
Azriel looked up.
"Try not to overthink it."
Then he disappeared. Azriel stared after him.
Overthink it? He scoffed quietly. He wasn't overthinking anything. He'd met a female, they'd talked. That was all. He hadn't seen her since and he wasn't planning to.
He certainly wasn't wondering whether she was sorting books at that very moment, or whether she'd bought another pastry on her walk home, or whether she'd laughed at someone else's terrible jokes this week.
His shadows chose that exact moment to drift hopefully towards the city.
Azriel closed his eyes. "Don't start."
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The first thing she noticed on Monday morning was that Velaris looked exactly the same.
Which felt deeply unfair.
The Sidra still flowed lazily through the heart of the city, sunlight glittering across its surface as though nothing had changed. Shopkeepers argued over deliveries. Artists set up their easels along the Rainbow. The little bakery on the corner still sold pastries that were far too warm to eat immediately.
Everything was exactly as it had been.
But she wasn't. She reached the library just before opening, balancing a paper bag of pastries beneath one arm while fumbling with the ring of keys tucked into her pocket.
"Morning."
She looked up. The elderly male she'd spoken to a few days earlier stood waiting patiently by the entrance, a stack of books balanced against one hip.
"You're early," she said.
"So are you."
"I work here."
"So?"
She smiled despite herself.
He narrowed his eyes. "You look tired."
"I couldn't sleep."
He hummed knowingly. "Good book?"
She hesitated. "Something like that."
He accepted the answer with surprising ease. Perhaps because he'd lived long enough to know there were questions people answered only when they were ready.
They unlocked the library together. The familiar scent of old paper and polished wood greeted her. Usually it settled her. Today... Not quite.
She spent the morning exactly as she always did.
Shelving returned books.
Repairing torn pages.
Helping a young mother find stories about dragons because her son had abruptly decided knights were "boring."
By every measure it was an ordinary day.
Except... Every dark-haired male who walked past the windows made her glance up. Every time the front door opened, some small part of her looked. Not hopefully. Just curiously.
She told herself that was all.
By lunch she'd looked up seventeen times. Not that she was counting.
"You're staring at the door."
She startled.
Her colleague smiled without looking up from the ledger she was balancing.
"I wasn't."
"You were."
"I was thinking."
"Mhm." She turned another page. "Thinking towards the door."
"I don't think that's how thinking works."
"No?"
"No."
Her colleague finally looked up. "So who is he?"
She blinked.
"...Who?"
"The reason you've spent all morning pretending not to watch the entrance."
Heat crept into her cheeks. "There isn't one."
"There always is."
"There genuinely isn't."
"Hm."
The older female sounded entirely unconvinced. She wisely changed the subject.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
By Wednesday she'd almost convinced herself she'd imagined the entire night.
Not literally. She remembered it perfectly. Too perfectly. She remembered the way he'd spoken to his shadows as though they were old friends. The way he'd looked genuinely embarrassed after laughing. The fact that he'd admitted vanilla was his favourite ice cream despite clearly knowing she was going to judge him for it.
She smiled despite herself. Then sighed. Maybe... Maybe he'd simply been lonely. She understood loneliness. Sometimes loneliness made strangers seem like old friends. That didn't necessarily mean either of them wanted the conversation to continue. Perhaps he'd woken the next morning and realised he'd spent eight hours talking to a complete stranger. Perhaps he'd regretted it.
The thought lodged itself somewhere unpleasant.
She busied herself repairing a damaged binding until it finally drifted away. Mostly.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
On Friday she walked home along the Sidra.
Not because she expected to see him. Because it was the quickest route. She told herself that three separate times.
The bench outside Rita's was empty. She hadn't expected otherwise. She kept walking.
Her feet slowed slightly as she passed anyway.
Ridiculous. She laughed quietly to herself and shook her head. "You've officially lost your mind."
A passing couple looked at her strangely. She pretended she'd been talking to a bird.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Her brother found her on Saturday morning sitting on the windowsill with a book she'd forgotten to turn the page of.
"You've been reading that chapter for twenty minutes."
She glanced down. "...Have I?"
"You have."
He leaned against the doorway. "Tell me."
"Tell you what?"
"Who is he?"
She stared. "Why does everyone assume there's a 'he'?!"
"Because you smile at absolutely nothing every few hours."
"I do not."
"You literally just did."
She looked away. "...I met someone."
His eyebrows climbed. "At Rita's?"
She nodded. "We talked."
"For?"
She considered it. "...Longer than intended."
"Did you get his name?"
"...Yes."
"And?"
She hesitated. "Azriel."
Silence.
Her brother blinked. "The Azriel?"
She frowned. "What do you mean, 'the' Azriel?"
"The Shadowsinger?"
Her stomach sank. "He's famous?"
"In a terrifying sort of way."
"Oh." She hadn't known. Not really. He’d told her he worked for Rhys. She hadn't realised... "Ohhhh."
Her brother watched her carefully. "You didn't know."
"No."
"Huh." He smiled to himself. "That explains a lot."
"What?"
"Nothing."
She narrowed her eyes. "What?"
He laughed.
"I've just never heard anyone describe Azriel as 'the nice male who talked to his shadows.'"
Despite herself, she laughed too. "...He was nice."
"I believe you."
"He was."
Her brother's smile softened. "So."
She looked up.
"Are you going to see him again?"
The question lingered between them. She looked out towards the city beyond the open window. The Sidra glimmered beneath the afternoon sun.
"I don't know." She smiled faintly. "I hope so."
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Sunday arrived wrapped in steady rain.
Thin droplets pattered softly against the windows of the House of Wind, turning Velaris into a blur of grey rooftops and silver streets. Most of the city had retreated indoors. Even the training ring stood empty for once.
Azriel sat at his desk, another report spread open before him. He hadn't turned the page in ten minutes. One of his shadows drifted lazily across the parchment before curling around the edge of the desk. He ignored it.
The shadow waited patiently. Then floated towards the window.
"No."
It didn't even pretend to listen this time. Another shadow joined it. Then another. Within moments all of them hovered expectantly beside the glass.
Azriel looked up. "...Absolutely not."
One tapped lightly against the window.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
"You are impossible."
A shadow peeled away from the group and drifted towards him instead, circling lazily around his wrist. It tugged. Ever so slightly.
He frowned. "You've developed an alarming amount of confidence."
The shadow tugged again. As though asking. He stared at it for a long moment. The room fell quiet. Only the rain remained.
He thought about the past week. About accidentally smiling in the middle of meetings. About Cassian refusing to let the subject drop. About Rhys quietly telling him not to overthink it.
About finding himself standing across the square from the library, watching her laugh with an elderly male she'd probably known for years.
He hadn't walked over.
Not because he hadn't wanted to.
Because...
Because what?
He rubbed a hand over his face. He genuinely didn't know.
Perhaps he'd thought she'd find it strange. Perhaps he'd convinced himself she'd only enjoyed that conversation because they'd both needed somewhere to escape that night.
Perhaps... He was simply out of practice.
Gods. When had he last made a friend?
The thought stopped him.
A friend.
That was all this was. He enjoyed talking to her. She'd enjoyed talking to him.
There was nothing unusual about wanting to speak to a friend again.
His shoulders relaxed fractionally. "...See?" he muttered to himself.
The shadows bobbed. Smugly.
"No," he told them. "You don't get credit for that."
They ignored him. Again.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Ridiculous creatures.
He pushed back his chair. The movement made every shadow perk up immediately.
"Oh, don't look so pleased."
One darted excitedly through the wall.
"You don't even know where we're going."
The shadow reappeared a heartbeat later, spinning in an impatient little circle.
Azriel stared at it, then laughed quietly under his breath. "I suppose you do."
He reached for his siphons, fastening them automatically beneath his leathers before shrugging on his cloak.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Rain still fell steadily outside.
He paused with one hand on the door. This wasn't a mission. He wasn't gathering intelligence. He wasn't checking on a potential threat. He was...Visiting someone.
The realisation settled oddly in his chest. Unfamiliar, not unpleasant. But it was new.
His hand lingered on the handle for another moment. What if she wasn't working today? What if she'd forgotten him? The thoughts arrived so suddenly that he almost laughed at himself.
Forgotten him? They'd spent an entire night wandering Velaris together. He doubted either of them had forgotten.
Still... She might be busy. She might not have time. She might simply not want to see him.
His shadows immediately gathered around him, brushing lightly against his shoulders. One nudged his cheek. Another settled against the back of his neck. A third drifted determinedly towards the door.
Azriel huffed a quiet breath. "I know."
He opened the door. The cool scent of rain greeted him immediately.
As he stepped out into the corridor, one thought surfaced above all the others. He hoped she'd be happy to see him.
The simplicity of it almost caught him off guard.
He felt hopeful enough that, for the first time in a very long while, the walk into Velaris felt like it was taking far too long.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The bell above the library door chimed softly.
She looked up automatically. Another customer, she assumed. Her fingers paused halfway through sliding a book onto the shelf.
Azriel stood just inside the entrance, rainwater still clinging to the shoulders of his dark cloak. He looked as though he'd been standing outside debating whether to come in before finally deciding to open the door.
For a heartbeat neither of them moved.
Then her face lit up. "You came." The words escaped before she could stop them. Heat immediately rushed to her cheeks. "I mean..." She cleared her throat. "Obviously you came. You're standing here."
His mouth twitched. "I did."
Something in her chest loosened.
He'd come. Not by chance. Not because they'd happened to end up on the same bench outside Rita's. He'd come looking for her.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, trying very hard to sound casual.
"I..." He glanced briefly around the library before looking back at her. "I was nearby."
She raised an eyebrow. "Were you?"
A beat of silence. "...No."
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
"No," he admitted quietly. "Not really."
She smiled. "I appreciate the honesty."
For a moment they simply stood looking at one another.
It wasn't uncomfortable, it felt different.
The first time they'd met there had been no expectations. No wondering whether the other person had wanted to be there. Now she knew. He'd chosen to come.
"So..." she said eventually. "How have you been?"
He considered the question with surprising seriousness. "Busy."
"That's a very Azriel answer."
His eyebrows lifted. "You've spent a total of eight hours with me."
"And yet I stand by my statement."
"I'll have to work on becoming less predictable."
"I think that ship has sailed."
A quiet chuckle escaped him.
She'd missed that sound.
"I actually..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I wasn't sure if you'd be working today."
"I almost wasn't."
His expression shifted so quickly she almost laughed again.
"I swapped shifts with someone yesterday."
"I see."
"You look relieved."
"I do?"
"A little."
He looked faintly horrified. "I hadn't noticed."
"I don't think you had."
A clock chimed somewhere deeper inside the library. She glanced towards it.
"Oh."
"What?"
"My lunch break."
She looked back at him. Then at the door. Then back at him again.
The words escaped before she could lose her nerve. "Would you..." She paused. "Would you like to come with me?"
He frowned ever so slightly. "For lunch?"
"No."
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
"For ice cream."
His shoulders dropped in quiet resignation. "...Vanilla slander again?"
"Absolutely."
"I thought we'd settled that."
"We most certainly did not."
"I distinctly remember winning."
"You distinctly remember eating the most boring flavour available."
"It isn't boring."
"It is the beige of desserts."
"It is dependable."
"It has no personality."
"It doesn't need personality."
She laughed. "Come on."
He held the library door open for her. "Lead the way."
The rain had eased to a gentle drizzle by the time they reached the little ice cream parlour overlooking the Sidra. A small brass bell chimed as they stepped inside, warmth immediately wrapping around them. The windows had fogged from the contrast between the cosy interior and the damp afternoon outside, blurring the river into streaks of silver and grey.
There wasn't another customer in sight.
"Looks like everyone else has more sense than we do," she murmured.
"Probably."
They ordered anyway.
She chose pistachio. Azriel, unsurprisingly, chose vanilla.
She stared at him. "No."
"What?"
"You've had nearly two weeks."
"I've been busy."
"Busy not developing taste?"
"I have excellent taste."
"You eat vanilla ice cream."
"I enjoy vanilla ice cream."
The elderly female behind the counter chuckled as she handed them their cones. "I've been listening to couples argue about ice cream for thirty years."
Both of them froze.
"Oh," she added quickly, waving a hand. "Not that I-"
"We're not-" they both said at the same time.
They looked at each other. Then away again.
The shopkeeper smiled to herself. "Of course."
Neither of them attempted to explain further. They settled into a table beside the window instead, watching rain bead against the glass while the Sidra drifted quietly beyond it.
She took a spoonful of her ice cream before holding it across the table. "Try it."
He eyed the bright green scoop with obvious suspicion.
"You don't trust me."
"I don't know what's in it."
She laughed. "It's pistachio."
"I know that."
"So what's the problem?"
"I like knowing what to expect."
"You do know what to expect."
He looked at the spoon for another moment before finally leaning forward and taking a careful bite.
She watched him far more intently than was probably reasonable. "Well?"
He considered it. "...It's good."
A triumphant grin spread across her face. "I knew it."
"I didn't say it was better."
"You didn't have to."
"I merely said it was good."
"You liked it."
"I tolerated it."
"You liked it."
"I tolerated-"
"You liked it."
He shook his head, unable to stop the smile that found him. "You're impossible."
"I've been called worse."
Conversation slipped as easily into place as it had that first night. Books became stories from childhood. Stories became favourite places in Velaris. Favourite places became terrible cooking attempts, Cassian's questionable sense of humour, and another lengthy debate about whether pigeons deserved their dreadful reputation.
Somewhere between laughing over a tale about one of her colleagues accidentally shelving a romance novel in the military history section and Azriel admitting that his shadows occasionally stole his paperwork simply because they were bored, they both forgot about the rain outside.
She glanced towards the clock mounted above the counter. Her eyes widened. "Oh no."
He looked up. "What?"
"My break." She laughed softly. "It's nearly over."
He frowned. "...Already?"
She nodded. "We've been here almost an hour."
He blinked.
She couldn't help smiling. "You did it again."
"What?"
"You lost track of time."
He looked almost offended. "I don't do that."
"You've done it twice now."
He opened his mouth to argue. Then closed it again. "...Apparently."
She laughed. "I should probably get back."
"I should let you."
Neither stood.
Eventually she sighed dramatically and pushed herself to her feet. "Come on."
Outside, the rain had finally stopped.
The streets shimmered beneath a pale afternoon sun breaking through the clouds, every puddle reflecting ribbons of light across the cobblestones.
They walked back towards the library at an unhurried pace.
When they reached the steps, she stopped.
"I had fun."
"So did I."
The words came so naturally that neither of them seemed to think about them.
She hesitated.
Then, before she could lose her nerve- "We could..."
He looked at her expectantly.
"...Do this again sometime."
The answer came immediately. "I'd like that."
Her smile reached her eyes. "When?"
He thought for only a moment. "When do you finish work tomorrow?"
"Usually around six."
He nodded once. "Dinner?"
The question was so practical she wasn't entirely certain he'd realised what he'd asked.
"You mean..."
"If you'd like."
She couldn't stop smiling. "I'd like that."
"Good."
"...Good."
Once again, neither of them moved.
Finally she laughed. "I'm going to be late."
"You probably are."
"I blame you."
"I'll accept partial responsibility."
"Only partial?"
"You invited me for ice cream."
"I suppose I did." She climbed the library steps backwards, smiling at him all the while. "I'll see you tomorrow."
He nodded. "Tomorrow."
He waited until the library door closed behind her before turning back towards the city. He walked instead of flying.
The afternoon air still smelled faintly of rain, his shadows drifting lazily around him as Velaris slowly emerged from beneath the storm. One brushed happily against his shoulder, another darted ahead before circling back again.
He ignored the unfamiliar lightness settling somewhere deep inside his chest.
He'd made a friend. That was all.
Even so, somewhere between the Rainbow and the House of Wind, he caught his reflection in the window of a closed shop.
He stopped. He was smiling. Actually smiling. He looked around instinctively. No one had noticed.
Good.
He continued walking.
Five steps later, the smile returned anyway.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The following evening arrived far sooner than either of them expected.
She spent an embarrassing amount of time deciding what to wear.
Not that it mattered.
Because it absolutely did not.
She simply... wanted to look nice.
For herself.
Mostly.
She changed twice before finally settling on a simple dress she'd almost talked herself out of wearing. Nothing extravagant. Comfortable enough that she could pretend she hadn't put any thought into it at all.
Her brother looked up from the sofa as she appeared.
He took one look at her.
"...Dinner?"
She froze. "...Yes."
"With Azriel."
It wasn't a question.
"...Maybe."
He smiled. "I hope you have a lovely evening."
Heat crept into her cheeks. "It's not a date, I think."
"If you say so."
She left before he could say anything else.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Azriel had been waiting for almost ten minutes.
Not because he'd intended to arrive early.
Because he'd accidentally left the House of Wind far too soon.
He told himself it was better than making her wait.
One of his shadows drifted lazily around the sign above the restaurant.
"You are not helping."
The shadow ignored him.
Again.
He sighed.
When did they become so opinionated?
"Azriel?"
He turned, and for a moment he forgot how to speak.
She smiled uncertainly. "Hi."
His gaze lingered for only a heartbeat before he remembered himself. She looked… Beautiful. Not in a way that demanded attention, or in the effortless elegance Mor carried, or even in the impossible beauty the High Fae had perfected over centuries.
She simply looked like herself. And somehow that seemed infinitely more dangerous.
"Hi," he managed. "I was beginning to think you'd changed your mind."
She laughed softly. "I wouldn't do that." The answer came so quickly that he blinked.
Her expression suggested she hadn't realised how quickly she'd said it.
"I'm glad," he replied quietly.
He opened the restaurant door for her. "After you."
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Dinner lasted almost three hours. Neither of them noticed. Conversation slipped effortlessly from one subject to the next. She asked questions no one had ever thought to ask him.
She asked whether he'd always liked reading. Whether he preferred the mountains or the sea. Whether his shadows ever became jealous of one another. He found himself answering willingly. Because he wanted to.
She laughed often.
He found himself waiting for it.
Somewhere between dessert and another ridiculous argument about vanilla ice cream, he realised he couldn't remember the last time he'd spent an evening this...
Easy.
It felt unfamiliar.
Comfortable.
Safe.
When the restaurant finally began stacking chairs onto empty tables around them, she looked up in surprise. "...We've done it again."
He glanced around. "...Apparently we have."
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The streets of Velaris had grown quiet. Lanterns reflected across the Sidra as they wandered without any real destination, neither seeming particularly eager for the evening to end.
