Edel

"They despise each other." Tim reminds for the fifth time.

"I am aware.” Dick mutters, thumb scrolling through his contacts list. "What did I say about hacking my contacts list, Best Robin?"

"You didn't say anything about that specifically." Tim's foot taps impatiently against the tiles. “And why'd you think that contact name was meant for the demon spawn—never mind, that's besides the point right now. She's clearly disoriented.”

“I just have a gut feeling.” Pressing the phone against his ear, Dick runs a habitual tug over his locks whenever another situation pops up that he has to solve. Being in this line of work is bound to give him early greys.

"A gut feeling." Tim huffs, shaking his head in disagreement. “We better hope this doesn’t start another scuffle. Wouldn't want to toss another bone to the press. 'Blood son of Bruce Wayne attacks hospital patient'. I can already smell the print.”

Dick's frown sticks as he eyes you through the open door frame, laying in a hospital bed—unconscious ever since your first waking. The dots aren't connecting, not when the soot from the explosion still singes the edges of his jacket and his mind is all fuzzed up from a lack of sleep and endless documents. Still, the world had a knack for surprising him whenever he least expects it.

The ringing on the other side stops after two seconds.

"Damian." Dick addresses, re-running his fingers habitually through his hair. "There's been a situation at the hospital..."

Here's the thing, Dick knows Damian. He understands the passing trait of impatience among their family, which is why he's already summarised the facts down to twenty seconds. The call abruptly ends at ten.

"Huh." Dick mutters, brows pressed together as he looks back to Tim. "He hung up."

Dick barely got to explain anything beyond the mention of your name and their current location. Your voice echoes in reminder as he stares at his screen, the duration of the call staring back at him. It's him you have to worry about.

Damian's anything but subtle. Of his frigid attitude—his blatant dislike towards you. Putting the two of you in the same room, it was guaranteed disaster. Yet, Damian was the first name that came out of your mouth.

"Told you it doesn't make sense." Tim shrugs. "Logically, he's the last person we should've called."

"We'll see." Dick answers, head leaning back to rest against the wall. "He's surprised us both plenty of times."

"Yeah, by attempting murder on us both. Your point being?"

Dick restrains a much-needed sigh.

Barely fifteen minutes later, Dick stirs at a loud commotion beyond the walls of the waiting room. His neck is cramping from this unergonomic chair, and his feet are nerved with pins-and-needles. Tim's ears are plugged in with wired earphones, jammed high with Green Day as he concentrates on his tablet, opting to work through his insomnia instead.

There’s a slamming of doors, rapid footsteps thundering against the tiles, coming closer and closer. Dick barely has time to nudge Tim’s shoulder before the hallway door slams open.

Damian comes through like a storm, movements overly controlled in the way a person would seize up before a fight. As if he's expected the worst, and is prepared to battle whatever he might encounter.

“Where is she?” Damian commands, voice echoing off the tiles.

Staring back at Dick are frantic, darkened eyes pinpointed on locked targets—searching for his answer. It's so abruptly intense, almost inhuman, that his mind stutters in regaining its grasp on reality. He hasn't seen that look in a long time, not since their first meeting where one wrong answer would make Damian your enemy.

“She’s asleep.” Tim answers for him, one side of his earphones still plugged in throughout this entire mess. “She needs the rest.”

Damian disregards his words, brushing past him. “I have to see her.”

Dick must’ve subconsciously shifted his glance to your room, towards the shine of the metal carvings of 78 placed in the centre, as Damian doesn’t hesitate in heading for the door.

Dick catches Damian's arm right before he enters, and the glare he receives? Murderous. As if everything in his way of getting to you has become mere obstacles he has to overcome.

"Grayson." Damian's voice is all wrong, shortened and taut, syllables used to convey only what was needed. "Unhand. Me."

"Dames." Dick tries to make sense of this adverse reaction, but nothing from that brief phone call provided him any clues. "She's still unconscious, and I don't think it's a good idea for you to be in there—in this state."

Damian's chest heaves once, but the storm in his gaze has only darkened. "She called for me, didn't she?"

Dick blinks once. "Well, yes but—"

"Then, I will be there for her."

Damian disarms his grip with an alarming quickness, and Dick doesn't even have time to recalibrate his mistake before he's slipped through.

Dick's palm splays onto the door right before it closes, pushing it fully open with a warning ready on his lips to not disturb your recovery, only to find that—Damian hadn’t moved from his spot since he entered. Dick feels Tim pressing into his side, curious eyes flickering at the situation, but Dick is too busy watching to care about how they're practically hanging onto the doorframe.

When Damian catches sight of you, his entire frame freezes into place. He's watching you, and Dick's watching him—and he sees it then, and realises what an idiot he's been.

Damian's entire expression immediately shifts. Loosening in relief at the sight of you mostly unharmed, at the sound of a calm beeping from the heart monitor. It's frighteningly out of place, the tenderness softening his wrath-like panic mere seconds ago. He moves almost mindlessly towards your side, forgetting the presence of his two brothers gawking at him from outside the doorframe, peering into what must be a fever dream.

"Idiot." Damian mutters, but it sounds more like a prayer answered.

"We've got it all wrong, didn't we?" Tim mutters, staring at the sight in awe.

"Told you." Dick whispers, his lips tilting upwards into a smile. "Gut feeling."

You stir not long after Damian’s arrival, as if your body is already attuned to his presence. Lids peering half-open, you squint at the shadow towering over you. For a moment, there was nothing but held breaths and a long pause as you familiarise yourself with forest green.

Then, the most miraculous thing happens. You smile, completely unaware of the turmoil and confusion you've caused.

“Dami.”

Dick decides today is an absolute possibility for the world to be at its end.

“You're an idiot.” Damian hurls the practiced insult out like he’s been running it off in his mind for the past few minutes, but his weakened voice holds no bite against the sight of his overwhelming relief.

Under the sheets, Dick swears he sees his brother’s fingers intertwining with yours.

“I told them to tell you not to rush.” You mutter hazily, still readjusting to reality. “At least—I think I did.”

Damian sucks in a breath, low, undistinguishable mutters whispered. Your lip twitches up slightly, which could only mean another insult you're brushing off.

“Yet, you’re still here.” You tease. “Fretting.”

The thin line of his lips creases deeper. “I do not fret.”

“Arguing with the patient?” Your body shifts, tilting closer to Damian.

“I prefer arguing with you unharmed.” Damian mocks lowly. Dick sees the stiffness bleed out of Damian’s expression the longer his gaze is locked onto you, as if materialising your talkative state in his mind.

"I am unharmed."

"A mild concussion, a hospital bed." Damian's frown deepens. "At least attempt at a reasonable lie."

Damian’s body tilts just slightly, lowering to match yours, and the light catches your features once more. Your lips tilt downward for a single second, the sting of the fluorescent lights irritating your vision.

In a sudden movement without words exchanged, Damian adjusts. His shoulders block the light over your face once more, covering you with his shadow.

You can't help the grin that escapes. "That is what I was thinking about, before I passed out again."

Damian's expression contorts, as if his mind can't decide on hyper-focusing on the details of you falling unconscious again or on what you were imagining about him. You decide for him.

"The lights were all in my face and—" You suck in a breath. "I kept trying to remember your name. I tried so hard to find it, this person who knows that I hate hospital lights without me needing to say it. Then, your name just slipped out."

“Oh.” Tim murmurs from afar.

“Oh.” Dick agrees.

“Don’t do that again.” Damian mutters in the quiet buzzing of the machines.

“Save people?” You tease.

“Put yourself in harm’s way.” Damian pushes back.

"Hey, what about the two of us?" Tim calls out, and Dick's quick to shove his elbow into the idiot's stomach. "Ow—what? We never got this treatment and all the fretting."

Damian's gaze shifts at the disruption, the softness creased into the corners of his eyes fading into annoyance. "Leave us."

"Woah." Tim holds a hand to his abdomen, still feigning hurt. "That's just cold."

Damian's eyes narrow further, and Dick's reminded instantly of how the press is probably waiting outside the hospital for any hints of a scuffle. It's already news enough for not two, but three members now of the Wayne family rushing to the emergency ward. Grabbing Tim by his hoodie, Dick tugs roughly. "We'll leave you two be to—catch up. No attempted murders, if the reminder's still needed."

It had slipped out so easily, the old warning, but it feels strangely out of place with this tender atmosphere. Dick's most definitely intruding on something he's not meant to see, but questions can be reserved for later.

You snort, a sheepish expression caught between your teeth, watching for confirmation as the door shuts with a click. When you have a shred of confidence that they're at least out of hearing range, you turn your attention back to Damian with growing excitement.

“You know they’re probably freaking out right now?” You mutter conspiratorially. "They'll never buy into us hating each other anymore."

“That is not my concern.” Damian frowns. “You are.”

“That might be the sweetest thing you've ever told me.” You coo. "I matter enough for you to deal with family dinner interrogations now."

Damian's stare remains unimpressed. “I will smother you with pillows.”

“That’s unhygienic—and cruel.”

His tongue clicks softly as his hand comes up behind the pillow, instinctively propping them up higher as you adjust your neck, an action completely unrelated to his threat. “Only you would be concerned of bacteria before attempted murder.”

“Yeah, I’m a piece of work." You murmur distractedly, choosing to gaze intently at him instead. His hair's fallen into different directions, all un-Damian-like. "That’s why you rushed all the way here, didn’t you?”

He stiffens, hand shifting away from the pillow, but still lingering near you. After a moment, the inner workings of his mind battling between his logic and his emotions must've finally faltered, as his fingers delicately cup the back of your head. He doesn't move you towards him, choosing to come over to you instead, his body hovering halfway over yours before finally letting his weight topple gently over you.

His arms wrap around you gently as his comforting weight falls over you, and the first thing you feel is how quickly his heart is racing. He needs this, you realise, as he settles with his arms wrapped protectively around you. To be physically present as your shield, even when there is no danger present.

He is more affected than he seems with his tightly concealed expressions, now that you physically feel the effects on his body. There's the slight twitches of his fingers when he's still afraid, waiting for the noise in his head to calm down. You know Damian, that he needs time to process before he reveals his cards.

“I didn't want you to worry.” You mumble into his embrace.

“Impossible.” Damian huffs softly, tracing his other hand over your wrist, feeling the soft thudding of your pulse. “You're my problem to handle."

You feel a soft, imperceptible kiss pressed onto your temple, and your eyes flutter shut. This is the side of Damian only you get to have, the proof of its existence ghosting your skin. You have to force your eyes open, the lure of sleep already trying to dig its claws into you—and that's something you absolutely refuse. You don't want to miss this rare side to Damian, all soft and disarmed.

"You scared me." Damian admits after a long pause, barely audible.

You blink, surprised. "You're never scared."

"For you, I am." Damian confesses, his grip tightening slightly. "You tend to render me painfully exposed to weakness."

"Weakness, huh? You haven't got rid of me yet." You hum lightly.

"No." His tone is decisive, stern. "If I haven't decided that I've had enough of you, the world doesn't get to."

"I'm starting to think threats are your love language, Dami." Your hand lifts, struggling twice before you manage to run your fingers through his hair, resting its weight over the nape of his neck.

His body shudders slightly, and his nose buries itself deeper into the crook of your neck. If anyone were to look into hospital room 78, they'll encounter the strange sight of Damian Wayne embracing you as if you were his lifeline. No one would believe them, but the truth remains.

He was yours. Completely yours.

He was also definitely sentenced to a long interrogation the moment he steps out of this room.

"Who was the perpetrator?" He mutters after a moment.

"Damian." You're stuck deciding between a snort and a sigh. "It was an accident."

"You don't know that." He huffs. "I sincerely doubt in your ability to detect an attempted murder while you're unconscious."

Your grip tugs at his hair playfully, a pretty effective way of shutting him up. "Argue with me later."

You feel his lashes flutter against your skin, processing. "...Fine."

He breathes you in, his heart rate finally starting to calm the longer he hears your voice so close to his eardrums, your touch grounding his senses.

"It was torture." His voice is too still, stating the facts without the emotion that's driven behind them. "The drive here. I kept envisioning the worst, that you had called out for me—and if I didn't make it in time—"

His grip tightens with his words, and you're pressed into his chest, feeling what his words refuse to convey, starting to thud again below his ribcage.

"Damian." Your hand traces reassuringly over his neck. "I'm right here."

He listens, his rampant thoughts slowing in pace at the reminder. "I had never been so terrified." His voice remains level, his attempt at reinforcing his reality over his fears. "To receive a call from Grayson, hearing your name—I couldn't let myself think of anything else other than finding you."

"You did." You mutter reassuringly. "You found me. I'm safe."

He lets out a low breath, a slow exhale at the sound of those two words he'd been needing to hear. "Sometimes, I think you've ruined me." He murmurs in truth.

You think he's unused to this. Letting down his walls, experiencing the blatant terror for another person's life that is completely out of his control—that he's left with nothing but pieces to readjust, to compromise. By letting you into his life and allowing you to be his person, he has abandoned his need to preserve himself, to be above fear.

"You're not escaping the argument." He notes down distractedly. "I still have my reservations."

"Anything you need, Dami." You reassure.

"Anything?" He murmurs, head shifting out of the crook of your neck to face you fully.

His green eyes are narrowed with intent now, gazing at you with unhidden intensity.

You swallow, nodding slightly.

When he leans in, the palm of his hand slips from the back of your head to over your jaw. His thumb traces over your lips softly, and he leans in replacing the ghost of his touch with his own mouth. It's tender, a separate language to convey the emotions he hasn't learnt to spell out, on what you do to him. Yet, with the way he's handling you, nose brushing against yours, in a way so precious it makes your heart ache—you think that impending argument's worth it.

likes, reblogs, and comments are highly appreciated! <333

dc masterlist -> damian + other dc works

YOU’VE ALWAYS LOVED fall—the sharp, cool note that tacks itself onto the breeze, the crunch of leaves beneath the wheels of your longboard, the early sunsets over the shapes of the campus skyline. Usually, a week this beautiful would find you outside enjoying it. But for the same reason that you haven’t gotten Takuma alone since Saturday, you’ve been cooped up indoors, frying your brain.

The problem is midterms.

The week is a blur of class and homework and reporting and rehearsals, and you hardly ever see Takuma, or really anyone outside of your classes and rehearsals, save for the brief comings and goings of your housemates at strange hours of the day. You’re all drowning in work, and any wish you have of talking to Takuma without the rest of his band present washes itself away in an avalanche of assignments and emails and post-it note to-do lists all over your desk.

When you see him with Megumi and Yuji and Kirara, the both of you dance around all the things you want to say. Because you have to. You don’t have time to flesh this out, put a label on it.

You and Toge spend hours wrapping up your project story. Your comp midterm is eight to nine double-spaced pages of hell, excluding citations, and on top of it you’re balancing media law case studies and your elective comparative lit class.

And this is one of your lighter semesters.

Your housemates don’t have it any easier, Yuta and Maki wrapped up in senior capstone proposals, Nobara grinding her way through the rest of her gen. eds and practicing marketing presentations in the mirror, even Toge scrambling to get work done.

Between cramming and writing and squeezing naps in wherever you can, you and Takuma orbit around the unspoken truth of your kiss on the roof, borderline flirty but never crossing that line. Not over the phone.

you: how goes the algorithming you: or whatever the fuck takuma: I’M DYING takuma: KM GOING CROSSEYED takuma: havent touched grass in days. eons even you: :( same you: we’ll touch grass when this is over takuma: if it snows i will literally dig it up for you istg

You laugh despite yourself, sighing as you lean back in your desk chair, looking out the window. God, you want to kiss this boy again. Fuck school, fuck your busy schedules. Christ, you can’t believe it’s only Wednesday.

you: aw for me takuma: anything for you🫡

It shouldn’t make you blush so furiously in the privacy of your own room, but it does.

A soft knock on the doorframe draws your attention, and you spin in your chair to find Yuta leaning there. His dark hair is a mess, like he’s just taken off a hat, and his cheeks are red with the bite of cold air. He must’ve just gotten home.

“Yuta!”

“Hey.” He grins, holds up his phone so you can see the time. “You eaten yet?” It’s a rhetorical question. You shake your head, recognizing the call to action for what it is, and close your laptop, joining him at the doorway. You need a break, anyway—you just wrapped up a draft of a paper, and you need to do something else before you look it over with fresh eyes.

“Wanna make stir fry?” you ask, and Yuta lights up.

“Read my mind.”

The kitchen is cast in gold as the sun sinks over the rooftops, and you smile at the little hello, my name is stickers on Yuta’s plants in the windowsill. As the two of you grab bowls and pans and ingredients from the fridge, you realize you haven’t really spent one-on-one time with him in a while. You’ve missed it.

“We haven’t done this in forever,” you say, tossing a green pepper over your shoulder. He catches it with one hand and puts it on the cutting board.

“I know,” he laughs, gentle in the same way that everything Yuta does is gentle, and you’re suddenly struck with the horrible thought of how much you’re going to miss him next year. “I feel like we haven’t had any one-on-one time recently. But I’ve been meaning to, uh… well, I should thank you, for giving me that time with Maki. I don’t know that I’d have made a move if not for you.”

“So you’re the one who made the move?” You grin, elbowing him fondly. “Maki wasn’t very forthcoming with the details.”

“I wouldn’t say I made the first move,” he admits. “I started making dinner, and then she started scribbling on something over by the plants. And I was so confused, and then I realized she’d bought these.” He gestures to the plant name tags, a fond smile on his face. Half the handwriting is Yuta’s loopy scrawl, and the other half is Maki’s more jagged counterpart. “She knew all their names. Which is crazy. Sometimes I barely remember.”

You move to the cutting board and start on the peppers while Yuta fires up the stovetop. “That’s sweet,” you say. “You guys are good together. I’ve only been waiting for like, an entire year.”

Yuta chuckles and looks over his shoulder at you. “I asked how she remembered all the names and she said something along the lines of did you know people actually listen when you talk, and I’ve never been particularly good at hiding my facial expressions.” You snort, because you know that better than anyone. “And then I said Toge definitely doesn’t, and she rolled her eyes and said I kept missing the point.”

“Oh, smooth.” You move over so Yuta can reach into the cabinet above you for the seasoning. “And then you asked what the point is?”

“Mhm.” Yuta hip-checks you lightly as he moves back to his place by the stove, and you relish the familiarity of it. He’s one of your best friends, and you’ve missed doing this with him, cooking with him, talking to him. “She said the point is I’m an oblivious dumbass who should just shut up and kiss her already. So I did.”

You have to put the knife down as your laugh bursts out, shaking your shoulders, because that’s the most Maki thing you’ve ever heard. “And you’re together now?”

“Mhm.” Yuta flushes a little. “She’s great. I wasn’t really gonna say anything… ever? She’s out of my league, Skip.”

It should maybe feel like a bigger deal that Maki and Yuta are finally a thing, but in a way, it’s like nothing has changed. They’ve always been close, and you’ve always known they’re perfect for each other. It felt inevitable, and now it’s happened, and it feels right.

“You’re both out of everyone’s league,” you correct, turning to lean against the counter, crossing your arms over your chest. “And neither of you think you deserve each other, which is exactly why you do.” He smiles, shy and small, and your heart warms in your chest. “I’m happy for you, Yuta.”

“Thanks.” He ducks his head a little, his tell-tale sign of embarrassment, like when Takuma scratches the back of his neck. God, why does everything remind you of Takuma?

Like he can read your mind, Yuta says, “Your turn. You and Ino? I know everyone’s in the loop except me.”

The next half hour or so passes with you explaining the details of your night with Takuma yet again, the smell of stir fry eventually drawing Toge out from the cave (his and Yuta’s bedroom) around the same time Nobara sweeps through the door with Maki in tow. It’s the first time the five of you have been in the same room outside of rehearsals all week.

“Ooh, my god,” Nobara sighs, smelling the stir fry. “That’s the good shit. I owe you my life.”

“You can do the dishes,” you suggest, and she deflates as she unwinds the scarf around her neck and tosses it on a hook with her coat.

“I’ve made a fatal mistake,” she says.

“How’re midterms?” Maki asks as she brushes past you, tossing her jacket onto a chair, and you shrug. In response, Toge puts his head face-down on the counter, and Maki looks to Yuta, waiting for his answer. It’s like they don’t know how they’re supposed to interact in front of you all, now that the whole band knows.

“You don’t have to dance around each other anymore,” Nobara points out, blunt as ever. “We’ve watched you do that for years. I honestly think I’d rather watch you be gross.”

Toge raises a brow. “Careful what you wish for.”

“Let’s break the ice! Let’s talk about it!” Nobara crows, grabbing you by the elbow. “Reenactment, Skip. You be Yuta.” She leans dramatically over the plants, pretending to write on the name tag stickers. “This one is Pikachu.” Yuta definitely does not have a plant named Pikachu. “You’re an obtuse asshole, Yuta Okkotsu,” Nobara says in a truly horrendous impression of Maki, turning around and grabbing you by the shoulders. “Now kiss me.”

“Oh my god,” Maki says flatly. “I hate you.”

“She didn’t call me an asshole!” Yuta says indignantly.

Maki nudges him with a shoulder, which is probably the closest thing to PDA you’ll get out of them for weeks. Nobara’s teasing will only make them less willing to show affection in front of the rest of you. Maybe it’s reverse psychology and that is what she wants.

“Table,” Yuta says, pointing to Toge. “Nobara, go sit in the corner and think about your actions. Maki, could you grab the plates?”

“Girlfriend privilege!” Nobara cries, not making any move to listen to Yuta. She grins at you and you can’t help but smile back. She’s being obnoxious about it, but she also held in her teasing about their relationship for ages until they figured it out on their own. You know she’s just as happy for them as you are.

“You better keep Ino away from this one,” Maki says as she dishes up the stir fry and slides the plates across the counter to Toge, who ferries them over to the table without complaint. Nobara wiggles her brows at you in a way that very obviously says you can try, but you will fail.

When the five of you crowd the little table in the makeshift dining room, it’s honestly the most relaxed you’ve felt all week. For an hour it’s just you and your best friends, talking and ranting and joking and eating some damn good stir fry, and you can forget about all the work piling up on your desk and the boy down the street you desperately need to talk to and the performance in two days that’ll decide your band’s fate. It’s good.

You grin at Nobara as she gestures with her hands while telling a story about this girl in her marketing class, at Toge trying and failing to steal the snap peas from Yuta’s plate, at Maki fondly watching it all unfold.

Despite her earlier complaints, Nobara doesn’t hesitate to get started on the dishes, and Toge dries while you sit at the stool by the counter and chat with them. Nobara shoves a plate at Toge to dry and he nearly drops it onto one of the plants, earning him a look from Yuta very reminiscent of a parent scolding their child.

"Sorry, Snorlax," Toge says to the plant he nearly attacked. "Hey, these are helpful, actually. Good job, Maki."

You stare at the name tags, something starting to grow in the back of your mind. Hello! My name is...

"Yes," you breathe. And then you launch out of your seat and grab your notebook from the other room.

You have an idea.

—

You’re bouncing on the balls of your feet, spinning a drumstick in your right hand as The Cull wraps up their ten-decibels-too-loud set onstage. Waiting in the wings, Hakari and another stage tech linger by your kit, waiting to swap it out, and the rest of your band goes through their usual pre-performance rituals.

Maki leans against the wall, eyes closed, moving her fingers along her bass without making any sound. Yuta’s quietly checking his tuning for the thousandth time tonight. Nobara does laps around the backstage area, humming and mouthing words to herself, her guitar carefully leaning against the wall beside you.

Toge is straight up just dancing to the other band’s music in the corner.

And you’re here, spinning your sticks between your thumb and index finger, index and middle, middle and ring, ring and pinky, back again. Back and forth, back and forth, the worn wood dancing across your knuckles.

Midterms are over. Projects and papers are turned in, exams are taken, laptops are strewn forgotten across the living room for the weekend. All your attention is here and now, Friday at The Fix, Battle of the Bands. Lifeblood might be a good word for it, you think, whatever this kind of rush is to you. It’s electric.

The Cull finishes with a screeching of guitars and a held-out note that could very possibly be classified as a scream, and then Panda takes the stage, the techs start moving, and the other band files past you in the backstage area.

You nod as they slip by and they return the gesture, not seeming all that interested, but you don’t care. It’s time.

Sliding onto the throne, you adjust the hi-hat and pound the kick a few times. Nobara winks at you from center stage, and you make eye contact with each of your bandmates in turn, confirming they’re tuned and plugged in and ready to go.

And then you launch into your new song, unable to help the smile spreading across your face.

It begins with a drum solo, a mild rhythm on the floor tom. You add the kick, then move to hat, and Maki comes in, then Toge, then the guitars. And then Nobara leans forward and starts to sing.

“You’re in the corner watchin’, at the party, Solo cup in hand. I’m on the dance floor, one more wild girl who needs a place to land.” You glance out over the crowd, stage light blinding you from your position toward the back of the stage. You can’t see shit, but it’s like you can feel his eyes on you.

“Been goin’ solo, flying so low, meet your eyes and draw you close.” Nobara yanks the mic off the stand and belts,“You ask my name, I tap your chest, and I say you already know!”

Power chord, two big beats, one, two, three, crash—

“Hello, my name is everything you ever asked your gods about. Hello, my name is somebody who needs a guy to take me out…”

The music washes over you, thrums from the soles of your sneakers to the tips of your fingers, gets you high on spotlights and amp feedback. You wrote this song about a lot of things. On a surface level, it’s Maki and Yuta’s song, drawn from the name tags on the kitchen plants. But on another level, it’s about Takuma, and you know your whole band knows it.

“Hello, hello, my name is yours if you want it,” Nobara finishes, and you finish with two cymbal hits and a kick, grabbing the cymbals between thumb and index finger immediately after to mute them. It’s a sharper finish than a lot of your songs, punchier, and it feels good.

“We’re Cursed Technique!” Nobara shouts, and Yuta plucks a few strings as he retunes for one of your older tracks. The set goes by all too fast, and then you’re finishing with Next Fix, the beat under your hands familiar and automatic. You’re on my mind at two a.m., you help me find deliverance, I think it’s time I get my fix.

You’d stay here forever if you could, just making music with your favorite people, but your set ends and you have to retreat backstage, Black Flash passing you in the wing as they prepare to round out the night.

“That was awesome,” Kasumi Miwa whispers as she passes you, and you grin.

“You’ll be awesome.”

When Mai appears around the corner, she stops short. You glance at Maki and realize Yuta’s hand is on the small of her back, and Mai has zeroed in on it. Yuta looks like he’s about to pass out, his hand frozen a half-inch away from Maki’s back like he doesn’t know if it’s better or worse to let go, but Maki seems entirely unfazed.

Instead of addressing Maki, though, Mai looks right at Yuta, a slender brow raised in an expression you aren’t quite sure how to interpret. On Maki, it would be teasing, but on Mai it could be a challenge or a threat or a judgment just as easily.

But she only says, “Thought you were gonna take that to your grave, Okkotsu. Been long enough.” She breezes past all of you without another word, and Yuta stares at the place where she stood only moments before, slack-jawed.

