Bastards, Dragons and Royals: Home
Valarr Targaryen x Dragonseed!reader
Part five
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."
Valarr looked offended. "I'm standing perfectly normally."
"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.
Your loving son, Baelor

