She looked sideways at him. "You know..."
"Hm?"
"I think your shadows like me."
One immediately appeared beside her shoulder, as if to prove her point. Azriel watched it hover there for a moment before it drifted towards her hand. "...I think you may be right."
She smiled. "I like them too."
"They'll become insufferable if they hear that."
"They can hear us, can't they?"
"...Yes."
Another shadow appeared. Then another.
She laughed. "Oh no."
"I warned you."
She held out a finger experimentally. One of the shadows wrapped around it before darting away again. "They're rather adorable."
"They've never been called adorable."
"Well, they are."
He found himself smiling again.
Gods.
He smiled far too much around her.
Without really thinking, she reached for his hand. The movement was so natural that neither of them seemed to notice it at first. Her fingers brushed against his. He looked down, but she had already started to pull away. "Sorry."
But before she could, his hand closed gently around hers. It felt natural.
Warm.
Azriel’s heart stumbled strangely inside his chest and frowned ever so slightly. That was new.
He looked down at their joined hands. Then back at her. She was already smiling. That small, quiet smile that somehow made his chest feel even lighter.
Neither of them spoke, they simply continued walking through the sleeping city hand in hand.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
They stopped outside her building.
"I had another nice evening."
"So did I."
Neither moved.
Once again.
She laughed softly. "We're very bad at saying goodbye."
"...Apparently."
Silence settled between them.
She looked down at their joined hands. Then back at him. The smile she'd been wearing all evening softened.
Slowly...
Carefully...
She leaned forward.
Azriel's breath caught.
She was...
His mind simply stopped.
No, not stopped. It shattered.
For one disorienting heartbeat, he wasn't standing beneath the lanterns of Velaris.
He was standing in the doorway of a room he'd spent five hundred years trying not to enter. Mor. Laughing, smiling, never looking at him the way she looked at others.
Five centuries of loving someone who had never once chosen him.
Then another memory crashed into it before he could catch his breath.
Elain. A garden. Hope he had never meant to nurture. The sharp, quiet certainty that even that had never truly belonged to him.
Then-
A cold stone floor. A dark cell. Small scarred hands pressed against a wooden door while footsteps faded farther and farther away. The voice he'd heard all his life, changing faces but never changing words.
Not for you. Never for you.
He'd spent centuries teaching himself not to reach. Not to want. Because wanting always ended the same way. With someone else. With disappointment. With pain.
And now, she was standing in front of him. Close enough to kiss. Close enough to choose him.
His heart lurched with something terrifyingly close to hope. The instinct that answered it was older than reason.
Older than Velaris.
Older than the Illyrian camps.
Older than the male he had become.
His body reacted before his mind did. One small step backwards. Barely half a pace, but enough.
Enough that her lips never reached his, enough that their hands slipped apart.
The silence that followed felt impossibly loud.
She stared at him, confusion flickering across her face. Then understanding.
Not the right understanding. "Oh." The word came out almost as a whisper.
Azriel opened his mouth. Nothing came. "I- I thought..." Gods. "I thought we were just..."
Friends.
The word landed between them like a stone.
Her smile disappeared. Not dramatically, but quietly. As though she'd simply folded it away.
For a heartbeat neither of them spoke.
Then she nodded once. A small movement, almost imperceptible. "I misunderstood."
"No." The word escaped him too quickly. "I mean..." He had no idea what he meant.
She offered him a gentle smile. One that didn't quite reach her eyes. "No, it's alright."
"It isn't."
"It is." She looked at him for another moment. "I'll see you around, Azriel."
Before he could find the words he'd somehow lost, she slipped inside.
The door closed softly behind her.
Azriel remained where he was, staring at the place she'd disappeared.
His hand still felt warm.
He couldn't understand why his chest suddenly felt so unbearably empty.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
The walk back to the House of Wind was a blur. Azriel couldn't have said which streets he'd taken. He crossed the Sidra, passed the Rainbow. Nodded absently at someone who greeted him.
He remembered none of it.
Only the look on her face. Not when she'd leaned towards him, but the one she gave him after. That quiet, confused little "Oh."
It followed him through the city like another shadow.
He reached the House without remembering the 10000 step climb. His room felt suffocating. Too quiet. Too small. He lasted perhaps thirty seconds before turning on his heel again.
One of his shadows brushed against the hand she'd been holding. He pulled it away. "No." The shadow lingered. It brushed his knuckles once more. "No." Another joined it. Then another. Within moments they hovered around his right hand as though unable to understand why it was suddenly empty again. His jaw tightened. "Enough."
They scattered only to gather again a heartbeat later.
Persistent creatures.
Usually he found it amusing. Tonight it only made something in his chest ache.
He reached for Truth-Teller, the familiar weight settling against his side. Without another thought, he launched himself from the balcony. The cold night air swallowed him whole. He went higher, faster. Wind tore through his hair as Velaris disappeared beneath him. He flew until the lights of the city became little more than distant stars. Normally the sky settled him. The silence helped him think.
Tonight every beat of his wings carried the same memory.
I misunderstood.
His grip tightened painfully around the leather wrapped at the hilt of Truth-Teller.
"No," he muttered into the wind.
She had misunderstood. Hadn't she?
He'd asked her to dinner.
Held her hand.
Gods.
He closed his eyes for the briefest moment.
He'd held her hand.
Why had he done that?
Because she'd reached for him. Because letting go felt wrong.
His wings faltered for half a heartbeat before instinct corrected them.
His heart gave another strange, uneven thud. He’d wanted to see her. He'd wanted to spend the evening with her. He'd smiled more than he had in years. He'd looked forward to tomorrow.
Then why- why had he stepped back? The question echoed unanswered through the darkness.
He landed harder than intended in the training ring, the impact rattling through his knees, but he barely noticed.
The first punch split the practice post down the middle. The second shattered what remained. Wood exploded across the ring. His shadows recoiled.
Azriel stood breathing hard.
His scarred hands curled into fists.
Again. Another post. Another punch. Again. Again. Again.
Pain finally bloomed across his knuckles. Good. It was easier to understand than whatever was happening inside his chest.
He didn't hear the footsteps until a familiar voice drifted across the empty ring.
"I wondered where you'd gone."
Azriel didn't turn. "I wanted to be alone."
"I know."
Silence settled between them.
Rhys didn't come any closer.
He stood beside the entrance to the ring, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, watching the splintered remains of three practice posts scattered across the ground.
"You've never liked those ones," he observed mildly.
Azriel huffed a humourless laugh. "No."
Another long silence. The wind stirred gently through the mountains. Somewhere behind them, the lights of Velaris glittered beneath the stars.
"You missed family dinner."
"I ate."
"I know." Rhys' voice remained calm. "That's not what I meant."
Azriel closed his eyes. Of course it wasn't. His shadows drifted silently from where they'd been lingering around the shattered wood. One by one, they gathered around Rhys instead. Not to seek comfort. It was as if they were asking for help.
Rhys watched them for a long moment before looking back at Azriel. "What happened?"
Azriel stared out over the mountains.
Nothing.
Everything.
He opened his mouth. Closed it again. His throat suddenly felt impossibly tight.
Finally, so quietly Rhys almost didn't hear him, he said, "...I hurt someone."
Azriel swallowed. He had faced kings without fear, spoken to enemies with a blade at his throat, walked willingly into places no one else would enter.
Somehow... Answering those two words was harder than all of it.
He drew a slow breath. Then another. "I don't know where to start."
Rhys' voice remained as steady as the mountains around them. "Start where it began."
Azriel looked towards the sleeping city below. Towards one small building somewhere among thousands. She was probably home by now. Probably trying to convince herself she'd imagined the entire evening. The thought made something inside him twist painfully.
"...She tried to kiss me."
The words disappeared into the night.
Rhys said nothing.
Azriel laughed once. A broken, disbelieving sound. "And I stepped away."
Silence.
Then, very quietly-
"Did you want her to kiss you?"
Azriel frowned. The answer should have been simple. Somehow it wasn't. "...I don't know."
Rhys held his gaze. Neither of them believed that answer.
The silence stretched, neither of them breaking it for a while.
Finally Rhys asked, "If you could stand in that moment again..." Another pause. "...would you step away?"
Azriel didn't answer. He couldn't answer. Instead he saw her smile. Heard her laugh echoing through the ice cream parlour. Felt her hand slipping into his, the warmth of her fingers against his own. The way she'd looked at him as though being beside him was the easiest thing in the world.
His eyes closed. "...No." The word was barely audible. It was also the truest thing he'd admitted in a very, very long time.
Rhys was quiet for a long while, the wind tugging gently at the sleeves of his jacket.
Below them, Velaris glittered peacefully beneath the stars, blissfully unaware that the world seemed to have come apart for one male standing high above it.
Finally, Rhys spoke. "Okay."
Azriel looked at him.
"Why did you step away?"
The question settled heavily between them.
Azriel looked away first. "I don't know."
"No." Rhys' voice remained gentle. "You do."
Azriel's jaw tightened. "I don't."
"You've just admitted you wanted her to kiss you."
"...Yes."
"You've admitted you wouldn't step away if you had the chance again."
"...Yes."
Rhys nodded once. "So why did you?"
Silence. Azriel searched for an answer. Nothing came. Only fragments. The warmth of her hand. The softness of her smile. The panic.
Cauldron, the panic.
"I..." His brow furrowed. "Everything was..." He searched helplessly for the words. "It happened too fast."
Rhys waited.
"I couldn't think." He continued.
"What were you feeling?"
"I wasn't."
Rhys raised an eyebrow. "You weren't?"
"I mean..." Azriel dragged a hand across his face. "I stopped."
"You stopped thinking."
"...Yes."
"What happened instead?"
Azriel stared out across the mountains. His breathing had become strangely shallow. "I don't know."
Rhys didn't let him escape. "When she leaned in..."
Another pause.
"What was the very first thing that entered your mind?"
Azriel's chest tightened. "It wasn't..." He swallowed. "It wasn't a thought. It was..." His voice had become little more than a whisper. "A feeling."
"What feeling?"
Azriel squeezed his eyes shut. Like standing at the edge of something impossibly fragile. Like reaching for a blade without knowing which end was sharp.
Like- "No." The word escaped him before he realised he'd spoken aloud.
Rhys frowned.
"No?"
Azriel's breathing quickened. "It wasn't her."
"What wasn't?"
"The fear." His own words seemed to surprise him. "It wasn't because of her." His hands had begun trembling. He looked down at them as though they belonged to someone else. "It was..." He couldn't finish.
Not yet.
Rhys took a careful step closer. "What was it, Az?"
The question broke something open.
"I've done this before." Rhys didn't interrupt him. "I loved Mor for five hundred years." His voice was painfully steady. So steadily that it frightened him. "I watched her choose everyone except me." A humourless smile touched his mouth. "I became so good at pretending it didn't hurt that eventually I almost believed myself." His throat tightened. "Then there was Elain." Another long silence. "I told myself I knew better. I knew the situation, I knew it was impossible. But some stupid part of me hoped anyway." He laughed once, it sounded hollow. "I should have learned by then." His shadows had gone utterly still.
Rhys said quietly, "Learned what?"
Azriel's answer came immediately. "That it isn't for me."
The words hung in the cold mountain air.
Rhys didn't argue, didn't tell him he was wrong. He simply asked, "What isn't?"
Azriel frowned. "Asking that question won't change the answer."
"Humour me."
Another silence.
Then- "...Being chosen."
The words were so quiet Rhys almost missed them.
Azriel stared out over the city. "I don't know how."
"How what?"
"How to believe someone could look at me like..." His voice faltered. "Like she did." He swallowed hard.
"When she leaned in..." His breathing hitched. "I thought..." He stopped.
Rhys waited.
Azriel tried again. "I thought if I let myself believe it..." His voice cracked for the first time. "...I'd lose it."
A long silence followed.
Then, almost absently, as though remembering someone else's life instead of his own, Azriel murmured, "I spent the first eleven years of my life locked in a room."
Rhys looked at him. Azriel hadn't spoken about it in decades.
"My father never came unless he was angry." He laughed softly. "I used to know his footsteps." His eyes had become distant. "I knew which ones meant food. Which ones meant silence. And which ones meant..." He couldn't say it. His scarred hands curled into fists. "I learned very young that reaching for anything only gave someone another way to hurt you." He looked down at the scars crossing his hands. "So eventually..." Another pause. "...you stop reaching."
The last sentence barely existed, it was almost swallowed by the wind.
Rhys stepped beside him. Not in front of him to make him meet his eyes. Just beside him. "You know what I think?"
Azriel gave a tired shake of his head and closed his eyes.
"I think you stepped away because, for one terrifying moment..." Rhys' voice softened. "...someone chose you." The words struck harder than any blade.
Azriel's breath caught. His throat closed. He opened his mouth. Nothing came. Because Rhys was right. It had never been the kiss. It had never been her. It had been that impossible, terrifying moment when someone looked at him as though choosing him was the most natural thing in the world.
And every lesson his childhood had carved into his bones had screamed the same thing.
This cannot be real.
Do not believe it.
Do not reach.
His vision blurred. He blinked hard.
Once.
Twice.
It didn't help, a tear slipped free before he could stop it.
He turned away immediately. "I'm sorry." The apology was instinctive. Embarrassed. Ashamed.
Rhys' expression crumpled.
"Az."
Another tear followed. Then another. Azriel scrubbed angrily at his face with the heel of his hand. "I don't..." His voice broke, he couldn't even finish the sentence.
Rhys rested a hand gently on his shoulder. "Don't."
Azriel bowed his head.
For the first time in centuries...
He allowed someone else to see how heavy it had all become.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
Sleep never came.
After Rhys had finally convinced him to leave the training ring, they'd sparred until the eastern horizon had begun to pale. Azriel found that sometimes it was easier to breathe after your body remembered exhaustion.
Azriel had landed more blows than usual, and Rhys had let him. Neither of them mentioned it afterwards.
Now he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling of his room. The House of Wind had begun to wake around him. Somewhere below, someone laughed. Doors opened and closed. The smell of fresh bread drifted faintly through the corridors.
He hadn't slept for even a minute. He had turned Rhys' words over and over until they no longer sounded like someone else's.
Someone chose you.
His eyes closed. He saw her again. Not leaning in to kiss him, but smiling because she'd thought he wanted her to.
His chest tightened. It wasn't the memory of stepping away that hurt the most. It was knowing she'd gone to sleep believing she had misread him. Believing he hadn't wanted her close. The thought became unbearable. He was out of bed before he'd fully decided to move.
⋆｡𖦹°‧
She frowned when she opened the door. Azriel looked terrible. His dark hair was windswept, as though he'd spent the night flying. His clothes had been changed, but they sat crookedly, as if he'd dressed without looking. Shadows drifted silently around him, subdued in a way she'd never seen before.
But most of all, his eyes had dark circles beneath them. He looked tired, not physically, but as if something inside him had finally reached the end of itself.
For a long moment neither of them spoke.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
She felt something inside her soften despite herself. "You already said that."
"I know."
Another silence.
"I don't expect you to forgive me."
She looked down. Then back up. "What are you doing here, Azriel?"
His hands tightened at his sides. "I was hoping..." He hesitated. "...Would you come with me?"
She should have said no. She knew she should have, but instead she found herself studying him again.
He wasn't avoiding her eyes. He wasn't hiding behind his usual composure. He looked afraid of losing the chance to explain.
She nodded once. "Okay."
⋆｡𖦹°‧
He flew them only a short distance beyond the city. Far enough that the sounds of Velaris softened into little more than a distant murmur. The cliff overlooked the Sidra as it wound its way towards the sea, the morning sun painting the river in ribbons of gold. Wildflowers pushed stubbornly through cracks in the stone, dancing gently whenever the breeze swept across the hillside.
"It's beautiful," she whispered.
"I come here to think."
She smiled faintly. "I can see why."
They sat beside one another near the edge. Not too close, not too far apart. For a while they simply watched the city wake below them.
Azriel drew a slow breath. And he began. He told her everything.
Not every word he'd spoken to Rhys. There were some memories that still belonged only to the silence between brothers. But he told her enough. Enough for her to understand.
He told her about fear that arrived before thought. About five centuries spent believing that every hope would eventually become another lesson in letting go. About Mor. About loving someone for so long that rejection had become ordinary. About allowing himself to hope again with Elain, despite knowing better. About mistaking disappointment for proof that he had somehow been born undeserving.
Then, after a long silence... He told her about the room. The locked door. The footsteps. The child who had learned that reaching for affection only created another way to be hurt.
His voice remained remarkably steady. Only once did it falter, when he admitted that, for one impossible moment, she'd looked at him as though choosing him had been the easiest thing in the world. "And I panicked," he finished quietly. "I wasn't stepping away from you." His eyes dropped to the ground. "I was stepping away from the part of me that believed it."
Silence settled gently around them, a gentle breeze stirred the grass. Somewhere overhead, a hawk circled lazily across the brightening sky.
She couldn't speak, she didn't know what to say. Everything she'd planned to say suddenly felt far too small. She'd spent the entire night replaying every moment of their dinner. Wondering what she'd done wrong. Wondering if she'd imagined every smile, every laugh, every lingering touch.
Now all she could think about was an eleven-year-old boy sitting alone behind a locked door. She felt tears sting unexpectedly at the corners of her eyes. For him.
Slowly, she turned towards him. He hadn't looked at her once since he'd finished speaking. His hands rested between them, fingers tightly intertwined, almost painfully so.
She noticed him rubbing one thumb absentmindedly across the scarred skin of the other hand.
"They're ugly." His voice was so quiet she almost thought she'd imagined it.
She looked at him.
"My hands." He gave a humourless laugh. "I've spent five hundred years hiding them." His gaze remained fixed on them. "They're always the first thing people notice."
Carefully, she reached across the small space between them.
He went perfectly still. She gently took one of his hands in both of hers, as though it were something precious instead of something broken. She turned it over, running her thumb lightly across the pale, uneven scars.
She didn't flinch, and didn't seem to pity him. But most importantly, she didn't look away.
When she finally lifted her eyes to his, there wasn't horror in them, only quiet certainty. "They're just your hands."
He frowned.
"The same hands that held mine yesterday."
His breath caught.
She smiled softly. "The same hands that held the library door open for me." Another gentle stroke across the scars. "The same hands that probably make terrible vanilla ice cream decisions."
A tiny, incredulous laugh escaped him before he could stop it.