Maki shrugs. “Well, that’s that.” The sound of tuning instruments floats back from the stage and Maki starts moving, looking confused when Yuta doesn’t immediately follow. “What?”

“She—what?” Yuta gapes, and Nobara and Toge catch up to you, herding you backstage.

“I can never tell how mad you two are at each other,” you tell Maki.

“We’re bonded by mutual hatred of our own family. We have an understanding,” she shrugs. “She approves of Yuta. I don’t give a shit. If she didn’t, I still wouldn’t give a shit.”

Sometimes you’re very, very glad you have no relatives at this school.

Maki elbows Yuta lightly and he seems to relax, shrugging off the interaction with Mai.

“On another note!” Nobara chirps. “That was fucking awesome.”

And then you hear, of all things, a trumpet coming from the direction of the stage. It’s a very recognizable riff.

Black Flash is covering September.

“What the fuck?” Toge asks. He holds up a hand and darts back to the wing, peeking out on stage. When he returns, his brows have shot up, mouth open like a fish. “Muta has a trumpet. Muta’s playing a trumpet. Since when does he know trumpet? What the fuck?”

“Miwa. Guaranteed,” Nobara says. “Momo’s been trying to get him to learn for years, but he wouldn’t even be in that band if Miwa wasn’t there.” She grins. “I bet Momo was so mad when he finally did it only ‘cause Miwa asked.”

“They sound straight out of a damn recording,” you murmur, craning your neck as if that’ll help you hear better. “They’re fucking good, guys.” Part of you wants to slip out into the crowd just to see them perform. These guys really have their art down to a science, as little sense as that might make, and you can’t help appreciating it.

They segue into a new song with a wild sax solo that you know to be Momo’s, and Nobara grabs you by the hand and twirls you around backstage, some jazzy movement with no real choreography. We’re going to lose, you think idly, but you understand why. There’s something infectious in this music.

Even Maki and Yuta can’t stand still once they’ve put their instruments away, and eventually the five of you are jumping around like a bunch of idiots as Black Flash closes out their set with an explosive series of riffs and chords, and the crowd’s cheering floods the place, all the way to backstage.

You hear Panda’s voice, or more so the bass-heavy sound of him speaking into a microphone, and you only really catch voting.

“Sweet democracy,” Toge says. “I pledge allegiance—”

“How about don’t?” Maki drawls.

Toge nods. “My bad. I’m supposed to be loyal to the queen now, anyway.” Maki’s brows furrow, but she must decide it’s not worth questioning, because she turns away and starts talking to Nobara.

Has anyone actually told Toge the queen is dead?

This time around, ten minutes feels all too short, and suddenly you’re on the stage again, Black Flash at your left and The Cull on their other side. Panda is in front of you all, mic in hand, the results on his phone.

“We have literally never had a vote this close,” he says, and the crowd draws in a collective breath. “The difference between first and second place was two votes.”

“Shit,” Nobara breathes out beside you, so soft nobody else could possibly hear. Two votes. That’s fucking insane.

“But we do have a winner,” Panda says, “and the band moving on to the finals next week is…”

This time, there’s too much attention on your band for Maki to make a comment about Panda’s dramatic pause. In the quiet, somebody shouts, “Woo, girl drummer!” and it sounds an awful lot like Kirara. You smile sheepishly.

Maybe you made it. This was definitely your best performance yet, and the crowd seemed to love the new song—

“Black Flash!” Panda shouts, and your stomach twists a little even as you smile and whoop for the winners. The stage explodes in movement as your band and The Cull converge on the members of the reigning Battle of the Bands champions, congratulating them.

“Amazing set,” you tell Kasumi earnestly. Deep down, you knew you didn’t have much of a chance against them. Still, you’d hoped.

You think you catch Maki muttering, “Y’know, not bad,” to Mai, but you could be wrong.

After you slip backstage, Panda catches up to you. “Y’all were second,” he tells Nobara. “Just thought you should know. That was real close.”

Part of you is immensely gratified that you beat The Cull. That you came that close to kicking Black Flash out of their championship spot. You’re bummed, but honestly? It’s enough for you.

And now Shibuya Incident and Black Flash will compete in the finals, just like last year. Takuma’s got a chance to dethrone them.

After locking up the drum kit in the back storage room (which Shoko blessedly lets you use free of charge), you head out to the floor. Toge splits off to talk to someone from a comm class, Nobara beelines for Yuji and Megumi, and you figure Maki and Yuta are being antisocial in a corner somewhere. It doesn’t take long for Takuma to find you.

“Skipper!” You turn to find him grinning at you, and you can’t help but mirror the expression. “That was amazing. That song was amazing, you were amazing. I mean, are. You are amazing.” His hand drifts up to the back of his neck, and part of you wants to reach out and intercept it, tangle your fingers in his. But you hold yourself back.

“Thanks,” you beam.

“Man. You should’ve won,” Takuma says earnestly, squeezing your shoulder. You took off your bomber jacket before the show—drumming is already a lot of movement, but the stage lights make you sweat—so his fingers skim the place where your T-shirt sleeves end and your bare skin begins, sending a spike of electricity down your spine. “You kicked their asses in my book.”

There’s that warmth again, flowering in your chest cavity. Even when his hand falls from your arm, the impression of his touch stays there.

“They were good,” you say, conceding defeat. He shrugs, like whatever you say, and you’re about to finally ask him if you can talk in private when Yuji materializes out of nowhere, nearly making you jump out of your skin.

“Dude!” he crows, slinging an arm around your shoulder so aggressively that you nearly stumble, laughing. This kid does not know his own strength. “That was so good. So good. You should’ve won. That was insane. The new song?”

“That’s what I said,” Takuma says, raising a brow at you, and you’re flushing again.

“Ino, we’re getting Taco Bell,” Yuji says. You plaster on a smile when he turns to look at you, like you haven’t been going out of your mind the entire week needing to be alone with Takuma. “You want anything?”

Yuji’s not trying to interrupt anything. Poor guy just wants Taco Bell. You stifle a sigh. “Nah, I’m good.” You catch Maki’s eye from the other side of the room, and she waves you over. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Hey, you should come over later,” Takuma says before you can turn away. “Gotta catch me up on your midterms. I feel like I haven’t seen you all week.”

Yes. There it is. Exactly what you need.

“That sounds great,” you say honestly. “Call me when you guys get back?”

He gives you a two-fingered salute with a grin that makes your heart stutter a little. “Yes, ma’am.”

—

Nobara mourns the loss the whole way home, but by the time Maki pulls into the driveway she seems to have gotten all her feelings out and is back to her determined we’ll-get-it-next-year self. The guys drove separately with all the guitars piled in the backseat, and they beat you home.

You’ve just sat down on the couch and kicked off your shoes when your phone buzzes, a familiar but unexpected name floating across the screen.

INCOMING CALL: TSUMIKI FUSHIGURO

You slide to accept the call, waving at the boys to quiet down. “What’s up?”

“Hey,” Tsumiki says, in that tone of voice that means she’s running on multitasking business mode. A low, static humming in the background tells you she’s calling from the car. “So, there was some kind of accident on 34th a couple blocks down from the science complex. I know you’re on features, but Yuki’s out of town and most of the freelancers are younger and haven’t done breaking yet. Are you busy? I can try the sophomores if you can’t, or I can go, but I’m just coming from work and I might take too long—”

You’re already grabbing your bag and your board, mouthing newspaper to Yuta and Toge, who are giving you curious looks as they dig through the movie collection under the TV. The intersection’s not far from your place at all, or from The Fix, for that matter. Yuki’s the news editor, and if she’s out, it makes more sense for someone who’s already done breaking to go. Time is of the essence with these sorts of briefs. “On it, don’t worry,” you say, pushing out the front door and waving to Maki and Nobara on the way. “Photog?”

“Yeah, I’m calling around after this. I’ll get someone there. God, thank you, you’re a lifesaver.”

“No problem. Call you when I’m done.” You hang up and shove your phone into your back pocket as you careen down the street, headed toward the spot Tsumiki mentioned. Now that midterms are over and you’re free of your academic obligations, you can actually take the time to savor the cool night air and crunch of freshly fallen leaves under your wheels. Hopefully the crash isn’t too bad—Tsumiki didn’t seem incredibly worried, but it’s likely she was operating on very little information.

It doesn’t take long for you to hear the commotion, and you round the corner to see a few cop cars blocking off the crash site on the side of the road.

The second you’re close enough to see past the officers and their cars, your heart plummets.

It’s a red Hyundai.

Smoke billows out from beneath the hood, but the other car’s got it worse, the passenger side smashed in. The way it’s positioned—it shouldn’t have even been possible, unless the other car was genuinely driving in the wrong lane.

“No,” you breathe, kicking your board up and running, and then you’re flashing your press card at a campus policeman—he tries to get you to stop anyway, but there’s no way he’s catching you now—and you’re sprinting to the wrecked car, heart shouting in your chest. You see Yuji first, trying to brush off a concerned-looking Megumi, and then a pair of cops approaching them, and another cop arresting someone—shit, you know him, what’s his name? Naoya, that’s Maki’s dickwad cousin—probably the driver of the other vehicle, but where’s Takuma, where—

When you skid around the far side of the car, Kirara giving you a surprised look, you see him leaning up against the tree. He’s sitting on the grass, one leg pulled up to his chest and the other stretched out in front of him, his forehead resting on his knee. His shoulders are shaking, his hat’s on the ground, Kirara is beside him talking lowly and glaring at anyone who tries to get near him—

Until she sees you.

“Thank god,” she breathes. She doesn’t ask why you’re here. She just guides you to sit down in front of Takuma. “Can you—”

“Is he hurt?”

“No, I don’t think so, he’s just—”

“Got it.”

She backs off to give you space, and then you’re on the ground, knees in the grass in front of Takuma. Panic attack, PTSD episode, whatever it is, you’ve dealt with these before. You remember the roof, his quiet voice, explaining what happened to his dad, how he was in the car, how he hates driving because of it. You’d bet anything Takuma thinks he’s back there.

“Kuma,” the nickname slips out before you even realize it. He jerks and looks up at you, shock and confusion written all over his face. He’s full-on trembling, and your heart shatters in your chest. “Hey. Hey, I need you to breathe.” You hesitantly reach out and take his hands in yours, watching him carefully to see if he tries to pull away. He doesn’t. “You’re okay. Everyone’s okay. You’re safe. Can you take a breath for me?”

He’s not fully here, you can tell, his eyes glassed over and his breath catching in his throat. You scoot closer to him, put your hands on either side of his face, blocking out the sirens and the chatter and the crowd. “Takuma,” you say. “Look at me.”

His frantic, moving stare settles on you after a long moment, and he seems to realize abruptly that he is having a panic attack. You can see the moment it clicks in his mind, that if he was twelve years old in a car crash with his father, you couldn’t be here in front of him, and now it’s up to his body to get the message across.

“Breathe,” you say again, drawing in an exaggerated breath and blowing it out slowly. “C’mon, with me. You got this.”

Takuma gasps, trying to follow your instructions as you talk him through it, counting inhales and exhales and starting over every time his breath hitches. “Doing great,” you promise. The rest of the world—the cops, a very angry Megumi pacing back and forth, Kirara speaking rapidly on the phone—might as well not exist. It’s you and Takuma and your breaths in the air between you. Nothing else matters, not right now.

All of the struggles you’ve had this week, papers and feelings and not enough sleep, feel suddenly unbelievably small.

There are things that matter in a much louder way, and this is one of them.

“Christ,” Takuma breathes out eventually, burying his head in his hands. One of the cop cars erupts with the blare of sirens momentarily before stopping again, and the sound has his shoulders tense with worry all over again.

You don’t even think about it. You just pull Takuma into you, wrapping your arms around him, like you can put the both of you in a little bubble away from everything else. “Hey, hey—”

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and you furiously shake your head. “Just—the sirens—“

“No,” you say firmly. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Takuma.”

He shudders and you rub your hand up and down his spine. “Is the other driver…?”

“A stupid fucking drunk driving in the wrong lane?” Kirara practically spits as she rejoins you near the tree. “Yes.” The cop just took her statement and has moved on to Megumi and Yuji.

You’ve never seen Megumi this livid. He’s gesturing wildly at the other car, and you remember idly that Naoya’s his cousin too, that this is a little personal for him.

“Yeah, but is he…?” Takuma trails off.

“He’s fine,” you murmur, your heart clenching for this boy, who’s been through so much and just relived the worst day of his life and still wanted to know if the other driver was okay. Jesus. He’s too good. “Everyone’s okay.”

You pull back to hold him at arm’s length, scanning him up and down for injury, and he’s staring at you like you just fell from the sky. “Skip—I’m really glad you’re here but—why? What are you…?” His voice is a little hoarse. His gaze trails down to the press pass hanging from your neck, and he cracks a wry smile. “Y’know, when I told you write a story on me, this isn’t really what I had in mind.”

So much relief floods you at once that you think you might actually start crying. “Jesus,” you croak out, and the smile drops from his face.

“I’m okay,” he says quickly. “Just—got the wind knocked out of me, but it’s fine. Skipper—”

You lurch forward and wrap your arms around him before he can finish, needing to feel him breathing, his heart beating. You also hear his breath hitch as he winces, and you pull back in alarm. “Shit, I’m sorry, what—”

“It’s okay,” he says. “Just sore. I’m fine. Really.” He leans back against the tree. “Airbags.”

You slump back against the tree too, deflated as the limp airbags in the ruined car. “You guys okay?” you ask as the others, done with their statements, turn toward you.

“Yeah,” Kirara says, but Megumi shakes his head and points to Yuji, who’s nodding even while cradling his wrist to his chest.

“It’s fine,” Yuji insists, and Megumi looks at him, incredibly unimpressed. “Well, it’s not broken, I can move it.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s okay,” Megumi says flatly. And you look at him, his expression so familiar, and abruptly realize you’re supposed to be writing a brief.

“Shit,” you mutter, pulling out your phone. “I’m working for your sister right now. I gotta…” You point to the phone. Megumi winces but nods, and Tsumiki picks up on the first ring.

“Hey! Done already? You find Yoshino okay? He said he—”

“Uh, no,” you say sheepishly. “Actually, I—uh, okay, everyone’s fine, but Megumi’s here. If I—”

“Slow down!” Tsumiki blurts. “What? Shit. Frick. Where’s Gumi? Can you put him on the phone?”

You wordlessly hand your phone to Megumi, who’s looking more pained at the concept of talking to his sister about this than the accident itself.

A few cars pull up—a white one screeching to a stop that really should not have been going so fast in front of a bunch of police officers, and then a darker gray one that arrives smoothly after, neatly pulling up against the curb. Gojo practically launches himself out of the first car, looking around until his gaze locks on Megumi, who hangs up the phone with a quiet okay, thanks and then immediately groans upon seeing Gojo there. Nanami and Shoko get out of the second car much less dramatically and trail after Gojo to the cluster of you by the tree.

“Megumi!” Gojo calls as he jogs over. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Megumi grumbles, trying and failing to brush Gojo off. “Where’d you come from? Don’t you have work?”

“Geto and Utahime are closing down,” Gojo says with a shrug. “We heard and came as fast as we could. Figured I’d bring our resident doc. Or Nanami would, since she wouldn’t ride with me,” he says loudly so Shoko can hear. She just rolls her eyes.

Megumi tosses you your phone and says, “Forget the brief, you’re good.” You nod, pushing to your feet and offering a hand to Takuma.

“We,” Gojo says, placing one hand on Megumi’s head and the other on Yuji’s, “are going to the ER.” You expect Megumi to object, but it’s Yuji who tries to wave Gojo off. Except he tries to physically wave him off with his bad wrist and immediately grimaces. Megumi swats him on the shoulder and gives him a serious look that says we’re going, don’t argue. You figure Tsumiki will probably meet them there.

Shoko stops to talk to Kirara a short distance away, and Nanami keeps walking, making a beeline for Takuma—and by extension, you. It doesn’t escape your notice that the second he’s within range, some of the tension in Takuma’s body seems to vanish, seeping out of him and into the grass, like the tree’s roots are taking it on for him.

Nanami’s usually immaculate hair is a little disheveled, like he ran his fingers through it. Without his usual glasses on, he looks a lot less daunting, a lot more personable. The worry in his expression is well concealed but very much present.

“Ino,” he says. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Takuma says unconvincingly. “Fine. Just—yeah. Drunk driver, you know…” He scratches at the back of his neck, and this time you don’t check yourself. You reach up and grab his hand, slotting your fingers between his. He shoots you a grateful look before turning back to Nanami. “I’m okay. Really. Thanks for… um…”

“Of course,” Nanami says before Takuma can say anything more. You release his hand so he can step forward. You’ve never seen Nanami hug anyone before, but apparently there’s a first time for everything.

“You’re not going with Gojo?” he asks when he pulls back, hands planted on Takuma’s shoulders. It feels very paternal. You’re not sure you should be listening in.

“Nah, I’m okay.”

“I’d feel a lot better if you got checked over,” he says, his voice firm but not unkind. “Would you let Shoko look at you, at least?” You’re relieved when Takuma nods, letting Shoko pull him away.

Gojo leads Yuji and Megumi past you, back to his car, and Yuji stops to whisper, “Never fear, Skip, the drum set was not in the car.”

“Oh my god,” you say. “Yuji. I’m more worried about you than the drums.”

“Aw, Skip!” he says happily. “That’s nice.” You roll your eyes but can’t keep the fond smile off your face, and you know Megumi’s probably doing the same thing, though you can only see the back of his head as he follows Gojo. Yuji bounds off after them, still cradling his wrist to his chest but seeming very unconcerned about the whole ordeal.

Yet another screech of tires alerts you to a truck appearing from the other end of the street. Hakari doesn’t even bother to shut it off, jumping out and leaving the door hanging open.

“Kira!” he shouts, pushing past the remaining officers. “Kirara!”

“Over here!” Kirara calls, thanking Shoko and weaving around the slowly diminishing crowd. Someone’s already showed up to tow Naoya’s car, and another truck probably isn’t far behind. Kirara gets swept up in Hakari’s arms, her trying to reassure him she’s fine, and you find yourself left alone with Nanami. He studies you openly, keen eyes and a calm, very slight smile on his face.

“I don’t think we’ve met, officially,” you say sheepishly. “I’m Skipper.”

“Kento,” he says, holding out a hand. You shake it and feel abruptly like you’re talking to a business executive. As Shoko looks Takuma over on the other side of the big tree, Nanami—Kento—lowers his voice a bit and says, “Ino’s told me all about you.”

The heat rises unbidden to your cheeks, and you hope the evening dimness hides it. He talks about you? To Nanami? You aren’t really sure how to respond to that, but luckily, Kento spares you the trouble. “Look out for him tonight, will you?” You can tell from the tone that he’s testing the waters, trying to determine how much you know about his dad.

Hopefully the message gets across when your gaze drifts back to Takuma over Kento’s shoulder and you say, “I plan on it.”

“He’s alright,” Shoko announces, and Takuma appears at your side again. “Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t fix.” Something loosens in your chest at the words, something that tied itself into knots the second you saw Yuji’s car and hasn’t let up since.

“Hey,” Hakari calls, he and Kirara approaching hand in hand. “You guys good?”

Takuma nods, and you shrug. “Wasn’t in the car.”

“We’re gonna head back to Kirara’s. You want a lift?”

Takuma glances at Kento, and you feel the truth of his words that day on the roof, about Nanami being the closest thing he has to a father.

“Go home, kid,” he says. “Sleep it off. Call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Takuma says, like a breath of relief. He looks exhausted. But he’s here in one piece, and that’s what matters. Your fingers brush his as you walk back to Hakari’s truck. It’s a quiet ride, a short one, your board on your lap and your press pass still dangling from your neck.

“Oh, Skipper,” Hakari says when he turns onto your street. “Your house over here? Or are you coming to theirs?”

You glance at Takuma, but before either of you can say anything, Kirara says, “She’s comin’ over.” She catches your gaze in the rearview mirror with a knowing look and you manage a weak smile. You can’t imagine letting Takuma out of your sight right now, honestly.

The dogs are there the second Kirara opens the door, and Takuma practically falls into them, burying his face in their fur as they nuzzle up against him. Shiro turns to you after saying hi to the others and noses at your palm until you scratch her behind the ears.

“Hi, sweetie,” you murmur. “Good girl.”

Kirara nudges you with her shoulder as she brushes by, glancing down at Takuma and then back at you. You nod. I got him. She offers you a small smile before she and Hakari disappear around the corner.

“C’mon,” you murmur, tapping Takuma on the shoulder. He nods, pushing to his feet and patting each dog on the head one more time. You follow him upstairs, feeling a little out of your depth. After all, he’s not the one who decided you were staying.

When you’re both standing in his room, you shift on your feet a little, wondering how to word it. “If you want some space—”

“No,” he blurts, unexpectedly loud, and then his cheeks go a little red, sheepish. “I mean—uh. I could… use the company. If you don’t mind. You don’t have to stay, obviously, just—”

“Kuma.” You laugh a little, watching him freeze, glance up at you mid-ramble. “I would love to stay.”

“Oh.” He grins. “Cool. Okay. Um.” He turns around and grabs a pair of sweats and a tee from his dresser, then holds them out to you. “If you want…? Or I can ask Kirara, I’m sure she’d let you borrow something, or obviously you live right down the street or—”

Something about the idea of wearing his clothes makes you go a little warm all over, and you accept them without hesitating, cutting off his rambling. “Thanks.”

“I’m gonna…” He jerks his thumb toward the door. You don’t know if he’s just giving you the space to change or going to shower or what, but you nod, waiting until the door clicks shut behind him to tug on the sweats and shirt. The shirt is huge on you, one shoulder sliding off, a fading logo of some music festival on the front. You sit on the edge of Takuma’s bed, tucking your knees under you, and then your phone rings. Tsumiki.

“Hey,” you say, pressing it to your ear. “They’re okay?”

“Yeah, Yuji sprained his wrist but nothing else. Pretty minor, all things considered,” she reports. “They’re on their way back to the house.”

“Good,” you breathe, the relief evident in your voice. “Thanks. Do you… are you sure about the brief?”

Tsumiki chuckles. “Hey, not your job to worry about the press tonight.”

“I can still try to… write it,” you say half-heartedly, dreading the thought of it. “I mean, I saw the scene and…”

“Don’t even worry about it. Genuinely,” she says. “You and I both know that’s a conflict of interest.” You huff a weak laugh. What an understatement. “More importantly, you sound exhausted and I’m sure that whole thing stressed you out. Listen, the photog I had on it wanted to break into writing anyway. No time like the present.”

You immediately feel even worse, because your photographer was probably looking for you at the scene and you just left him hanging.

“Stop,” Tsumiki says, like she can read your mind through the phone. “He handled it well. It’s fine, Skipper. Get some rest.”

“Thanks,” you murmur, but she’s already gone. You shoot a quick text to the group chat explaining what happened, that everyone’s fine, and that you probably won’t be home tonight. Takuma doesn’t want to be alone, and honestly, you don’t know if you could leave him if you tried.

It doesn’t take long for the texts to start pouring in.

utah: let us know if any of you need anything!! maki: keep us posted and tell megumi to answer his dumb phone nobara: WHAT nobara: OH MY GOD???? nobara: well i’m glad everyone’s okay nobara: christ freak no. 1: alsjkfq qEQht

You frown at the keysmash, wondering if Toge dropped his phone or actually just doesn’t know how to communicate like a normal person.

you: ??? freak no. 1: sorry SOMEONE TOOK MY PHONE,,,, utah: because SOMEONE DOESN’T KNOW WHEN IT’S AN APPROPRIATE TIME TO SEND MEMES, TOGE maki: nvm he picked up maki: go to sleep, skipper, we can talk tomorrow

Toge texts you privately thirty seconds later. It’s the meme of Gru laying out his evil plan and then realizing it’s a horrible idea. The first frame says answer the phone, the second says get the breaking news like a baddie journalist, and the last frames say realize you know everyone at the scene of the crime. You laugh out loud. Toge knows you. He knows you needed this. He wouldn’t have sent it if he didn’t think it’d cheer you up.

A half-second later, another image comes in, but it’s just a picture of Nobara with her hands clasped together in front of her mouth, speechless and absolutely thrilled. The full image shows her swooning over a little puppy, but you long ago cropped it and started using it as a reaction image in your chats.

freak no. 1: me when ur okay :)

“Aw,” you murmur. Toge can be sweet sometimes. You start texting back, but then another message comes in and you backspace immediately.

freak no. 1: me when ur spending the night with your boyfie :) you: i was gonna say thanks but then you kept going freak no. 1: me when she texts back :) you: goodnIGHT TOGE freak no. 1: me when she goodnight texts :)

Takuma knocks softly on the door before cracking it open, waiting for you to give him the green light before coming in. He’s changed into his own pair of sweats, and his hair is ruffled and wild around his face. “Hey.”

“Hi.” You toss your phone on the bedside table and scoot over to make room. “You okay?”

He sits cross-legged on the bed, and you turn to face him. “Think so,” he says. “Just… felt like I was back there for a minute.” His eyes go distant just for a moment, and your heart twists in your chest. You scoot forward, knees bumping against his.

“Glad you’re okay,” you murmur, and it doesn’t feel like enough, but he gives you that soft, open look that makes you feel like you could say anything at all and he’d treasure it.

“Glad it was you and not some rando reporter.”

You grin, holding a fist out to Takuma like it’s a microphone. “How do you rate Skipper’s hug on a scale of one to ten?”

He leans forward, playing along. “Uh, you know, it was so long ago I might not have a really accurate rating. I would have to probably hug her again—”

You don’t let him finish, surging forward and wrapping your arms around him, tackling him down onto the bed in a fit of laughter. Caught off-guard, he has no defense, and after a startled moment his arms snake around your waist, and you lie there, looking at each other with barely-restrained grins.

“Well, that one was pretty good,” he murmurs. “Nine, I think.”

You gape at him. “Nine?”

Another smile dances across his lips, and you suddenly really want to kiss him.

“Guess you’ll just have to keep trying.” He shrugs innocently, and then tries and fails to stifle a yawn, which makes you yawn in turn. It’s late, night having draped itself over the city hours ago, and the effects of barely snatching hours of sleep all week are finally creeping up on you, weighing you down.

“Go to sleep,” you tell Takuma, grabbing a blanket from where it’s been wedged between the bed and the wall and shoving it toward him.

“You go to sleep.”

“Bossy.”

But he shakes the blanket out and lets it fall over both of you, trapping your warmth beneath it, and sleep feels very, very appealing.

You think about the paralyzing, all-consuming fear that took hold of you when you saw the car. The thought of anything happening to him—you actually can’t even fathom it. And you think about what that means, and that you’ve only known this boy for a month, but you feel like your heart beats on the same channel as his.

Geto’s words play themselves over and over in your head, Maki’s mixing themselves in until you have a chorus of phrases bouncing around like pinballs.