"There you are," she whispered.
He looked at her. Really looked.
"I was angry," she admitted. "And I was hurt."
He closed his eyes. "I know."
"I believed you didn't want me."
"I know."
"And I don't think that feeling disappears just because I understand why."
He nodded once. "I wouldn't expect it to."
She watched him for another long moment. "You know what does change?"
He looked up.
"I don't think you rejected me."
He stared at her.
She smiled, small and genuine this time. "I think you were frightened."
A silence settled between them that no longer felt heavy.
She looked back out across the city. "I think..." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "...you accidentally took me on two dates."
His eyebrows drew together. "I did?"
She laughed quietly. "You really didn't know?"
"I thought..." He stopped.
"I know what you thought." She nudged his shoulder lightly with her own.
"So..." She started. He waited. "Would you like to take me on one intentionally?"
For a heartbeat he simply looked at her. Not because he didn't understand. Because he did. Completely.
"I'd like that," he said. This time there was no hesitation. No misunderstanding. He felt like he could breathe again.
She smiled. "So would I."
They fell quiet again. The city glittered below them, alive now beneath the morning sun. After a while, she leaned gently against him, resting her head on his shoulder as naturally as if she'd done it a hundred times before.
Azriel froze. He felt that instinct again, urging him to pull away, to make space, to apologise. But instead he stayed. Slowly, almost cautiously, his shoulders relaxed beneath the weight of her head.
He looked out across Velaris, and for the first time in longer than he could remember, remaining exactly where he was felt braver than running.
Summary: It would only ever be you, no matter how much time had passed.
Warnings: fluff, angst, reader described to have the same eyes as Rhys.
A C O T A R M A S T E R L I S T
There had been many times over the course of being chained within the depths of this cave in which you had thought yourself to have officially gone insane but the moment you felt as though the shadows in the corners of this prison began moving was when you had accepted that insanity had taken over you but the moment you began hearing them whispering to you was truly the loss of all hope.
You had long since lost count of time, with nothing but darkness surrounding you and no hope for any light to work its way into this godforsaken pit, days were passing by without your knowledge. It had been years at this point, how many, you didn’t know but long enough for the world outside to be a distant echo and for your presence to have faded into a pitiful whisper.
Years passed by with only the reminders of your old life to keep you company; you often dreamed of those times your brother carved out time in his day to braid your hair or when you would both jump out of the windows late at night to fly over Velaris together. You’d dream of your mother, how she’d let you sit and ‘help’ her make dresses or that time you were so outraged when you were learning how to fly and she pushed you straight from the balcony of the House of Wind so that you had no choice but to fly.
Your days were filled with flashes of them all; your mother, Rhysand, Mor and Cassian.
You wondered how much of life had moved on without you.
Was Rhysand High Lord yet?
If he was, how had your father died?
Had Rhysand found his mate?
Had he made her High Lady like you both always spoke about?
In those extra difficult times that your control slipped even further, those memories of the Shadowsinger would linger the harshest.
You did not like thinking of how much his life had moved on without you.
Rhysand and Feyre stood together in the kitchen of the townhouse, looking through the window into the garden where Elain was tending to the flower garden and Azriel was sprawled out nearby, sunning his wings.
“Do you think the Cauldron can make mistakes with mates?” Feyre asked him, a look of confused anguish on her face.
Rhysand looked towards his mate, surprise dancing in his eyes at her question. “Nobody truly knows what makes the cauldron put two people together. They’re not always perfectly compatible, my own parents were examples of that, they never truly loved each other. Others, like us, are lucky to find love with their mate.”
Feyre continued looking out into the garden. “Why couldn’t the cauldron have made Azriel, Elain’s mate, instead of Lucien. Lucien is good but they look good together,” Feyre pointed out to where the Shadowsinger was still sprawled on the grass.
A pulse of pain pulled through their bond causing Feyre to snap her eyes back to Rhys. She was surprised to see the pain in his eyes, it wasn’t just any pain. It was the sort of pain that lingered and dwelled, a grief that would forever remain no matter how much time passed but there was also a subtle protectiveness in his eyes that could almost be missed.
Feyre was confused.
Rhysand swallowed a lump in his throat before speaking. “Do not mistake Azriel’s kindness towards your sister as affection. He is spending time with her because I ordered him too, to try and understand her powers. You’re reading into something that isn’t there.” His voice was stern but not unkind.
Feyre’s brows furrowed at his words. “It would be an honour for Azriel to find his mate, with anyone.”
“Azriel does not want a mate, Feyre.” The sheer confidence in Rhysand’s words only confused her even more.
“But why would he not want a mate? I thought everyone dreams of having one.” She questioned, looking out at Azriel’s figure in the garden.
She thought Azriel of all people would want a mate.
“Azriel has already had his great love,” Rhysand said. “No mating bond could ever live up to that for him. There are loves that even the cauldron cannot compete with.”
“What?” Feyre asked, shock taking over her face. “Who?”
That pain appeared in Rhys’ eyes again, a quick flash but it was there. “I meant it when I said I have no secrets to keep from you but not all stories are solely mine to tell. I am not going to tell you Azriel’s secrets.”
Feyre nodded silently. She understood, it didn’t diminish her curiosity but she would not pry for answers that weren’t hers to have.
Azriel’s footsteps were silent as always, shadows licking at his heals and fingertips as he walked towards Rhys’ office.
Not bothering to knock, his gloved hand unlatched the handle as he stepped inside. “You called, brother?”
Rhys was sat back in his chair, unsurprisingly dressed in his formals but the conflicted look on his face ruffled his demeanour. “I’d like to preface by saying you haven’t done anything wrong, my mate simply is too nosey for her own good and sees things she hopes are there rather than reality at times.”
Azriel’s face remained at an impasse other than the slight narrowing of his golden, hazel eyes.
Rhysand sighed. “Feyre is under the impression that you and Elain may make for a better match than her and Lucien.”
The control Azriel had on himself immediately slipped as he stepped back, eyes widening in shock, fists clenching by his sides as his shadows fluttered around him. “No. Rhys, I would never-”
“I know” Rhys interrupted. “I am not accusing you of doing anything, Az. I just thought it best to let you know.”
Azriel shifted uncomfortably at his words. “You know there is no one else, there never has been and there will never be anyone else.” He insisted, wanting his brother to believe him.
Rhysand’s gaze softened. “I know. I have never doubted that even though it would be okay if eventually-”
“No!” Azriel’s cut him off, “There will never be another.”
“Okay,” Rhys conceded. “I just wanted to let you know, Azriel.”
Azriel nodded his head, not hesitating in taking his exit, leaving Rhys there in a suffocating silence of loss.
“You’re distracted,” Cassian dropped his stance, looking towards Feyre intently.
His High Lady sighed in frustration, leaning back against the ropes of the sparring ring.
“What’s on your mind?” He asked.
Feyre pursed her lips in contemplation before relenting. “Did you three actually used do things in the same room as each other?”
Cassian barked out a deep laugh at her question. “That’s what’s on your mind?”
Feyre shrugged sheepishly.
Cassian shook his head, a large smirk tugging at his lips. “Well, Rhys and I did. It would be a bit weird and incredibly uncomfortable for us all if Azriel did.”
Feyre tilted her head curiously, “Why?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be very nice for Rhys to see his best friend having his way with the girl he loves more than anything, would it?” He said, as though it was obvious. “Besides, Azriel has way too much respect for him to do that anyways.”
Feyre’s eyes widened in shock but there was also a sickening feeling of jealously bubbling in her stomach. “So, Azriel and Rhys loved the same girl?”
Cassian, way too focused now on stretching to acknowledge how his words had been interpreted. “We all love her but those two always have and always will love her most. She’s their number one girl.”
Number one girl.
Feyre did not like the sound of that at all. She hated it and she hated herself even more because of the jealously that gnawed at her. “They didn’t hate each other for that?” She questioned.
Cassian shook his head, mid lunge. “Azriel had no reason to hate Rhys. It was difficult for Rhys to accept in the beginning and Azriel understood that but Rhys saw how much love was there, it was impossible to miss so who was he to stand in the way of that?”
Feyre stood in thought for a moment. “So, Rhys loved her first?”
Cassian laughed. “Of course he did. It’s not really a competition though, is it?”
She didn’t answer him, she simply stood there, thoughts swirling.
Feyre hated herself, she hated that she could not stop thinking about this girl who must have been something really special for both Rhys and Azriel to both love.
She’s their number one girl.
No matter how hard she had tried to not think about it, she couldn’t help it.
“What’s on your mind, Feyre darling?” Rhys’ smooth voice slipped through the silence of their bedroom.
She looked up at him from her place at the edge of their bed. “It’s nothing,” she stated simply.
Rhys frowned at her dismissal, placing his watch on his bedside table before walking to stand in front of her. He pressed a palm to the side of her face. “Tell me what’s on your mind?”
She sighed, mostly in frustration at herself, partially in his insistence to talk about it. “Where you in love with Azriel’s mate?”
The utter bewilderment that appeared on Rhys’ face made her immediately regret her words and watch to shrink back in on herself. “What!?”
Feyre shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she tried to pull away but Rhys kept his hand on the side of her face, steadying her.
“Azriel doesn’t have a mate,” he told her, utter confusion lacing his words.
Feyre shrugged, “Were you in love with the same girl then?”
“I’m so confused, no?” Rhys said, having absolutely no idea where she could’ve gotten this from. “Where have you gotten this from?”
Feyre looked at him, frustration beginning to build within her. “I asked Cassian about how you used to do things in the same room, he said you and him did but not Azriel because it wouldn’t be nice for him to be pleasuring a girl that you loved! He said she was yours and Azriel’s number one girl.”
Rhys pulled his hand from her face and placed it over his mouth. The confusion in his eyes had faded into a an amusing sparkle as his shoulders began shaking with suppressed laughter.
“What!?” Feyre huffed. “What are you laughing at!?”
Rhysand released a full deep chuckle at her frustrations. “Cassian is an idiot and you are utterly beautiful when you’re jealous.”
“I am not jealous!” She argued.
Rhys simply raised an eyebrow at her, completely unconvinced. “You’ve completely misinterpreted Cassian’s words, Feyre darling. It is still not my story to tell but I can promise you that Azriel and I have never been in love with the same girl.”
It had been five centuries since the disappearance of you and your mother and Azriel had never been the same.
Long before he met you, Azriel had learned what it meant to live in loneliness with nothing but his shadows for company but loneliness in response to your absence was never quite something anyone could become familiar with.
It was an endless void of nothing. Normally the thread of silence would at least end somewhere; a place where you simply got used to the feeling of someone not being there; but not with you.
It had been five centuries since your last laugh and that entire time Azriel has spent sleeping in your room. The room that sat right next to his own where your beds were pushed against the shared wall so even in your own beds you would be sleeping as close as you could get to each other.
It remained exactly how you left it, the same books sat on the nightstands, the same jewellery littered across a dressing table and a beautiful dress of deep blue with glittering silver stars on the bodice hung from the door of the closet, preparing to be worn for a day that never came.
Each morning that Azriel woke and got ready for the day, his last words to the House of Wind always remained the same. Leave it exactly how she left it, please.
The House always listened.
Whilst Azriel no longer slept in his own room, it had changed. The walls that were once a basic white had been transformed into a purple so unique it could only reflect the colour of your eyes.
In those rare moments that Azriel was able to relax away from the world, he would lay in his bed and stare at the walls of his room and whilst they could never reflect the light in a sparkle the way your own eyes could, the paint would simply have to do.
The winter chill of the Illyrian Steppes bit harshly into your cheeks as you ran through the thick snow into the forests surrounding the Windhaven camp.
The males were awful here, brutal even but even they knew to leave the daughter of the High Lord alone and so you were free to wander without the risk of your wings being torn from your back.
The trees created sanctuary for you here, as you weaved in between them you thought of your brother, Rhys and how quickly he would lose his mind once he found you gone.
A deep rooted feeling of being watched suddenly stirred in your stomach causing you to pause. It was the most subtle weight you had ever felt and yet you could not help but feel it as it settled into your bones.
You cast a quick glance up into the branches of the trees above you, where their leaves and twigs clashed and combined with one another, it took a moment for you to spot them but eventually you did.
Within a particular tall tree that was shaped in all groves and turns towards the top, deep within the shadows is where you saw him.
A male.
Sitting, observing.
“Hello,” you greeted softly.
No answer.
“What are you doing up there?” You asked.
The shadows fluttered and twitched at first before melting away into a black mist behind the males shoulders, revealing his face.
“Oh,” you whispered, taking in the hard expression of his face. He had hair of a dark midnight sky, eyebrows just a shade lighter that were furrowed deeply, shadowing his eyes that, against his dark features, seemed to glow golden when they narrowed towards you. He was all sharp lines and tensed muscles.
He shifted slightly in his place against the branches of the tree before stepping forward and allowing himself to gracefully drop down in front of you, merely inches away as he stared down into your eyes.
“How did you see me?” He asked, his voice was rough and deep for his age, possibly a couple years older than you, but his tone was steady.
“I didn’t,” you admitted. “I felt your eyes on me.”
It was then that you took notice of just how tightly his wings were pulled in at his back, a complete contrast to yours that were much more relaxed; pulled in just enough to protect them but let out enough that you didn’t have to consciously hold them in all the time, “you’ll get back pain holding them in like that,” you told him, pointing briefly at his wings.
They twitched in response, shadows fluttering wildly around the tips of his wings. It wasn’t a purposeful movement, that you could tell.
“I can’t control them,” He admitted to you.
Your brows furrowed, “what do you mean?”
“I cannot fly,” he said. “I never learned how to control them.”
You stepped back at his words. “You can’t fly!?” You spluttered in outrage. “Why can’t you fly? Are you injured?”
He shrugged in a way that showed this wasn’t a big deal to him, as though it was normal. “I wasn’t allowed outside,” he stated simply.
You frowned, the idea of not being allowed outside was unfathomable to you. “You weren’t allowed?”
“My father didn’t let me,” his words remained even, unaware of the turmoil that was stirring in your gut the more he spoke, a turmoil that you couldn’t quite explain.
“Why?” You asked.
“Because I am a bastard,” he said, his tone empty and detached, as though he had long since accepted that was all he was reduced to.
You did not like how he seemed to convinced that that’s all he was worth.
“You’re a Shadowsinger,” you pointed out, remembering old tales of myths and legends you had read before. “Those are very rare.”
The shadows clinging to him fluttered and preened at the tips of his wings and over his shoulders as though they understood your words.
Azriel nodded in response, feet scuffing into the dirt often forest uncomfortably at your words.
“That’s so cool!” You whispered in awe, the admiration you felt was completely authentic but you were also hoping it comforted him a bit.
He looked at you, the only hint of confusion on his face was the soft crease between his browns and the subtlest tilt of his head. “You’re not scared?” He asked.
“Of what?” You laughed, as though the idea was absurd.
“Of me,” he raised one of his gloved hands, tapping his index finger into his chest.
“Have you given me a reason to be scared?”
He paused at your question, internally baffled at this entire interaction. “I suppose not,” he muttered to himself, the idea of you not being scared simply just from his presence was beyond him.
“What’s your name?” You abruptly changed the subject.
He was silent for a moment, contemplating whether he should tell you or not. “Azriel.”
“Azriel,” you repeated softly, testing how it sounded. “That’s a beautiful name,” you told him.
His shadows twitched, his wings almost flinched at your complement, Azriel shifted uncomfortably.
“Do you want to be my friend, Azriel?”
“I’ve never had a friend before,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t think I’d be good at it.”
You pursed your lips in response, looking around the forest floor before speaking. “I’ve never really had a friend either, there’s my brother, Rhys, but he doesn’t count. Do you have any siblings?”
Azriel tensed at your question, his entire body stiffening, hands clenching in his gloves. “No, it’s just me.”
“Well,” you began, “I’d be honoured to be your first friend, if you’ll be mine?”
You were beyond confusing to Azriel, the first person besides his mother to not look at him with fear or disgust, to look at him and just see a person.
Azriel did not reply verbally but he didn’t need to, you didn’t mind and so he simply nodded in response earning a beaming smile from you.
“Spread your wings out wide,” you instructed softly.
“They’re heavy,” Azriel muttered, wings spreading in stuttering movements, face twisting slightly as he concentrated on holding them.
Your eyes ran along his wings now that they weren’t tucked in painfully right, taking in the large span of them, they fluttered under your gaze, completely against Azriel’s control.
“That’s because your back muscles aren’t used to holding their weight, we’ll need to strengthen them,” you explained, eyes snapping away from his wings, towards his own hazel eyes instead.
“How do we strengthen them?” He asked.
“Exercises, most are trained from babies to use their wings so it comes a lot more naturally but we can do it together.” You smiled at him encouragingly.
You knew this was hard for him, you knew he thought he wasn’t worth your help and you knew that this entire situation was uncomfortable for him but you wanted to help him and you liked spending time with him.
“I struggled with flying at first,” you admitted, hoping it would comfort him in some way.
His eyes stopped glancing to the trees around you, now focused. “Really?”
You nodded. “Yeah, Rhys was flying before he could walk but I was too scared to do it. I didn’t trust myself. I kept imagining my wings just not working one day and falling to my death.”
Azriel shifted subtly, shadows restless. “How did you do it?”
“I had no choice,” you said. “One day my mother and I were looking at the stars from the balcony of our home and she just pushed me off, I had no choice but to trust my wings or fall and I flew for the first time that day.”
Azriel’s eyes widened. “She pushed you off the balcony!?”
You smiled widely. “Yeah, I was so angry, I didn’t speak to her for a week but it worked. I won’t be pushing you off ledges until you can hold your wings properly though.”
You could detect the subtle relief that reflected in the golden hazel hue of Azriel’s eyes, as though he expected you to be able to push him off of any ledge and force him to command his wings that didn’t seem willing to answer him yet.
At some point, you will take great joy in pushing him off a cliff.
Not yet though.
Only when he was ready.
“Where does my starlight keep running off to?” Your mother’s gentle voice filtered through your ears as she brushed through your hair carefully.
You were silent for a moment, contemplating whether to reveal your secret. “I made a friend.”
You felt the comb pause briefly against your head before it continued. Your mother hummed absentmindedly. “Did you? Do I get to meet this friend?”
You pursed your lips in contemplation, an unexplainable feeling of protectiveness surging through your body. “He’s shy, he doesn’t like being around people,” you told her.