Your heart is not a finite thing.

You already know.

The question isn’t if he likes you, or if you like him. It’s whether you’re gonna let it play out or shut it down before it has a chance to.

If you’ve got something, love it while you have it.

Geto was right. You don’t know how long you’ll have this for, have him for. But you better make the most of it while you do.

But Takuma’s eyes are already closing, his arm slung over your waist, seeking your warmth, your comfort. He looks exhausted, shaken. These aren’t conversations for tonight. Tonight, you just hold him, and feel his breath against your neck, and revel in the fact that he’s okay.

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The event that had brought you to King’s Landing ended with a tourney.

Men adored proving themselves with horses and sticks while women pretended the blood was romantic. The lists were hung with banners. Merchants sold pies, ribbons, roasted nuts, and little painted dragons on strings. The stands overflowed with courtiers dressed brighter than sense. The king attended for an hour, declared the sun too strong, and left. Everyone relaxed visibly once he was gone.

Valarr rode.

You had told him not to expect a favor.

He had said he would never presume.

Then he had looked at you with those hopeful mismatched eyes until you threw a green ribbon at his head and told him to strangle himself with it if he lost.

He tied it around his arm.

“You encouraged him,” your brother said as Valarr rode into the lists wearing black armor chased with red gold.

“I threatened him.”

“He looks encouraged.”

“He is defective.”

Valarr won his first tilt.

Then his second.

On the third, he broke his lance against Ser Olyvar’s shield and took a hard strike to the chest that nearly unseated him. The crowd gasped. Your hand clenched so tightly around the rail that your rings bit skin.

He kept his seat.

Barely.

Your brother murmured, “Still not worried?”

“I am concerned for the horse.”

“Of course.”

Valarr won.

By the final tilt, the crowd was roaring his name.

His opponent was Ser Damon, the same knight he had unhorsed days before. Damon rode well and viciously, anger lending him force. Their first pass shattered both lances. The second sent splinters spinning like straw. On the third, Damon’s lance struck Valarr’s helm hard enough to snap his head back.

You rose before you knew you had moved.

Valarr swayed.

The crowd held its breath.

Then he righted himself, wheeled his horse, and on the next pass struck Damon clean in the breastplate.

Damon fell.

The stands erupted.

You sat slowly, heart hammering with fury.

When Valarr removed his helm, his hair was damp, his face flushed, his mouth smiling.

He looked up at you.

You glared.

He smiled wider.

Idiot.

Beloved idiot.

No.

Not beloved.

Not yet.

But when he crowned you Queen of Love and Beauty, placing a wreath of pale roses and wicked thorns in your lap, the crowd screamed itself hoarse.

Valarr bowed from the saddle.

“My queen,” he said.

The words were for the tourney.

They did not sound like it.

You looked at the wreath.

Then at him.

“I suppose,” you said loudly enough for the nearest stands to hear, “one must reward effort, even when accompanied by recklessness.”

Laughter rolled through the crowd.

Valarr placed a hand over his heart. “Your praise sustains me.”

“It was not praise.”

“It will sustain me anyway.”

//

Later, after the feasting began, you found him in a quiet corridor outside the hall, stripped of armor and dressed in black velvet. A bruise was blooming along his jaw where the helm had struck. Another shadow darkened his collarbone beneath the open throat of his tunic.

You closed the door behind you.

He turned.

“My lady.”

“You reckless, preening, dark-haired fool.”

His brows lifted. “You were worried.”

“I was irritated.”

“You stood.”

“To see whether the horse was harmed.”

“The horse is well.”

“More deserving of concern.”

He smiled.

You crossed the corridor and seized his chin carefully, turning his face toward the light.

His smile faded.

Your fingers were gentle on his bruised jaw.

“Does it hurt?” you asked.

“A little.”

“Good.”

He laughed softly, then winced.

“Do not laugh if it hurts.”

“Then stop being funny.”

“I am not being funny. I am angry.”

“I know.”

“At you.”

“I know.”

“You could have fallen.”

“I did not.”

“You could have.”

“Yes.”

Your grip tightened slightly. “Do not answer me calmly when I am trying to scold you.”

“What should I do?”

“Look repentant.”

He tried.

Poorly.

“You are smiling,” you said.

“I am being touched tenderly by a furious woman. It is confusing.”

You released his chin. “Then suffer without aid.”

He caught your hand before you could withdraw fully.

Not hard.

Never hard.

Just enough to ask.

You let him keep it.

His thumb rested against your pulse.

“I am sorry I frightened you,” he said.

The anger faltered.

“You did not frighten me.”

He looked at you.

You sighed. “Fine. You frightened me. A little.”

His gaze softened.

“Do not look so pleased.”

“I am not pleased you were frightened.”

“You are pleased I cared.”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“At least lie politely.”

“I promised not to.”

“Another foolish promise.”

“One of my favorites.”

You should have pulled away.

Instead, you reached up and touched the bruise on his jaw again, lighter this time.

His eyes closed briefly.

That small surrender undid you more than any declaration.

“You will be careful,” you said.

“I will try.”

“No. You will be careful.”

His eyes opened.

There must have been something in your face, because his expression gentled into seriousness.

“I will be careful,” he said.

“For yourself.”

“For myself.”

You looked at him.

“And?” you prompted.

A slow smile touched his mouth. “For you.”

“Better.”

You began to step back.

He did not release your hand.

“My lady,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I have been very obedient.”

“That is debatable.”

“I have followed your rules.”

“Most of them.”

“I have sent no singers.”

“A mercy the realm should commemorate.”

“No jewelry.”

“True.”

“No midnight visits.”

“A loss you bear bravely.”

His thumb moved over your wrist.

“I would like another rule amended.”

Your pulse shifted.

“Which?”

His gaze dropped to your mouth.

Ah.

You should say no.

Not because you wanted to, but because wanting had become far too visible. Because kisses changed things. Because the court already watched you both as though waiting for a wedding or a war, and you were not yet sure which one love resembled most.

“Valarr,” you said.

“One kiss,” he said. “Only if you wish it.”

“You are very fond of asking for single things.”

“I am fond of receiving them from you.”

“You become poetic when denied.”

“Then stop denying me.”

“Presumptuous.”

“Hopeful.”

“Greedy.”

“With you?” He smiled faintly. “Always.”

You looked at him for a long moment.

Then you said, “One.”

His breath caught.

“And if you look triumphant—”

“I know. You will tread on my foot.”

“I will do worse.”

“I believe you.”

You lifted your chin.

He bent slowly.

Slowly enough that you could stop him.

Slowly enough that your heart had time to betray you completely.

His lips touched yours.

Soft.

Careful.

A question, not a conquest.

Your hand rose to his chest, fingers curling in the velvet of his tunic. He made a sound low in his throat, and the kiss deepened—not by force, but by mutual ruin. Warmth spread through you, sweet and terrifying. The world narrowed to his mouth, his hand at your waist, the faint tremble in him as though restraint cost him something.

You drew back first.

Barely.

His forehead rested against yours.

Neither of you spoke.

Then you whispered, “You may consider the rule amended.”

His laugh was breathless. “How generously?”

“Do not push your luck.”

“I would not dare.”

“You always dare.”

“Only when invited.”

“You were not invited.”

“No?” His nose brushed yours. “My mistake.”

You stepped back, though your hand remained against his chest.

His heart was racing.

Good.

“You will return to the feast first,” you said.

“Will I?”

“Yes. I require time to look less kissed.”

His eyes darkened with delight.

You pointed at him. “Do not.”

“I said nothing.”

“Your face is shouting.”

He bit back a smile. “Forgive me.”

“No.”

He bowed, still smiling, and left you in the corridor.

You waited until his footsteps faded.

Then you pressed both hands to your burning cheeks and muttered, “Idiot.”

It was unclear which of you that you meant.

//

By the final night of the royal celebration, the court had accepted that Prince Valarr Targaryen was lost.

Some mourned him. Some envied him. Some calculated whether your future children might have silver hair and Tyrell influence. Some still waited for him to come to his senses, which was foolish because Valarr had never looked more delighted to be senseless.

The feast was held in the great hall. Every pillar was wound with flowers. Musicians played beneath a canopy of green and red silk. Wine flowed. Candles blazed. The air smelled of roast boar, spiced plums, wax, perfume, and impending scandal.

Valarr asked you for the first dance.

You gave it.

Then the second.

Then refused the third because, as you informed him, “The court requires time to recover from your smugness.”

He went to dance with Queen Myriah, who laughed at something he said and glanced at you with knowing eyes.

You escaped to the gallery above the hall, where the music softened and the crowd became a tapestry of color below. You stood alone for perhaps three minutes before Baelor found you.

“Lady Tyrell,” he said.

“Your Grace.”

He came to stand beside you at the rail. Below, Valarr spun his grandmother through a turn with such elegance that half the hall sighed.

“You have made my son very happy,” Baelor said.

You kept your eyes on the dancers. “How alarming for him.”

Baelor smiled. “He survives it well enough.”

“For now.”

“He is young.”

“So am I. People keep reminding me, usually when they wish me easier to command.”

Baelor looked at you.

You met his gaze.

It would have been easier to flatter him. Safer too. He was not merely Valarr’s father. He was Prince Baelor, heir to the Iron Throne, beloved of the realm, respected in Dorne and the Reach and nearly everywhere men had sense. But you had never known what to do with easy when a sharper tool sat close to hand.

After a moment, Baelor said, “Do you wish to be commanded?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Your brows lifted.

He looked down at his son. “Valarr would not know what to do with an obedient woman.”

“Most men figure it out quickly.”

“My son is not most men.”

“No,” you said. “He is far more troublesome.”

Baelor laughed quietly.

The sound surprised you. It was lower than Valarr’s. Warmer.

“He loves you,” Baelor said.

Your fingers tightened on the rail.

“That is a serious word.”

“Yes.”

“Careless, from some mouths.”

“Not mine.”

You believed him.

That was inconvenient.

Below, Valarr looked up toward the gallery as though sensing your attention. When he saw you with his father, a flicker of concern crossed his face.

You almost smiled.

Baelor noticed.

“He worries I am frightening you.”

“Are you trying to?”

“No.”

“A pity. You might have succeeded.”

“I doubt that.”

“Then you are wiser than you look.”

His mouth twitched. “I see why he adores you.”

You looked sharply at him.

Baelor’s expression was gentle, but not soft. There was iron in him, well hidden beneath courtesy. You respected that. Flowers needed earth, but kingdoms needed iron.

“I will not tell you that loving a prince is easy,” he said. “It is not. I will not tell you the court will be kind. It will not. I will not promise that duty will never take from you. Duty takes from everyone, though it feeds kings first.”

You said nothing.

“But I will tell you this,” Baelor continued. “My son is better when you are near him. Not weaker. Better. You challenge his pride without wounding his heart. That is rare.”

Your throat tightened.

“I wound many things,” you said.

“Yes,” Baelor said. “But not carelessly.”

That silenced you.

Below, Valarr had finished the dance and was already moving toward the stairs.

Baelor watched him with a look you recognized from your own father. Love mixed with worry. Pride with fear. The expression of a parent who knew children grew beyond reach and still wanted to place a hand between them and every blade.

“He is very dear to you,” you said.

“He is my son.”

“That is not always the same thing.”

Baelor turned back to you.

Something like sadness crossed his face.

“No,” he said. “It is not.”

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Then he said, “And are you dear to him?”

You laughed once under your breath.

“Ask him.”

“I am asking you.”

You looked down at Valarr, now at the foot of the stairs, speaking briefly to Matarys, impatient to come up and pretending poorly not to be.

Your expression betrayed you.

You knew because Baelor’s did not change, but his eyes softened.

“Yes,” you said quietly. “I believe I am.”

Baelor nodded.

“And he?” he asked.

You swallowed.

A dozen answers rose, all sharp enough to protect you.

He is tolerable.

He is useful.

He dances adequately.

He is less dull than most princes.

Instead, perhaps because Baelor had been honest with you, or perhaps because Valarr had ruined you beyond repair, you said:

“Yes.”

Only that.

But it was enough.

Baelor looked stunned.

Not because of the word.

Because of how you said it.

Softly.

Without armor.

Valarr reached the gallery then.

He looked between you and his father. “Should I be concerned?”

“Always,” you said at once, grateful for the return of yourself.

Baelor looked from you to Valarr.

His son’s face changed when he looked at you. Not like singers claimed men looked at maidens in songs. It was quieter than that. Truer. His attention settled. His shoulders eased. Some part of him, always braced beneath the weight of crown and court and expectation, seemed to come home.

And you—you, who had cut half the realm bloody by supper.

You smiled at him.

Not the sweet poisonous smile of court. Not the sharp smile before a killing remark.

A real smile.

Small. Private. Warm.

Valarr saw it and went utterly still.

“My lady,” he said softly.

“My prince,” you replied.

Baelor stared.

Not a different woman. Not a mask removed.

The hidden heart of the thornbush.

Valarr offered his hand. “Will you walk with me?”

You looked down at the feast. “The court will notice.”

“The court has eyes. A tragedy we cannot mend.”

You turned to Baelor. “Your son grows impertinent.”

“He was not so before you.”

“Then I have improved him.”

“Debatable,” Baelor said.

Your eyes lit with amusement. “Careful, Your Grace. I am beginning to like you.”

Baelor bowed his head. “I shall try not to disappoint.”

You took Valarr’s hand.

As the two of you moved away down the gallery, Baelor remained at the rail, watching. Valarr bent his head toward you. You said something that made him laugh. Then, when you thought no one saw, your thumb brushed gently over the bruise still faint along his jaw.

Valarr turned his face into the touch for the smallest moment.

Baelor’s heart clenched.

Matarys appeared beside him, following his gaze.

“Oh,” Matarys said.

Baelor nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“She looks as though she might murder anyone else for seeing that.”

“She might.”

“Are you frightened?”

“Of her?”

“Of both.”

Baelor watched his son smile down at you like a man who had found his fate and approved of it entirely.

“Yes,” Baelor said. “A little.”

Matarys grinned. “Good. Keeps the blood moving.”

Baelor sighed, but there was no displeasure in it.

Across the gallery, Valarr stopped beside an open archway where moonlight spilled over the stone. The feast noise dimmed behind you. Outside, the night was cool and blue, the city glittering below like a field of fallen stars.

You leaned your shoulder lightly against the wall. “Your father was kind to me.”

“He is kind.”

“He warned me.”

“He is wise.”

“He said you love me.”

Valarr went still.

You watched him.

For once, he had no clever answer prepared.

Good.

“Did he?” Valarr asked.

“Yes.”

“He oversteps.”

“Does he?”

Valarr looked at you.

Moonlight silvered his hair, softened the bruised line of his jaw. He looked too beautiful, which should have made him unbearable. Instead, it made him seem strangely vulnerable, as though beauty was only another expectation placed upon him.

“No,” he said at last. “He does not.”

Your pulse quickened.

Valarr stepped closer.

“I love you,” he said.

The world did not end.

No dragon screamed above the city. No sword appeared. No courtier burst from behind a pillar to write it down.

Only the night. The music. His hand in yours.

“I did not mean to,” he continued, voice low. “I thought at first you were a challenge. Then a delight. Then a danger. Then—” He smiled faintly. “Then I found I was looking for you in every room before I remembered entering it. I found I wanted your opinion before my own. I found that when something pleased me, it pleased me less if I could not tell you. When something wounded me, I thought of how you would name it honestly and make it smaller. I found that your cruelty is often mercy sharpened enough to be useful. I found that your softness, when given, feels like being trusted with a kingdom.”

Your eyes burned.

“Valarr.”

“I love you,” he said again. “Not because you are easy. Not because you are sharp. Not because you resist me or amuse me or humble me, though you do all three with alarming frequency. I love you because you are yourself, entirely, even when the world would prefer pieces. And I want—”

He stopped.

You knew what he wanted.

So did he.

A future. A promise. A life where your thorns and his fire learned how not to destroy one another.

Your throat ached with all the things you feared saying.

You could wound him. Easily. A jest would do. Something about poetry. Something about princes. Something that would let you retreat laughing while your heart stayed barricaded behind its thorns.

Instead, you stepped closer.

Valarr went silent.

You reached up and touched his cheek, carefully avoiding the bruise.

His eyes closed for half a breath.

“You are,” you said softly, “the most inconvenient man I have ever met.”

His eyes opened.

Your hand remained on his face.

“You send terrible flowers.”

“I improved.”

“You interrupt my reading.”

“I bring better books.”

“You make me worry during tourneys.”

“I promised caution.”

“You say things no sensible woman should believe.”

“I mean them.”

“I know,” you whispered.

His face changed.

You took a breath.

“I do not know yet how to love without armor,” you said. “I do not know how to be looked at as you look at me and not reach for a knife to cut the gaze apart. I do not know how to be soft without fearing someone will call it weakness.”

Valarr’s hand covered yours against his cheek.

“You do not have to know tonight.”

“I am not finished.”

He smiled faintly. “Forgive me.”

“I do love you,” you said.

The words came out quiet.

Valarr stopped breathing.

You felt it beneath your hand.

“Unfortunately,” you added, because you were still yourself.

A laugh broke from him, unsteady and radiant. “Unfortunately?”

“Deeply inconvenient.”

“Tragic.”

“Ruining my reputation.”

“Beyond repair.”

“I shall be forced to blame you.”

“I accept full responsibility.”

“You should.”

“I do.”

He leaned his forehead against yours, eyes bright.

“Say it again,” he whispered.

“No.”

“My lady.”

“Do not beg. It is undignified.”

“I have no dignity left.”

“You misplaced it in the library.”

“Then there is no harm.”

You sighed, as though burdened beyond bearing, but your hand slid from his cheek to the back of his neck.

“I love you,” you said again.

Valarr kissed you.

Not like the first time.

There was still care in it, still restraint, but joy burned through both. He kissed you as though laughter had become touch, as though every sharp word and almost-smile and battle of ink had been leading him here. You kissed him back with less gentleness than feeling, your fingers tightening in his hair, your body leaning into his.

When you parted, he looked utterly lost.

You were very pleased.

“Your face is shouting again,” you said.

“It is saying very respectful things.”

“It is not.”

“It is mostly gratitude.”

“Mostly?”

“And devotion.”

“Valarr.”

“And a little triumph.”

You stepped on his foot.

He laughed and kissed your forehead.

The gesture was so tender, so casual in its affection, that you froze.

He felt it at once.

“What?” he asked.

You shook your head.

But he waited.

You could have lied.

You almost did.

Then you said, “No one has ever kissed my forehead before.”

His expression softened in a way that made you want to hide and stay at once.

“May I do it again?”

Your heart twisted.

“You ask ridiculous questions.”

“May I?”

You looked down. “Yes.”

He kissed your forehead again.

This time, you closed your eyes.

From the far end of the gallery, Baelor saw.

He had come to retrieve Valarr for the final toast, but he stopped before crossing into the moonlight. He saw your sharp face tipped down, your eyes closed, Valarr’s lips pressed reverently to your brow. He saw your hand clutching the front of his son’s doublet, not to command or defend, but simply to hold.

The Queen of Thorns, court called you.

Yet there, in his son’s arms, you looked not tamed, not conquered, not diminished.

You looked cherished.

And, more astonishing still, you allowed it.

Baelor turned away before either of you noticed, his chest tight with a father’s strange grief and stranger joy.

Matarys, appearing as if summoned by gossip itself, peered around him.

“What are we looking at?”

“Nothing,” Baelor said.

Matarys looked anyway.

His grin spread.

“Oh, nothing looks very interesting.”

“Leave them.”

“Will there be a betrothal?”

“Not tonight.”

“Soon?”

Baelor looked once more toward the archway, where you had lifted your chin and said something that made Valarr laugh against your hair.

“Perhaps,” he said.

Matarys leaned against the wall. “She is terrifying.”

“Yes.”

“She will make court unbearable.”

“Yes.”

“She will make Valarr happy.”

Baelor smiled faintly.

“Yes,” he said. “I believe she already has.”

Behind them, the feast roared on.

But in the moonlit gallery, the prince and the thorned girl stood apart from all of it.

Valarr held your hand as though it were both vow and miracle.

You looked up at him, eyes bright, mouth sharp even now.

“If you ever tell anyone I am soft,” you said, “I will deny it and make you look mad.”

He smiled. “I know.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“I have a reputation.”

“A fearsome one.”

“Carefully cultivated.”

“With great artistry.”

“You are mocking me.”

“I am adoring you.”

“That is worse.”

“Yes,” he said. “I expect it will be.”

You tried not to smile.

Failed.

Valarr saw.

Of course he did.

He bent and kissed the corner of your mouth, where the smile had betrayed you.

“My queen,” he whispered.

You rolled your eyes. “Do not become dramatic.”

“With you?” His arms circled you carefully. “I fear I am doomed.”

You rested your cheek against his chest for one quiet moment.

Only one.

A queen could allow herself one.

His heart beat beneath your ear, fast and alive and yours enough to frighten you.

“Valarr,” you murmured.

“Yes?”

“If you hurt me, I shall ruin you.”

His hand moved gently over your back.

“I know.”

“And if anyone else hurts you,” you said, softer, “I shall ruin them too.”

His breath caught.

Then his arms tightened.

Not a cage.

An answer.

“I know,” he whispered.

Below, King’s Landing glittered with lies.

But above it, in the Red Keep’s moonlit bones, there was one honest thing:

A dragon prince, smiling like a fool.

A rose with all her thorns.

And the beginning of a love the court would spend years trying, and

During the ceremony you fixed your gaze on one of very few childish faces in the crowd. Most people followed advice from Maesters and kept small children away from gathering to assure their health. Not everyone was lucky enough to still have someone to leave their kid with. Families turned smaller, neighbourhoods settled into its new empty shape with abandoned corners that used to be filled with life. Almost every household lost its members.

The boy you watched was pale, but not enough to make you worry. His expression turned from interest to utter sadness, but it had nothing to do with the funeral that was taking place. He couldn’t care less, just like the rest of the children dragged here by their parents to honour the victory over the sickness.

It was a burial of the last victim of the spring plague.

Well, in the optimistic version. You were skilled and lettered enough to know that fever often came back after it was declared gone. That was why you stayed amongst the small folk for so long.

The mere thought about going through the horror again made you bite on your lip and straighten your back. Your bones were never this weary. You provided your care on the battlefields many times, but a fight with an invisible enemy, dragged over the weeks, was something worse.

The boy’s face helped you to banish those memories, at least for now. His mother snapped an apple out of his small hands and threw the fruit away – the same one that you offered him only minutes ago. There was no malice in it, you were sure. People were just… couscous.

Even after you have spent weeks with them, healing them and caring – unlike the lords and ladies that hid in the castle. They called to gods that never answered and praised the nobles who never cared. Still, some trust in a person who nursed the sick was apparently too much.

You've seen faces of the dying flushed with pride, jaws clenched from menace, shock, envy. Yet, the worst sight was when there was no strength left. When the flesh rested on the bones, mouth opened, and drool slowly leaked. More than once the same face that prayed, cursed at you and later begged, was now still, letting out only soft wheezes. Only the eyes of the dying expressed some gratitude. Just a little.

You never turned away, not even once. The curses weighed on you, but you carried them bravely.

“Lordish whore.”

You heard it even when folks whispered behind your back. Most of them were too scared to speak against you openly.

Lyonel would have them harshly punished, but he wasn’t here during the plague. He didn’t stroll through the streets.

You did, and nothing could shield you from people’s hate. For a while you forced yourself to respect them, keep not only mercy but also regard, but now when everything was done, you never wanted to leave the castle again. You dreamed about taking a bath twice every day for the next month and not seeing a sick man ever again… 

On your walk back to the keep rain flushed the blood and gore off the streets. You pulled your hood over your head and quickened the pace. Your mute helper, the tall man that always hovered nearby ready to obey your orders, hummed incoherently at the sight of Storm’s End’s towers.

You knew Corban wasn’t fond of the place. Before you settled by Lyonel’s side for longer you expected to feel similar. Yet, the stormy part of the world turned out quite bearable when you had a warm presence nearby.

You knew it was the same for Corban – before the sickness started you noticed his walks with one of the servant girls. He was used to listening to you talk, and he never looked displeased about it, but the spark in his eyes when she spoke – it was unmatched. It truly warmed your heart to see your old friend find solace in her soft presence and quietly muttered stories.

You hoped everyone at home was fine. Surely Lyonel would be thoughtful enough to send for you if even one servant, stable boy, maid, fell ill, right?

If there was anyone other than you who didn’t feel the invisible border built between the castle and the rest of the city – it was the Lord. Small folk expected that old walls of Storm’s End hid people in fancy clothing, their cheeks shining from meat’s fat, gallant looks and eyes stained by outraged morality. All of that while down here humans were dying in unthinkable conditions.

They, the nobles, must have cast you away— You, a woman who changed her gown, a gift from Lord Baratheon himself, to a simple linen underskirt and a coat that irritated your skin. The woman whose leather boots were instantly stained in mud and blood. The one who never backed away from death, evil and profanities.

You must have been cursed if the lords ordered you to leave and find your place amongst the poor when the time of the Stranger came.

Only if they knew how hard Lyonel Baratheon begged you to stay inside and not risk. How he tried pleading, screaming – even keeping you locked with force – despite knowing he couldn’t change your mind. He let you go with seriousness you never saw on his face before. You teased that it comes from his lack of belief in your abilities, but he didn’t laugh.

The gatekeepers let you in without a word. After sending Corban to the kitchens to eat and meet up with his girl, you made your way to your chambers first, to wash and smell your clean sheets again. After such a long time of sleeping in random corners or – if you were lucky – on the hay, a real bed seemed like the greatest reward.

Suddenly you were aware of the dirt behind your nails and the blood that still clung to your clothes. You rolled your eyes when you heard familiar steps in front of you, before you could take the corner. Only Lyonel’s chamberlain wore heels this strange, and you sometimes suspected he only kept the man around because he was amusing.

You hated the idea of being seen like that, but you had no choice. It turned out that finding your place in the castle wasn’t much easier than amongst the folk.

“Oh!” The man stopped right in front of you. His hand raised to his chest dramatically, like you were the sickness yourself, ready to rip life from his body.

“My–” You knew how difficult the words were to mutter, when he looked at you. “My lady.”

He quickly fixed his mistake, calmed his expression, but you decided to put an end to his misery and kept walking.

“Can you call your lord to come and see me?” You asked while passing the man.

“Lord Baratheon isn’t here, I’m afraid.”

That made you stop in your tracks and turn on your heel. He must have been scared by your sudden face of worry and anger, because he took a step back.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“The plague–”

“What about it? Speak up!”

He took a breath in and hid his hands behind his back.

“The lord said that the plague will be followed by a wave of new packs of bandits. By rogues made of poor peasants and folks looking for a way to gain some coin. He was very right about it; there’s been some complaints, and since the sickness is gone, he went to take care of the issue himself.”

You frowned unimpressed, but to mock the chamberlain nor Lyonel’s decisions, but to indulge some of your worry. All of this displeased you greatly.

“Is that so?”

“I… Yes, my lady. He left this morning.”

“Unwise,” you rated under your breath.

“It is not my place to question the lord’s actions,” he said diplomatically, and you nodded.

“Of course, it isn’t.”

It wasn’t. It was yours, though.

“Well, don’t let me disturb you any longer, my lord,” you said to rush him back to his occupations.

You felt his careful glance, how he basically pierced you with his eyes. It turned less disgusted, though, more like he was glad.

“My lady?” He called before you could leave.

“What?”

The snap made him smile a little – the time spent amongst simple people clearly affected your manners. You were damn too tired to care about such things.

“Welcome back. It is good to have you here in good health.”

Something told you the words were genuine and somehow that made you feel uneasy. Like you belonged here – to people you wanted to disregard not so long ago.

“Thank you.”

You stopped at the doorstep of your chamber to breathe in the smell of an untouched room. Steady air, not exactly suffocating but a little fusty, should have irritated you – just like the dust on your desk and shelves. Should, but it didn’t. It felt welcoming. After so many differences, so many lives gone, it was soothing to see something was still the same.

Even at the cost of having to tidy the place.

You weren’t left in your solitude for long. A sound of energetic steps came from the hallway and soon enough you saw a certain someone peeking inside. Only now you realized that Lyonel wasn’t the only person you were missing.

Amongst all the people in the castle who avoided you when they could, those scared and confused about your presence, there was also Myrtha. A young servant, who usually failed to hide her smile whenever she saw you. When you first met her you thought she was mocking you, trying to provoke you. Somehow you couldn’t be annoyed by her joyful soul for long though. Even if you pretended to be resistant, you shared Corban’s clear fondness for the girl.

She didn’t change at all, just like your room. Her fiery red hair was unruly like always and the spark in her eye didn’t disappear.

She stood still and stared at you like you were a ghost – she always did that when you appeared tired, waiting for you to allow her to express her excitement. You always did… She was too sweet to deny her that.

You nodded your head, and it made her let out a squeak, as she almost jumped in place. She made her way close to you and wrapped her hands over you, burying her face in your shoulder – absolutely unbothered by the grim on your clothes.

“Hello to you too, Myrtha,” you muttered and smiled a bit when she didn’t look. “Did you see Corban already?”

“Yes! I never doubted you’d be back!”

“Smart girl.” You patted her back to make her pull away.

With a grin on her face she rushed to open the windows and let more light in.

“The room wasn't cleaned, as you ordered,” she explained, but she was clearly annoyed by the dust in the air. “Everything is in its place.”

“Good.”

“May I start cleaning now?”

“Don’t you dare,” you said with seriousness that only made her smile wider. “I don’t want anyone touching my things–”

“But I won’t! I’ll just… clean around them,” she pried.

“No.”

“Please.”

“Myrtha,” you warned, but eventually sighed after she kept staring at you. “Why am I even arguing with you? You will do whatever you want anyway.”

She laughed victoriously. What a strange girl she was – a servant that begged for work instead of avoiding it.

“Aye, I will. I’m going to draw you a bath now!”

With that you didn’t wish to argue.

Soon the smell of newly lighted candles mixed with herbal scent. Myrtha insisted that you take your time so she can clean in peace, but you weren’t having that.

You were too nervous to relax anyway.

After scrubbing the dirt from your body and wrapping a robe around yourself, you stepped out to a new version of the same place. The woman was clearly proud of the tidied space, and you offered her a nod.

With a heavy sight that was forced out of you because of how weary your bones felt, you fell to a chair near the window. Myrtha sat nearby, staring at you with an unreadable smile.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“You look too happy for my liking,” you muttered and pulled your head back to let your neck rest.

Myrtha giggled and smoothed the material of her dress before speaking up again. “Are you excited to see the lord?”

When you looked up she had a pleasant smile on her face, like the subject made her emotional. You failed to match that calmness.

It would be easy to assume that the powerful lord of Storm’s End, the strong and fierce knight, was safe from any sicknesses and danger now. It would be, but you were far practical for foolish hopes. If you were told that he was fine – then he was, but you still worried.

“I wouldn’t use the word excited. I will calm down when I see him,” you declared.

“Well, sure but… not even a bit excited?” She pried with a smug face.

Of course, you were excited to see your lover. You did spend weeks amongst dying men, but you didn’t lose your mind yet. Despite some people’s thoughts you were no nun; neither in beliefs nor preferable company.

“That’s not something I would discuss with you,” you lazily argued back.

“Fine,” she dragged, very displeased, and moved from her place to sit on the windowsill, closer to you. She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, still with that pride of hers. “I saw him here a few times.”

“You did?” Playing indifferent wasn’t anything new to you, but now you didn’t fight to hide the cheeky smile.

“Oh yes. You broke our lord’s heart, you know?” She said like it was nothing.

It probably was. Lyonel was a man who could have his heart broken and healed in an hour, especially if there was a tourney to focus on.

“On most days he sat here, just where you sit now,” she recalled, nodding at your chair, “and he stared out the window in utter silence. Silence, can you imagine? No one dared to interrupt him even when he was needed because he looked so spooky.”

“I say it’s rather romantic, isn’t it?” You judged jokingly.

“I know nothing about romantic, but I know we were all pissing ourselves scared. Especially when he had his worst days, gods be good…”

“Not the ‘Lyonel’s bad days’ talk, please,” you groaned, covering your eyes like the mere mention could cause you a headache.

But what could you do? He was truly a fastidious and demanding man who liked to make his problems everybody else's.

“We had that every day for weeks, and it’s your fault,” she said boldly and poked your shoulder, then smiled. “You have him wrapped around your finger, really.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

“Good,” Myrtha laughed.

Fate decided to have mercy over your nerves and just like on call a howl of Baratheons’ hunting hounds could be heard from the courtyard under the window. You could recognize each one of the beasts that seemed to be listening only to Lyonel and sometimes the gamekeeper. They whined and curled up their tails whenever they saw you, especially after attacking Corban one time. You never hurt the animals, just properly scared them off and they happened to have a good memory.

“I should get going,” Myrtha decided, caving in to give you a final hug. “He will be here soon.”

He was, but sooner than she expected. The girl only had a chance of moving closer to the door, blocking Lyonel’s eyesight.

You couldn’t see him yet either, but just like Myrtha’s steps, you would recognize his as well. There was no clatter of plate armor so he must have worn the leather one – the one that you always said looked on him the best, making his shoulders appear broader. He had something roguish to him whenever he chose the black-died protection.

The force that he put into slamming the door into the wall betrayed that he already heard something. Whether it was a report from the chamberlain or simply a whisper, he knew to expect you home.

“The Lady,” he breathed out hoarsely, raising his hand over the doorstep while looking at Myrtha. “Is she back?”

You knew your devoted servant was just fighting a wave of laughter that built up in her chest. You couldn’t blame her. Lyonel was out of breath and looked like he was chased by wild animals on his way here.

Only after the moment you noticed that under the overwhelming confusion, worry and sweat, he was also injured and clearly in pain, that he paid no attention to right now.

“I’m not a lady,” you argued, and Myrtha moved out of Lord Baratheon’s way.

He passed her at once, and you saw the girl wave her hand at you frivolously, before making her way out of the room.

“My heart.” Before you could stand up from the chair and open your arms to welcome him Lyonel was on his knees in front of you. He grimaced slightly as he lowered himself to the ground, but the expression was quickly gone, almost before you could catch it. “You are back.”

You tried to hold him up, but he made him impossible, yet didn’t make you let go of his arms. Quite the opposite, he had his grip on yours too, and leaned his head closer to your lap.

“As I promised.”

“As you promised,” he agreed with a fond smile and looked closely at your face.

He was searching for bruises, dangerous signs, but all he found were the hollows under your tired eyes.

“You are unharmed,” he judged like he was trying to convince himself.

“Yes. Now get up, Lyonel,” you demanded while cradling the side of his face with your hand. “I hate to look at you like tha–”

“On my knees in front of you?” He cut in before you could finish, and he was suddenly bolder. Like the menace he was. He was finally himself. “That now is an awful lie, dear,” he cooed, more proud of himself than he should be.

You had to take a steady breath – all while deciding if you should slap him or shut him up by forcing your mouth to his – but you managed to hold an unamused face.

“All pathetic and desperate I wanted to say, but that wouldn’t be the truth either.” 

It was Lyonel’s turn to be silenced. He sat there at your feet resembling a man who worshiped his deity whom he didn’t even understand. At this moment of stillness you could have a vigilant look over his features.

He was still pale from shock and just like you, he clearly didn’t have much good sleep lately. He ignored that his beard got a tad longer and more unruly than usual, and you would swear the silver strands in his hair were finally winning with Baratheon black. A few locks stubbornly stuck to his skin, wet from blood and sweat. He had a nasty bruise on his jaw, but what truly worried you was the cut on his temple. Not very deep, but it still bled enough to alert your instincts.

You were so focused on looking at him that a deep rasp of laughter startled you. Your heart’s pace sped up and with a sight you sat straight. Your back hit the chair and Lyonel finally obeyed you. He stood up from his knees but leaned in to place a long kiss on your forehead while caging your face in his hands.

“You really are well,” he marked smugly.

But his voice cracked, and he pulled away to cough in his sleeve. He could see you freeze with a serious face and quickly waved his hand.

“Worry not, sweet. It is just the dust from the road.”

But it wasn’t enough to make you forget all the horrors you’ve witnessed.

“It better be,” you muttered and stood up to take his hand in yours.

You turned him to the window to have another careful look at his wound.

“One of the rascals got me pretty well,” he complained before you could speak up.

He already knew you would normally scold him for paying too little attention and not caring about himself, but today you decided to have mercy over him. He looked bad enough; he didn’t need you to remind him of that.

What also proved him, was also the fact that he just wrapped his arms around you and stood still while you listened to his heartbeat. After any other separation he was quick to trade the relief for urging lust that you most often indulge in. The same hand which gently moved your head so he could make sure you were untouched a moment later could turn rough and rapid.

Usually, from the time he stepped inside the chamber he would already be tugging on your skirts or keeping a steady grip on your neck so he could force his tongue into your mouth. He loved and worshiped you with all his soul and force like there was no tomorrow. Yet here he was, apparently caring only about you being close.

“Tired?”

“Hm.”

“And talkative, I see,” you teased but Lyonel decided to ignore you. “Sit down,” you ordered, but he didn’t move, only pulled you more into him.

He swallowed a hiss when your body touched his ribs that only this morning were treated with some malice and – what was worse – a mace that belonged to one of the bandits. Lyonel had the man chained and would watch him get hanged, but that didn’t help for the pain much.

“Lyonel?”

He breathed in heavily, closing his eyes to feel just the herbal scent of your body and its softness brushing his own rugged one.

“Give me a moment, love,” he pleaded and hid his face in your hair.

It was uncommon for a man like him to allow vulnerability. He never had to pretend in front of you, but he knew it wasn’t perfectly comfortable for any of you. He wouldn’t apologize for his behaviour, no, but he would try to play it off. To turn it into a joke – look what you were doing to him! It was your fault.

Before he could do any of that you moved your hand up to the nape of his neck to play with his hair there, and placed the other one on his chest. He hummed and caved to the touch.

“Let me help you then,” you said when you moved away to look up.

“With what?”

“Getting undressed so I can take a look at what you did to yourself.”

It wasn’t coarse enough to make him speak up, but he did roll his eyes.

“Are you sure that’s why you want to undress me?” He muttered when you skillfully took care of the laces of his armor, then moved to pull his shirt over his head.

He groaned in pain when you made him raise his arms and didn’t argue anymore about taking a seat. What he insisted on, though, was pulling you to his lap which you obeyed after gathering a cloth and something to clean the blood off his skin.

“Let’s say whatever I want can wait,” you said under your breath while looking at his bruised ribs. “That doesn’t look good.”

But he was already gone from rationality, too focused on the way you straddled him. He played with the hem of your robe and found access to your bare skin. A grip of his calloused fingers settled on your hip, while he drew circles on your back with his other hand.

His eyes shot up only after you nudged his chest.

“I will be fine,” he assured. “I just need some sleep with my woman by my side.”

Apart from getting stitches that he complained he didn’t need Lyonel was mostly right. There was nothing a good sleep couldn’t fix. And your touch too.

He remembered the aftermath of Ashford tourney; moments that turned his life to better, but also your cruel ways to heal broken ribs. “Perhaps cruel but certainly effective,” you argued. He remembered how you handed him a piece of wood to bite while you did what you had too.

The pain wasn’t that bad this time. It could be because of the lack of humiliation from having something between his teeth or that he no longer had to worry if you weren’t actually trying to hurt him. It could be also thanks to how your exposed thighs touched him–

Well, with that being said, he certainly was right about going back to his health and strength fast. During the night he never once let go of you, even if it was just holding your hand when you stirred due to the nightmares.

You were both exhausted, but your rest was constantly bothered. Lyonel woke up in the early morning, before sun showed up on the horizon, with you sitting straight and staring at him.

He blinked a few times, barely conscious. “Why are you awake?”

You needed a moment to realize his eyes actually opened, and you were no longer alone with your thoughts.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” you assured, lowering yourself to him, and he pulled you closer by wrapping his hand over your waist. “I’m just glad you are here.”

He chuckled warmly and tangled his fingers with your hair.

“I don’t plan to change that anytime soon,” he promised.

He would never say out loud that he did the same – that after you fell asleep in the evening he stayed awake just to look at you. To trace his hand over your tired face and make sure that you were really here, by his side.

“And you? Why did you wake up?”

“Probably felt that you’re lonely,” he joked while nipping at your earlobe with his teeth. “Nah, it’s just the stitches.”

“Do you want to complain about my abilities?” You dared with an ironic undertone to it, but you were immediately focused.

You moved his arm away to sit up again and gently pull away the dressing of his wound. You meant to take a look at it, but Lyonel didn’t allow you to move much. He tightened his grip on you and tugged you back to his chest.

“No. But it still stings.”

You huffed at how stubborn he was.

“You’re a grown man. You can take it.”

“This and much more,” he agreed, but his voice was marked by desire.

“I don’t doubt,” you mumbled. 

Despite pushing your face further to his collarbone and grazing your skin over his, you patted his hand that was searching for a way to get under your shirt. Just like it annoyed you.

“Y/n…” he warned hoarsely, and you could feel the rattling of his throat.

It only made you lean closer. Your hands moved up to trace the wrinkles on his neck and follow with kisses that turned more desperate with every single one. Lyonel’s grip made its way to your hair again, meaning to keep you in place. His breath brushed your ear but what truly made you feel something warm shed in your stomach were the soft groans he let out. Lyonel was always a loud lover no matter the circumstances, but tonight it was restrained. Like he had so many thoughts to say out loud that eventually he feared letting out any sound.

It was still dark outside – you had enough time to work on that issue.

He was so occupied by finally unlacing your shirt and cupping your breast in his hand that he almost didn’t notice you sucking on his skin. Almost. You let out a moan that made him stop his movement and tug on your hair to pull you away from his neck.

You managed to climb over his chest in the process so now you were looking down at him. Arching into him, you observed as he swallowed harshly before baring his teeth in a grin.

“Come here,”

The kiss he pulled you into had some urgency to it. It was full of your teeth clattering and tongues fighting with each other. In those moments Lyonel acted like he had no use of air; he barely allowed you to move away for a breath. He was quick to chase you with his lips, tugging on your hair and clothing – that was, tragically, still there – to draw you close. He wouldn’t settle for any distance separating you.

A pleased sigh escaped his mouth when you found a steady grip on his shoulder and fully got on top of him, careful to not rest too much weight on his ribs.

“They’re all healed now, darling,” he called when he noticed your thoughts evident on your face, “thanks to you.”

“I won’t push my luck. I don’t want you getting hurt under me,” you toyed with a lock of his hair just like you did with the words that quickly picked on his pride.

“You cunning thing…”

This time you kissed him before he could say something more. He deepened it like he wanted your mouths to turn into one, which made you giggle into the kiss. Your body moved on its own on top of him, matching the rhythm of how he picked at your bottom lip.

Suddenly you felt the shift, but instead of letting you slide down Lyonel draped a hand over your waist and moved you with him. He sat up with his back resting on the headrest. With his other hand on your hip he lifted you with ease, and that was it for you.

You brushed your hair from your face and bit the inside of your cheek when you quickly worked on throwing away the remains of your clothes, then taking care of Lyonel’s. All of this because he knew how to use his strength – just the way you liked it.

It was the undisturbed night that you both dreamed of since a long time – Lyonel, the talkative man he was, spared you nothing of saying that he only survived your parting because of the memories of shared moments, those rushed and those that dragged from nights to days and more…

It brightened up outside. You only noticed it glaring over Lyonel’s shoulder as he hovered over you.

It was like you cursed your own fate, because just then a sound of a harsh knock scattered over the room. Lyonel groaned but didn’t still his movement as long as he had any strength left. He fell to your chest, almost crushing you, and hid his face in the crook of your neck for a moment.

“Go check what they want,” you ordered weakly, as out of breath as he was.

“Disturb us, that’s what they want,” he lingered about getting out of bed and when he finally did you wanted to complain too. It was unbearably cold without him.

He had no care in the world about his almost bare state which made the corner of your lips twitch up. You pulled the sheets up to your neck in case someone dared to peek inside.

“Cunts…” Lyonel muttered and opened the door with unexpectable force.

The man on the other side almost jumped and kept looking at his own boots when he noticed his lord wore only a shirt.

“What?” Lord Baratheon said with a low voice that could blow out all the candles in a room.

“Good morrow, my lord,” he greeted with uncertainty, “there are people waiting for an audience. I thought it proper to let you know.”

“Proper,” he scoffed. “Call someone to hear them out instead of me or tell them to come back some other day.”

“No,” you spoke up from the depth of your chamber. “Apologize to the people for the wait and assure them that the lord will be there shortly.”

Lyonel waved the man off before turning to you. He closed the door right in front of his face, and truth be told, the servant was probably glad.

“No, I will no–”

“Yes, you will, Lyonel,” you ordered, being the voice of reason. “You don’t want to displease the people, not now.”

“I don’t want to displease my woman first.”

You watched him with amusement and a creeping smile when he crawled back to you on the bed. His cheeks were still brightened red and his hair completely messed up, falling into his eyes. To you, he had never looked better than at that moment; with an unbuttoned black shirt over his back and a sweaty neck visible under it. He looked almost desperate.

He reached your legs and one of your ankles was immediately under the attack of his kisses. You could feel his beard scratch your skin more and more as he moved up.

He froze in shock – or was it theatrical disappointment? – when you stopped him with your other foot that pushed on his shoulder. He caught it with his big warm hand and placed one final kiss on it, before letting go.

“Why are you doing this?”

You didn’t really do anything yet, but he knew what it meant. He moved back to you, sitting in the bed and pulling you to his side. It couldn’t hurt if you stayed here just for a minute longer.

“I have to go.”

“No, you don't,” he argued. “You only got back.”

“I have duties to attend to, Lyonel…” you said, looking up at him.

“Duties?”

It wasn’t supposed to be mocking, but it sounded like that. Funny, because you both knew very well that he refused to go alone even to a simple audience. You were never bored or unoccupied.

“Since you made me your advisor and Storm's End's physician,” you said back with a daring expression.

He knew you hated the word, but there was no better option to call it. You weren't a simple healer, not a Maester. You bore greater knowledge and accustomed spells a simple herbalist would never comprehend. Yet, ‘physician’ sounded safer than a witch.

“You would have different duties as Lady Baratheon…” he started, just like he usually did in moments like this. He pulled the sheets up around your shoulders to make sure you were warm, and his hand rested on your uncovered thigh.

“Yet, I am not Lady Baratheon. It would do you good to remember that.”

Your stubbornness was what led you here, showed you a way not only to his bed but also his heart, but sometimes he truly hated that. He wished you could just cave in easily, see through your pride and customs and accept his begging.

“Don't you see that the gods favour us?” He tried to reason.

“In what? That we lived through the plague?”

“You have come back to me, as I have to you.”

You giggled, but the sound was grim.

“I made myself survive, and you stayed in the castle. I don’t see much of gods’ doing in it,” you said roughly.

Lyonel didn’t wish to start the day that way, so instead arguing he moved to kiss your collarbone and pick at the unruly strands of your hair.

“How about you don’t say that out loud around others, hm?” He said just like it made him more fond of you. “My little heretic.”

You denied whenever he asked you to be his wife, and he did that more than often. You were a free spirit, always ready to leave and never look back. It would feel cruel, both to you and to him, but you always needed the chance. It was something that always soothed you, and you didn’t know a different way of living. You meant to stay. You wanted to stay… At the same time you wanted to have a choice. Lyonel had to respect it even if he would prefer to give you a ring with a stone big enough that you would barely move your hand.

Your refusal to accept the official title of his spouse didn't stop him from introducing you to the court as a powerful figure, someone who should be regarded and looked up to. He silenced the court whenever someone expressed their concerns or worries.There was nothing to be worried about when it came to his mesmerizing witchy lover.

“Milord! I beg you for help. The boy… He is my only son.”

The poor man would fall to his knees if not for the help of one of the guards. Help, or an attempt to keep him at a right distance away from the Lord of Storm’s End. One way or another it made you roll your eyes.

Before Lyonel could hide the mildly uninterested look on his face, you were already rising from your seat by his side to see through the crowd. He hummed, not saying anything coherent, but loud enough to still your movement. With a gentle graze on your hand that was placed on the armrest he shook his head. Not yet, he said without using any words.

You had some opinions about grand lords and ladies thinking of themselves as better than the common people – because that’s what you saw in Lyonel’s eyes now – but you weren’t about to argue on your first day back.

But Lyonel wasn’t indifferent. He was bored, yes, but not exactly by the man’s misfortune, and he kept you by his side only because he didn’t wish to lose you from his sight in the gathered crow.

If you think about it long enough it would be ridiculous to see him as disgusted by the poor and sick folk. He kissed your hands after all, and he did it every chance he got – the same hands that touched blood, stomachs cut open, dirt and skin ravaged by necrosis. You were the bridge that made him cautious about his people’s true needs.

“Let the man speak freely,” he ordered loudly when he saw one of the guards shaking the commoner’s shoulder while whispering something in a rush.

“Thank you, Milord… I,” he stumbled over his own words and clutched to his chest like he was about to choke.

Then he raised his pained face and eyes stained by tears. Lyonel already knew he won’t be able to keep you by his side, no matter how hard he tried.

Yet the man refused to speak up again – or he couldn’t. Lyonel decided to end his misery.

“Is your son here with you?”

He nodded energetically.

“Well, then bring him in.”

While everything was being arranged, Lyonel fixed his gaze on you standing close, with your arms crossed on your chest. You stared at the crowd with a displeased yet focused face and Lyonel couldn’t help but think that he would love gently smoothing the skin between your brows with his thumb. He could kiss all over your face until you were calm again and–

He let out an unexpected sigh when the man’s son was brought inside the hall. It was either a sound of surprise or disappointment in himself. He wasn’t sure what he expected, but certainly not a whimpering child, clearly troubled by fever, whose little body shook on the barrow carried by his brothers.

“He only broke his leg,” explained the boy’s mother who refused to leave his side. She sobbed while keeping his pale hand close to her chest, but she managed to find the right words, unlike her husband. “The Maester. He said everything will be fine, then he… He locked my boy’s leg in this—this cage!”

One of the Maesters that stood left from Lyonel’s throne scoffed. “Have you lost your senses, woman? What is that supposed to mean?”

It made you grind your teeth with a sarcastic smile. Lyonel smiled too, but only because he found your silent quarrel with the Maesters amusing. You looked at him with a silent question, and he nodded his head, seeing no other option than to let you do what you were best at.

He would be an awful lord if he only kept your skills to himself, wouldn’t he? You would also have him dead if he tried to do that, but it’s just a detail.

You picked up the thick material of your gown before moving down the steps. You rushed the guards away, not wishing to be disturbed as you kneeled near the boy. He cried out like he could feel the new presence and gods–

You wouldn’t blame him even if he screamed at the top of his lungs, using every obscene word known to men.

His leg was not only – indeed – locked into a metal cage that was apparently supposed to stabilize it, but also black with rot. More than a way to help him it was a pathetic attempt at an experiment. You had no doubt it was a work of a foolish Maester who wanted to try something new. It made your hands tremble with anger.

You raised to your feet and the boy’s mother desperately cupped your hand, seeking help. You held it tightly while shifting to look at the fucking ‘knights of the mind’.

“Who did this?” Your voice was firm yet calm at first. If you allowed your emotions to take the reins too often you would be burned on a stake by the people, no matter what Lyonel had to say about it. Still, now with the sounds coming from the boy it was hard to keep your composure. “I'm asking which of you fools did this? You wanted to take some risk, and then abandoned the boy because the sickness scared you away!”

None of them spoke but Lyonel was already up from his seat. If they wouldn’t answer you, you knew he would be more than glad to question them himself. And, oh, they were about to wish that they spoke to you when they still had the chance. There was no other thing that made Lord Baratheon as furious as disrespect towards his closest advisors.

“Move him to my study,” you ordered a guard, who nodded at the brothers holding the barrow.

You ignored your surroundings, your mind too occupied by thinking of a way to save him.

When you saw Lyonel later that day, he came to see how things were going. You locked yourself in your room and demanded to not be disturbed. You didn’t let anyone in, not even Myrtha who usually helped you during operations. He knew, because the girl was rather talkative and liked to speak about it in the kitchens (earning a scolding from the cooks who didn’t want to hear about guts while preparing meals).

He met you when you stepped outside and slammed the door to let out some of your anger. Your hands were covered in blood all to your elbows. Despite rolling up your sleeves they were still dirty. Sweat leaked down your temples and neck, since wiping it would mean smearing the blood over your skin more. Your hair fell from under the pin that kept it in place and stuck to your face, irritating you even more.

In moments like this Lyonel understood why simple people feared you. To an indifferent eye you resembled more of a butcher than a healer.

“The boy lost his leg. I hope you will have his family rewarded for their suffering.” You closed your eyes in content when Lyonel moved to wipe the sweat from your face with a cloth. When he moved away you didn’t look at him with gratitude, though. It was demand that lurked in your eyes. “With coin and generously.”

“Surely,” he agreed, placing his hand on the small of your back.

He was always mesmerized watching the strong expressions on your face shift. Anger drifted away, leaving you at the mercy of utter sadness and exhaust.

“The man who’s responsible for that… I can have this cunt’s head cut if you wish,” he offered with a tone playful enough to make someone think it was a joke. But you knew Lyonel Baratheon. In his every rapid idea there was at least half seriousness.

“If you start cutting the head of every idiot you'll have no subjects left before you even notice,” you muttered and hid your face in his neck, keeping your bloody hands away from him.

He didn’t wait to soothingly drag his touch over your back.

“You inspire me, my dove,” he said in a low murmur.

That made you chuckle and look up at him. “Dove?”