You missed the amused smile that appeared on your mother’s face, no doubt intrigued at the strange protectiveness that you had for your age. “He?” She asked, almost teasingly.
You huffed in response but a smile grew on your face that you couldn’t stop. “Yes,” you said strongly before your tone shifted to pride. “He’s my friend, I’m teaching him to fly.”
Your mother paused entirely, turning your body to face her own causing your eyes to meet her own that held the same violet hue she passed down to you and your brother. “Teaching him to fly? How old is this friend?”
Your shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe Rhys’ age. His father never let him outside so he can’t fly.”
Worry clouded your mother’s face at your words. “Is he a good boy?”
A bright smile overtook your face at her question. “He’s the best! He’s very quiet but he still speaks to me and he listens to all of my complaining and his shadows play with my hair!”
“Shadows?” Your mother’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
“He’s a Shadowsinger,” you whispered. “Those are very rare.”
“They are,” she repeated. “Don’t tell your father about him, starlight.”
“I would never,” you swore, your voice demonstrating the dramatic outrage of a child who couldn’t fathom sharing information like that to your father. “Mama?”
“Yes, starlight?” She asked, turning you back around so she could start braiding your hair.
“Don’t tell Rhys, okay?” You told her, your brother could get way too protective, it was embarrassing.
“I would never tell Rhys, starlight. Or Cassian.” She promised.
“Definitely not Cassian.” You agreed.
“I’m not ready!” Azriel protested, warily looking over the edge of the cliff you had pretty much dragged him too.
“You are ready!” You argued. “You’ve got great control of your wings and your muscles are as strong as can be!”
Azriel shook his head, shadows darting around him, showing his nerves. “What if I fall?”
“Then I’ll catch you!” You replied simply.
“I’m too heavy for you to catch me!” He protested.
“You are not, I’m strong!” You argued, outraged at his accusation. “I’ll hold your hands?” You proposed, already reaching out towards his own gloved hands.
Azriel looked down at your outstretched hands, hesitation clear on his face, he really wasn’t sure about this but he did really want to be able to fly.
He relented, placing his hands in yours, earning himself one of your bright smiles, stars twinkling happily in your eyes.
Your wings fluttered slowly, not enough to lift you off the ground, just enough to encourage Azriel to copy your actions.
You slowly increased the force at which your wings beat, air building with the crevice of each controlled flap of the membrane.
Azriel copied your movements, his own wings much larger in comparison to any you’ve seen on other children your age, your own were quite big for a female Illyrian so young.
Azriel felt the change in gravity, the way his feet were itching to leave the ground on their own accord, as though his body was fully attuned and aware to what was currently happening even if it was unfamiliar.
“You’re doing it,” you whispered proudly, your own feet lifting off the ground before Azriel’s but your hands stayed in his as you remained stationary in the air, feet just slightly off the ground as you waited patiently for his own body to rise into the wind.
“You’re so close, just a bit more.” You encouraged him.
The second the air swept beneath Azriel’s feet for the first time, it felt as though his entire body was about to fall backwards as he had nothing to stand on but your hands tightened on his own, keeping him straight as he unsteadily rose with you, trying to focus on keeping his wings moving.
“It’ll come naturally the more you do it,” you told him. “You won’t even have to think about it.”
Azriel wasn’t so sure about that but as he felt the wind beneath his wings as he became airborne for the first time, with your hands holding his, he chose to believe you anyway.
“You’re flying Azriel!” Sheer joy and pride filled your face as you looked at him, he thought you looked beautiful like this.
The wind causing your hair to flutter around your face, eyes sparkling at the freedom that flying gave you and your smile took up your whole face as it always did.
Distracted by the sight of you in your element, Azriel lost focus of his wings causing him to quickly drop a few feet but your hands tightened on his just as his heart dropped in his chest out of panic.
He concentrated on beating his wings again, fluttering slightly higher than previously.
But even as he concentrated on flying, his mind was also on something else.
You had caught him, just like you said you would.
Wake. Wake. Wake.
Their hissing little whispers nudged you from unconsciousness. The cold concrete of the cave dug uncomfortably into your back. You groaned, shifting as your eyes opened, adjusting to the thick, clouded darkness you had been forced to endure for five centuries.
Another day it remained the same.
A sharp, slithering coldness nudged against your cheek, and again against your fingertips. You looked down in confusion, taking in the grey-black strands of darkness fluttering around your hands.
You raised your hands slightly, it was hard to see clearly but they resembled beings you had not seen in a very long time. The dark strands fluttered around your fingertips as you stared intently at them and in a movement so sharp, one lone sentient being jumped to your shoulder.
Your head snapped to the side as you looked at it, moving around, nestling into your clothes that had long since been reduced to scraps of fabric.
The beating beneath your chest stuttered as you stared at them.
Shadows.
They were shadows.
Master. Master. Master.
She hears us. She hears us.
They fluttered around you in a way that seemed to portray excitement.
Was that them talking?
“Azriel?” You whispered, broken yet that sick part of you still held a bit of hope.
Many years you had locked out memories of the Shadowsinger yet it never worked too well, you could never forget him and you would never forget the sentient beings that obeyed him either.
No.
They almost sounded like hisses.
“Not Azriel then.” You muttered. It did not surprise you, not really.
You didn’t understand.
“Another Shadowsinger?” You asked, it earned that same excited fluttering dance as before. Yes.
But who? You wondered.
It seemed they knew your thoughts too.
You. You.
Your face contorted into confusion. You weren’t a Shadowsinger.
You allowed yourself to think of Azriel again. Not of him exactly or the feeling of his love that had faded long ago but of his story.
Azriel had not been born a Shadowsinger.
How had Azriel become a Shadowsinger?
He had been locked in a dark cell for eleven years and had no choice but to find companionship within the darkness itself.
Oh.
“You’re my shadows.” You did not question this time.
Yes. They hissed again.
“But the faebane chains?” You wondered aloud.
“Shadows are not magic, they’re simply part of me.” Azriel had told you that before.
You studied them again, more intently this time and whilst they resembled the shadows of Azriel’s so very much there was the slightest hint of a difference; they weren’t just a grey-black, they had the slightest underlying tint of purple.
They truly were yours.
Release chains. They muttered, not to you, to themselves, fluttering around frantically.
“I can’t,” you whispered in long accepted defeat. “They won’t come off, someone else needs to do it.”
Your newly acquired shadows ignored you, muttering to themselves.
Shadowsinger will do it. Spymaster will do it.
But your energy was draining again, conscious slipping into darkness, your shadows slipping through the cracks of the cave without you knowing.
Azriel had been born alone and he would die alone.
He had accepted that was all life was made for him, there were those years he had you, moments were he thought he’d have you forever but you were taken, brutally slaughtered along with your mother in the spring court.
He had never and will never forgive himself for not being there to protect you. Truthfully he did not know how Rhysand could go on with life after that, not that his High Lord and brother didn’t deserve to live, he did, but how had grief not taken his sanity Azriel would never know.
He would never know how Rhys could look in the mirror and not see the shadows of his mother and sister, not when some days Azriel could not look into his eyes and see the very reflection of the young woman he lost, his woman.
It would forever just be Azriel and his shadows.
Another night that Azriel slept in your room alone, beneath your sheets, on the pillows you always hid that ridiculous stuffed bat beneath.
When he awoke this time though, it was different.
His shadows, usually fluttering lazily were muttering and batting around recklessly, their unease settling in Azriel’s chest, having the spymaster looking around the room carefully.
The only thing that seemed wrong were his shadows themselves, it was as though they were fighting each other?
Intruder. Intruder. They hissed, flying into each other as though they were in a sort of disorientated state. Azriel had never seen anything like it before.
Deep down, Azriel understood that there was no intruder in the House of Wind but he did not understand what they could be referring to.
The bond between himself and his shadows was strange. They told him things yes, but a lot of their communication came down to feelings, he felt their unease, their frustration, as though they were participating in an internal battle.
But why?
He sat up in your bed and observed them closely. He too, could see that there was something off but couldn’t quite put his mind to it.
Intruder. But where?
The shadows hissed at each other, floating around the room in distress, it was when the golden rays of the morning sunrise shone through the balcony window that he saw it.
His eyes, always so sharp, caught that difference in his shadows. Not his shadows, he concluded. Eyes widening, he reached out to that invisible thread and called his shadows back to him with a snap.
There it was.
A small cluster that did not return to him, a cluster of shadows that looked just the slightest different to his own. That underlying purple tint was not his.
He tried to reach out, tried to find that tether to them.
Nothing.
They did not seem threatening though.
They fluttered and danced around before him, as though they were trying to communicate with him but could not.
Help. His own shadows muttered.
“Help?” He questioned.
They plead help. They hissed into his ears. Another Shadowmaster. Trapped.
Azriel shook his head, he was the only shadowmaster.
No. They hissed, more stern this time, as though telling him he was wrong.
Azriel removed himself from your bed, pulling on his Illyrian leathers as quickly as possible, not even strapping his weapons to himself. Instead he simply grabbed Truthteller alone into its sheath.
He approached the bedroom door, turning to see if those other shadows would follow, they were.
He let himself out of the room, shadows, his and not his following behind closely, he barged into Rhys’ study causing the High Lord to jump, not that he would ever admit.
“Azriel?” Rhys greeted, looking up from his papers in barely concealed surprise. “A knock would be nice.”
“We have a problem.” Azriel simply responded earning Rhys’ full attention.
“What is it?”
Azriel held out a gloved hand and while Azriel had no means to communicate with these shadows, they understood him and gathered into his palm, fluttering into a rounded shape.
Rhys simply looked at them in confusion. “What am I looking at? New party trick?”
Azriel shook his head, face contorting as he studied them. “They’re not mine, I can’t communicate with them.”
“What?” Rhys uttered to himself.
“There’s another Shadowsinger out there,” Azriel responded, mostly to himself. “They communicate with my shadows but I can’t understand them myself.”
“Another Shadowsinger?” His High Lord mumbled, shaking his head. “No, you’re the only Shadowsinger alive.”
“Not anymore,” Azriel argued, his and the guest shadows beginning to flutter wildly in their own disagreement. “Apparently they’re trapped.”
Chained. His shadows corrected. Caved.
“Chained,” he spoke aloud.
“Perhaps for good reason,” Rhys argued, whilst Azriel was his brother and he trusted him beyond measures, he was well aware just how powerful Shadowsingers were, if this other Shadowsinger was locked away then perhaps it was because it was deserved.
Azriel shook his head, a sort of confused anguish taking over his features as he observed the shadows sitting in his palm. “They don’t feel threatening, or evil. They’re scared, pleading for help, for freedom.”
“How do you know they’re not pretending? That this other Shadowsinger hasn’t sent these here to play a ruse just to get their freedom?” Rhys asked.
The guest shadows in his palm shrunk down in defeat whilst his own fluttered in agitation around his shoulders and the tips of his wings.
She doesn’t know they’re here. She can’t control it yet.
Azriel listened to their whispers with widened eyes before looking at Rhys. “She cannot control them, this ability must be newly manifested, they came here on their own. Besides, shadows don’t work like that, they can’t fake feelings or emotions.”
“She?” Rhys sat up straighter in his chair at the newfound information.
“I can’t explain it, Rhys,” Azriel muttered, deep in thought. “I have this feeling that I need to free her, I don’t know why, it just feels right to.”
Those lone little shadows of yours clung to Azriel in the following days, against your knowledge. Azriel spent that time preparing himself for rescuing you, not that he knew it would be you he was rescuing, trying to gain as much information as he could through his own shadows translating messages back and forth with yours.
It was strange for Azriel, not only that there were sentient echoes of darkness that for some reason he could not communicate with but also knowing that somewhere out there, trapped and alone, there was another like him, another who could communicate with the darkness and melt into the shadows, even if it was a new manifestation.
The cave you were imprisoned in, he learned, was located somewhere in The Middle, because of course it was.
What other place would be sick enough to have trapped a person so long that the shadows had sought them out?
Trapped for centuries. The shadows had told him.
Bound by faebane chains, tormented by memories of a time that had long since faded.
Azriel, in all he had been through and in all his grief and terror over the years, could not imagine being trapped within the same four walls for hundreds of years.
He had barely lasted eleven, Rhys had hardly lasted fifty and yet out there, a poor woman had lasted hundreds of years, alone.
A woman of his kind.
The cave, as Azriel stood before it, was hardly a cave. It was more a carved hole in the ground, hidden by overgrown moss and shrubbery that even he, a spymaster, would have overlooked had he passed by without your shadows leading him to it.
He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to squeeze his overgrown body into it.
Your shadows shot forward like whips, diving into the underground cave, no doubt snapping back to you, even though your lack of control, they were drawn to you, desired to be close to your being.
Azriel crouched down, inspecting the gap in the ground, his own shadows fluttering around in agitation, some even darting ahead into the cave. He peeled off his outer layers that he strapped his weapons to, sending them down into the cave before him.
Risky, no doubt, but he felt no threat towards whatever presence was inside this cave, only an innocently, trapped Shadowsinger.
One that meant no harm, only desiring freedom.
He heaved himself through the gap, the concrete lining the underground cave scratching against his arms and shoulders as he dragged himself through, gravity doing most of the work, allowing him to drop down onto solid stone and rock.
It smelled awful; blood, dirt, faebane and a hell of a lot like someone had long since lost the will to live.
He saw the chains, loads of them, hanging from the ceiling, from the walls, even some bound to the ground with bolts.
Even as someone bound by shadows and member of the Night Court, Azriel could not see clearly in the darkness of this pit but his shadows led the way, they led him to your shadows.
Your shadows that covered just about every part of you, hiding you as though attempting to protect your presence from anyone who could possibly mean harm, leaving you just the image of a darkened, fuzzy blur.
“I will not harm her,” Azriel promised. “I only want to free her, take her back to the Night Court, help her heal and gain control.”
He saw the way they hesitated, how they debated whether they had made the right decision in finding him or not.
She trusted you. They whispered, confessed. His own shadows translating. Long time ago.
Azriel did not know what they meant by that. Had he known her once upon a time?
It was when they finally relented and made the decision to fade away from covering your body that Azriel, despite all the gore and torment he had witnessed in his life, felt like he was going to be sick as his eyes fell upon the battered figure of a young, fae woman.
His fae woman.
No. He shook his head, as though it would shake the sick illusion from his mind.
Yet you remained in his sight.
He knew that figure, that hair, those lashes. It has all haunted his every sleep and movement for the last five hundred years. The colour beneath your eyelids that he had drenched his walls in, that he would look upon every morning and every night.
Even unhealthily slimmer than you had been five hundred years ago, there would not be a single moment or a single version of you in which Azriel would not recognise.
The first person who had shown him grace, who had shown him that kindness and love does in fact exist, the person who had given him the family that he still clings to today in hopes of grasping at every last remainder of you that he had believed was long lost.
Your name was a ghost on his lips as he surged forward, shadows following, your own fluttering at his shoulders now as he unsheathed truth-teller and sliced through the chains binding you to this sick prison.
The dagger you had given him.
The first gift he had ever received.
He collapsed to his knees beside your battered, unconscious body.
Your breaths shallow, wrists and ankles raw from centuries of imprisonment, body all but skin and bones.
He smoothed a marred thumb over your cheekbone, hands shaking as he took you in, your body surrendered to his touch as though finally, it had found something safe it could relax itself in.
And though you were unaware, still in the depths of your mind, your eyes had fluttered open, a deep purple hue that he had missed for hundreds of years.
Azriel choked on a sob as he gazed upon you again, his soul shattering open at the sight of the only person he had ever loved in his five hundred years walking the lands of Prythian.
He felt the moment part of his soul tore from his chest and landed straight into yours, a golden thread deep within him keeping it tethered to himself even though it now sat with you.
Because even though Azriel had never needed the confirmation of the Cauldron to know what you were to him, why had it taken him finding you after so long to finally snap into place?
Simon was on you as soon as your foot touched the wood flooring of your home. He'd been gone for almost three months and he was past the point of desperate.
You must have been moving too slowly for your husbands taste, as you find yourself suddenly in the air with two tattooed arms around your waist.
"You couldn't wait two seconds for me to take off my shoes?!" You scold.
"Need to be inside you, now." Simon said firmly, dropping you onto your large bed, both of you practically tearing fabric from your bodies.
Simon hovered over you once you were both nude, though he winced slightly. "Fucking shoulder."
You quickly yet gently switched your positions, knowing how Simons shoulder would play up after a mission because of the recoil from his weapons.
Simon went to protest, but the look you give him quickly silences him.
"You worked so hard, Si. Lemme make you feel good." You hum, reaching beneath you to line his cock with your cunt, oblivious to the confused look in Simons eyes for a moment. His cock felt unusually sensitive.
You sank down onto Simon, desperate to have him inside you. Though he grabbed your hips, letting out a pathetic moan.
Simon panics, "Fuck—wait no no—" his hips stutter upwards into you. Gasping heavily as he fills you. He couldn't help it, your pussy was so tight and wet—and he'd never admit it but you praising him for working hard definitely brought him to the edge.
Once Simon opened his eyes, you were staring at him; Expression a mixture of shock and surprisingly awe.
"Don't." He says.
"I feel that good?"
"You know you do. Now give me five minutes and I'll fuck you dumb alrigh'?"
based on this idea! a big thank you to @bornasfools for letting me cook — also the photos are not mine, credits to the owners <3
part 2 of ?
first part
warnings: reader is called a witch, mentions/depictions of blood/blood magic/sorcery/poisons, court politics, murder attempt, maekar is kind of an asshole, period-typical sexism and xenophobia, kiera x reader have a cute friendship, reader has visions but isn't a dreamer per say, some outfit description
a/n: so thankful for all the love that has been shared with this series so far! I am still figuring out how long this is gonna be so bear with me :)
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
It didn’t take long for the word to spread of what you had done.
The witch who revived the honorable Baelor Targaryen after seducing the Young Prince. The woman sent from the Seven who was an ascended member of the Faith called to undo an injustice with the power of the New Gods and Old. Tales spun as they always did, becoming crazy and more drastic than the next but you found little care in such theatrics. You were simply glad to be a shell of yourself again and, more importantly, alive.
Baelor did have to be looked over and treated by the maesters, his brother and son abandoning their fight over you to assist him in any way they could, but he would live miraculously. Following what happened you were surrounded and been escorted to a spare room in the Ashford castle by guards with food and fresh clothes at Valarr’s command until someone from House Targaryen would send for you. You remember passing all the astounded looks that watched you be taken away in a swarm of black-and-red: savior some would say, witch, others would argue.