“Oh, right.” He clicked his tongue and allowed a funny expression on his face. “You more resemble a bad omen. Like a raven, yes? A dark harbinger of death… Yet all you bring is luck.”

“Aren't you sweet now?” You mocked.

It was nice of you to notice.

“Mhm. Do you know what a man's worst enemies are? The world, temptations of the flesh, and decisions that displease his woman.”

“Now you speak with sense,” you agreed, and he achieved what he wanted – a small smile. “I don’t recall a recent decision that displeased me, though.”

“That’s good. I’m just saying it to remind myself.”

“I’ve trained you well, haven't I?” You said with forced amusement.

A full moon passed till Lyonel gravely disagreed with one of your advices. Not the first time, but first in quite a while. He didn’t really break his rules, since it didn’t displease you, but it was still hard for him to watch your worried face.

The terrors you saw during the plague would forever stay with you, but the world had to move on. You tried to reason with him that it was still too soon to leave the city and risk his health, but he knew the words were dictated by fear. You knew it too, that’s why you didn’t argue.

He has arranged a trading pact with the Marches that only a fool would back out from. It only needed to be sealed, and his presence was demanded.

It wasn’t like he didn’t share any of your worries, but he knew his duties. That was the part of living he once found dull. No matter what he witnessed, how many deaths, how much blood flew, there would always be a subject to heat out, a servant to scold and a hunt to host. Dull but comforting in its repeatable nature.

You already wondered what would come next for Storm’s End. Another plague, a revolt? War, perhaps dragon fire? If you regarded the gods you would pray for their mercifulness, because this world never offered much calmness, even after a storm. But what did you expect? You chose The Storm Lord to be your lover.

He tried his best to make it better, though, that you had to give him. The tries didn’t turn out to be very successful. He had his own share of doubts… Almost like he didn’t wish to leave too.

Lyonel cradled you close to him with a warm, big hand placed on your bare back. He refused to let go, didn't move nor speak – which was rare for him. He was worried. Clearly.

It got to you. Somehow your breath turned more aware, more shallow. You could feel the tension creeping inside your mind. Whenever your body trembled against your wish, Lyonel's grip tightened. Not in a captivating, choking way. No, it was grounding.

“You worry.”

He barely hummed to acknowledge your words, not willing to confirm.

“Stop it.” You said it more like an advice or a plea than an order. “It makes me think about matters that should be buried deep.”

“I affect your thoughts, my lady?”

“I am no–”

He shook his head before you could finish.

“You are and will be my lady, whether you like it or not,” he stated firmly.

You only scoffed and allowed your head to fall back to his chest.

“You always affect my thoughts,” you admitted softly.

Suddenly, as the peace settled, people started counting what was lost, lurking around in a search of where to put their sorrows. As in every misfortune, when everything calmed those who suffered now looked for consolation. Usually they find it in discovering ones to blame for the tragedy.

It was the same this time.

‘The plague came because the lord had taken a witch as his mistress, surely. He turned away from the gods.’ You heard it before. Many times. At first, you brushed it off, then it sent a shiver down your spine. Eventually you learned to ignore it, too occupied with your work. Yet it was eerie to think you had so many enemies, so close. More than you ever had.

And it was amongst souls whom you served, healing them and trying to shield them from the poisonous air. People were quick to forget, it was always like that, but you were still disappointed.

They forgot especially if the woman who saved their lives smelled of old books, dust and ancient magic. The presence of Corban, your loyal helper, might have had an effect as well. He appealed as… quite dead, for a living man.

Or was he too alive for a corpse?

They came at dawn. A day after the whispers of Lyonel’s leave scattered around the city. He was thoughtful and decided to depart unofficially, but people were careful and Storm's End was full of watchful eyes.

You didn’t move at first, hunched over a table and focused on the mix of herbs in front of you. The wooden door was slammed into the wall, but the sound didn’t startle you. You have been waiting. A group of people marched inside the chamber with curses and prayer on their tongues.

The dim light from the candles sparked in the blades of their weapons. A hatchet, pitchfork, piece of chain wrapped around a man’s forearm. They prepared like you wielded the power of enemy's unit of cavalry. It made you chuckle before you looked up. Because the disappointment and unfairness only allowed you to do that – you could either laugh or scream.

The whole crowd took a step back like one body when your eyes settled on them. What did they fear so much? Did they see red in your pupils? Did you suddenly grow horns? Antlers? Were you an eldritch sign of scarceness?

What was the worst, the awful memories of the sickness still haunted you whenever you closed your eyes. You were already paying the price of the audacity that made you oppose death. Why would you be punished by those for whom you did it?

“Didn't I give you everything I had?” Your voice was chaste, almost free of accusations.

People moved to let someone pass and soon enough you were standing face to face with a man dressed in a long gray cloak that covered black garments. A priest of some kind. His bald face was marked by an ugly scar. You could only imagine that it was from a hit of a dull blade.

“You did,” he agreed with your words. His voice was calm, like he was a leader who welcomed another sinner into his flock. “You did, child, and you have nothing to offer anymore. We must make better use of you.”

A laugh broke out of your mouth again. You didn’t hold back anymore. What an ungrateful city it was–

Every single whore that you healed during the years of your practice held more dignity and gratitude.

“A sacrifice then?” You suggested cheekily, like the talk wasn’t led about your own life.

But the priest didn’t share your humor. Nor anyone else, not that they were brave enough to speak around the man. His face turned from something warm to concern undertone with utter sadness.

“Did you see your fate in the fire?” He dared and walked forward, not sharing much of the crowd’s fear. “Did you read it from the bones of animals?”

“No, your face tells enough,” you muttered before clasping your hands together, fingers intertwined. “But please, indulge me.”

He wasn’t pleased by your insolence and pride.

“Worms have consumed your heart,” he judged with a shake of his head.

How ironic.

“My heart was fine and in its place when I checked last time.”

You took a steady step, knowing that if you won’t be attacked right away, they will chain you. You allowed no hesitation to show.

Nonetheless, the fear settled in your mind when you saw Corban’s face in the back of the crowd. He was captured, and a huge man kept a brutal hand on his neck, forcing your friend to bend.

A few feet from him stood Myrtha, who wasn’t now the brave talkative servant you knew. At that moment she was just a scared girl – a sweet girl that Corban dreamed of calling his if his throat wasn’t so unused to words. She had a broken lip like she was roughly slapped. Poor thing must have tried to save him from people's rage.

Corban had scratches on his face too; the skin over his eyes was almost peeled off. He endured it graciously, just like the wound in his chest. Black blood leaked out from it, sinking his linen shirt.

He could never bleed out. Suffer and not die – was the fate he chose, pleading you for help many years ago. You understood what tragedy it meant to be immortal, but you didn't deny him what he wanted. He used to be a man scared of death. He offered to serve you since he had no money to pay, and insisted even after you said you had no need for it.

He was a walking corpse allegedly stripped from feelings other than pain and yearning for true life, yet he was a man of honor. One of the best you ever knew.

He didn’t move when two men grasped your shoulders to drag you with him. He didn’t even look up your way, but you had no doubt he thought of it as the best option. If he denied his union and devotion to you, perhaps you could be spared the punishment for messing with death and life. He couldn’t be more wrong.

To your surprise, the longer you walked through the hallways of Storm’s End the more people disappeared. They were rushed away by the priest. Before you noticed he was the only one by your side. The harsh tug on your shoulders turned into one steady hand that meat guided you forward. However, the armed silent guards were always behind him, ready to stop you from freeing yourself if you tried.

You didn’t. You allow him to lead you through the narrow, forgotten streets. The house he walked you into was old, rotting of mold and dust. He snapped at the following men, leaving them at the doorstep.

“Don’t fear, child.” He turned to you, his face lighted only by a soft glow from a small window. “You’re a servant of the Stranger–”

In one swift motion you stood right in front of him. It was a dare. A try that he passed. He didn’t back from you nor showed fear.

“I serve no one but myself and people who need it,” you rasped into his face.

He smiled. Softly and slowly, not like he was glad of the provocation, but your answer still made him proud.

“Yes. You did good things. People told me,” he admitted with a nod of his head. “And yet they still want you dead. Not me, though. I have an offer to make.”

“An offer?” You held back a scoff.

“Yes.” His hand slowly moved up to brush over a strand of your hair. He pulled it back quickly, like your mere touch could burn him, but it answered all of your questions. “To save your life,” he clarified after coughing to clean his throat.

You nodded for him to come even closer. The chain rattled when you moved, dreaming about nothing other than harshly tugging on the collar of his shirt. He smiled again, thinking it was a begging of obedience. A sign that you would do everything he would say–

“Fuck you and your offer.”

His face was still for a moment before it sunk in a wave of disappointment. He straightened his back and moved over the room to blow out a few candles, leaving you in almost utter darkness.

“Wrong decision. We’ll see if you change your mind,” he muttered before locking the door after him.

The only sound that came to your ears in the next hours were the roars of the approaching storm and the squeaks from the corner of the room. The rats refused to come any closer to you though.

Lyonel Baratheon never really suffered from nightmares. Sometimes in his sleep he saw people who were long dead. Deceased bodies spoke to him in false prophecies and unsaid wishes. He paid it no mind. He was reminded of the blood and grim of this world by his own mind just like any other warrior were.

Still, the nightmares he had to face during his travel troubled him. It wasn’t caused by the harsh surroundings, surely. He made an order to not set out a proper camp. Instead of a tent he slept on a simple cot near the fire – all to save time. It wasn’t the first time, though, and he never faced any difficulties.

He refused to believe the dream’s prophetic nature – he found it unable to understand anyway – but it rushed him back to the seat of his house.

He crossed the gate like the proud lord he was, unprepared for what he was about to witness. His head still buzzed from the boring words of the trading. All he wished for was your sweet presence. Well, he was probably the only person who considered your presence sweet. Especially now.

The memory of the nightmare flashed in front of his eyes one more time when he saw a thin beggar chasing an equally skinny cat on the street. Once again he saw the horde of wild dogs surrounded by fire. Their sharp teeth preyed on human flesh; parts of the body were ripped away, yet they stayed alive. Lyonel shivered at the thought of a dismembered arm that refused to be still and trembled in convulsions, trying to hitch at the dog’s skin. He heard your voice too. Words impossible to understand.

He spit from the high of his saddle as if to pry the thoughts away.

But it only turned worse.

He needed a moment to realize that your speech he heard in his mind wasn’t just a memory. He heard you here, now. And what made his head spin was the sound of a whip that followed the familiar yell.

He looked at his traveling companions to see their reaction. He needed an assurance that he wasn’t losing his fucking senses. Most of the men were awfully pale, except one who turned red from holding his breath. The guard by his sight tightened his grip on the handle of his sword, but the rest was smarter.

They knew Lord Baratheon needed to be held back from slaughter, not encouraged to it.

He kicked his horse and brutally made his way through the gathered crowd, not caring about knocking someone off.

They held you in the middle of the square, behind a line of armed men. You moved back to your feet and refused to be thrown to the ground again. Lyonel saw the spark of fury on your bruised face, but he was too blinded by his own to pay it much mind. He exposed his blade without a thought and if not for his men who dragged him back he would cut through the guards on his own.

He was too rapid to think that it would probably lead to your death… Well, he had his loyal friends to thank. Later, when he would be able to think about anything else than the overwhelming rage. He fought against their grip but not even The Storm Lord could win with  fierce warriors whose job was to ensure his safety.

He held your eyes for a heartbeat. The blind anger in both of you turned into a glimpse of naive consolation. He was back and wouldn’t let you die like a common criminal.

He was truly here.

Lyonel felt the moment drag. Watching your chest rise in desperate breaths and swallows made him think faster. He wanted to shield you from any danger. He needed to protect you, even if it meant bringing death to his own people. Even if it meant dying.

‘My lord,” one of his advisors tried to reason. “Think, my lord! This is not a way to solve it–”

Lyonel didn’t want to solve anything. He wanted to see the people who dared to hurt you dead. He was disarmed by two men, and they were lucky to pull their hands away quickly. Otherwise, he would gnaw at their skin with his bare teeth.

“Let me—let me go, fuckers!”

When you stood over there, so accepting of the harm that was done to you, Lyonel didn't see your everyday face. Not the cold, rational woman. He certainly never saw the threat in you others were blinded by. No. He saw his Heart, his one and true love that could laugh with her whole strength, that loved the feasts he hosted and stupid jokes, despite never admitting it. He saw the version of you from the childhood stories you told him. You, when you were scared, tired, vulnerable.

It almost calmed him, but then his eyes settled on the priest. The disgusting man that watched him with careful menace. It made him want to massacre everyone in sight again. The man kept a steady grip on your shoulder like you belonged to him.

“Milord, don’t be hasty,” Lyonel’s servant begged. “Not after the tragedies we went through… With so many people dead and starving–”

“They just need someone to blame,” muttered another, indifferent yet very ready to smash his mace at the crowd.

Lyonel almost choked on his breath.

“They need some–” he tried to repeat, not wanting to believe his own ears. “Do you fucking hear yourself?”

“Aye, I didn’t mean her, milord, just…” The man scratched his neck. He looked pathetic, like a furry beast that was confused and embarrassed. “All I say is they need some bloodshed. Some anger to let go off.”

Lyonel freed himself from the hold of others. He stood in front of the huge man, their chest touching.

“They have captured my woman!” He spit in his face as he yelled. “Hear, cunt? My woman!”

“We’ll think of something, ser…”

“You better do or not even the gods will shield you from my rage. You have my word.”

Yet Lord Baratheon knew he would have to work on his own. No man of his would be willing to give away his life for your. Lyonel, though… He would give away all of them.

Hopefully, there was no need to.

“You never allowed me to speak about the offer. Is it a good moment now?”

The priest spoke like he truly cared for what you wanted or what you had to say. The irony of it was overwhelming. You were locked in a cage on a platform, away from him. It flattered you in a way that he thought you were dangerous even in your pathetic state.

Your clothing clung to your wounded back, material pulling at the ripped skin. You refused to let out any sound of pain.

“If I say no I will be dead tomorrow at this hour.”

He nodded slowly.

“Yes. Sadly."

“Speak then,” you demanded, pulling your hand away from your aching face. “Make it short.”

Without any rush he stepped closer and opened the cell.

“I will release you from the chain now,” he said. It was supposed to be soothing, but it sounded only like a warning for you to not do anything stupid.

You didn’t like that, not one bit.

“You are losing your time, and mine. Speak,” you dared again looking up at his face when he kneeled by your side.

He leaned in closer.

“Serve me. Care for me, and you will be safe.”

You threw it back and ground your teeth when your wounds suddenly stung. His words made you dizzy, even when you refused to keep your focus on him. It was like he would never stop, slowly letting you drown in his obnoxious, dangerous pleas.

I can save you.

“Be mine.” He trembled when your angry eyes met him again, but didn’t take it back. “Be mine, or I’ll have no choice but to hand you to the crowd. The people who want to see your blood. It won’t be a quick death. They wish to see you suffering…”

Your voice was hoarse, but you didn’t hesitate. “You are much worse than me. You don’t serve the gods nor the people.”

He chuckled.

“Be mine and I will bear whatever you might want to say to me. Say yes–”

Patience of a whipped woman who was threatened with death had its end too. He reached it, dangerously close. You spit in his face, not willing to hear another word.

The answer came quickly. A harsh slap with a hand adorned by rings. You could feel that one of them broke the skin of your lips, but you no longer cared about small wounds. As long as you had all fingers, your tongue and nails in place…

Your imagination that drifted towards the torment you were about to meet was interrupted. There was a shift behind the priest. The door to the spacious room was kicked open, the sound muffled by a roar of thunder. Someone slipped inside like the veritable evil.

The priest followed your example and looked over his shoulder while standing up. You saw his fist tightening when he fixed his eyes on the dark figure in a cape that made him look even bigger, just like the crown. The chain over his neck sparked; a sign of wealth and power he held. Yet it was not a display of what he could and could not do.

No. Ser Lyonel wasn’t here to go by laws of men or gods. He was getting his woman back, even if he was forced to slit a holy man’s throat.

The lord in gold. He was awaited, it was not a surprise. Still, the priest didn’t predict that he would come as a murderous phantom that carried wrath and a drunken spark in his eyes.

“I want to keep her for myself.”

He was not holy at all if he spoke with such an attitude, Lyonel thought. He fought the urge to scream and demand for him to never speak again. It would be too easy.

He bared his teeth in a wild smile. The room’s darkness made it even more unsettling.

“Come closer, priest.”

He did. He moved like he owned the whole kingdom, just because he had you locked.

He didn’t let go of his pride too quickly, but he groaned when Lord Baratheon suddenly moved.

Only when he felt Lyonel’s arm envelop his throat, the cold touch that carried death with it, was when he truly cried out. He tried to fight, to pierce the lord’s skin with his own nails, but it was a pathetic rage against the deadly fury of a stag. Baratheon skin was never easy to break.

“Unchain your lady and I will let you go,” Lyonel promised without unnecessary threat. The anger in his steady voice was enough to make a grown man shiver anyway.

“Just… Just because she’s your lover, my lord, doesn’t mean she’s my lady.”

But the grip turned tighter and tighter.

“Do what I say. You will pay for what you did,” Lyonel continued whispering to his ear unbothered. “I will have your arms broken, fingers and tongue ripped, but you will live. Make a choice.”

Then he suddenly let go and allowed the man to fall to the floor.

He coughed, fighting for air, but when he raised to his knees he turned to Lyonel with forced braveness again.

“You are a true Baratheon, aren’t you, my lord?” He dared to speak. “So act like one and follow the way of gods.”

“I will follow the way of my blade if you don’t hand me the key right now.”

He stood up, ignorant about the grim promises. “I don’t wish to hurt the woman, I never did. I only protected her from people’s viciousness by keeping her here. Only now I see that perhaps they were correct, right from the start.”

He looked at you with loathing. You turned him down, that was what made him change his mind, apparently. The worst ‘sin’ that he could accuse you of.

Lyonel had enough. His hand moved to the handle of his sword hidden under the cloak. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“We should let the gods decide.”

The lord laughed. “If she burns she's guilty and if not–” Lyonel spoke mockingly, but the priest unexpectedly matched his humour.

He smiled, real ugly.

“No, my lord. You already chose. They will speak through our blades.”

Lyonel was driven more with ale and blood chivalrously spilled on tourneys than ripped out guts, but now he wished to see nothing else. He would smile, let out a deep, grim laugh if he could see the man wriggle in pain on the floor, drowning in the fluids of his own body.

“And I imagined I wouldn't feel good killing a priest,” he admitted more to himself.

“Don't worry. I'm a son of a lord too. Youngest but I was trained. I’m not willingly agreeing for a fight impossible to win.”

Yes, that explained a lot. He held effrontery proper only for a lordish offspring. Or a bastard, perchance. Funny, because for now he allowed Lyonel to sweep him around. It wasn’t difficult to get his hands on the man again.

“Listen to me, worm.” Lyonel tugged on the collar of his shirt. “I will get rid of you even if I have to slaughter your whole house, hear me?”

He did hear, and it was exactly what he wanted.

“Then people will hear about the cruel Lord of Stormlands. Is that what you wish for? To make war? End up in history as a madman who destroyed his house by courting a devilish witch?”

A clatter of a chain that fell on the stone ground made them both still. Lyonel was in awe; looking over your figure, abused shoulders fought against the hunch forced by the pain. You stood up proudly, muttering a spell that you never dared to use before.

You used to protect life, not exploit it. Yet you hesitated no longer.

Your grip on a raven’s skull crushed the object, leaving your palm stained by a powder of bone. The cell’s bars trembled, letting you leave your cage.

The servant of gods turned pale as his legs gave up. Lyonel didn’t wait for an honorable moment to attack, wounding him in his leg.

The choking – the feeling of an invisible chain tightening on his neck – was just a warning. A warning that he decided to ignore. He pushed up to his feet and fixed his grip on a sword tucked to his belt. He ignored Lyonel and moved forward to you.

He limped, both the cut on his leg and a misplaced hip from the fall made his walk a pathetic stumbling, but he didn’t give up. You watched him from the high of the platform he placed you on. You held onto the bars, feeling all the whips on your back once again. Yet your expression remained a serious one, calm.

Lyonel strolled after the priest, watching him with loath and amusement. When the man managed to get close, he raised his blade in a desperate attempt, like he wanted to show that he never gave up. He didn’t let anyone take you without a fight.

Well, the example was made, but it didn’t appeal to Lord Baratheon. No, it made him only more furious.

He caught the man’s shirt and pulled him backwards, making him stumble to the ground.

“Fight fair, without the witch’s help,” he rasped, his throat still controlled by your spell.

But Lyonel couldn’t care less about fairness. He had it in his blood, yes, but he would be as fair as kidnaping his woman was.

He paired a pathetic strike made by the priest, then stepped forward, indifferent to next swings, and pierced his opponent’s throat with his blade.

He let out a call that alerted one of his helpers. A young boy showed up in the door with a face filled by understandable terror.

Young enough to run, abandon his post. At least you hoped so. Lyonel, on the other hand, didn’t care. He wouldn’t like striking a child, but if he put up a fight, he would. Thankfully, he was too scared to even think about such a thing.

“If you lie to anyone, saying it was lady Y/n who killed your master and not I, I will have you killed. Understand?”

He took a step back and bend his back in a gesture of paying respect.

“Yes, Milord.”

“Good. Now fuck off before I order my men to beat you.”

“At once.”

Lyonel wiped his sword on the dead man’s robe. He saw your grip on the bars tighten, strength slowly leaving your body, and he moved to stretch his arms out to you. With slow, steady movement he pulled you down to him with a grip on your hips.

“It is a shame, actually,” you said weakly, failing to mask your pain.

“What is, my love?”

“That it was you who killed him.”

“Oh, you share my hunger for revenge then?” He asked surprised, cradling your head close to his chest.

“For the first time, yes. But it would end badly so I'll leave vengeance to you,” you muttered.

Lyonel insisted on calling for the best Maesters, but you didn’t want to hear about it. You ordered him to stick close and wrap his hands around you in case you felt dizzy or too weak – that way you could easily work on your own and prepare special ointments. He shook his head like he heard the craziest idea ever, but he wasn’t brave enough to disagree.

He applied the special substance himself, and watched the skin on your back heal. What should happen in weeks, happened in a minute right in front of his eyes. The skin that was just only ripped off, now left only scars.

He was never as in love as now.

“I can't have it happen again,” he said, slowly dragging his finger over your miraculously healed back. “I’m begging, allow me to make you my wife so they don’t raise their hands against Lady Baratheon ever again…”

You sighed. “They will, no matter what name I carry.”

“Then at least I will be lawfully allowed to cut those hands. Punish the rebellion against their overlord’s house.”

It made you laugh.

“You wish to rule a land of one-armed men?”

“I wish to secure your safety,” Lyonel kept arguing.

“Like I did yours before the bastard could attack you?”

Despite your back still being turned to him, Lyonel knew you could sense that he rolled his eyes. “He was a shit warrior anyway.”

Your skin’s stinging turned more bearable, and you moved to face him.

His breath quickened, and his hand almost instantly moved to cup your cheeks. For a moment he thought you would move away, but your lips twisted in a smile. Something he didn’t witness in far too long.

“I couldn’t lose you to a shit warrior then, could I?”

a/n: it took me like a month to make notes for this fic and then four days to write it. now i'll go back to being a medieval nun if you don't mind.

amongst the many many inspirations I had, the poor boy with a rotting leg is inspired by Charles Bovary being a shitty doctor LOL

He purses his mouth involuntarily when a girl sitting in front of him on the bus has her hair gathered in a ponytail that reveals the nape of her neck. She’s wearing a thin chain necklace that pulls on the tiny hairs. His hands itch to brush the skin and untangle the mess carefully, then place the whole breadth of his palm there, from tendon to tendon, to ease the sting. Before he gets to live his life’s most torrid affair, the girl yanks on the chain viciously, plucking out singular strands with a small hiss, and gets off the bus.

When he falls in love again, he is disastrously unready for the prospect of permanence. Handshakes and congratulations muttered over keys passed to the flat next door have far too much of long-term arrangement about them for his peace of mind. Duncan’s beloved of today is wearing paint-stained dungarees, the knees pushed out and sagging with age. Her hair is messy and her cheek smudged with dust. Her socks do not match either. She’s thanking the building manager with glassy eyes and a smile pulled so wide she looks about to cry.

The manager delivers one last pat to her back, then reveals Duncan’s presence by bidding him a quick, “Morning.” Duncan nods once, then keeps his head down as he passes by. Before descending the staircase, he allows himself one last glance: you sigh, pause, and step into your flat. Certainty floods him cold: he’s in love with his neighbour.

He spends the day at work trying to reason with himself. You are only one girl who happens to live on the other side of his bedroom wall. Duncan hardly ever sees the other neighbours as it is. For all he knows, you keep odd hours and spend weekends elsewhere and have a boyfriend already hanging pictures in that flat in his head. If luck is willing to show him some mercy, he will not be sentenced to pine after the girl next door. By lunch he has bargained himself into a kind of peace. By the end of the day, he almost believes it.

Then he comes home.

Your door is ajar. Passing by, Duncan catches through the crack the beginning of a new life. The hallway yawns open to the room beyond, where a mattress—not nearly wide enough for two—lies on the floor with its sheets crumpled up in a twist. There is a mug sitting on the windowsill with a teabag string dangling over the rim. A charger. A few cardboard boxes hunch by the wall, half-opened and all of it kills him a bit with tender, domestic ache. You’re really here, starting from scratch.

From deeper in the flat comes your voice, frayed by an argument with a consultant. It grows louder. Nearer. Duncan finds what is left of his wit and slips past as quietly as he can, key already in hand. He is through his own threshold and turning the lock on a held breath before you come into view. A second later, your door slams shut hard enough to carry through the wall. He hears you thank someone over the phone tightly and end the call. Then, he catches the cutest little growl of frustration he’s heard in his life. When he closes his eyes he can see you again in all your disarrayed glory and decides the girls from cafés and pubs and buses may as well pack it in, and Duncan is in trouble.

He wakes the next day hoping the universe will spare him permanence, only to get sucker-punched by the sight of you fighting your post box in the main hall. The same girlish growl he already knows leaves you when the box will not budge (despite you asking it very nicely by rattling the lock with the key stuck inside it). He tries to disguise his gasp and it comes out as a dumb, hiccuped chuckle, which, of course, gets your attention.

“Is something funny?” you ask, face dangerously frowned, yet still the prettiest thing Duncan’s ever seen.

“N-no. No,” he gulps, loudly. “You have to, uh… bully it a bit. Here—can I?”

His hands come out and you step away at once, making Duncan wonder whether it is because you believe his good intentions, or is it merely his intimidating size.

He leans in, presses on the little door and turns the key between his fingers until it clicks.

Your eyes are on him, bewildered. “That’s ‘bullying’ in your world?”

Duncan shrugs. “I mean…”

“Good to know.” Before he realises what is happening, your palm is out and disappearing in his, and he learns your name, and from this moment he will remember it forever. “Thirteen C,” you add, as if he has not noticed.

“Duncan,” he says. “Fifteen C.”

“Yeah, I know,” you say, smiling.

“So, err… how’s it going?”

“Alright. Just getting to…” Your eyes drag to the post box, then back to him. “—you know. Oh, um… it might get a bit”—your fingers pinch together to present what a bit means—“loud over the weekend. I’m having furniture delivered and I have to assemble it.”

That is it. Duncan’s heart behaves as if it has somehow acquired a brain of its own and is currently attempting an escape by slicing his chest open, lest he say something normal. Words pour out of his mouth and, to him, they sound like begging.

“D’you need a hand? I could—” As he speaks, you go still. Your eyes drop, and Duncan falters at once. “Unless you’ve that sorted already,” he says. “I only meant—I’m good with carrying, is all.”

After a beat, there’s a nod. “Yes,” you say, and Duncan realises you are nervous. “God, okay, yes. I’ve no one. I’m not even going to pretend I’m competent, or that it’s an easy job. My delivery company insists that we’ve agreed on a downstairs drop-off and it’s a ton of bookshelves. If you were just being nice, that’s absolutely fine though. God, sorry,” you mumble, holding your throat. “Moving is stressful.”

He has never seen awkwardness to match his own packed into someone so lovely. He feels an impossible urge to hug you, but knows that could make his affair fleeting, and suddenly finds himself wanting the opposite. “I wasn’t. I mean—I was. I’d gladly help. I’ve the weekend off.”

“Wicked,” you say, a shy curve on your mouth. “They come at eight on Saturday. That works?”

“It does. Yeah,” Duncan says, nodding once, then again, as if the second one might make him sound less like a man who has just been handed a winning lottery ticket in broad daylight. “That works. I’ll, uh… catch you later.”

He turns on his heel and starts back upstairs like a fool.

“Weren’t you heading out?” you ask.

He stops so abruptly he nearly misses the next step. “Right,” he says, and clears his throat. “I was actually—” Jerks a thumb towards the front door, then has to come back down past you with what dignity he can gather. “Going to work.”

Your smile does something unhelpful to his insides. “Thought so.”

“Yeah.” He gives a small nod. “So. Saturday.”

“Saturday,” you echo.

“Deadly.” The word slips out on its own. Duncan feels his ears burn. “I mean—good. Grand. I’ll see you then.”

He goes before his tongue can betray him any further, out through the front door and into the morning with his heart beating high in his throat, having managed to turn a straightforward goodbye into a full display of personal deficiency in under thirty seconds.

And deadly he is. You’re left smiling and so struck, it takes you another thirty seconds to clock that you are wearing an absurdly torn T-shirt, pyjama shorts and mountain climbing boots (classic just going to check mail assembly). Then another five to release a breath.

You were a bit too overwhelmed by the sight of your own four naked walls and a slice of floor to sleep on when you first saw him to assess him properly. Now, though—eyes, first and foremost. Huge, and blue and with lashes that belong on a doll rather than on a grown-up man. Proportional to the rest of him, which is also huge in a way that makes you feel safe and taken care of, not hunted.

Then his voice, which sits warm in your ear after he is gone, low and soft and careful with every word. His face: freckles over the bridge of his nose and across his cheeks, hair that cannot decide whether it is dark blond or ginger, and a blush that rises so easily it almost seems unfair on a man built like that. And his arms—Christ on a stick. They look as if they could hug any worry clean out of you. Crowning all of it is the most endearing smile, all crooked teeth, which he seems to reach for whenever the colour in his face becomes unbearable. Absolutely dear lad.

And he has agreed to spend the weekend with you, playing adult Lego with IKEA bookshelves. An offer you probably shouldn't have accepted, but he’s a sweetheart who, by all rights, ought to take up space more confidently than he does. Instead he ducks his head, fumbles his goodbye and flees, leaving you with your lip bitten raw.

You know damn well it is entirely unwise to develop a crush on your neighbour. Nevertheless, the tiny voice in the back of your head is already chanting, please don’t be a psycho, please don’t be a psycho.

The rest of the day you spend pointlessly cleaning the space that will get obliterated by dust and cardboard come weekend anyway, then listening to his footsteps through the wall in the evening. Saturday, you realise, while you have been busy making goo-goo eyes at him, you completely forgot to give him any actual logistics. Where are you meant to meet? Who carries what? How much time does he have?

You knock on his door at 7:45 a.m. and might as well just kiss the doorknob. Nothing. Try again, and still nothing. By the time the phone starts vibrating in your hand with an unknown number, your stomach has already dropped low enough to bruise. The delivery driver is downstairs. They are waiting for a signature. You swear, apologise, swear again and hang up feeling like an absolute clown for ever believing a kind stranger was something that just happened to you.

When you get down to the main hall, Duncan is already there. Waiting. In jeans and a white T-shirt with paint stains set so deep into it they look permanent. The sight of him hits you hard enough to wipe your mind for a second. Broad shoulders. Sleep still clinging somewhere about his face. Hair not fully decided yet. He turns at the sound of you coming and your heart gives one awful, hopeful kick.

“I thought you, uh—hi,” you say.

“Morning,” he says, straightening. There is a crease between his brows, like he has been wondering where you got to. “Sorry. I went down when I heard the van.” His eyes flick over your face quickly, then away. “You all right?”

That lands badly enough in your chest that you have to clear your throat before answering. “Yeah. Yes. I just thought you’d changed your mind.”

The blush comes up at once, easy as breath. “No,” he says. “No, I’m here.” His eyes flick to the heap of boxes crowding the entrance, then back to you. “And thank God, it seems. How many bookshelves d’you need, anyway?”

You shrug, already flustered. “I have a lot of books?”

Something in his face gives. Worse than a mockery—a smile. “Right.”

The delivery men are in no mood for inept romance. They want signatures, directions, confirmation that yes, all of this misery belongs to you. Duncan takes the handheld scanner from one of them before you can fumble it, passes it back, then bends to the first box with the ease of a man picking up a child’s toy. You stand there a second too long watching his forearms jump under the weight and have to jolt yourself back into usefulness.

So, it’s carry the lighter things. A flat-packed desk. Narrow boxes of shelves. Bags of fittings that clatter and bruise your shins. Duncan gets the proper monsters: the long boxes that seem designed to take out the ankles of whoever dares lift them, the thick ones packed with boards, the pieces that turn every staircase into an insult. By the second trip, his white T-shirt is sticking to the middle of his back. By the third, you have learned that the muscles there move under cotton in a way that ought to be regulated. He goes up the stairs with a box balanced on one shoulder and one hand free for the rail, and every time he turns sideways to clear the landing, you get some fresh reason to stop believing in a merciful god.

“Sorry,” you mutter for the fifth time, wrestling a carton through your front door.

“What for?”

“For owning things.”

He ducks under the doorframe with another box. “Bit late for that.”

You laugh despite yourself. He smiles without looking at you, sets the load down exactly where it needs to go and is gone again before you can decide whether to stare at his back or his hands.

Eventually, the entrance hall gets empty, so the one outside your flat can look as though a Scandinavian warehouse has exploded. Inside is worse. Cardboard everywhere. Thick white foam. Plastic corners. Long, baffling pieces of wood in shades with names no tree has ever deserved. You are sweaty and breathing through your mouth. Duncan wipes the back of his wrist across his forehead and leaves a pale streak through the dust there.

You lean against the wall and attempt a joke through your lungs. “If you’re fed up, I can probably handle the rest alone.”

His head comes up at once. “What, you’re kicking me out before the best part?”

“You think this is the best part?”

The blush arrives with such force it nearly does him an injury. “I meant—” He huffs a laugh at himself and looks down. “The building. The shelves.”

“Right,” you say. “The shelves.”

“Mm.”

You let him suffer for one beat longer than strictly kind, then rescue him. “Tea?”

He looks at you with real gratitude. “Go on, then.”

The kettle buys you both a little grace. For a while, it works. He tears through cardboard, stacks the big pieces, gets the general logic of things faster than seems fair. He is excellent at the parts requiring weight, reach or brute confidence. When you come back with two mugs though, Duncan is crouched in the middle of your floor among split boxes and hardware, reading the leaflets with an expression usually reserved for bad news from the doctor.

You pass him a cup, and he mutters an absent, “Ah, thanks, luv,” making your stomach twist. Goes back to frowning. Squinting, while holding the paper a little further away. Then further still, arm almost fully extended. His eyes narrow into slits. He turns the page one way, then the other, like Satan himself may be written on the back in clearer print. Under his breath, he whispers, “Shite.”

You are beginning to enjoy yourself immensely. “Everything all right there?”

“Mm.”

That is plainly a lie. His jaw sets, and finally he reaches into the pocket of his jeans. Out comes a pair of glasses so practical and slightly old-fashioned they look as though they have been with him longer than some friendships. He puts them on with the air of a man making a grave concession to weakness.

You nearly go through the floor. The lenses give him the most ridiculous, endearing bug-eyes. Not distorted exactly, but gentled, opened up. Softer, somehow. Boyish in a way the rest of him does not allow. He glances up and catches you looking.

“What?” he says, already half-defensive.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not lying.” You set your mug down very carefully. “You just look…”

He waits. There are a hundred things you could say and none of them are survivable. Dear. Ridiculous. So lovely it hurts. You land on, “Serious.”

Duncan snorts, unconvinced, and looks back at the paper. “This thing was written by the devil.”

You kneel beside him and lean in. The leaflet rustles between you. Up close, his shoulder is warm. So is the line of his thigh where it nearly touches yours through old denim. He smells of soap and sweat broken by honest work.

“I thought it was the best part,” you say, forcing your gaze onto the tiny drawings instead of his glasses.

Duncan glances up. “Best part’s the company,” he says, and with those huge eyes behind wire frames, your crush leaves the realm of manageable things entirely.

He doesn’t really know what he’s doing. This, leastways, feels natural: helping. And it gives him enough space to push through anxiety and have something like a conversation with you. Nothing that would make his ridiculous in-love feeling flee has happened yet, so Duncan allows it to persist. At least as long as he gets to spend time with you assembling bookshelves.

That goes as expected: he’s tormented by your hands brushing his whenever you pass him a screw. Then by his own indignity at being unable to work with the smaller bits, where you step in—much too close for safety—with your nice-smelling hair and cute jokes. “Whatever would you do without me, hm?” you say, turning the smallest Allen key Duncan’s ever seen.

He clears his throat. “Uh… let’s see. Watch telly? Go down the pub for a game? Go running?”

“How utterly boring,” you mutter, focused on the task.

Duncan nearly rests his chin in one hand. “I know. I consider myself saved.”

You smile. Huff at the key refusing to go any further and deem your job done. “Alright,” you say, then deliver one more nail to his coffin. Your hand comes up to lift the hair off the back of your neck and cool off. He immediately goes to judge the kissability of it. Duncan, who in his lifetime has inspected necks’ napes in abundance, considers himself an expert on the matter. The verdict: yours is everything-able. Grabbable. Lickable. Kissable, and when he focuses enough he can imagine it smells heavenly too. Before he can blink himself out of it, you turn and ask, “Hungry?”

“Always,” Duncan says, and curses internally at how breathy he sounds. “Where d’you want these?” he asks, pointing at the whopping four assembled bookshelves, which currently create a little maze in your living room/dining room/bedroom—a room serving as all three.

“Oh, wherever you think,” you say, already scrolling through the food ordering app. That one hits him square in the gut, being allowed to do something domestic in the home of a girl he’s known for not even a week and is still deeply, hopelessly fallen for.

When he’s put everything where it looks best, you reappear with two beers in hand. He’s managed to find himself a spot on the floor where he’s sitting cross-legged, fully engrossed in the manual of the furniture already assembled, and your mind briefly goes to what it would feel like to wedge yourself onto those thighs.

You pass him a bottle, plop down next to him, and say, “Got us pizza. Fastest.”

“Grand,” he says. Leans back, trying to find something to stare at that is not your feet. “So—” The bottles clink. “How’s it feeling?” he asks, then pauses to watch you down half of yours in approximately five greedy gulps and chuckles, all helpless.

“Jesus, sorry.” You stop when you catch him staring like you have grown horns. Wipe your mouth. “It’s, um… less echo-y. Weird. But good. Like I’m starring in a rom-com. Oh shi—”

One of the shelves tips and starts falling face-flat. Duncan is up before you can properly register him moving, catching it with one hand.

“Got it. Got it. Yeah, the floors.” He wedges a folded bit of cardboard underneath to keep it straight. “They’re round as the earth.”

You blink, then slam the bottle onto the floor so hard some beer erupts from the neck. “Fuck, so I was right all along? It does feel like I’m going downhill from that corner.”

“Seems you were,” Duncan says, sitting back down. “Got to screw those to the walls, or you might get flattened in the night.” He points out the trajectory of it. If it went, it would go straight for the mattress. “We can do it tomorrow?”

“Two days in a row? Guess I bought you dinner, so everything’s by the book,” you mutter, and Duncan chokes on his beer. “Sorry. God, sorry. It’s the beer, I promise I’m not an obnoxious neighbour.”

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “If that’s obnoxious, I’d say I’m managing.”

You blink at that, then smile fully, teeth and all, and Duncan counts them before licking the backs of his own in a poor imitation of what it might be like to kiss you.

You turn towards him and lower your voice. “So you’re saying I should keep plying you with pizza and lager?”

There is a crust of dust in the corner of your eye. A strand of hair curled at your temple. The hinge of your jaw, where he would gladly suck a pretty pale bruise, just so you’d remember him as a man who leaves souvenirs. The collar of your T-shirt is darkened with sweat, and he can smell it and wants to press his nose there. On the floor between you, your hands point towards each other, fingers a hair’s breadth apart. He has half a mind to lean in.

The buzzer goes off roaring so suddenly you jump.

“God, that’s… loud,” you say. “One minute.”

The pizza arrives in a flurry of apologies, change, the brief humiliation of you having to shoulder the sticking front door with your hip. By the time you come back, Duncan has schooled his face into something he hopes resembles a man here for neighbourly reasons and not because he is one missed interruption away from pressing you into a wall so you can learn another purpose for all this strength.

You sit on the floor to eat because there is nowhere else to do it. The box goes between you. Grease blooms through the paper. Your knee knocks his once and stays there just long enough to keep his heart misbehaving.

The conversation comes in starts. Where you moved from. Whether the building is always this loud. How many books is too many books. He tells you he works mornings more often than not; you tell him this move has already shortened your life by a year. He laughs when you do impressions of the delivery men. You laugh when he tells you the names of the shelves sound like obscure illnesses. It should feel awkward. It does, a little. It also feels good enough that Duncan keeps forgetting to be shy until his own voice brings him back to himself.

He does not want to go. He knows he should. So he puts on the fakest yawn of his life, stretches his arms over his head for effect and says, “Right. Better leave you to it.”

Your face falls so slightly he almost calls it back.

“What time d’you want me tomorrow?” he asks, before he can stop himself.

That brings you back at once. “Whenever works for you.”

Duncan nods like a man with options. “I could do ten?”

“Ten’s perfect.”

“Good.” He gets to his feet and brushes nonexistent dust from his jeans. “I’ll see you then.”

When he leaves, it is with pizza marrying lager in his stomach, your laugh in his ears, and the growing suspicion that the universe has no intention of sparing him permanence at all.

He lies awake in bed, acutely aware that you are just behind the wall, and snorts helplessly into his pillow when a loud Fuck! follows a loud bang—presumably a toe fallen victim to one of the corners in the dark.

There is something insanely erotic to Duncan about a girl who lets him in and allows him to see the raw bones. No objects yet to hide behind or define yourself with; all he gets is your personality, stripped right down, and the version of you made intimate by imperfection. The one whose socks are nearly brown on the soles from cardboard dust, whose fingernails are dark beneath the crescents from handling metal bits all day, who stops herself from downing a whole bottle of beer only because he, in his dumbness, looked at her sideways.

And it feels nothing like his other crushes, which lived in perfect sealed-off vignettes, girls caught on their way somewhere else. You are going nowhere. Better: you are trying to stay. And Duncan has the honour of watching and helping it happen.

On Sunday he is ready at ten sharp and knocking on your door. His hair is still wet, and he is standing there with two coffees because he has no idea whether you have managed to unpack the coffee pot yet. That is the only reason.

Your voice comes muffled from inside. “Coming! One sec—”

He hears fumbling. Water running. Something hits tile and you hiss, “Shit!”

When you open the door, you look like you have only just dragged your shirt down over your back. Your hair is lifted with static. Your feet are bare, and Duncan has to force his eyes up from them. There he finds the corner of your mouth whitened with a trace of toothpaste.

“Hi. Sorry, I overslept,” you say, flattening your hair down with both palms.

“D’you want me to come back later?”

“No! No,” you say. “I’m up, promise. Also, is that for me?” Your finger points at the cups.

“No, luv. Brought them so I could drink two coffees in front of you.”

He presses one into your hands. You snort, then step out of the way. The hallway is narrow enough that he has to turn sideways to get through, and your stomachs still brush faintly. Duncan stops dead, points at his own mouth. “You’ve got a little—”

Your hand flies up and scrubs at your mouth with alarming force. You huff, embarrassed. “Sorry. I don’t drool, it’s just toothpaste.”

“Thank God.” A smile, unguarded and crooked and just so dear you want to squish his cheeks. 

He steps in fully and is met by the sight of the place properly gutted this time. Boxes split open. Books in tottering stacks. Fragile things wrapped in newspaper. Clothes half-freed from bin bags. He crouches over one of the boxes nearest to him, whistles low, and lifts out a hardback thick enough to stun a horse.

“What have we here? Remember how we talked about how many books is too many books yesterday? This—”

Then he leans further into the box, and mind leaves your body.

His shirt rides up over his loins. The muscles there rise in two thick ridges either side of his spine. They deepen the groove between them, pull his waistband tight, make a gap between skin and denim that would fit a flat palm perfectly. Fucking biteable, is what they are. Unbearably hot. You could live there, happy and fed and entirely unbothered, your cheek resting in the well of his back. It doesn’t help at all that his butt is as round as your floors which are as round as the earth.

It takes him a second to turn. When he does, he looks almost pleased with himself. “This is too many books, lass,” he announces. The lass does not help either. His brow pulls in. “Hey. You good?”

“Hm?” you hum, and bury the lower half of your face in the coffee cup in a futile attempt to hide the heat of it. “Yeah. Hunky-dory. And there is no such thing as too many books, Duncan.”

“You can call me Dunk. Friends do.” He stands then, book still in hand, and your body takes that as fresh bad news. “Right,” he says. “You ready?”

“As ever. Are you? I see no glasses.”

Something bright flickers across his face. He sets the book down, reaches into his back pocket and produces the case with a little flourish. Flips the arms open with both thumbs and settles the glasses on his nose like a man about to perform surgery.

“There,” he says. “Happy now, lass?”

“Very.” You clear your throat. “Okay. What should I do?”

He looks round your flat, glasses low on his nose, taking stock. “Might be better to clear some of this first,” he says. “Leave the drilling till later. We’ve the desk still, don’t we?”

Yes, unfortunately. So you unpack the desk while Duncan deals with the cardboard. He breaks boxes down with an efficiency that ought to be illegal, folds them once, twice, then stamps them flat under one boot. It should not do what it does to you, that sound, that force, that careless certainty of a body built to make stubborn things give way, but it does. Repeatedly. By the time he hauls the broken-down mountain downstairs, you need a moment so badly it arrives without asking.

You end up spread flat on the floor, muttering, “Fuck, fucking fuck,” into the air, heels of your palms pressed into your eyesockets hard enough to make your vision exist only in shades of black.

The front door opens quietly. A few steps, and: “Tired already?” Duncan asks.

Off with your head, then. When you look up, he is standing over you with the ceiling nearly on his shoulders. Not really. It only feels that way. A sigh. “Just… regrouping,” you say.

His mouth twitches. He puts a hand out. “C’mere, wee thing. It’s nearly done.”

It stirs your lower belly hot. So does the sight of his hand waiting for yours, broad and open and patient. You give him your arm because the other option is to reject it and scramble yourself up in an entirely undignified way. His palm closes round your elbow. Instead of yanking, he lifts steadily, calmly, as if you simply have no weight. The pressure of him stays even once you are upright. He is still holding you when you straighten fully, and for one daft second you let him.

“Right,” you say, smoothing your hands down your jeans. “I just need some water. Do you want some?”

He nods and follows you into the kitchen.

You reach up for the glasses from the top cupboard. There are only two unpacked. Duncan notices that at once. Notices, too, the way your shirt rides with the stretch and catches there above your hip, folded back on itself, leaving a strip of stomach bare. He feels it clean in the chest. Affection and neighbourly feelings that somehow have managed to fester into want, plain and greedy. He wants a lot, he realises. And he’s certain he’s obvious as daylight in it, and so engrossed in his own inadequacy things elude him.

What he misses is that you are no less obvious, only quieter. The way you hand him the glass so your fingers drag against his and stay a fraction too long. The way you drink from yours fast, quenching thirst that water has nothing to do with. The way your eyes travel down the line of his jaw to his throat as he swallows, unabashed for a second before you blink and pull them back.

Thank god he cannot read minds. Yours is all clatter. He looks right in here. In your kitchen, such as it is. A bit sweaty. A bit messy. Big enough to crowd the room without trying. The flat already warmer and more lived in for having him inside it. And you want him to stay so badly it makes your palms damp round the glass. Spoken aloud, it would sound ridiculous. Inside your head, it has already settled into fact.

You clear your throat and look anywhere but at his mouth. “Right,” you say. “If we stand here much longer, that desk will build itself out of spite.”

That gets a smile out of him. Small. Crooked. Ruinous. “Can’t have that.”

So, the desk gets built. The shelves end up arranged into a final, satisfying shape which, if everything goes to plan, will make a small home library. Duncan measures them up, shifts them by inches, squints, steps back, shifts them again, makes them line as evenly as the old building allows and does the bulk of the work with the drill. You end up his nurse, passing him sleeves and screws when he asks, holding things steady where he tells you, fetching the bits that roll away.

At one point he grunts and squints at the wall with such offence in his face that you ask, “Did BILLY say something rude?”

He snorts. “No. But I might need your hawk eyes here, luv.”

“I see,” you tease. “I’ll tell you a secret. Can’t see shit from afar. I suppose that makes us one properly sighted person between us.”

The prospect of making something whole with you is so enticing Duncan nearly misses the fact that you have slipped under his arm and then between his biceps. From there he gets your neck again. The shape of the space behind your ear. The little hollow where he decides his fingers would sit perfectly, cradling your head while he kissed you stupid. He puts all his strength into pressing the shelf to the wall while you screw the tiny bits in, holds his breath and prays for his body to behave. The space between his stomach and your back is so narrow he could close it in one step. Then he could bury his nose in your nape. Then—

He blinks against the thought so hard something scratches his eyeball. “Bloody fu—” he mutters, trying to wipe his face against his shoulder.

You feel the shift and turn your head a little. “You all right?”

“Yeah, just… something in my eye. Dust, I—”

You crane your neck first, then turn in the cage of his body. Set the screwdriver down. Dust your hands off on your jeans. “Hold it,” you say. “Come here.”

Dear Lord above.

Your hands reach for him. One finds the bridge of his glasses and pushes them up till they catch in his hair. The other comes to his cheek. Then both of them are there, cool skin, cradling his face as you pull him down to your height and look straight into the ruined eye. Duncan goes still from boots to teeth.

“D’you see it?” he chokes out.

“Yeah. Just an eyelash. Long one,” you mutter.

Your knuckle comes to his lid and draws it down gently. The eyelash—a brown curved thing, outrageous in its prettiness, like he has put a bloody curler to it—works itself loose, catches him once more for spite, then blinks far enough free for you to pinch it between thumb and forefinger. You hold it up in front of him, forgetting he likely cannot make out a thing without his glasses.

“There,” you say. “Better?”

“Can’t see it, but I believe you,” Duncan breathes.

He stays bent over you, close enough that the freckles show one by one. You could count them if given the time. You want the time. All day, if possible. Or a year. All year to count them and then find out whether they continue elsewhere. He licks his lips once and then keeps very still, save for the faint trembling in the arms.

You pull him a fraction lower. Then another.

Duncan looks like he wants to say something and rejects each option in real time. His mouth opens. Shuts. When he thinks you are about to kiss him, you slide his glasses back down onto the bridge of his nose and he makes the smallest wounded sound in his throat, near enough a whine to count. But you keep coming. Closer. Closer. He can feel your breath wash warm over the tip of his nose, over his upper lip. Then your mouths are there, set together already, the contact made and held. Soft and dry with the day. Neither of you moving. Both of you letting the other back out if they want it badly enough. There are no takers. 

Duncan closes his eyes. His voice comes out low and strained. “C’mon, girl. Give me something.”

“This?” you say, and then move. And god, what a movement that is. He feels it everywhere. In his toes, where you step on them to lengthen your reach, and he welcomes that weight. On his scalp, where your fingernails scratch him so deliciously a shiver skitters down his spine, making his hips move forth. On his upper lip that gets framed by both of yours and then his mouth opens and his tongue slips out and Duncan is so trustful of his own work his palms finally leave the shelf. They come to gather what there is of you. He wraps you all tight and around in his arms, sets his hands on your waist and hip and with it you lift a little, and in that lift Duncan’s kissing his neighbour.

His glasses get skewed. He steps away from the bookcase and to the nearest wall, where he presses you in. One tug, and your legs know exactly what to do—they cinch him, ankles crossed in the small of his back, and you’re airborne, clutching his neck, thighs supported in his grip. He keeps kissing, because this is simply impossible and if there is news about to be broken to him that permanence is not an option he’d rather receive it later than sooner.

“Wait,” you mutter. “God, I’ve been trying not to do that.”

“Y-you?” he stammers. “Why?”

“Because you’re my neighbour,” you say, swiping hair off his forehead. For once, your faces are level. He’s so damn gorgeous it’s nearly absurd for him to be unaware of it. Angular where it matters, soft where it’s unexpected. You can think of another arrangement where height will not exactly come into play, but first—

You’re overcome with need to glue yourself to him, so you hug him into a full-body shackle: tighten your arms and legs where they keep you up, and bury your face into his neck to mumble a wishful, “You’re not a player, are you? You don’t go around calling women lass like you know what it’s doing, right?”

His palms twitch on your thighs. Face moves towards you, then stops, held there by caution so naked it shreds. He lets out a breath that is a quizzical chuckle. “Jesus, no,” he says. “I can barely talk to you.”

A laugh breaks out of you, and then out of him too. He tips his forehead to yours for a second, still holding you up like it costs him nothing.

“Are you?” he asks, quieter. “A maneater?”

The thing is, you were struck with him from the start. There was lust in it, greedy enough to startle you with your own nerve. But the rest has come on slower and worse. Out of use. Out of kindness. Out of watching him take the weight of things without making a show of it. Out of seeing him go soft-faced with concentration, seeing how badly he wants and how carefully he handles the wanting, as if it is something that could do damage if let loose carelessly. You have known him three days and already the flat feels rearranged around his presence. Maybe this is what blessing looks like in real time. Proximity. Repetition. Two people getting an unfairly clear look at each other too quickly.