In the end it was all open to interpretation and it would stay that way. Even when you revealed your true intentions to Valarr you made sure to craft a story that left some crucial parts out — especially the matter of the prophecy and being sent here to seduce him so you could give birth to his child. You sighed about that as you sat on the bed, deep in thought once more. Suddenly reviving Baelor seemed like the easier part of the mission that was given to you.
When a royal attendant entered the room you were being held in and asked for you to gather in the council room of the castle it was well past nightfall, when you were debating dressing yourself for bed. You let yourself be led by a woman holding a glimmering torchlight in a darkened hallway to the last room on the right that was guarded by the Kingsguard. They both watched you wearily as you were granted entrance inside while the royal attendant gave you a supporting look.
Baelor was there in the flesh, looking healthy as ever, much to your relief. Dressed in his usual silks after being scrubbed clean and stripped of his son's armor he sat in the center of a long table with Valarr by one side and Maekar on the other. The three of them watched you walk to the stand in the center of the room, all analyzing you carefully. You felt an odd sense of deja-vu as you remembered the last time you were brought before people of high power and you could not help but wonder what would happen now. You sucked in a breath.
It was a moment before the heir spoke aloud. “I understand that I have you to thank for my life.”
You tipped your head. “You humble me, My Prince. I simply offered my skills in service to House Targaryen.”
The Targaryen prince nods his head. “Valarr has regaled all the details, along with my brother. I believe he owes you an apology for the way he behaved earlier.”
Maekar grunted in response and you had a feeling that was the closest to the apology, despite his brother and nephews’ disappointed looks. However you let it slide off your shoulders as you nodded your head in gratitude.
Baelor sighed. “Considering these unusual circumstances, we are put on at an odd sense of crossroads. The realm is thankful for your services to the Crown and House Targaryen, though traits of your deception and use of magic has not been ignored by certain parties.”
It sounded like the Faith had gotten word of your falsehood guise of a silent sister and were not too happy. That was to be expected — you just hoped it did little to dissuade House Targaryen from choosing to spare you life.
“However considering that I am alive and well at present, as well as the defenses my son has given me on your behalf, I feel it is only right that I grant you a reward of your choosing.”
“Of my choosing?” The gears were turning before you even asked the question.
“Yes.” Baelor looked weary of this decision. You noticed was considerably easier to read than his son, who was much more reserved and internal, and that was a surprising because of his age and experience. But then you figured it was because he didn’t feel the need to shelve everything under the surface. The formality he ensued with people seemed genuine and real — at least real enough. “You can think on it until we depart for King’s Landing..”
“I already know what I want.”
His dark eyebrow raised but he didn’t seem too surprised. Neither was Valarr but he was also looking at you with an expression you could not quite decipher which was a tad frustrating. As for Maekar it was clear he still was not happy with you — distrustful, which was fair. But you weren’t here to please everyone.
“I would like a place at court.”
Everyone in the room paused, Baelor taking a light breath. “A place at court?”
“Yes, My Prince,” You dipped your head once more. “The practices I learned in The Sisterhood could be very beneficial for this realm. I know many things: magic, healing remedies, traces of Old Valyria that The Sisterhood has preserved that could be brought back to practice among those of dragon blood.”
The heir to the Iron Throne studied you, taking a long look of calculation before he asked his next question. “Nothing in the histories involving Old Valyria mentioned The Sisterhood.”
“It is not common faction known to many,” You admitted. You remember asking the Head Lady how much you could reveal bout The Sisterhood before you left for the journey here in case you got fat enough where people started asking questions — a lot of them. She had given her permission, within reason: the plan to enforce the prophecy of Azor Ahai had to be excluded among with many of the secrets The Sisterhood have preserved for not only hundreds but thousands of years, even back when Old Valyria was still alive as a massive conquering empire. “During the time of Old Valyria many of the dragonlords knew very little. Except for my ancestors.”
“Ancestors?” Valarr interjected, intrigued.
You nodded. “I am a descendant of House Belaerys.”
Baelor’s brows furrowed even more. “I thought all the members went extinct following the Doom.”
“That part of history was altered for reasons I still do not know.” Those words were true to some extent: a daughter thought to be dead only to join The Sisterhood and ultimately escape the wrath of the Doom and preserving the last of her lineage as the Valyrian Gods had willed it. “Both of my parents have Old Valyrian blood but it is my mother who carries the lineage of House Belaerys.”
The room grew silent once more, this time with shock. Maekar grumbled ‘fucking hells’ under his breath while Valarr side-eyed his father, who debated everything silently.
“I must still speak with my father and the small council further but I will ensure that we grant your wish. But you must understand the apprehension: we know little of your world at hand and even your intentions pass the saving of my life, gods willing. It will take time for trust to build in this new relationship that will hopefully be beneficial for the both of us.”
“Of course, My Prince,” You complied. “If I must be watched constantly or go scarcely anywhere without a multitude of guards so be it. All I need is a place to work and call my own and I shall be content. You do have a library, yes ?”
In spite of bridging a conversation of tensity and apprehension, full of distrust and unanswered questions, Baelor cracks a smile in spite of myself. “The Red Keep is one of the biggest castles in the Seven Kingdoms. Of course we have a library.”
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
It is on the journey back to King's Landing, on the road among grassy plains and forests full of thick stagnant trees stretching on for miles, when Valarr approaches you.
You hear the sound of jooves thundering lightly in the dirt as his all-black courser pulled up to match the stride of your strawberry-roan palfrey, another gift from the Crown. Among his fine silks of black edged with silver metal and embroidery he wore a purple shoulder sash sealed with a dragon brooch on his left shoulder that brought out the hues of his lilac eye, looking unfairly breathtaking. You tried to swallow down the lump that climbed in your throat.
“You can ride a horse after spending a life-hood underground?”
“I did not say we have yet to travel for important endeavors,” You responded lightly, steering your mount around a big rock in the road. “And I personally love to ride. I thank your father once more for the gift, although I still need to name her.”
“It’s the least he can do in the measures of you saving his life.”
You smiled. “So you do not deem me an untrustworthy witch sent to befall you all to ruin?”
“I do not.” Valarr looked at you, honestly reflecting in his two-toned gaze. You wondered if this was considered a vulnerable moment between you two, considering how much he clearly keeps bottled inside based on mere observation. “How could I after you accomplished what I thought was impossible, knowing the risks?”
“Some say magic like that is dark and corruptible.”
“Well I believe you are neither those things.”
That surprised you a little bit. You stiffen to the slightest degree, giving him cause to continue. “I know men of manipulation who pass and linger at the royal court and try to get my father and grand sire to do their bidding with the threat of destabilization — I’ve observed those things in the shadows. But you seemed heartfelt. Genuine.”
Yet The Sisterhood prided itself on masters of manipulation for the greater good. Guilt should not have pricked your skin, not when you knew what you had to do in the path laid before you, but you still felt it. If your mentors were here they would chastise you for having a ‘moment of weakness’. At least the means of seduction would be easier knowing that he was a man of handsome face and chivalric nature, though you immediately could not help but chide yourself at the thought as it felt too immoral.
In the journey that followed back to the crownlands, the Young Prince accompanied your side on more than one occasion. Small conversation gave way to slow familiarity and he asked a lot of questions about Old Valyria that you found you didn’t mind answering. The two of you conversed often in High Valyrian, to allude to some sense of mystery to the royal household around you or to remain private in your topics neither of you were sure. If the other members of House Targaryen were bothered on the matter they spoke little of it although Maekar had a habit of fixing you with a hard stare on more than one account in passing.
Over the course of the next fortnight two members also made an effort to join your group: Valarr’s cousin, Prince Daeron Targaryen, who was a weary drunk that scarcely allowed his alcoholic issue to dissuade his matter of making small talk in fuse of boredom and his lady wife, Kiera of Tyrosh, a resilient spirit wrapped behind a gentle soul who knew better than most what it was like to have to adapt to the customs of Westerosi society. You found that you valued her company more than you initially expected: the two of talked of Essos fondly as you had traveled to the Free Cities with The Sisterhood on more than one occasion and she ended up accompanying your side on horseback the rest of the journey back.
You tell yourself it’s apart of your task to adapt to your surroundings and buy in truth, you also desperately welcomed the company. Under the disguise of a silent sister you were not allowed to speak to anyone in terms of chastity and piety toward the Faith and the Stranger himself and while it was little issue to lay quiet to be able to speak more freely was a welcoming respite. By the time you all arrived to King's Landing you had developed a comfortability of the people you rode with (at least most of them) and felt safe enough to think that maybe people in The Red Keep would be warmer to you than you realized.
You are quickly proven wrong.
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
Adapting to the royal court was hard, brutal even.
Quick to calling you the 'Valyrian Witch' the nobles did their best to avoid looking at you whenever you passed or be short with their customary greetings. Sometimes, they did not even greet you at all. You had been fortunate that Kiera stuck by your side through everything and did her best to help you adjust to everyday life and manners of the royal court. She explained to you, after breaking fast a sennight after you arrived in King's Landing, that unfortunately in the Seven Kingdoms differences were often looked down upon instead of celebrated compared to other forms of civilizations. House Targaryen being united with House Martell was a recent example of this as well as the First Blackfyre Rebellion: many ignorant nobles were known complained about the amount of people from Dorne seemed to frequent the royal court and surround the king, who was more of a scholar himself than a warrior.
Regardless of the troubles, you did your best to wear a title with a badge of honor. Baelor kept his word and was able to convince his father to grant you a seat at court, though you were dispatched two guards who followed you around constantly. You had been assigned private quarters that were more than enough for someone of your station, as much as anyone would feel when they stayed at this expansive massive red stone castle surrounded with drum-towers tipped with iron ramparts and layered with it own secrets. Like many, you had read of Maegor of Cruel and his construction of the tunnels behind walls of the castle and you were determined to use them to your advantage in any way possible.
No one knew of your station, why you allowed to have bedchambers in The Maidenvault like any other highborn instead of staying where all the servants were in the castle, even if it was because you saved the life of the Hand and heir of the Iron Throne. This pricked a bone with many of the nobles who felt you inferior to them, be it your foreign roots or low rank or both.
Then, on one night in particular, the fruition of your trained abilities were thrust into the limelight which garnered attention and revisited the matter of why you held the spot you did in the royal court.
Dinner had been served just like any other day in the Great Hall, the massive room full of loud japes and combined laughter among the highborn as royal attendants cloaked in hues of black and red walked around on a mission to leave no stone unturned with drinks and. Music played lightly in the background by a band of musicians and there was even a court fool dancing around in front of some of young children of the nobles and royal family alike — clapping in delight while their parents chided them lightly to eat their food.
At the high-end table of House Targaryen Kiera had initially wanted to reserve a seat for you beside you, her way of defying everyone's mockery of you by having you claim a seat they always secretly wanted because of the power it brought. However, while you thanked her for her willingness to strike back at the hateful words spread among the royal court, you knew you should not sit among members of the royal family unless you deserved it. You were smart enough to know when it was good to draw the line on the attention on yourself during certain points.
You took a seat towards the back for the room where the lower nobles sat like you always did, who seemed to grow used to your presence by now although no one talked to you. Food was served and you dined in silence with little avail, already thinking about what you should work on once you get back into your lair and wondering if you should swing by the royal library to check out another book on YiTi history records on healing practices that may be beneficial to learn about for future development.
Then you saw it.
It was a small vision, barely there for a few moments, but clear enough to stay with you. A spilled goblet on the stone floor and a slumped figure dressed in yellow silk embroidered in orange suns while the room filled with overwhelming crowds and screams of horror.
You sat up so fast the man next to you almost spit out his wine and turned quickly to look at the members of the royal family dining together deep in discussion. At the center of the table Queen Myriah Martell was sitting beside her lord husband, smiling at something he was saying — dressed in a pale yellow silk dress of the softest silk with orange suns glinting under the warm light in the room. Then your eyes caught a servant making its way over to her through throngs of people in the midst of laughter and music, a single goblet of wine on a polished gold tray, and your head ached so much in that moment you knew nothing else could explain such a feeling.
You acted fast. Getting off the bench at the dinner table the with a sense of speed that earned more looks, you hastened yourself over to the head table at the center of the room on the other side — brushing past people laughing and drinking with a sense of glee as they stood to talk to each other from time to time. When you made it before House Targaryen at their seats, eating and talking to each other at a long table full of more people than you initially realized were in the family, while the servant sets the new chalice full of wine before the queen, who tips her head in gratitude.
It is when she grabs the polished cup and lifts it up to drink that you quickly express your concerns loud and clear.
“You do not want to drink that, My Queen.”
Everyone stopped at the head table, Myriah looking over at you in confusion. Beside her Maekar chooses to scoff aloud.
“Another premonition of yours, Witch?”
“Yes,” You countered smoothly, ignoring the jab. “Someone has poisoned that wine with the intent of harming a member of the royal family.”
“A strong accusation,” The Anvil leveled you down with a hard stare, a warning gaze flashing in his purple eyes. “Can you prove it?”
You leveled up your chin. “I can.”
Myriah’s dark eyes flickered to Daeron and Baelor, who both looked at each other to speak merely with their eyes alone. Meanwhile, Maekar scoffed incredulously.
“Please tell me you are all not listening to this woman.”
“She brought Father back from the Stranger himself,” Valarr argued, leaning forward in his seat next to the Hand and heir as he stared Maekar down. “Why do you still doubt her, Uncle?”
Maekar’s jaw tenses but he ends up saying nothing. Kiera looks at Myriah and makes an effort to ask the important question:
“What do you think, My Queen?”
Everyone turned to the Dornish woman, still holding the dragon-carved goblet as she thinks for a moment. The King sits back and quietly waits for her response, along with his son, a subtle sign that he trusts her to make the final decision on the matter. It seemed that they wisely heed her counsel more often than not.
“I am open to judgement with some element of proof.”
She slides the goblet across the table, giving you agency to move with a curt nod. You move forward to accept it into your hands before taking a sniff under your nose. Everyone waits at the head table with bated breath, the court fool still off to the right dancing with the children and the rest of nobles eating and laughing over the music. You deciphered the killing method at hand instantly.
“It is Tears of Lys,” You turned to the serving attendant who set the goblet on the table, frozen and head bowed as they stepped back the moment you made the accusation. “Who is this from?”
The serving girl tipped her head. “It is what the queen always drinks, Miss.”
You stared her down. “You are not telling the truth.”
“I am, Miss.”
You circle around the table to walk over to her before anyone can interject. You stop until you were mere inches away from her face before lifting the goblet out to her. “Then you drink it.”
The anxiety creeps onto her face, the red flooding to her cheeks as her pupils grow large. She looks at the drink and the King who stares at her expectantly. She looks back down at the goblet held out to her before she finally cracks.
“Forgive me.” She confessed, bowing her head once more, looking ashamed and sheepish. “Lord Hightower knows Myriah Martell is fond of the Dornish red wines so he paid me in coin to deliver this drink and bade me to say nothing. I do not know if it has been tampered with.”
The confession left every one at the head table one edge. Daeron leans over to grab his lady wife’s hand as a means to steady himself.
“Is he here?” You suddenly ask aloud in High Valyrian, turning to look over at the other members of House Targaryen. The King’s purple eyes flickered to his son while the Queen went eerily still. Baelor cleared his throat while Valarr shifted at his side, his jaw tense.
“Visiting to discuss a marriage proposal with his daughter and one of my sons. A man of chestnut hair dining among nobles in the Reach.”
You set the goblet down on the edge of the polished table and calmly turn to scan the audience. You see him in silks of green and silver: a proud man with short hair in the color that the Hand described, along with a dimpled chin and an unreadable expression. He is oblivious to accusations being harbored on the other side of the large room, the change in tune causing people to make their way onto the dance floor, and merely lifts a goblet towards the royal family with a sudden big smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Baelor nods to him, fiddling with the rings on his fingers that match the gears turning in his head while Daeron sucks in a breath. You take it as a moment to pitch an idea as you face them once more.
“If we seek an audience with him privately, I can further prove his guilt on the matter at hand.”
Maekar rolled his eyes. “You are bluffing.”
“Enough, Maekar,” Daeron barked, clearly having enough of his little snippets. The Anvil snapped his mouth shut like a child who was scolded although it seemed like he inwardly grumbled under his breath before turning to look away. He turned to the Kingsguards flanking him on both sides, gesturing to one of them. “Ser Donnel.”
One of them steps forward, a handsome man in the customary gleaming all-white armor with short dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard. “Your Grace.”
“After everyone departs for the night escort Lord Hightower to my private chambers — tell him the Hand wants to meet with him and discuss important matters.”
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
Lord Hightower was not only a touch tipsy when he entered the solar as Daeron commanded but he also couldn’t fathom the sight of you standing beside the King, the Hand and the Heir’s Heir — like you were someone of important value.
You saw the disgust in his face, which he poorly tried to conceal, as Baelor gestured him to come closer. He bowed deeply as his eyes flickered to the attendant who stood off to the side with her head bowed and hands clasped, eyes shining with tears.
“Your Grace. My Princes,” he nods to three men of House Targaryen gathered before him, smelling faintly of alcohol, which garners everything in you to wrinkle your nose distastefully though you hold yourself back. Not the time.“What is the meaning of this?”
Baelor tilts his head carefully, studying the man before him. “Lord Hightower despite the whispers of your family’s involvement with House Blackfyre during the First Rebellion the Crown had dismissed those concerns because of the unwavering loyalty you have given to House Targaryen since you have become the governor of Oldtown in your father’s stead.”
Lord Hightower tips his head, humbled. “You flatter me, My Prince. I simply want to repair efforts that have seemed to befall my house in terms of many doubting our allegiance.”
“Unfortunately, I have received news that you have done otherwise.”
The man’s head flicks back up, confused. “What?”
You bring the dragon-carved goblet still full of the same wine with poison over to him, setting it down on the table right in front of him.
Lord Hightower’s eyes widen, face growing taut as he speculates the sight before him. “What is the meaning of this?”
“Do you care to explain what this is, My Lord?” Baelor asks, coldly, anger struggling not to bubble into his collected expression.
Even after the tears written on the royal attendant’s face, the fact that the Queen seemed alive and well when she departed to her bed chambers for the night mere hours before, and the matter of him was being brought an audience with the three leading royal members of the family, the foolish noble still had the galls to play the dumb act. “I do not know what you mean, My Prince.”
“That is a wine goblet served to my lady mother at dinner. One that has been identified with traces of poison and the intent to kill the Queen,” He leaned forward in his seat. “That is treason and the punishment for that is death. We already have a confession that you were the last one to tamper with the drink before paying the one who served it to give it to my mother. I should have you sent to be executed on the morrow but I am deciding to show you mercy if you confess and considering sending you to the Wall. I would caution you to choose carefully.”
It didn’t work. Instead, Lord Hightower grew outraged. “That is blasphemy, My Prince. Whatever nonsense you have been told is lies and I can prove it.”
“Then we will offer you the same choice that we did to woman who confessed of the crime at hand,” Baelor gestured to the drink, sitting before him on the polished wood table that is his desk. “Drink the wine.”
Lord Hightower hesitated, dark eyes moving over to you as you stood there quietly, before slowly making a move to grab the goblet with shaky hands. It reaches to mere inches below the chin before the act drops completely.
The dragon-carved chalice is wretched to the side, blood red wine spilling onto the floor, and he pulls a dagger strapped deep to the confines of his waist before anyone can move to stop him in time. He makes a move toward you, eyes ablaze in fury as he screeches something along the lines of “You Valyrian Witch! This is all your fault!”
Fortunate for you, combat was not entirely excluded from the matter of training in The Sisterhood.
You duck out of the way as he swipes the air with the blade with a sharp swing, before shoving hand at his jugular with enough strength that not only does it knock the air out of his lungs but also sends him stumbling back on his leather boots, hands flying to his neck as he coughs erratically.
Guards immediately swarm him on both sides and seize him while Valarr flocks so your side with a hand on his sword, prepped and ready, a protective act that causes your heart to flutter even when it was clear you were more than capable of protecting yourself.
The Hand sighs. “How disappointing that you chose this.”
“House Targaryen must burn!” Lord Hightower screeches as he thrashes “They allow Dornish people to swarm the royal court and have casted out Daemon Blackfyre — a true warrior — who is more deserving of the Iron Throne than a man who prefers books to swords.”
Daeron looked unfazed by such a traitorous declaration, probably because it was something that he has been hearing it his whole life. Yet, in a siege of annoyance, you spoke up in his stead.
“A kingdom cannot be ruled by brute strength alone, you impotent fool.”
A smirk struggled not to twitch on Valarrs lips, still lingering by your shoulder as he did his best to collect himself.
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
“How did you know?”
That was the first thing Valarr asked you after the two of you were dismissed by the Hand with a weary look in his eyes, who spoke of needing to talk with the King on the matters at hand, walking down the dimly lit hall followed by the sound of clinking metal that was the assigned guards following the both of you.
You tilted your head. “That it was poison? I had a vision.”
“When you smelled it,” The Young Prince stopped to look at you, causing you to do the same. “I thought Tears of Lys was clear in color and odorless to make it hard to distinguish.”
You hummed. “If one studies enough alchemy anything is noticeable. I was able to find traces of it still clinging to the side of the chalice. My theory is that Lord Hightower put the poison in the wine haste, an inexperienced man in such things despite the rumors surrounding House Hightower with their dapple of poisons.”
Valarr stares at you, little interest in hiding his amazement. “You are incredible.”
You did everything you could to fight the red from rising to your cheeks, thankful for the softer glow from the gleaming torches lighting and that fact that it was nightfall. “That is kind, My Prince.”
“That is the truth.”
You found yourself scoffing lightly in spite of yourself. “I fear the rest of the royal court does not share your feelings.”
“To the Seven Hells with them,” He stepped forward to grab your hand, his palms soft at touch despite the callouses on his fingers from the endless hours in the training yard practicing with his sword. “Will you teach me?”
“A prince who learns of alchemy and poisons from the Valyrian Witch?” Your eyebrows are raised. “Are you not worried of the rumors that will surround you once it is discovered?”
“I am not.” Valarr’s voice is firm with resolve. “I wish to learn many things from you, in truth. When we speak about the Doom, about Old Valyria, I feel connected to my ancestors. It is a comforting feeling.”
The confession softened you. You remembered feeling the same way as he did as a young child learning of the histories: of dragons, the lords, the house you were descended from because you had no concept of your lineage with the death of your mother and the absence of your father. The Sisterhood really was the only family you had.
“I felt the same when I was in training,” You ended up admitted to him — even if that was not a necessity. He was charming that way. “If My Prince wishes to learn I will teach you.”
“Just promise me one thing.”
You nod.
He keeps holding your hand, his thumb instinctively moving against the skin. “That you will forego the formalities from now and just call me Valarr.”
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
After that incident, it seemed that the royal family’s opinion of you had improved significantly.
The Queen gave you gifts in silks, ornaments, and dresses. She had learned of the customary attire as a member of The Sisterhood from her eldest grandson and had bejeweled head coverings and veils made for you to wear — a sweet gesture that also made you wonder just how Valarr had spoken of you to her. The King had decided to make you the official poison tester of all the meals for House Targaryen and Martell respectively, a task you did not mind because it actually gave you something to do besides researching in your spare time and apprenticing the Heir's heir on everything in terms of Old Valyria. As for Maekar, well, he hadn't warmed to you entirely (not yet) but he knew your were liked enough by his kin that it would be wise not to challenge you so openly.
At least, not as much.
It was then that you finally sent a letter by raven to the Head Lady of your successful endeavors. She had been pleased in her response, according the coded message behind her elegant scrawl of words you decoded privately every night. It was a method agreed upon before you left to sail for Westeros: the leaders had a feeling that your letters were to be intercepted at one point, by the Crown or someone else, and they were not wrong. She had encouraged you to proceed to next stage of the plan, no matter the costs, and while you wrote back being diligent and abiding there was a part of you that was hesitant. Seducing a man you had no tied feelings to was an easy task but attempting to seduce a man you had gotten to know and were slowly growing attached to was another matter entirely.
And that was what happens when one gets the opportunity to personally get to know a man like Valarr Targaryen.
The journey back from Ashford was nothing compared to the inner shell of the Young Prince that bore his soul to you the more time the two of you frequented together in private. If it wasn't in the royal library then it was the gardens or the training yard after he finished combat with the master-at-arms and sometimes, even your solar. The same prince who always was poised, elegant, collected, before people at royal petitions or dinners or tourney and nameday celebrations he was required to attend.
The amusing thing was that the two of you weren't attempting anything remotely scandalous. He was your pupil in many ways so you would spend all this time teaching him things you had known for years about his ancestors because he was hungry for the connection and then naturally, you would talk of other things. Like his family.
As time slipped by, you learned many things about House Targaryen because of Valarr. The dynamics of his father and uncles as well as him and all his cousins. The stories of his cruel cousin Aerion that seemed too entitled to even acknowledge your presence (unlike his older brother) who wasn't always a beast by nature and his little cousin Aegon that everyone called Egg, who was currently traveling the realm as a squire to the same hedge knight who had challenged the Brightflame. A small world — so it seemed.
Just as you expected word of Valarr frequenting a lot of his time with you seemed to spread. Eyes were wary and many were jealous, for currying favor with the grandson of the King was a gateway into cementing power for one's honorable house because it could lead to becoming in-laws with House Targaryen, especially since the prince was still unmarried.
A painful realization, you admitted to yourself, deep down.
You thought maybe you could fight whatever you were feeling and its growing power: become the calculated individual you were trained to be. But emotions were a powerful thing — one that would soon come to play and have you see that this was simply the beginning of it all.
based on this idea! a big thank you to @bornasfools for letting me cook — also the photos are not mine, credits to the owners <3 I said I would tuck this in my back-pocket for later but I had a vision and I quickly found I would not be content unless I wrote it down.
part 1 of ? cause it ended up getting too long
next part
warnings: slight use of gore, depictions & mentions of blood/magic/sorcery, major inspiration from bene gesserit in dune, reader is a descendant from house belaerys but looks are not specified except for hair being silver-gold, some outfit description, reader has visions but isn't a dreamer exactly, possible slow/slower burn, baelor does die but it is short-term don't worry <3
a/n: didn't think I would come back writing back on this blog, and for a different fandom for that matter, but here we are. excuse the shitty title and fact that the sisterhood is simply called that instead of something more I could literally think of nothing else. bold & italics are high valyrian for anyone who was wondering. hope you all enjoy and I am more than happy to write more pieces with this kind of reader if people want me to :)
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
After a long journey by sea, the site of the port at King’s Landing was a welcoming sight.
You had never been on a boat before, raised your whole life underground in the old ruins of Valyria as a member of The Sisterhood because the toxins following the Doom made the home of your ancestors uninhabitable. Shortly after boarding for your mission overseas, you had the unfortunate realization that you got violently sick after every crashing wave hit the boat. Seasickness, they called it. Whatever it was, it felt like death. You were left abed for many days on the journey, none of the healing practices you learned in your training seemed to suffice your upset stomach. By the time you arrived in Westeros the eagerness to be on dry land succumbed to your entire being that you nearly forgot about your initial fear of taking on this heavy-bearing task in the first place.
You never initially understood why you were chosen. You may have possessed all the abilities given to you in training as a member of The Sisterhood since you were a mere child: speaking languages fluently from many known forms of civilization in the world, a sharp mind engrained with the histories as well as the tense world of deadly politics, blood magic, and the art of absolute discretion, but it wasn’t like you were the most acute student or star pupil. To many you were simply another face in the sea of members and you were okay with that. The Sisterhood gave you enough to be fulfilled in your life: an enriching education, a community of women you have called both your sisters as well as your family, and a deeper purpose of fulfilling the ultimate prophecy of Azor Ahai that would lift the world out of darkness. So when you were summoned into the council room with all the leaders in the sect, standing in the middle like some prisoner on trial, you were incredibly confused.
Then the ruling leader of The Sisterhood, known as the Head Lady, confessed why they had chosen you for this mission.
“I had a vision,” She told you firmly, eyes ablaze beneath a silk gray veil that seemed to shift across the facial lines of her sharp face, surrounded by glimmering red beads and smooth nearly translucent pearls stitched in the customary lacy head shawls that everyone wore. “Azor Ahai will be born within the next few generations. She will lift us out of the darkness and bring back all the dragons we have lost. And she will come from your blood.”
While mesmerized with her words, you had also been very befuddled, since all the history books and knowledge surrounding this great prophecy had initially believed a man would be reborn as the Azor Ahai. You had mentioned it then but the Head Lady merely shook her head in response.
“The Valyrian Gods showed me the crucial pieces,” She stated further in High Valyrian, the first language and common tongue of The Sisterhood as a way to hold on to their roots. “A girl of silver-gold hair, cradling dragons to her chest like they were her newborn child, surrounded by salt and smoke under a red shooting star in the blackened sky. I saw you and the child swollen in your baby, blessed with the seed of a dragon prince. The boy you give birth to will lead the future of the Seven Kingdoms in Westeros. Your ancestors were members of House Belaerys who came to us to serve and now they have shown their true purpose for the cause: you.”
Her instructions have been clear and firm: disguised as a silent sister, you would infiltrate the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing, the home of the ruling family in Westeros. Within the next year you would travel to a tourney that would cause precious blood to shed, where you would reveal yourself and revive a man of honorable character with a promising future. Whatever transpired you must seduce the prince of House Targaryen with the silver streak in his air and give him a child because it was through his line. And whenever it happened, the gender had to be a boy.
“You must not attempt the Azor Ahai,” The Head Lady ordered, mouth firm and set as a thin line under the fabric of the veil that rippled across her face like sheer molten liquid. “It is too soon and a plan we have not prepared for. When you are pregnant, conduct the blood magic ritual and ensure that the child will be a boy. Only then will the prophecy ensure the utmost success.”
It was a terrifying burden to be put on your shoulders, one you now saw as something that was completely out of your control because it was decided because of your existence alone — by your lineage and bloodline. You had never met the mother who birthed you, for she died while you were a swaddling infant, and you had never encountered one of the many fathers selected by The Sisterhood to allow their faction to grow because of the blood magic ritual, which allowed the practitioner to choose the gender of the pregnant women’s offspring after making a blood sacrifice. All you had was the sisters who raised you, educated you, and the sisters-in-training who encounter the same obstacles as yourself and became members at your side.
The first few steps off the boat were a great deal more wobbly than you liked to admit. It took you a moment to collect yourself through deep breaths and calming routines, a sailor who had been on the boat with you for the past moon being kind enough to help you toward the entourage waiting to take you to the Great Sept until you found your proper footing.
The anxiety really started to shift when your caravan finally made its deep into the cress folds of the city — the sun dipping lower in the sky as dipped into hues of oranges, pinks, and deep reds. You did your best to remain calm and serene as the High Septon met you at the entrance of the lavishly crafted building, the dome decorated in hues of gold, silver and glass. He greeted you politely before showing you to your quarters and rattled off lightly about your daily routine, seeming proper and kind enough. More importantly, however, he seemed completely convinced of your act in servitude to the Stranger which was a welcoming relief in the believing nature of your abilities. You grew up studying the Faith of the Seven along many other religions in one of your required sessions back in the ruins of Old Valyria but it wasn’t until the mission was given to you that you truly doubled down on the mannerism, habits, and lifestyle of the adopted practices of a silent sister.
As it turns out, not being able to talk as a matter of chastity and piety in service to the Stranger turned out to be a blessing for you. It trained you to listen well to the gossip surrounding you as went about your business, which was summoning to prepare the noble dead a great deal more earnestly in the viperous world of the royal court than you may had initially realized. The next six months were dedicated to adjustment and observation: you interacted little with anyone but the silent sisters you were dispatched with in the castle and when you did stray from your somewhat menial tasks it was in covert operations donning a darkened cloak with a pulled hood. Any other person may have found the waiting act stifling but you had spent years training for this: you were raised to halt, calculate, and plan in silence, even if it took close to many years.
You didn't glimpse a member of the royal family until four moons in when you came to prepare the aging body of a dedicated lord who used to fight with two of the King’s sons during the First Blackfyre Rebellion. King Daeron’s eldest and youngest stood in solitude with their magnificent shrouds of black while the silent sisters moved about to prepare the body, which suffered a poisonous bite from a snake while the man was out hunting with his fellow lords and friends.
The sight of blood, organs, and having to boil off dead skin unbothered you because of all the healing practices and blood magic tricks you learned as a member of The Sisterhood (yet seasickness still got you, ashamedly) but you juggled the tough task of pretending you were completely immersed in your work and subtly peeking over to see if either of the royal members of House Targaryen bore the sole silver streak in their hair. Of the two the Hand and heir to the Iron Throne was the only one with dark hair and he had many silver strands decorating his receding hairline and thick yet neatly trimmed beard, which could only be a sign of older age if anything else. The other prince was entirely silver-gold in both the hair on his head and his beard, a common trait that could only allude to his Valyrian bloodline.
You went to bed that night feeling disappointed, wondering if the sign would be as clear as you believed it to be. So, under a soft bated breath, you very, very quietly prayed to the Valyrian Gods in your mother tongue for a clear sign as to complete the mission and ultimately, take the steps into saving the universe.
Then in the seventh moon, after one particular week of unbearable summer heat that left you practically drenched in sweat in the dark attire lined with cotton you always donned, you saw him.
He was in the training yard of the Red Keep, hard at work with the silver blade in his hand as he fought fiercely against the opposing knight. You were walking by in the direction to the private chambers of a noble who died peacefully in his sleep following old age when you glimpsed a sight of the beautiful man with cropped dark hair, dressed in a purple gambeson that brought out the lilac in his stunning two-toned eyes, the other one being dark brown. His skin was pale and freckled: his face bore a straight nose, high cheekbones, and a sharp jawline. But most of all there was a single silver hair streak — one that ran from the hairline on one side of his head down to the tendrils that wrapped behind his left ear.
While he wielded his sharp blade against his opponent in the training yard, you were struck with a vision that must have been sent from the Gods themselves. The same face smiling against your cheek as he cradled the child in your swelling belly. The same man who stood before you in the flame colored robes with a faint marking of blood on his forehead, a cut down the middle of his lower lip, and a knowing glint in his mismatched eyes while a priest recited High Valyrian in the background that echoed through the sound of choppy waves crashing against the shoreline of Dragonstone like some kind of chant.
You were overcome with a wave of emotions that sent you through a plethora of time and space in a way that was unlike everything you had experience before in the world of magic, sorcery, and firm belief in prophecies. Then another person called his name, a boy a few years younger with copper hair boring a sage green gambeson and a mischievous smile on his freckled cheeks.
“Valarr!”
The dreamy prince turned around with a reserved expression that went with his poised posture and allowed a small smile to curl at his lips at the sight of the redhead, causing something in your stomach to tumble in spite of itself.
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
You had ruminated in your room the weeks that followed, pouring over books you brought from home, trying and fighting to believe the fact that the one they call the Young Prince lingered on your mind was because he was the centerpiece of your mission rather than the fact that he was dreamy and chivalrous. You had willed and prayed that you would be granted another vision on how to navigate this journey now that the person of interest has been made clear but the results have been unsuccessful. In a brief moment of panic you debated writing to The Sisterhood only to scold yourself immediately afterwards. The Head Lady only wanted updates after your cover was revealed and you had been more successful on the path of endeavors sending a letter now would you expose your identity and most likely call for your head.
Then the answer came to you in a different way.
The Ashford Tourney was taking place at the end of the year and you were among the many selected silent sisters to attend with the royal caravan since an event full of jousting was to guarantee blood being spilled and even the occasional death of highborn standing. Once you were given your task you immediately knew that this was the next step of your mission. Someone of honorable character with a promising future would die at this event and it would be on you to revive him. But whether you would be convincing enough in the attempt would be entirely on your skillset.
A million things could go wrong in this bold phase of the mission: you could be deem a witch after you reveal yourself and be hung like a criminal, before or after you revive the man of honorable character, you could be sent away despite their appreciation for your endeavors in saving their future king, you could even be successful in it all and yet fail in seducing Valarr and giving him a child. It was all on you in that moment and you had to be calculative, prepared in the way you were taught in The Sisterhood in times of crisis.
You would not be a coward, you promised yourself. You would not let them down.