You lean back enough to see him. “Do I look like one?”

His eyes go over your face as though the answer might be written there if he studies hard enough. “No,” he says, with such immediate certainty it almost hurts. Then, because apparently that is not enough for him: “You look pretty. And kind.”

A smile tries to happen. Your throat goes tight around it. “That so?”

He nods once. “Yeah.”

You smooth your thumb over the heat in his cheek, the rasp of ginger stubble there. His glasses are still crooked. His mouth is still open the slightest bit from the last kiss. Entirely too dear. Entirely too much.

Oh, and does he. The second time it comes with all his better judgement buried alive beneath it. He gets his mouth on yours like he has finally understood the point of having one. Bolder now. Hungrier. Your lower lip catches between his teeth and there is nothing neat about the way he bites it, only care and the lack of enough care, both at once. Crooked teeth bite just fine, you learn. Better than fine. He mouths you until your breath goes thin, then drops to your neck and inhales so deeply it feels dragged out of the soles of his feet. Nibs, and whatever was warming in you goes past that. Burning now. Clean through.

“Bed,” you mutter, fingers twisted up in his shirt.

Duncan had no idea that was even possible, that one word from you could turn his whole body into a set of orders barked and obeyed in the same second. He does what he is told. Walks with you held high on him, your weight gathered tight and easy, and when he reaches the mattress on the floor he goes down with care, one knee first, then the other, until your back is sinking into bed that is still only a mattress and a fitted sheet half-pulled loose at one corner. He stays over you, breathing hard enough to show it, one hand planted by your head, the other still hooked under your thigh.

“You sure?” he asks.

You nod too fast, then colour. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m just…” Your face does something shy and pained. “Sweaty.”

Duncan looks at you. Thoughtfully. Like this is a thing worth considering from all angles. Weren’t he the biggest sweetheart god ever let loose on the public, that look might be labelled as menacing, too.

“I know,” he says. Then, lowers his face to your belly.

Words leave your body. That is all. They just go. He presses his mouth to you through the shirt first, then rides it up with both hands, bunching cotton inch by inch until your arms have to lift. The chance is taken: his hand slides to your wrists and sets them above your head. Your breath catches so sharply it nearly cuts. Duncan’s nose goes to your skin and he smells you like he means to learn something useful. Belly first. Then higher. He drags slow through the middle, mouth open now and then, breathing in. Your chest. The damp little hollows under your arms, where the tickle of his breath makes you squirm and laugh helplessly. Higher still, until he reaches your throat. He sweeps your hair aside with his cheek to get a clean stripe of skin and settles there, breathing you in as if he has come home to it.

“I like the way you smell,” he says against your neck. His voice roughens on the last word. “Bloody maddening, if you ask me.”

It does something murderous to your insides. You twist under him, wrists flexing in his hold, just to get closer. His grip tightens by a hair from pure absorption. Nose traces the line under your jaw. Another small bite. Your heel drags against the sheet.

“Duncan,” you say, and it comes out wrecked enough to make him lift his head.

Hair is falling into his eyes. Glasses sit crooked on his nose. His mouth is wet and pink from kissing you, cheeks spill red all over his skin and you wonder if that blush exists below the T-shirt too. Sensitive. There is a look on his face like he is trying very hard to keep being good while every part of him is begging for permission to stop.

“Yeah?” he says.

You swallow. Feel his thumb resting on the inside of your wrists. The whole blunt weight of him held off you by restraint alone.

“More,” you tell him.

Lances him clean through, that one. Duncan’s eyes drop to your mouth, then lower, as if he means to be sensible about it and catalogue the options. “Where?” he asks, voice thick. “Tell me where, lass.”

You could laugh at how decent he is, kneeling over you in a state that ought to excuse much worse, still asking like the answer matters more than his own pain. Instead you lift your wrists a little in his hand and he understands. Lets them go. Your palms land on his shoulders and stay a second. On the impressive spread of him and the hard work of holding himself up. “Everywhere,” you say, then, because he looks like he may pass out from being too good, “Start with here.”

You guide him back to your neck. The instruction is taken with shameful gratitude—he might go down as a man who leaves souvenirs after all. Mouth finds the place he’s already put some mind into, perfecting the bruise with focused lips, then the edge of his teeth, then the flat of his tongue to soothe what he has done. Then, he shifts—nose wedging the collar of your shirt aside, finding skin hidden all day under cotton and sweat. Every new inch offends him with how little of it he had before.

Sounds get born in his throat and die into a hiccup every time your body speaks up. There are fingers in his hair. Little gasps. Movement under his groin is particularly unbearable when your leg brushes him. No matter how old and stretched, jeans were simply not made to contain a boner, and Duncan learns it the literal hard way.

“You’re doing me in,” he says into your throat.

It bounces off your pulse. “You seem alive enough.”

He laughs, a breathy little snort. Lifts his head just far enough to look at you. His face is flushed down to the neck. He reaches between your bodies with obvious reluctance and catches the hem of your shirt in both hands. Stops there. “Can I?”

You nod. It still does not satisfy him.

“Mm. And now can you tell me that I can?” he says.

“Yes, you can,” you tell him. “Take it off.”

He strips you with the care of a man undoing bandages. Your shirt goes up in stages, dragged over your ribs, your bra, your face, until it is gone. He stares long enough to make your stomach jump. It’s slower than everything—than a quick skim of current wants or broad hungry looking. Almost dazed. Like each small part of you has to travel the whole way through him before he can move to the next one. His thumb runs along the underside of your breast through the bra, testing nothing more scandalous than weight, and his eyes close briefly at the feel of it.

“Jesus,” he says under his breath.

“What?”

He opens his eyes. “You’re…” Then stops, mouth twisting, unhappy with every word available. “A lot.”

You grin before you can help it. “Good a lot?”

His answer is to lower himself and press his face between your breasts, right into the warm cleft through the bra, as if language is a thing failed beyond repair. The sound you make at that goes straight to his hips. Duncan exhales hard, rubs his cheek on the lace, then wedges his fingers between your back and the mattress, to the clasp at your back with more hope than skill. The first try gets him nowhere. The second worse. He pulls away far enough to glare at your tits like they have personally insulted his family.

“Need help?” you ask.

He looks embarrassed for exactly one second. “Need a miracle.”

You laugh. Arch and bend and press your belly out and your arms briefly make it look like you’ve grown small wings. That is worse for him somehow, watching you undo your own bra for his benefit. When it loosens he sighs like he is the one being let out of it. He peels it away, lets it fall wherever, then just looks again. His hands come up and hover, huge and uncertain, before settling on your ribs. Warm. Shaking faintly.

“Still alright?” he asks.

“Yes.”

You find him. Guide him higher. The effect is immediate. Duncan’s breath leaves him in one stunned pull. Then, it’s roughness on skin. Palms large enough to divide equally, a tit per one. He holds you and smiles like an absolute goof.

“There,” you murmur. “That’s better.”

His mouth opens. Nothing useful comes of it. Which, really, fair.

You slide one hand down from his neck to the hem of his T-shirt, bunch it in your fist and tug. It lifts enough to show a strip of stomach, warm and furred and indecent in its ordinariness. A man’s body right there in your hands. “Can I take your shirt off, Dunk?”

That sobers him by half a shade. Makes his eyes search yours. “Yeah,” he says. Then, because permissions have to be balanced: “You can.”

You peel it up and over him. Duncan helps in the last second, ducking his head, pulling one arm free and then the other. The shirt lands somewhere by the mattress and suddenly there is too much of him at once. Chest broad enough to lay a proper grievance on. Shoulders built for carrying things that have no business being carried by one person. A scatter of pale freckles over the tops of them, which feels like information the public should not have access to. Hair dusting through the middle and down his stomach, where it disappears under the waistband of his jeans and leaves your mind to finish the route unsupervised.

“Oh, Jesus,” you say before deciding whether you mean to.

The colour in his face deepens. As you suspected, it bleeds down: stains that bloom like bruises sketch his neck and lower. “What?”

“Nothing,” you lie. Your hand goes out, palm to his chest, just to see. Warm. Slightly damp. Hard and alive under skin. His heart is going like a thing trapped. “You’re very…”

He watches you try to land it. Offers, “Big?” and somehow even that comes out apologetic.

“Hot,” you say, and the laugh that breaks out of him is so helpless it nearly kills you.

You kiss him to put him out of his misery. Or yourself. Or deepen it. Hard to say. His hands wake up after that. One stays on your breast, thumb dragging over the nipple until your back leaves the mattress. The other travels down your ribs, your waist, the notch of your hip, then lower still until he reaches the button of your jeans and stops there like someone brought up against a locked gate.

His forehead drops to yours. “Can I?”

“Yes.”

The button goes. The zip next. Duncan’s fingers slip below and the sound you make at the first pass of his knuckles is enough to make him shut his eyes. There’s no rush in it, just checking. He decides one yes about bottoms is probably enough, so instead of cramming a palm into denim, he hooks both hands over the waistband and slides your jeans down to your knees. You kick the rest off.

A quick examination of conscience later, Duncan realises he is the victim of the mysterious ways the universe works. One day he sees a girl in a corridor and thinks all the unhelpful thoughts about her. The next, he offers to help because he’s built like that. Now the same girl lies below him, naked as day, clearly wanting him back if he’s learnt anything at all about why girls get wet between the legs. This is the part he wasn’t prepared for. Pining over a face with no name to it is one kind of torture. Being desired is another, because desire asks something back.

He runs a hand the whole length of you, ankle to knee to thigh, until it lands there. The skin is damp, curls glossy, and when he squints hard enough through those goddamn stupid glasses he can see your muscles clenching, impatient. Impatient for him. Your hands get impatient too: they come for his buttons, shake there a little. He lets you fumble a bit, even allows one clumsy tug, until, inevitably, his trousers stay locked round his thighs.

“We in a hurry?” he asks.

“N-no, I just—” Your brows furrow; throat bobs. You inhale, then sigh out, “want you.”

His mouth pulls crooked with it, because the sweetness of being wanted hurts him a little. He comes down next to you, onto his side, one arm sliding under your neck so your head has somewhere proper to go. He kisses your temple once, warm and brief, then the corner of your eye.

“Soon, lass,” he says.

You only huff at that, offended on principle. The offence does not survive long. His hand drops between your legs and one finger presses inside with all the patience he has got, and your whole body gives a startled little jump.

“Oh—”

“Good oh?”

“Best fucking oh,” you say, and a cute smile blooms on him.

He works it slow, watching your face with such naked concentration it ought to count as indecent. The glasses are slipping again. He nudges them up with his shoulder, fails, gives up, so you help by plucking them off. His thumb finds the place above and your breath leaves you in strips. He swallows, looks faintly green around the gills with the effort of saying the next thing, then says it anyway.

“You got a condom?”

“N-no, but—” A sharper thrust of his thumb splits the thought clean in two. “Fuck—I’m on the pill.”

Something truly frightful must cross his face, because you rush to fix it.

“Nothing whorish, I promise. Just health reasons. I’m all alone like a country dunny otherwise.”

Duncan shuts his eyes for half a second and bows his head, not out of judgement but because the opposite has arrived too hard and fast. A blessing to him, that. A crime, otherwise. He gets half a mind to entertain the daftest thought alive—that maybe it was always meant to go this way. You, alone like a country dunny. Him, not much better.

Second finger joins the first. You make a sound into his throat and the silly thought dies happy.

He works you open by degrees so thoroughly you start wondering if there’s going to be a follow up to that condom question. Not that his fingers don’t feel good—the fucking do, almost too much. But from where you’re cradled you can see exactly the way his cock is jerking in his underwear, still framed by the fly of his jeans. Simultaneously you know he’s the kind of guy who’d close your trembling legs after you come, then cuddle into your neck until he softens, because this is not about him. So you try again.

“Duncan,” you breathe. “Enough, I—”

“You’ll need more than that for me,” he says. Abashed. I’m sorry that my cock’s too big to fuck you right away and there will be no quickies in our life kind of embarrassment. It’s unbearably sweet. Insanely hot. Blood pumps your cheeks plump and warm already, and then Duncan nearly ends you by saying, “Need to sort you out first.”

And it’s the first time in your life a man has told you his size might be a problem while making it sound like care came first and ego didn’t show up at all. He’s everything but swagger. Your heart does something daft and soft around the edges while the rest of you clenches hot around his fingers.

“Okay,” you say, cupping his face. “Okay, one more. Just—” A swallow. “Fair warning, I might come.”

It startles a grin out of him. Mean by his standards. Lovely by any other. “How’s that a bad thing?” he asks. Kisses you once, hard enough to shut you up for a second, then gives you that remedy for a cock-too-big problem of his and your vision bleaches.

God, you’re full. If girth blesses every part of him evenly, you may indeed be doomed. You would be already if he wasn’t this thoughtfully slow. You can feel in real time how your muscles adjust round him, then take a second to unclench when he withdraws to the first knuckle.

“You alright?” he asks, and his own voice tells on him. Tight. Thinned out with strain. You look so pretty it’s becoming unendurable. Hair dragged wrong, mouth open, eyes gone bright and glassy in a way that makes him so hard it’s difficult to think with any dignity.

Your nails dig into his nape. “I’m so good I’m gonna lose my mind in a second,” you breathe. A swallow. “Can you please take your pants off?”

He nods, nose brushing yours. “Alright,” he says. “If anything hurts, you tell me, yeah?”

Then he has to do the humiliating bit. First, he drags the shoes off his feet by pressing a sole to each heel. Then, shimmies out of the jeans, dragging the underwear down with them. Kicks that off too, and one leg catches, stubborn, round his ankle. By the time he joins you in nudity, he is red right up to the ears and flat on his back, camped next to you in all his difficult truth, cock heavy on his stomach.

Your eyes drop and your breath does an audible hiccup. You can feel his stare burning a hole through your forehead. He lies there tense, arms pinned to his sides like they are itching to cover himself up. God, what a waste that would be. It hits you then that he is boyish in random places so he can be an exaggeration of a man in others, and somehow all of that adds up to just a lad.

And since the opportunity has presented itself, you take it.

He is large enough that the head reaches near his navel, and yes, the girth is something to reckon with—but haven’t you just been worked open for this exact occasion? There is something insanely lovely about a man who would have half a locker room struck dumb standing for verdict, only to lie there with tension standing out in his forearms like he expects to be judged instead of wanted. He is not carved out of marble either, thank god. There is softness to him. Hair lies over his chest in an even, soft spread and trails down his stomach, which has the smallest give to it, a swell around the navel that looks made for a cheek to rest there. A vein runs the whole length of his cock, and with the pulse inside it he twitches, lifts off his stomach and falls back again. Heavy thing. Solid. Human. Entirely too much and, for that very reason, exactly right.

You put a palm on his arm. Murmur, “Come here,” and squeeze till he gets the message.

Duncan rolls back onto his side to face you, still halfway looking like he might apologise for the state of himself. You hook a thigh over his hip and pull him in until your groins meet. The contact draws a raw little grunt out of him. Good. Let him suffer a bit too. You kiss him—once, slow enough to make it stick, then again with your mouth smiling into his.

“I like you,” you whisper. His face does a helpless thing around the eyes. “Come on,” you say, nudging his nose with yours. “I’ll take it easy on you.”

“Will you?” he asks, while suffering internally. Both a promise of bliss and a difficult animal before him, he fists himself at the base and lines up. Your lips kiss the crown. Arms yoke his neck until noses flatten against each other. He can feel where your thigh, the meat of it, spills over his hip bone, quivers and settles heavier than he’d suspect it can. First inch, and he’s breathing hard. A bit more, and you join him.

“Shit,” you mutter. “Keep… keep going.”

He does, but so slowly it nearly stops counting as movement. Your body loses the line between pain and pleasure. There is excruciating sweetness in his hand. He manages to hold man’s favourite handle (your ass) while rubbing his thumb in compassionate strokes. Mouth hums and lashes tickle your cheek, eyes search for signs of sore that’s unwanted. The stretch he delivers burns, the opening is downright rude in its bluntness, but Duncan remains gentle, and that’s what turns this whole thing so total.

Underneath the turmoil, deeper, stranger, comes fullness that puts your musings about fingers to shame. There’s weight to it, length to it and, fundamentally, intent that makes your body waver between flinching from it or gathering it closer, so it tries both.

Duncan sees the whole war pass through your face and stops dead. “Too much?”

“N-no,” You breathe through it. Feel the wait in the whole of his frame. “Stay a minute. Just let me—”

He goes still at once. By force of patience, and by that old art he has been made to practise all his life and still has not mastered. A man built like Duncan does not get much leave to move through the world carelessly. People take one look at the size of him and hand him a part before he has opened his mouth: lift this, carry that, mind yourself, do not crowd, do not startle, be gentle. So he learns slowness. Learns to take the edge off himself before it reaches anyone else.

Now all of that gets spent on holding still while your cunt drags on the little of him already inside, hot and slick and so tight round the crown and upper body of his cock it feels like a clean seizure. He had let himself think of this in useless scraps. The sight of it. The permission of it. The prospect of being taken in where he has wanted to be since that first day. The actual feel is another beast entirely. The yielding comes by increments. The muscles take him, think better of it, grip again. Heat packs close enough to border on pain. If this much is enough to strip every spare thought out of his head, Duncan has no idea what shape he will be in when you let him deeper.

When your hips start making little lawless attempts at settling further onto him, he asks, “What’re you doing, hm?”

You huff at him. “Bouncing on it crazy-style, what does it look like?”

Insane, is what you are. He lets out a full snort, then another, and it all breaks into a boyish giggle. “Have I got a mad girl, then?”

“Yeah, I’m fully bonkers,” you grin. Sweat breaks on your forehead and it looks pretty. “Probably should’ve told you before—” The angle shifts, minutely. You sink deeper. Moan tears your mouth open and Duncan’s cock jerks inside you. “Oh fuck, it’s getting good. Oh, there—”

“There?”

“Yeah, right there,” you say, hugging him tighter and speaking into his mouth. “Oh God, you’re precious. You were right.” A swallow. “With that sorting-out thing.”

He kisses the corner of your mouth. “You tell me,” he says. “Tell me if I’m being a bastard.”

“Impossible,” you whisper. “No chance. Fuck, Duncan—”

One of your hands comes loose from his neck and slips between your bodies. You press it low on your belly first, just above where the softness gives way to strain, and when you sink carefully again you can feel it there if you mean to. A hard shape. Buried enough that the knowledge of it makes your face go hot all over.

“Christ,” you breathe.

Duncan’s brow pulls in. “What?”

You catch his wrist and drag his hand from your hip to your stomach. Flatten it there. Make him feel it. Then, because the thing asks to be proved twice, you rock down on him again and pin his palm in place.

“Look,” you say. “Look what you’re doing to me.”

There he is, a proof of blood under flesh—filling you so completely it overspills. His fingers flare over your stomach, press, and Duncan can touch his own cock through the membrane of skin. His mouth falls open. Red surges up his throat so fast you nearly laugh.

“Jesus,” he says, stunned. “Lass.”

You do it once more, slower, both of you feeling for it. “That’s me,” he says, dazed.

You nod against his cheek. “That’s you.”

His eyes shut. One beat. Two. Then he makes a sound into your mouth that is pure loss of it. His forehead presses to yours. “Girl,” he says, thumb twitching over your belly, “you keep doing that and I’ll be no use to either of us.”

“It’s your turn,” you say, wrapping your arm back where it belongs. Wrapping him all over with your limbs until he’s shackled and happy about it. “Fuck me. Please.”

“Okay,” Duncan says. Swallows. “Okay, just—can you tell me again? Please,” he says, hoping you’ll catch the meaning. That’s it’s not about smugness, but for a big bastard like him, needing to hear it twice before he believes someone truly wants him this bad.

“Come on, Dunk. Fuck me.” There’s a kiss on his forehead. “Nice and slow until you come, yeah?”

Before he knows it, he’s nodding like a daft thing, and his hips start moving. Gentle thrusts, deep, fat rolls of pelvis until a smile pulls your lips. “Just like that,” you tell him. “You’re doing so good. God, you feel good, fuck—”

“Take it easy on me, lass,” he breathes. “You promised.”

He holds you, or himself onto, the dip of your hip. Kisses you through it, badly at first because neither of you can keep the rhythm of your mouths and bodies straight, then better, then worse again when the feeling climbs. The heel of his palm presses on your stomach where he bulges you out and the fingers he keeps pointed down so they can brush you whenever you decide a twitch from your side is due. Crude little arrangement, but effective.

“Shit,” you grunt. “How you doing, hm?”

"Barely," he says. "You?"

The truth of it is written all over him. The tremor in his thigh and the way his breath snags. The slow loss of that thoughtful caution he has worn like a second skin all day. He is trying, still, to be good. It only makes the strain of it show more plainly.

"Close," you tell him, feeling your own spine prickling with it. "Fuck, so close. Will you come inside me?" 

His whole face changes around it. “Jesus, luv,” he says, nearly bitten off. Wedges his nose into your neck. Then, lower: “Yeah. God, yes.”

You can tell exactly how sore you are going to be tomorrow and expect your insides to have a different shape starting now. But your body has already made up its mind about him. It is learning him in real time and keeping the record. From the look of him, he would let himself be kept if asked, so you have a growing feeling that this must be the place. And then another thought comes, equal parts romantic and foul: that if he finished there, if he gave you all of it, the ache might turn kinder.

And Duncan, god—he's truly barely holding. He tries to think of neutral things but whenever his lids part your mouth is there, blurred and lovely, and you smell so good skin is about to melt off his cheeks. His balls ride up a notch, tense, and go hard with the strain in the sack, and the whole of his length burns so bright he feels it in his temples. It’s hard to keep his thigh from quivering and his hand from misbehaving. Fingers dig where he holds you and there’s a growing worry he’ll leave you with a palm-shaped bruise on your ass. He hopes you’ll forgive him.

“F-fuck,” you grit. “Duncan—”

You tighten like you mean to choke the soul out of him. Everything—arms, legs, cunt—seizes around him. The skin goes taut under his touch and you stare him dead in the eye from under eyelids so fuck-drunk he’s never been granted a sight like this in his life.

In this entanglement of trembling thighs and shoulders working so hard they seem knocked senseless, he feels it pulled out of him by force. Comes, and keeps coming, with his face pressed into yours, panting, and muttering yes, girl, yes, until his toes go cold and Duncan realises he’s way too long for your mattress and his feet kept touching the floor the whole time he’s been making love to you. 

He blinks and feels the resistance of skin against his eyelashes. Learns that he’s crushed you in a bear hug so tight your breath has gone shallow. His arms loosen. Face comes up to scan for damage and instead of asking if you’re alright, Duncan hears himself saying, “I’ve been half gone on you since the hallway.”

Your eyes are glassy. Your mouth does that helpless pull that’s a smile around something overwhelming. One that happens when people burst out laughing instead of crying.

“I hope I lived up to expectations,” you say. “Because I’ve been half gone on you since the post boxes and now I’m fully.”

“My girl,” Duncan says, swiping hair off your forehead and disbelieving his own boldness. “Are you my girl?”

You nod and hold your arms out for him. It does something quiet and final to his face. Duncan folds himself back down into you, gathers you up proper, then draws back just enough to look. His hand runs the line of your side, careful and searching.

“I didn’t hurt you?”

You shake your head. “No.” A laugh, weak and warm. “I’ve learnt a thing or two, though.”

That gets one out of him too. He ducks his head, grinning into your cheek, then lifts it again with some practical thought arriving behind the eyes. “Hold on a sec.”

You blink at him. “Why?”

He glances down at the mattress, the sheet, the general state of things. “Because that bed’s poor enough without me making a full show of it,” he says. “I don’t see another in here, so I’m trying to save you the mess.”

You do hold on. Arms and legs go round him at once, locking him in place so completely it startles a pleased little huff out of him. Duncan plants a palm behind him and gets to his feet with you wrapped round him. The lift goes through his whole body. A hard breath. A tightening in the jaw. One small adjustment of grip when your weight shifts. Then he is up, broad and warm and breathing a touch harder than before, and you are still exactly where you want to be.

Still, you ask, “I’m sorry, and what exactly are you going to do? Pull out over a bin?”

Duncan looks mildly offended. “You strike me as a lady,” he says. “I had the shower in mind. If you’ve one of those.”

You smile into his mouth. “I’m tempted to say no only to make you march us like this to your flat.”

He fixes his grip by hitching you once higher on him. There’s a small girlish yelp. His nose rubs along yours, playful and mean and soft and—

“Will you take it easy on me, lass?”

You nod with your face still tucked close to his. “Will you?”

He will, or lightning may as well strike him where he stands. Because Duncan is in love with his neighbour, and this one is not going anywhere.

When Valarr came home after midnight, the penthouse was quiet in the way only homes built around power ever truly were.

Not empty. Never empty. Quiet.

There was a difference.

Empty meant absence. A vacancy too clean, too hollow, too polished to mistake for peace. Valarr had lived in places like that for most of his life—glass towers, private floors, inherited estates overlooking black water and old money, every room perfectly appointed and not one of them warm.

Quiet, on the other hand, meant something else entirely. It meant waiting. It meant the lights in the sitting room had been left dim because you liked the house softer at night. It meant a blanket folded over the arm of the couch because you always forgot it there after reading. It meant fresh tea cooling in the kitchen because one of the staff knew you sometimes stayed up when you were worried for him. It meant the soft scent of your perfume lingering faintly in the corridor outside the bedroom.

It meant you were here.

And that changed everything.

The private lift opened directly into the entry hall with a muted chime. Valarr stepped out still in his suit, one hand loosening the knot of his tie, his expression cut from the same severe composure he wore into every boardroom in the city.

He looked immaculate.

He looked exhausted.

A long dark coat hung over one arm, his phone in the other hand still lit by messages he had not yet answered. His white shirt was crisp but slightly rumpled at the cuffs. His jaw was tight. There was a faint shadow beneath his eyes, a tiredness worn too deep to be erased by posture or expensive tailoring.

Any paper in King’s Landing would have called him devastating.

Any investor in Westeros would have said he looked exactly like a Targaryen heir should.

Only you would have looked at him and thought, he has had too hard of a day.

You appeared at the end of the hall before he could call for anyone.

Barefoot. Soft silk robe wrapped around you. Sleepy-eyed and beautiful in a way that had never once felt performative. Your hair loose from where you had clearly been lying down. The sight of you standing in the warm spill of light from the bedroom doorway expelled something in him instantly.

Valarr stopped.

Just stopped.

It was such a small thing, the way the hard line of his shoulders lowered, the way his grip loosened around the phone, the way his face changed from cold restraint to something almost boyishly relieved. It was not a transformation anyone else would have noticed. Most of the world only knew how to read obvious expressions in ordinary men. But you had long ago learned how to read every fine shift in him. The loosening of his mouth. The quiet in his eyes. The breath he let go only when he saw you.