The journey to Ashford was long, longer than you realized it would be on foot. As a lower member of the Faith you were not given a ride so you walked the entire journey at the very back of the caravan. You spent most of your time watching, listening to guards make lewd jokes and sing bard songs that seemed to be very popular in Westeros. Westerosi culture was very interesting to you: it claimed to be one thing yet completely contradicted such practices in another. Humanity was a long spectrum of individuals that would always make mistakes despite the rules laid out for them but over the last nine moons of adapting to life in the Seven Kingdoms, you have seen more unsettling corruption among high position officials that were supposed to protect the weak and innocent than you ever wanted to see. In times like those it was hard to remain quiet but you knew if you stepped out of line and defended you would risk your identity being exposed.
The sight of the grassy land being hoisted by hundreds of colorful pavilions and an arena being set up in preparation for the tourney was both a welcoming sight and an unsettling one. After so many months of waiting, preparing for this moment, it had finally come and now you could only pray that you would find the right moment to complete the revival act on the right person.
You expected a full week of jousting, preparing dead bodies of noble men before sending them off to the afterlife in peace, and
However, you were quickly proven wrong after a mere few days.
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
A hedge knight struck a prince of Targaryen, everyone was saying, a new throng of gossip so outrageously popular it reached those serving the Faith themselves. A meeting was held with the accuser and the one they call the Brightflame demanded a Trial of Seven, an ancient tradition of the religion sect you had served in disguise for long enough that it sometimes felt that like you actually were one of them, with the winner being the ones deemed innocent by the gods.
“Aerion,” A squire scoffed in passing by the back entrance of the castle of Ashford, the seat of House Ashford that was being hosted for the royal family during the progress of this nameday celebration for the Lord Ashford's daughter. “Only he would do something so craven.”
“The hedge knight is the one in the wrong,” A stable boy argued by his side, trying to keep up with the other man's quick sense of space. “He struck a man of royal blood.”
“Boy. That cruel prince is scarcely any more of a man than you and I are.”
You had swapped your robes for your simple travel wear then, scouring the whole arena of stalls merchants set up to sell during the events under the guise of purchasing something when in actuality, you merely wanted hear all the gossip of what was going on since you couldn't exactly ask anyone when you were supposed to remain silent. The smallfolk had no problem brandishing details to anyone who asked and the nobles were worse but it in the end it didn't matter: it was a dangerous battle that would most likely get many people killed and you were going to have attempted what The Sisterhood called the resurrection, on the right man. And that absolutely terrified you.
You had only read about the practice. It was a kind of magic that took a lot of energy and the right pronunciation of certain words in High Valyrian. One mess up could be catastrophic and if it didn't work it would take awhile before it could be attempted again. There was a story of a sister who tried once and not only did it leave her with health problems the rest of her life but she had to wait a decade before she did again, a cautionary tale that hesitated many members in performing the rites unless they felt absolutely ready and confident.
You were neither of those things.
The morning of the tourney you paid a merchant a bag full of golden dragons to swap clothes with you, mainly because you couldn't fathom waiting in solitude while this all happened. If disaster struck it was going to be in front of your eyes alone. Pulling the hood of your cloak over your head to hide your face you weaved through the throng of bodies crowding by any space of posting on the outside of the arena. The rain from the night before had left the ground trampled and unbearably muddy — the air thick with fog and so damp with moisture that it left droplets on the fabric of your borrowed clothes.
You managed to squeeze into a space among the crowd that at an angle provided a clear enough view of the arena and the competitors so you could see what would occur in the time that followed. You saw knights in gleaming armor preparing themselves, recognizing the sigils from the books you poured over as a child about Westeros and all its noble houses.
It is there that you watched, with bated breath, as the hedge knight attempts to rouse the crowd with an inspiring speech so he can have one more man on his team to make the seven. He spoke true words, genuine ones, yet the societal structure of the realm would deem many to. But then the massive gates carved with the sun creak open and you hear the sound hooves rattling against the muddy ground, followed by a man's voice, speaking clear and proud:
“I will take Ser Duncan's side!”
The gasps that surrounded you at the sight of Prince Baelor Targaryen, the Hand and the heir of the Iron Throne, were loud and echoing. A man of royal blood siding against his own kin — why? That was the question everyone was mumbling among themselves as they turned to each other. Then one spectator among the group of people on the side of the arena you were in called aloud something profound. You didn't hear any of it, too lost in the sound of chaos slowly breaking around you as Prince Maekar Targaryen rode over to his brother and the hedge knight to demand the truth, except for one small piece:
“-the great and honorable Baelor Targaryen.”
Under the hood of your cloak, your body froze in spite of itself while your eyes widened.
An honorable character with a promising future.
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
The outcome of the battle was bloody and nearly victorious on the side of the accuser, that you were well aware of, but you didn't know Baelor died until hours later when the silent sisters were summoned.
You had changed back into your old clothes and assumed your position among members of the Faith like you had been there the whole time, a royal attendant entering the castle with a grim expression as he asked for the preparations of the burial worthy of a king. Since he was of fire and blood there was very little the sect that served the Stranger could do: his body would burn in the flames of his armor.
Or his son's armor.
Valarr had come to the room by himself to watch as the silent sisters worked, dressed in all black and bearing a grim expression. The tourney was the first time you saw him since and whenever you were able to catch a glimpse of him you found that he was always serious and reserved, polished and collected without so much of a second thought. People at the royal court would talk as you passed them or worked in the background and said that he was bold and full of promise. Everyone would believe he had the makings to be a great future king — after Baelor of course.
Now, in the dim light of the dark surrounded only by woman who served the Stranger, he seemed like a shaken gray shell of himself. If you weren't too busy plotting your next move in that moment you would silently grieve for him because the realm may have lost a But you were going to prevent that.
If he believed you.
The Young Prince quietly uttered for the dismissal of the silent sisters, leaving all of them to shuffle out of the room with great haste, yourself included. However, instead of following the other women back to your quarters you turned and posted yourself just outside the doorway as you remained still and silent in the darkness of the hallway.
For a long time the Targaryen prince said nothing. You waited for something, anything, before you finally heard his voice finally breaking:
“Oh, Father.”
You felt guilty witnessing a vulnerable moment, listening to his sobs and cries as heard the heavy thumping at what you guess was knees hitting the cold stone floor. But you were running out of options. You needed to talk to this prince, alone, and convince him to let you preform the ritual before the funeral happened. The body was scheduled to be burned on the morrow and once it rescinded to ash there was nothing more you could do. Valarr was your key into this: convincing the new 'heir' to the Iron Throne would give you enough protection to have him hold off the guards and other concerned individuals long enough until you could finish the revival ritual.
If you could successfully finish the ritual.
Fucking Hells. Fucking Hells. Fucking Hells.
You squeezed your eyes shut. You could do it: you had to do it. It was for The Sisterhood, for the cause of the greater good of the world.
For the prophecy.
You sucked in a sharp breath, steeling to collect yourself with any ounce of strength you had left, and slowly moved from the shadows to step into the room. Valarr's dark shadow remained slumped over his father's pale, dead body but he seemed to still at the mere presence of you as you stepped into the room. It was only when you paused before taking another step as he began to speak with a voice brimming with unbridled anger, still facing away from you.
“I thought I told you I wished to be alone with my lord father.”
You bowed your head. “I require an urgent word with you, My Prince. It is of the upmost importance.”
Valarr turned to look over at you, two-toned eyes rimmed red from all the recent crying, gaze growing taut at the sight of a silent sister speaking so freely to him when they are known to make a vow to remain silent along with the chastity. Not to mention the matter of you speaking to him alone. You knew what he was thinking: death. You had come to kill him.
He quickly reached for the blade strapped to his belt but you were quicker. You lunged and pulled the beautiful sword out of his scabbard before his hands could firmly grasp the item, the action causing a light sound of unsheathed metal, and swung it around skillfully enough to point the end towards him.
Valarr dark brown eye twitched angrily as he assumed the defense position. The tip of the sharp blade pointed toward his chin as he begrudgingly held up his hands. “Whatever you wish of me please be done of it quickly. I have already lost enough.”
If this was any other situation such words would tug at your heart, filling you with incredible weight. However you sighed, feeling exasperated despite knowing how unreasonable it was. He was grieving and confused: it was only right he felt this way considering everything that was going on.
“I am not here to hurt you.”
The Targaryen prince's face scrunched in confusion before he demanded the next question. “How do you know High Valyrian?”
You pulled the headdress of the silent sister's attire off your head, revealing a head full of gleaming silver-gold hair. Up until the tourney you had been using Tyrosh dyes you were given by the Head Lady to color your hair black since the Valyrian features were extremely noticeable in Westeros because they were very uncommon, unlike Essos. You had washed your hair shortly before the journey to Reach and had kept completely it concealed since with the highest sense of discretion.
Valarr's two-toned eyes widened in shock as you angled your head up proudly. “I am of the blood of Old Valyria. It is my mother tongue.”
The end of the Young Prince's dark eyebrows scrunch together. “Are you from Essos?”
You nodded. He exhaled shakily, the blade still pointed to him cautiously, though to lowered now to his stomach. “Why is a woman from one of the Free Cities here with her blade, threatening a prince of the realm?”
“It is a means to get you to listen to me without resorting to madness,” You argued, nodding to the sword still tightly in your grasp. “And I am not from the Free Cities.”
“Then where else would you be from?”
“The ruins of Old Valyria.”
A dark laugh slipped out of Valarr’s lips. “Old Valyria is gone because for the Doom. It is no longer uninhabitable.”
“That you know of.”
If Valarr wasn't confused before, he definitely was now.
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
It took a moment to talk Valarr off a block that had him calling for guards with a mere yell.
What you told him understandably concerned him and so you had to find a convincing point that talked him off this hypothetical ledge that would send you to your death and that took way longer than you would have liked.
By the time things calmed down considerably the two of you found yourselves sitting on the floor in the room, the candles burning well past their prime as they dripped close to the end of their time. The sword lay forgotten on the other side of the room, dangerously close to the stone table where Baelor's body still lay. Somehow, in all of this, the matter of discussing this before a dead body was the least of both of your concerns at present.
Valarr sat beside you with an absolutely befuddled expression, running a hand through his short dark hair while his opposing arm rested on his propped knees, looking charmingly boyish as he contemplated what you just told him.
“This still doesn't make any sense.”
You sighed. “It doesn't have to make sense. I merely need you to take my word for it.”
“How can I?” He turned to look at you in almost an accusatory manner. “Rescerructing my father? That is the kind of magic that gets people killed.”
“In the Seven Kindoms.”
The Young Prince raised an eyebrow. “Do the Free Cities allow such magic?”
“Many places in Essos do,” You scoffed. “People are not bound by all these rules like the ones who live in Westeros here. Magic is still very much a mystery but it is taught in places like Maureen and Valyria. Even respected.”
“Not here,” Valarr stated. “If you attempt the matter before the funeral starts you will be seized and executed.”
“Which is why I need you to hold the guards off until I complete the resurrection ritual.”
The prince looked at you pointedly. “And why would I do that?”
“Because deep down, I think you would seize any opportunity to bring your father back.”
Valarr debated your words for a moment, eyes tracing every inch of you as he studied who you were as well as your intentions while you shifted lightly under the heat of his gaze. “Have you ever done it before?”
You could have lied to him then, pulled the manipulation strategies the Sisterhood taught you whenever it came to infiltrating civilization and political groups. But you looked at this prince, this man, who was grieving the loss of his father as any human would and you found that in that moment you simply could not do it. You did not want to get his hopes up only to crush it all in a moment’s notice because you failed the mission.
“I have read about it and studied the practice .”
His jaw clenched tightly. “Then why should I trust you?”
“It would be wiser if you didn’t,” You admitted honestly, clasping your hands in your lap and turning to look at him once more. “But then again, what do you have to lose?”
After much argument, speculation, and debate, the two of you eventually reached an agreement: he would let you preform the ritual and if you failed you would give your life, since in the end you would rather die than return to the Sisterhood after failing your mission.
You desperately hoped this would work.
┊ ➶ ｡˚ °
The morning of the funeral was a dull gray and the sickest your stomach has felt since you were on the boat sailing through the Narrow Sea.
The ceremony was halted until late morning after everyone had broken fast in the castle. Now disguised as a septa, courtesy of the prince and his boundless connections, you lingered at the back of the royal family and other highborn nobles who would attend the burial site.
Valarr kept his word: he held off the burning of his father’s body as late as he could, to the point where his family was starting to get very irritated.
“Do not give your father the dishonor of this,” you heard Maekar lightly scold him, purple eyes hard with tension while the lines on his grumpy face seemed to only grow deeper since he found out the death of his brother. “You are the heir now, Nephew. Don’t be foolish.”
It was after that comment when Young Prince had finally turned to acknowledge him — two-toned eyes burned like hot ambers that seemed to show a fraction of the dragon blood he possessed. “Uncle, I think out of everyone it is wise that you speak little of this matter.”
So Maekar said nothing more after that.
The procession was held in haste of the unexpected tragedy among a set of grassy hills in the Reach, a small crowd of highborn and royalty gathering as they waited for the presiding septon to begin his funeral rites. However before he could even begin you began your move.
“Stop the funeral.”
Everyone turned to face you, seeing you dressed in the robes of the septa, as you made your way before everyone. You turned to face them all like a priest sent from the heavens above.
“By the will of the gods I will restore this man and bring him back to life.”
The bold words, as you predicted, sent confusion spreading across the nobility like a plaguing disease. Whispering became rampant and everyone turned to look at each other.
“Father what is this?” Little Prince Aegon turned to glance up at his father in confusion, tears still swimming in his eyes, no doubt involving the recent death of his uncle. “What is she saying?”
“It is nothing,” Maekar was quick to dismiss turning to the men-at-arms in polished black and red armor. “Seize her.”
None of them moved. The whiskers on the prince’s beard twitched as he glared at them, irritated.
“Are you all deaf? Obey your prince this instant and seize this craven woman!”
“You will do no so thing.” Valarr stepped confidently forward, blocking the path between you and the crowd, his uncle in particular. “This woman is trained in the ancient Valyrian practices that can revive my father and she is going to attempt the ritual to resurrect him.”
A flurry of gasps and shocked looks splintered through the small crowd as you made your way to the body in the center. Yet the one they call the Anvil was not having it.
“How dare you?!” He sneered, lunging for you only to be blocked by Valarr, who struggled to keep him in place. Maekar turned to look at him in shock, betrayed. “Valarr what have you done?”
“The Gods presented me with an opportunity and I am taking it,” The Young Prince explained coolly. If he was doubting his decision at all like he was when he was talking to you the night before it did not reflect in his face and demeanor. A truely collected prince of the realm. “The woman agreed to pay with her life should she fail at achieving the resurrection.”
“What did you do?!” His uncle roared once more, strong enough to easily shove Valarr back without so much of a second thought. The heir’s heir stumbled to the ground as the remaining Kingsguard took his place in holding back the older, forced to use size in numbers as to hold him back. Maekar turned to the men that were supposed to serve and protect the royal family and struck a deadly look at each of them as he fought against their iron grip. “Stop this! Unhand me at once!”
“Forgive us, My Prince,” One of them said, bowing his head. “Without the king here Valarr holds authority as next-in-line to the Iron Throne.”
The grumpy man scoffed distastefully in response, though it did little to sway him from fighting against their impossibly tight grasp.
There is was scarcely any time to think, much less be afraid. You had to act fast before Maekar lost his grip and stumbled forward with the intention of killing you in a sense of blind fury. So you got to work immediately.
You pulled out your items from a small pouch you brought on the journey over to Westeros and started without so much of a second thought, mumbling the incantation in High Valyrian quickly and clearly as possible. You heard senses of fear spiking behind you, unrest trickling through the small group of highborns as Valarr barked orders to the men-at-arms to spread out and keep everyone at bay. You focused entirely on your work, repeating the steps in your head like a mantra over and over as your hands worked quickly across the prince's dead body.
The final step was the blood slit from your arm as an offering to the Valyrian Gods which you smeared on Baelor's nose. Then you said the final words and waited, which was the most anxiety-inducing part.
For a moment there was nothing and you believed yourself a failure. The one they call the Breakspear was impossibly frozen, gray in skin, and very much dead. Your heart sank, believing you had failed and would have to pay the price with your head.
Then Prince Baelor gasped: eyes flying open, the color returning his skin as he stumbled to sit up in a flurry of coughs. You grabbed his arm to help steady him, hardly believing the sight with your very own eyes.
You did it, gods willing. It actually worked.
For the first time that whole morning since dawn had broke everyone had gone completely silent and behind you, you heard Valarr cry aloud in High Valyrian:
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synopsis: You and Chris deal with the aftermath of Adrian and Emilia leaving in the middle of the night. Adrian realizes what his mistake has cost him.
tags/warnings: 18+ MDNI, omegaverse dynamics, alpha!Adrian, omega!reader, reader and Chris being besties, Adrian killing someone (of course) but also being captured and drugged and going a little feral
word count: 4.2k
notes: If all goes according to plan, the next chapter will be the last!! Not sure yet if it will come next week or the week after, I'm still working on it <3 Thank you @snowyathena and @embeanwrites for listening to me as I struggle through these last few parts they've been hard to write!!
Masterlist | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten | eleven | twelve | thirteen | fourteen | fifteen
When you wake up to an empty bed, it doesn’t take you long to figure out that Adrian is gone. Less than ten seconds, actually. You reach for him, still half asleep. Things have been tense the last few days, since you fought, but you’re ready to forget about it. He’s been standing right beside you, but you miss him, and you hate it, the way he feels so far away. You want his warmth pressed up against you from head to toe, you want his strong arms to wrap around you, you want his breath tickling the back of your neck as he curls around you from behind.
But your seeking hand, instead of landing on your Alpha’s chest, lands on cold, empty sheets. You shoot up in bed.
Adrian never, ever gets out of bed before you. Even if you sleep in an extra hour or two, he’ll lay there with you, whether he’s tracing absentminded patterns on your skin or fucking around on his phone or playing a game on his Switch.
Did he even come home last night? you think. Your heart plummets to the floor at the thought of him bleeding out in a dark alley, stabbed or shot on patrol. He’s strong, he’s skilled, but—anything can happen. Being Vigilante is dangerous, you’ve always known it’s dangerous, but fuck, he always comes home to you whyishenothome—
You scramble for your phone, plugged in on your nightstand, and call him. When it goes to voicemail, you feel like you’re going to throw up.
Adrian has never not answered the phone. He tells you all the time—call me if you need me. And he’s been true to his word. He always answers, in that giddy voice, where you can tell he’s smiling as he talks even when you’re not looking at his face.
Something is very, very wrong.
“Fuck,” you whisper.
You call again. And again. And again. You text him, too.
Omega 💙: Did you come home last night?
Omega 💙: Adrian?
You bite your lip and keep typing, your thumbs flying across the keyboard. Is he still angry at you? He’s never done this before. Not answered you. Normally he responds in less than a second.
Omega 💙: I thought we were doing better after we fought why did you disappear on me?
Something nags at you. Fuck. What if he’s hurt? What if he’s injured and he can’t answer the phone? What if he needs you? You bring up your text thread, but when you go to click on the GPS tracking, the usual button isn’t there. Your heart beats even faster, stomach churning with anger and worry in equal measures.
Did you disable your location????
Here I am trying to check on you and make sure you didn’t fucking die in a dark alley on patrol last night
Are you hurt??
ANSWER THE PHONE
You try seven more times before you give up and call Chris instead, stumbling out of bed and getting yourself haphazardly dressed in a rush, ready to run out to the streets and look for your Alpha, unable to stop imagining all the possibilities. The worst-case scenarios. He could be bleeding out in the street, all while you’ve been safe and warm in bed, and—
Chris picks up the phone.
“Hey,” he says, and he sounds exhausted. “I was just about to call you.”
On a normal day, you would take a moment to check in on him, make sure he’s alright. But right now—you don’t have the emotional bandwidth to spare.
“Chris,” you say, your voice a little wobbly. “Adrian is gone. I woke up and he wasn't in bed. I don’t think he came home from patrol last night.”
There’s silence on the other end of the line for a brief moment. Then Chris says, louder and angrier than you’ve ever heard him, “FUCK.”
The furious noise he makes startles you. You nearly drop your phone.
“Chris?” you say nervously. “Chris, what’s—”
“Emilia is gone too,” he says. “I can’t fucking believe them—both of them—god fucking damnit, I expect this shit from Adrian, but Emilia? What the hell is she thinking?”
Chris is ranting so fast you can barely follow.
“Hang on–what—” You feel like you’re going to vomit, your mind immediately fixating on the worst-case scenario. “You don’t think Sullivan—” You swallow past the growing lump in your throat, tears welling in your eyes at the thought. “You don’t think he got them?”
You’ve been tracking down every person you could find from Sullivan’s company and killing them. There had been no signs yet that they’d caught on, but—if they did, if they’ve started hunting you down in return—your heart thunders. You shoot off another frantic text to Adrian.
Adrian I don’t care if you’re still upset about our fight let me know if you’re fucking ALIVE please
Alpha please
“No,” Chris says. “I don’t think Sullivan got to them. I think the exact opposite.”
“What—” But then your brain finally catches up, and you feel like you’re going to throw up again, for an entirely different reason. “They didn’t.”
“They did,” Chris says bitterly. “They absolutely did. Emilia told me late last night she forgot something at the office. I thought she was acting weird, but I trusted her. Apparently, I shouldn’t have, because I woke up and she was still gone. They went to Star City without us.”
“No,” you say, but even as you say it—fuck. You know exactly how anxious Adrian has been about everything going on. And he’s pulled shit like this before—taken things into his own hands, too impatient to wait for backup. You’ve scolded him for it dozens of times, long before you he was ever even an Alpha.
That address that John found—it’s like loading a gun and leaving it just out of reach. You know your Alpha. He wouldn’t be able to resist.
“They went to Star City,” you whisper furiously. “Fucking hell, Chris, what are we going to do?”
Chris lets out a long, tired breath.
“Meet me at the office in an hour. I’ll call the others. We’ll make a plan,” he says. “Keep trying Adrian’s number. You’ve got him fucking whipped. He might pick up eventually, if you guilt trip him enough.”
“Trust me,” you say darkly. “I will be guilt tripping him plenty.”
As soon as you hang up, you send another furious stream of messages.
You son of a bitch
I just talked to Chris and Emilia is gone too
Where the FUCK are you I KNOW you’re together
If you’re doing what I think you’re doing I am going to kick your fucking ass
Then the anger subsides, just for a moment, replaced with an all-consuming fear. Yes, he’s doing something stupid right now, so incredibly fucking stupid, but it’s also dangerous, and god forbid—an angry, overwhelmed tear streaks down your cheek. You don’t want that to be the last message you ever send to him.
Please don’t do anything stupid
Please come home
As you shove your feet into your shoes and grab your keys, ready to speed as fast as you can to the office to meet up with Chris, you type one last message.
I love you.
Your phone buzzes in your hand as you close the door to the apartment and your heart skips a beat. You open the text thread with shaking fingers.
ERROR: Message not delivered.
“He turned his phone off,” you say, as you stomp into the office, throwing your things atop Adrian’s desk and putting your hands on your hips. Your eyes blaze with fury, and a few of the others shrink away from you, like you’re going to explode any minute and they’re going to be collateral damage.
“Emilia too,” Chris says, just as pissy. He holds up his phone. “Straight to voicemail, and my texts aren’t going through.”
Ads hisses a breath in through her teeth. John rubs over his face with his palm, his own frustration evident. “Okay. What’s the plan?”
“The plan is, we keep the original plan,” Fleury says, clearly trying to remain a calm voice of reason. “We wait for Rip and Sasha to get back in a couple days, and then we go after them.”
“I’m not fucking waiting around,” Chris says. “I was willing to do it before. But these two fucking impatient idiots—”
Your eyes widen a little. You’ve never heard Chris speak about Emilia this way. He’s clearly hurt and angry that his mate would take action like this right under his nose.
You can relate. It’s not just that Adrian went off and ignored the plan set by the rest of the pack. It’s that he didn’t tell you. It’s that he promised he would see you later when he got back from patrol, and told you he loved you, and walked out of your apartment knowing he wouldn’t be back that night at all. He lied to your face.
“I’m not waiting either,” you say. “I’m packing my shit and I’m going after them.”
“It’s not a good idea,” Ads protests. You and Chris turn your glares on her, but instead of backing down, she stands up from her desk chair and plants her feet. “No. I don’t want to hear your shit. I know you are both freaking out right now. Your mates are going after the enemy, alone. But you going after them, interrupting whatever plan they’ve put into action—you’re just going to get them hurt if you burst in and distract them.”
Her words sink in. “I don’t want Adrian to get hurt,” you say, and the tears that have been threatening to spill over since you woke up to an empty bed this morning start to fall in earnest. Ads walks over and grabs your hands.
“Adrian is capable,” she reminds you. “Emilia is capable. Yes, it would have been fucking nice if they had been patient, or forthcoming about what they planned to do, but they are good agents, and they are working together. They’ll be okay.”
Chris’s jaw ticks.
“So what are we supposed to do?” you ask, your voice cracking. “I can’t just sit around, Ads. I can’t. I am so tired of sitting around.”
To your surprise, it’s John who speaks up.
“We do exactly what we originally planned to do today,” he says. “I was able to track down a floor plan of their warehouse. Fleury and I will go over it, plan a route in and out. The rest of you pack and get ready to leave. Especially since we’ll probably be leaving sooner than we originally planned.”
You look at Chris. He meets your eyes, still tense, but he nods quietly.
“I’ll keep trying her phone,” he says quietly. “You keep trying Adrian’s. One of them has to answer at some point.”
It’s much later that night, and you’re all still at the office, nursing a cold Redbull in the break room. You fucking hate Redbull. Adrian loves it. He lives on the shit. He’s got a whole box of them in the communal fridge, a sticky note taped to the box that says VIGILANTE - DO NOT TAKE (I’M LOOKING AT YOU ECONOMOS).
You stole one anyway. You’re trying desperately not to fall asleep. When you take a sip, it tastes like him. You always get a slight hint of fruit punch when he kisses you after he gets back from patrol.
Your phone lies face-up on the table in front of you, and you’re staring at it, willing it to ring, or buzz, or do something before the last three percent of its battery life disappears.
You’ve done everything you can to keep busy all day, but it didn’t stop you from checking your phone every five seconds. You’ve called Adrian a hundred times, and it keeps going to voicemail. Your messages are still undelivered. Your phone is about to die, you’ve used it so much today, and all to no avail.
Chris walks in not long after you and reaches for the coffee maker. There’s brown liquid swishing around in the pot, but it’s not hot enough anymore. Ads had made it hours ago. He pours himself a cup anyway, takes a sip, and frowns at it.
“Steal one of Adrian’s Redbulls,” you say dryly. “He fucking deserves it.”
For maybe the first time that day, the corner of Chris’s mouth quirks up, and he does exactly what you recommend, ripping into the cardboard box in the fridge and chugging down half the energy drink right off the bat.
“What are we going to do with them?” he asks, plopping down across from you at the table.
“I don’t know,” you say honestly. “I really, really don’t.”
Your anger has been festering all day, but so has your worry. Whenever Adrian gets back, you’re not sure if you’re going to slap him or kiss him. Probably both.
“I just—” Chris starts, but he freezes, cutting himself off. Then you hear it. The soft buzzing, muted inside his pocket. Your eyes go wide, heart leaping inside your chest. Hope.
“Is it—”
He knocks over his half-drunk Redbull on the table in his haste to pull his phone from his pocket, leaving a sticky, sugary mess that neither of you care enough to clean up. You just stare at the screen.
Incoming call: Emilia
“Answer it, Chris,” you say desperately, and he does.
“What the fuck,” is the first thing he says. You can’t hear whatever Emilia says on the other end of the line, but Chris’s facial expression shifts—anger, confusion, worry, confusion again.
You grip your drink so tightly the aluminum crumples in your fist.
“Put it on fucking speaker,” you demand, but then the phone is falling away from his ear.
“She’s five minutes out,” he says.
“They’re coming back?” Your heart skips, and a massive wave of relief washes over you. A spark of anger follows immediately after. Adrian’s okay, you tell yourself, and now that you know that—you finally allow yourself to be really fucking mad. “Oh my god, I’m going to fucking kill him.”
You chuck your drink in the trash as you stomp out of the break room. Chris tries to say something, but you’re seeing red, practically running toward the front door of the office, ready to tackle Adrian the second he walks in. Ads, John, and Fleury look up as you fly past them, quickly scrambling after you. It’s clear something is going on.
The glass door slams open as you shove it, just in time to see the van pull into the lot. You’re breathing heavy now, angry tears clinging to your eyelashes, hands clenched into fists so tight that you think your nails might break skin on your palms.
Then Emilia gets out of the van. You feel Chris go tense beside you. He’s happy to see her, you know, but he’s still angry. He has every right to be, just like you do.
Then she starts walking toward the group, a grim look on her face. Everyone stares right back at her, varying levels of relief and anger and looks of betrayal crossing all of your faces.
You look over her shoulder at the van. It’s gone dark. The lights are off. Something is wrong. You inhale, as deep as you can.
You can’t scent Adrian.
Emilia stops right in front of you and Chris, alone. You try to breathe, but every inhale makes the wrong feeling worse, because you can’t scent your Alpha whyishenotwithher—
“Emilia,” you say, deadly calm despite the way your voice shakes. “Where the fuck is Adrian.” It’s not a question. It’s a demand.
She looks at you, hesitant to even speak, but she opens her mouth anyway. And before she even says it, you know.
When Adrian jerks awake, he’s still lying on the floor surrounded by crumbled drywall and pieces of broken vent. A jostling movement woke him—his neck jerking back and forth, someone tugging. They’re gripping the bottom edge of his mask, trying to rip it off.
Furious panic floods through him when he realizes what’s happening. He reaches for a knife, a gun, anything on his utility belt. His movements are a little sluggish, his vision blurry, his head foggy. He tries to blink it away. He remembers the sharp sting of pain at the back of his neck. They drugged him.
When his gloved hand settles on the familiar grip of a gun, though, he falls back on instinct. Fucking idiots. They didn’t even disarm him. After years of training, of honing his body for this exact purpose, it’s not difficult, even though a drug-induced haze, to draw the weapon, point it behind him at the asshole who’s trying to unmask him, and shoot.
It all happens in seconds. The man doesn’t even cry out, his body just hits the floor, dead. He never even realized Adrian woke up. But there are other voices that do cry out, surprised shouts, and their hands are on him in seconds.
Adrian grunts when they grab him from behind. He doesn’t think, just pulls the trigger again, adding to the unfolding chaos. But they’re gripping his arms, holding them down to his side. The bullet hits the floor and ricochets into a wall. Then another pair of hands are on him, then another. Three people try to hold him down while he kicks and screams and jabs his elbows.
“No—” he grunts. “Get your fucking hands off of me, you piece of shit—”
He winces as someone finally manages to grab his mask from the top of his head, yanking it off and taking a few strands of his curls with it. He blinks, like he always does, his eyes adjusting from the red visor to the light of the room. The place is shitty and falling apart, but the lights are bright and fluorescent, and he squints for a moment.
Adrian manages to focus on the man in front of him, eyes burning with hatred even as his vision swims from the drugs in his system. He feels someone yanking on his wrists, tying them together behind his back. They shove him to his knees while Leon Sullivan watches, scowling right in front of him, arms crossed.
“Vigilante,” he says darkly.
Adrian spits at his face, but he’s too far away. It misses. Damn.
“Fuck you,” he says anyway. Some very small part of him feels satisfied, that at the very least, he got to say those words he’d imagined spitting at his enemy dozens of times over the last few months.
Sullivan’s eyes land on his neck. On his mark. And for just a brief moment, his eyes go wide with surprise before he schools his expression.
“I see,” he says. “That pretty little Omega found herself a mate, did she?”
“Don’t you fucking talk about her,” Adrian grits out, tugging at his restraints, but they only grow tighter, his hands tingling as blood struggles to circulate to his fingers. “I swear to fucking god, you piece of shit, you—”
“You killed one of my agents,” Leon Sullivan says, looking down at Adrian’s form crumpled on the floor.
He hates it, the way this asshole is looking down his nose at him. But when he tries to stand up, he can’t. He just barely stops himself from tripping, moments away from his head from slamming into the floor. There are hands on his shoulders, holding him down, and he hears a click. A gun cocked, resting right at the back of his head. He freezes.
“You’re an Alpha,” Sullivan states. Adrian looks up at him, his jaw set, and doesn’t say a word. “Our intelligence records have you listed as a Beta.”
“Fuck you,” Adrian says again.
“Are those the only words they trained you how to say?” Sullivan smirks. “What a piss-poor guard dog you are. They ought to teach you some new tricks.”
“I could kill you with anything in this fucking room,” Adrian says. “Got a fucking paperclip? I’ll show you, asshole.”
Sullivan steps closer, taunting him, just out of reach. “What do you think this is, a James Bond movie? Aren’t you supposed to be a lethal killing machine, Vigilante?” He laughs. “Spying in the vents. Fucking amateur. We were going to capture her, your Omega. But I’m sure you heard all that while you were eavesdropping.”
“If you lay a fucking hand on her, I will kill you and everyone you have ever loved—” A growl wrenches up Adrian’s throat, an involuntary, almost feral noise, when he imagines it. Imagines you, tied up like this in the corner of this shitty, damp, moldy room instead of him. Imagines Leon Sullivan’s hands on your skin, touching the edge of your mating mark the way he touches Adrian’s.
“I don’t need her anymore,” Sullivan says. “Not now that I’ve got you. See, if any one of my idiotic employees managed to get themselves captured by the enemy, they’d be on their own. I’d leave them to their deaths. But you and the rest of your pack are soft-hearted dimwits. They’ll come to your rescue. Especially that Omega of yours. And we’ll be ready.”
A cold fear sinks down to Adrian’s bones, because he knows that Sullivan is right. His pack will come for him. You will come for him.
“If you hurt her,” Adrian hisses, “I will rip your fucking head off.”
“Oh I won’t hurt her,” Sullivan says, a sick smile growing on his face. “I’ll kill everyone else, but I think I might keep her for myself. After all, once you’re gone—she’s going to need a new Alpha, won’t she? Such a pretty little Omega. I’ve always wanted one of those.”
Adrian roars. His pupils are blown so wide with anger that they don’t even look human anymore. “Keep your filthy hands off my Omega—”
The barrel of the gun that’s been resting on the back of his head shifts away, and Adrian is ready to take advantage of the moment before the butt of the weapon whacks across the back of his skull with a sickening crack. Adrian doesn’t go down, though. He barely even registers it, so lost to his own rage, at the thought of this slimy bastard putting his hands on you, when you belong to him.
“She’s mine!” he rages, eyes wild, and three agents all fall on him, keeping him held to the ground. He’s nothing but fury and animal instinct, every muscle in his body straining, teeth itching to bite, ready to get up and fight, to defend, to protect, to kill this son of a bitch—
“Two needles this time,” Sullivan says to the man standing next to him. “Now that we know he’s an Alpha, up the drug dose to compensate. And mix in the good stuff, won’t you? What we were planning to use on the girl.”
Adrian keeps straining, growling, pupils blown wide with anger, but even as strong as he is, three other black-ops agents are too much for him. The needle stings again, jabbing right into his skin, and he feels it, the way his strength saps away in an instant.
“You won’t be metabolising it so quickly this time, so I’d give it up,” Sullivan says smugly.
He grits his teeth and silently fumes. He wishes he could maintain his death glare, but fuck, whatever they dosed him with makes him immediately nauseous. He can barely hold himself upright now, it’s just the bruising grip of the people keeping him restrained. He squeezes his eyes shut to stop the room from spinning and takes a deep breath to try to calm himself.
Something’s wrong. It takes him a moment to put his finger on it, but as he sucks in another breath, his heart thunders with a strange kind of panic.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” he says. He can’t scent himself. He keeps sucking in air, every breath faster and shallower than the next until he’s on the verge of hyperventilating, hoping to prove himself wrong, waiting to catch a whiff of his own scent on the air, but there’s just—nothing.
He smells like he used to before. Before the ambush. Before you got hurt. Before he presented. He smells like a Beta.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” he shouts, his voice fried with desperation. Because—whatever the fuck this is, if it’s—if he’s not an Alpha anymore, if—he can’t help his thoughts from spiralling. What if it never comes back what if I was wrong what if I’m not really an Alpha what if you won’t want him anymore—
Sullivan’s smile looks practically evil now.
“Your pack will come to rescue you,” Sullivan says. “Including that precious Omega of yours. But we’ll be long gone by then. And they won’t be able to track you by scent, thanks to that blocker.” His smile looks practically evil now. “They’ll never find you now. But when they get here, we’ll be ready. And I will make sure every last one of them fucking dies.”