“You’re still awake,” he said.

His voice was lower than usual, roughened by fatigue and too many conversations he had not wanted to have.

Meetings. Negotiations. Too many people wanting too much. Heir to the richest family in Westeros, de facto ruler of half the corporate arteries that kept the continent breathing, eldest son of a dynasty that had made empires out of airlines, shipping lines, media conglomerates, defense contracts, hotels, finance, tech—Valarr lived most of his life being demanded of. Claimed from. Reached for.

You smiled and came toward him. “I was waiting.”

His gaze lingered on you. It always did. For a man who could become so still that board members twice his age stumbled over themselves in the silence, Valarr looked at you with an almost unbearable intensity. Not greedy. Not casual. Devotional. As if he had not yet learned how to take the miracle of you for granted.

“For me?”

You stopped in front of him and reached up to untie his tie completely. “No,” you said, with deliberate seriousness. “For the very thrilling possibility of hearing what the board of Targaryen Global Logistics has done to offend you this time.”

His mouth almost smiled.

Almost.

It was enough to make your heart pull.

You slid the tie free from his collar and draped it over your wrist. “Long day?”

He made a sound under his breath—something dry and humorless, too tired to be called a laugh. “Long enough.”

You touched his face then, your palm resting lightly against the line of his jaw.

Valarr closed his eyes.

The movement was brief. Barely a second. But the trust in it was enormous.

All day he was watched.

His grandfather’s directors watched him for weakness. The market watched him for mistakes. Rivals watched him for missteps. Political families watched him to see where the richest heir in Westeros would place his power next. Even the cameras watched him, hungry for his indifference, his precision, his beauty, his name.

You were the only one who looked at him and asked nothing except, ‘How tired are you, my love?’

“I’ll have the bath drawn,” you said softly.

His eyes opened again. There was something there at once familiar and endlessly moving—something that never failed to undo you. Surprise, still. After all this time. As though part of him still could not quite believe he had come home to a wife who would smooth the hardest edges of his day with her own two hands simply because she loved him.

“You don’t have to,” he said.

“I know.”

He looked at you for a long moment.

That look of his had changed since marriage.

When you had first met him, Valarr looked at the world as if all things needed weighing. Evaluating. Containing. His gaze had been sharp, cool, unreadable. He had seemed born with restraint in his bones and coldness at the back of his throat.

Now, when he looked at you, there was too much feeling in it to ever be mistaken for coldness.

His hand rose and slid around the back of your neck, thumb resting just under your ear. “You should be asleep.”

“And you should not come home looking like you have personally declared war on the entire world.”

That won a real, faint smile.

“A little dramatic.”

“A little?” you repeated. “Valarr, you look one clipped answer away from ruining a man’s life.”

He leaned down and kissed your forehead.

“Perhaps I already did.”

You laughed softly, though part of you believed him.

It was easy to forget, within the quiet safety of your marriage, exactly who your husband was outside these walls.

Valarr Targaryen had been born into the sort of wealth that stopped being countable and became myth instead. His family’s name was stitched into airlines, ports, shipping empires, media conglomerates, defense contracts, energy grids, luxury hotels, private banks, old real estate, new technology. Half the kingdom owed his family money and the other half feared they might one day need to. The Targaryens of modern Westeros did not rule from a throne. They ruled from boardrooms, from private islands, from foundations and funds and carefully brokered alliances. Their dragons were not beasts of fire and scale anymore. They were assets, acquisitions, leverage, and reach.

And Valarr, eldest grandson of the most feared patriarch still living, had once seemed carved to inherit it all with the same glacial perfection as the men before him.

Before you.

You touched his wrist and tilted your head toward the bedroom. “Go change. I’ll have everything ready.”

He caught your hand before you could leave. “No staff.”

You blinked. “What?”

“No staff tonight.” His thumb brushed the inside of your wrist. “Just you.”

That soft, aching warmth spread through you at once.

It still did that. Even after vows. Even after rings. Even after nights in his arms and mornings with his face buried in your neck as if he could not stand the day beginning before he had kissed you awake.

There remained something in Valarr’s wanting that could make you feel chosen all over again.

You smiled. “All right.”

His gaze dropped briefly to your mouth, lingered there, then lifted again. “Thank you.”

“For drawing a bath?”

“For being here when I came home.”

Your chest tightened.

You leaned up and kissed him once. Slow. Gentle. The sort of kiss given in greeting, in comfort, in promise.

His hand tightened at your nape like it cost him something not to deepen it.

When you pulled back, you whispered, “Always.”

//

By the time he came into the master bath, the room had already filled with steam.

The bath itself was almost absurdly large, more a carved stone basin than a tub, set against a wall of smart glass overlooking the black glitter of the city. Tonight the glass had turned opaque at a touch, blurring the skyline into muted silver and gold. Recessed lights cast everything in warmth. Towels waited on the heated rack. Bath salts dissolved beneath the surface in pale swirls. You had added a little cedarwood oil because it grounded him, and lavender because he never admitted it soothed him but always slept more deeply after.

The staff had helped with the water and then vanished at your instruction. You preferred the rest to be yours.

A glass of water sat on the marble ledge. Another with ice. A tray with sliced fruit. A comb. Fresh pajamas. Everything prepared with quiet attention.

You were leaning over the bath, testing the water with your fingers one last time, when you sensed him in the doorway and turned.

He had changed into nothing at all.

For a breath your heart stuttered.

You were married. You had seen him like this countless times. You knew every line of his body by touch and memory, by dark and dawn and sleepy morning light. But your husband had always possessed the unfair beauty of old Valyrian stories given modern form. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Hard muscle hidden under fine suits all day long. Skin warm and golden under the low lights. A steak of silver-gold hair fallen loose and slightly damp where he must have splashed water over his face first. No watch. No shoes. No tie. None of the armor the world associated with him.

Only Valarr.

Only your husband.

And tiredness, unmistakable now, written across his features like the truth it always was.

He watched you watching him.

A little softness came into his mouth. “You’re staring.”

“Yes,” you said. “Because you are very pretty.”

His brows lifted faintly.

You straightened and held his gaze with all the innocence you did not feel. “Would you prefer I lie?”

“Never.”

He stepped closer. His eyes moved slowly over you then, taking in your robe, your bare legs below the silk hem, the fact that you were not yet dressed for sleep at all. Something darkened in his expression, though the tiredness stayed.

“You’re one to talk about pretty.”

You smiled, feeling warmth rise beneath your skin. “Was that your great compliment for the evening?”

“It is midnight. My poetry improves after sleep.”

“Liar. Your poetry is much worse after sleep.”

That drew a short, real laugh from him, brief enough to be precious.

You stepped into him and slid your hands up his chest. He was warm already, but tense. Too tense. His muscles still held the day in them like iron.

You looked up into his face. “Tell me.”

He exhaled through his nose. “Does it matter?”

“It matters because it matters to you.”

His gaze changed then, deepened, always that tiny visible fracture whenever you spoke to the part of him no one else had the patience to wait for.

He set his hands lightly on your waist. “There was a vote this afternoon. My grandfather wanted the Braavos deal rushed through before quarter close. I said no.”

You nodded. “You hate being rushed.”

“I hate stupidity urgency without a plan.” His mouth flattened. “Then dinner with the family. My uncle on one side, my mother trying not to look tired, my grandfather deciding the occasion required him to remind everyone that a man in my position should not let marriage interfere with discipline.”

A flash of anger went through you. “Meaning?”

His eyes dropped briefly, then returned to your face. “Meaning he believes I have become… softer than is useful.”

The word sat sour in the room.

You did not speak at first. You simply touched him. One hand on his chest. One at the side of his neck. Because with Valarr, sometimes anger needed gentleness first, so it would not become something sharper.

“And what did you say?” you asked quietly.

A pause.

Then, “That if he considered respect for my wife an indulgence, he could die offended by it.”

You stared at him.

Then you laughed once in disbelief, helpless and fond all at once. “Valarr.”

He looked almost apologetic. “I was already tired.”

“Oh, that poor table.”

His thumb stroked slowly over the side of your waist. “I’m serious.”

“I know.” Your expression softened. “Thank you.”

Something in his face shifted at once. More than gratitude moved through him—something wounded and tender and a little fierce. He bent his head slightly until his forehead nearly brushed yours.

“No one speaks of you like that in front of me.”

The words were quiet.

They were also absolute.

That was one of the first things you had learned about being loved by Valarr, the softness in him belonged wholly to you, but the ferocity did too.

The realm had once liked to describe him as cold because coldness was easier for ordinary people to understand than restraint. They had written about his reserve, his calculation, the way he ended negotiations with terrifying calm. They had mistaken his stillness for absence.

It was not absence. It was control.

And there was nothing colder than a man who had taught himself never to need.

Before you, Valarr had perfected that version of himself with frightening success.

There had been women, of course.

Beautiful women. Polished women. Women from families who knew how to maneuver near power without seeming obvious about it. Heiresses, socialites, actresses, the daughter of a Reach media titan, a Lannister cousin once photographed leaving his apartment after some gala season. The gossip columns loved him in those years because he gave them just enough. A dark coat. A hand at the small of a woman’s back. Jewelry after a holiday. Flowers after an opening night. Perfect civility. Perfect control.

Never love.

Never this.

You had looked up those old photographs only once, long before your wedding, in one of those private moments of insecurity you later laughed at and hated yourself for in equal measure. He had looked beautiful in them.

And hollow.

His mouth never reached the smile his companions wore for the cameras. His eyes never warmed. His body angled away almost imperceptibly even while playing the part of attentive escort. The women looked delighted. Triumphant, sometimes. But he looked like a man performing a duty too neat to be called boredom.

When he had found you staring at one of those old articles on your tablet months later, he had taken it from your hands, turned off the screen, crawled into bed beside you, and said with such calm certainty it still made your throat ache to remember, “There is no version of my life before you that you should envy.”

Now, standing in the warm steam of your bath while his grandfather called him soft for defending you, you believed that truth more deeply than ever.

You touched his cheek. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think your grandfather is a miserable old man who mistakes tenderness for weakness because no one ever loved him enough to teach him the difference.”

Something close to astonishment flashed in Valarr’s eyes. Then amusement. Then something fonder than either.

“Who is this woman,” he murmured.

“Who?”

“My terrifying wife.”

You smiled. “Get in the bath.”

His hands tightened briefly at your waist, like he was tempted to pull you against him and keep you there, but he obeyed. He always did, in these little domestic things. It amused you endlessly that a man who could reduce ministers and magnates to silence took your orders in the bath as if he had been born for it.

He stepped into the water and sank down with a slow exhale, head tipping back against the stone.

Some of the tightness left him instantly.

Not all of it. But enough that you saw the shift.

You knelt by the side of the bath and let your fingers skim through the water, then looked at him. “Better?”

His eyes opened and found you.

“Come closer,” he said.

“You didn’t answer.”

“Come closer and I’ll answer.”

You laughed softly and stood. His gaze followed you the entire time, heavy and warm and unmistakably hungry in the way it always became when you were near. It had never mattered how tired he was. Exhaustion could hollow him out, anger could sharpen him, work could drag every last ounce of patience from his bones, and still the sight of you would strike through him like longing remembered.

You loosened the tie of your robe.

His breathing changed.

It was very slight.

You still heard it.

You slipped the robe from your shoulders and let it fall. Underneath, you wore only a thin silk slip, pale and nearly translucent in the steam-soft light. Valarr’s eyes darkened at once.

There was no embarrassment in the way he looked at you. He had never made your body feel like something consumed. He looked at you as if beauty in all its forms had become unbearably personal to him.

“You’re still staring,” you said softly.

“I intend to keep doing so.”

You stepped into the bath. Warm water climbed your calves, your thighs. You gathered the slip at your hips, then drew it over your head and laid it over the towel rack before lowering yourself into the water with him.

Valarr watched every movement.

The heat of his attention was almost as palpable as the bath itself.

When you settled between his legs, his hands came to you at once.

Not possessive.

Instinctive.

He rested them at your waist, then slid them around your middle and pulled you gently back until your spine met his chest. His chin lowered to your shoulder. You felt the deep breath he took there, like some part of him had finally reached the one place in the world it could unclench completely.

You covered one of his hands with yours.

For a little while, neither of you said anything.

This silence was one of the great secret luxuries of your marriage. The world spoke at Valarr all day. Desired things of him. Demanded things. Negotiated. Appealed. Threatened. Praised. Performed. The world did not often know how to simply be quiet with him.

You did.

Steam rose around you in gentle curls. Water lapped faintly when either of you shifted. His skin was warm and slick against yours. You could hear the city faintly beyond the glass, only a distant murmur now.

His thumb moved slowly over your stomach.

Once.

Twice.

Then again.

That small movement alone could have destroyed you.

It always startled you, how careful he remained even now. How deliberate. Even married, even adored, even long since known to each other in the privacy of a shared life, Valarr touched you with the same reverence he had touched you with at the beginning—only now it had deepened into confidence, into intimacy so complete it no longer needed caution to be profound.

You turned your head slightly. “Do you want me to wash your hair?”

“Yes.”

The answer came so immediately that you smiled.

“Such a commanding husband.”

“You asked.”

“You said it like you’ve been deprived of basic rights.”

His mouth brushed the curve of your neck. “I have had a difficult evening.”

“A tragic one, clearly.”

He made a low sound against your skin that felt suspiciously like a laugh.

You reached for the bottle of shampoo from the bath ledge and wet your hands. “Tilt your head back for me.”

He did.

You began to work your fingers through his hair.

Valarr went still in that particular way he only did when pleasure met fatigue. Not sensual pleasure, not yet. Something quieter. The relief of being cared for. The relief of hands in his hair, of warm water, of your body tucked back against his. Your fingers massaged his scalp slowly, carefully, until the tension at the base of his neck began to ease.

A breath left him.

Then another.

“That good?” you murmured.

“Yes.”

“That sounded pained.”

“It is painful,” he said, eyes still closed. “Because now I will never allow anyone else near my hair again.”

You laughed softly. “You were not exactly letting footmen wash you before.”

“No. But in theory I might have.”

“You are hopeless.”

“I am right.”

You rinsed his hair with the small silver pitcher, letting warm water spill over the pale strands until they shone darker with moisture. Then you began again, slower this time, your nails lightly scratching the places you knew soothed him most.

He breathed your name under his breath.

Just that.

Your name.

It sent a pulse of warmth through you so sudden that you had to bite back a smile.

There was something deeply moving about Valarr when he was tired. Not because he was weakened—he was never that, not even near sleep—but because exhaustion wore away the final polished edges of his self-command. The public man would never let desire sound needy. He would never let love sound vulnerable. He would never let tenderness sound like hunger.

Your husband did.

Only with you.

You turned a little in his hold. “My turn.”

His eyes opened at once.

There was affection in them now. That sleepy, warm kind that still made him look too beautiful to be entirely real.

He shifted, keeping one arm around you while the other reached for the bottle in your hand. “Come here.”

“I am here.”

“Closer.”

You smiled and turned fully in the bath so your knees bracketed his thighs, facing him now. His hands moved naturally to your waist. There was barely any room between your bodies in the large tub suddenly, though perhaps that was only the effect of his gaze.

He tipped your chin back very gently and wet your hair with slow handfuls of bathwater, smoothing the strands away from your face. Then he poured a little shampoo into his palm and began to work it through your hair.

A shiver ran down your spine.

His fingers were large, deft, impossibly gentle. He massaged your scalp with the care of a man handling something precious and breakable. You closed your eyes and let him do it, let him wash the day from you too, let him turn something as simple as bathing into tenderness so intimate it felt almost like prayer.

“You are beautiful like this,” he said quietly after a moment.

You opened your eyes. “Like what?”

“In my hands.”

He kept working through the length of your hair. “In water. In steam. Looking at me like that.” His thumb brushed behind your ear. “At home.”

Heat gathered low and deep in you, not sharp but aching.

“You always say the most unfair things when I can’t escape,” you murmured.

His mouth curved. “Would you want to?”

“No.”

The answer was so honest that his smile deepened.

It was not often anyone saw Valarr smile without reservation. The public smiles were elegant and sparse. The family smiles were strategic. The social smiles were dangerous because they meant he was about to let someone underestimate him.

The smiles he gave you belonged to no one else.

They looked younger on him. Softer. Sometimes almost boyish, as though the man he had been before responsibility swallowed him whole still existed somewhere underneath all the steel and winter and expectation.

You touched his face. “Tell me about before.”

His expression shifted. “Before what?”

“Before me.”

He paused.

His hands remained in your hair, slower now.

“You know about before.”

“I know the public version.”

“That should be enough to bore you.”

“It isn’t.” You held his gaze. “Tell me anyway.”

A long silence.

Not resistant. Only thoughtful.

Then he said, “Before you, I lived the life expected of me.”

You waited.

He rinsed the shampoo from your hair carefully, one hand supporting the back of your head so no water ran too quickly over your face.

“I worked,” he continued. “I learned the business. I outperformed every expectation they gave me and still found they had more. I attended dinners I hated. I sat across from men three times my age while they tried to decide whether I was ruthless enough to inherit properly. I dated women my family approved of, or at least didn’t disapprove of. I slept badly. I ate because meals were placed in front of me. I drank more than I should some years. I pretended not to notice loneliness because it offended my pride to call it by name.”

Your chest ached.

Valarr never dramatized himself. That was one of the reasons his truths landed so hard when he did speak them. He never embroidered pain. He simply set it down in front of you and trusted you to recognize it.

“And were you happy?” you asked softly.

He looked at you for a long time.

“No.”

The simplicity of it nearly broke you.

“No,” he repeated, quieter now. “I was admired. Respected. Envied. Useful. Feared, sometimes.” His thumb rested at the corner of your mouth. “Not happy.”

You leaned into his touch instinctively.

His gaze dropped to the movement, then lifted again. “I did not know there was a difference between being wanted and being loved until you.”

The room seemed to still around the sentence.

Your throat tightened.

Valarr’s hand slid from your mouth to your cheek and held there, warm and certain. “Women wanted the Targaryen name. My mother wanted me married. My grandfather wanted me sharper. Investors wanted access. Politicians wanted alliances. Everyone wanted something. I thought that was normal. I thought that was what a life like mine would always be.”

“And then?”

“And then you looked at me,” he said, “as though none of it mattered.”

Emotion swelled up so quickly in you that it felt almost painful.

You remembered that first season very clearly. The fund-raiser at the museum. The room full of old names and careful ambition. Valarr in black, impossible and severe and devastating beneath chandeliers. You had known who he was, of course. Everyone did. But you had not known how to approach him, nor wished to. Men like him did not belong to ordinary desire. They belonged to headlines.

And yet, late in the evening, when you had slipped out to the terrace for air, he had followed—not like a hunter, not like a man entitled to your attention, but like someone drawn by the first honest thing he had seen all night.

You had thought him beautiful then.

Cold too.

You had been wrong about one of those things.

“I was afraid of you,” you admitted quietly.

His expression changed at once. “You were?”

“At first.” You smiled faintly at the memory. “You seemed carved out of fire. I thought if I touched you, you might burn me.”

A soft exhale left him, something between hurt and rueful amusement. “That bad?”

“That bad.”

His thumb stroked once over your cheek. “And now?”

You looked at him. Really looked.

At the tiredness still there beneath the warmth. At the tenderness he offered you so instinctively now. At the man who had once belonged wholly to power and now came home wanting nothing more elaborate than his wife’s hands in his hair and her body leaning into his in a bath made warm for him.

“Now,” you said, “I think there is no one softer with what he loves.”

Something in him went very still.

The hand at your cheek tightened just slightly.

You had learned this too—that praise affected him more deeply than criticism, because criticism was familiar and praise, when true, still startled him. Especially praise aimed not at his mind or strategy or usefulness, but at his heart.

He said your name under his breath like it hurt.

Then he leaned forward and kissed you.

Not hard.

Not hungry.

Not at first.

It was a kiss full of too much feeling pressed into one place because language had failed to hold it. His mouth moved over yours slowly, almost reverently, and you tasted the ache in him at once. The gratitude. The fatigue. The love. The old loneliness still startled by gentleness. You made a soft sound and his hand left your cheek only to slide to the back of your neck, holding you with exquisite care.

When he drew back, his forehead rested against yours.

“I was not soft before you,” he said.

You smiled faintly. “No?”

“No.” His nose brushed yours. “I was not kind either, not in the ways that matter most. Efficient, yes. Protective, sometimes. Generous in the expensive ways men are taught make up for being absent.” His fingers moved through your damp hair. “But I did not know how to be warm.”

You swallowed.

“And now?”

His eyes lifted fully to yours.

“Now I come home and look for you first,” he said. “Now I leave dinners when someone insults you. Now I know which tea helps when you can’t sleep. Now I remember your mother’s birthday without being reminded. Now I sit through films in black and white and pretend I do not enjoy them. Now I have opinions about bath oils.” A breath of a smile touched his mouth. “Now I would burn half the city down if it hurt you and still worry whether I’d frightened you with the smoke.”

You laughed, though your eyes had gone hot.

He kissed your forehead. “You made me human.”

“No,” you whispered. “You always were.”

He looked at you like he could not bear how much he loved you.

It made the air between you feel thinner.

Warmer.

The steam seemed to gather more thickly around your skin.

You did not notice at first how his hands had changed. They were still gentle—always gentle—but slower now. More aware. One at the nape of your neck, the other slipping from your waist to the curve of your side just beneath the water. His thumb moved in idle strokes there that were not remotely idle.

Desire rarely struck between you like lightning.

It gathered.

That was always the more dangerous thing.

With Valarr, longing arrived as accumulation. A look. A brush of fingers. The way his mouth touched the inside of your wrist while passing you a glass. The patience with which he undressed you at the end of difficult days. The roughness in his voice when he called you his wife in private, as though the title still astonished him. The worship in him had always been sensual because he loved you with his whole body as much as with his heart.

Now it began to unfurl in earnest.

He kissed you again, deeper this time.

You shifted closer without thinking.

Your knees spread slightly on either side of him in the warm water. His breath caught against your mouth. One of his hands tightened at your waist.

You kissed him once more, and then another time, as though there could be no end to it. His mouth parted under yours with increasing heat, though even that heat was threaded through with tenderness. He was always so careful not to devour what he adored. He wanted, yes—wanted with frightening depth when it came to you—but he wanted like a man kneeling at an altar, not a man taking by right.

A low sound escaped you when his lips found the place beneath your ear.

The noise undid him instantly.

His mouth paused there.

Then again.

“Say that again,” he murmured.

“What?”

“That little sound.”

You laughed softly, breathless. “I don’t know how.”

“Cruel girl.”

“Your wife,” you corrected.

He pressed a kiss to the side of your neck. “Worse.”

His hands slid up your back, wet and warm, spanning your shoulder blades. You felt how hard he was working to stay slow. How much control sat coiled beneath every measured touch.

It made heat spread through you in aching waves.

You drew back just far enough to look at him.

Valarr’s hair was damp and loose around his face. His lashes were wet. His mouth had gone softer from kissing. There was color high in his cheeks from the bath and the heat between you both. He looked younger like this. Less like the man financial kingdoms bowed to, more like the man who sometimes came into the kitchen in the morning without a shirt on and stood behind you while you made coffee just because he liked being near you.

“I love you,” you said, sudden and helpless with it.

His eyes darkened immediately.

It was unfair, the effect those words still had on him.

Perhaps because he never heard them casually. Never heard them as filler. Every time you said them, he seemed to take them into himself like a man who could not quite believe he had been given something the rest of his life taught him not to expect.

He slid one hand into your hair, cradling the back of your head. “Say it again.”

A smile touched your mouth. “Valarr—”

“Please.”

The plea in him was so soft it nearly shattered you.

“I love you,” you whispered.

His eyes closed.

For one brief second, he looked almost stricken by feeling.

Then he opened them and said, in a voice low and reverent and rough all at once, “I love you beyond dignity.”

You laughed under your breath, teary and warm. “That sounds inconvenient.”

“It is. I was once a very composed man.”

“Were you?”

“No.” His thumb stroked your lower lip. “I was lonely. It only looked like composure from the outside.”

The truth of that settled over you like silk.

You moved before thinking, shifting fully over him in the bath until you were straddling his lap.

The change in position made you both inhale.

Valarr’s hands went to your hips at once.

He looked up at you with such open hunger that a tremor ran through you. Not crude hunger. Not thoughtless. Something deeper and more terrible in its own way. Love lit by desire until both had become indistinguishable.

Water lapped softly around your bodies. Steam curled past your skin. His hands stayed on your hips as if he were restraining himself from far more than that.

You could feel the control in him like a living thing.

You looked down at him.

He looked up at you as though the entire old world had burned away and left only this.

“You are too beautiful,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

You smiled, though your pulse was beating high and hard now. “I think you say that whenever I’m not wearing clothes.”

“I also say it when you are.” His thumbs moved once over your hips. “But I will admit the circumstances improve my eloquence.”

You laughed.

His gaze followed the movement of your mouth like he wanted to kiss you again immediately and was barely keeping himself still enough to keep looking.

That looking was half the seduction with him.

You had never been more seen than in Valarr’s hands. Never more wanted than under his gaze. He did not merely admire you; he studied you with devotion. The little expressions. The way you bit the inside of your lip when flustered. The way you melted when his hand settled low at your back. The way your breath changed when he kissed your throat. He knew you now in the way only a person who pays reverent attention can know another.

His palms spread more fully over your hips. “Tell me to stop.”

You blinked.

His voice had gone quieter. More serious.

“Tell me to stop,” he repeated. “Or tell me to keep looking at you like this.”

Emotion swelled through you so fast it felt like heat.

“You can look,” you whispered.

His expression changed.

Not triumph. Never that.

Relief. Want. Something like gratitude.

He kissed the center of your chest, just above your heart.

Not once.

Several times.

Each kiss slow enough to feel intentional. The kind of touch that said mine and holy in the same breath. Your hand went automatically into his hair. His mouth moved over your skin with unbearable tenderness, and when he rested his forehead there for a moment, against your heartbeat, the intimacy of it nearly brought tears to your eyes.

“Valarr,” you whispered.

“My wife,” he murmured against your skin.

The two words sounded like worship.

Your fingers tightened in his damp hair. “You make me feel—”

He lifted his head. “What?”

You swallowed. “Precious.”

The look on his face then would have ruined anyone.

“Good,” he said softly. “That is how you are to me.”

You could barely breathe.

He kissed you again—mouth this time, deep and slow, his hands sliding over your back and up to your shoulders and down again, learning you all over with every touch. Desire thickened between you. Your body responded with increasing honesty, leaning into him, shifting on his lap, needing him closer. A low sound broke from his throat when you moved like that.

His forehead fell to your shoulder for one helpless second.

You smiled, flushed and breathless. “That affected you.”

“Yes.”

“That sounded very grave.”

“It is grave.”

You laughed softly. “Poor thing.”

He pulled back just enough to look at you properly, eyes dark and helplessly intent. “You are on my lap in a bath after telling me you love me. I assure you I am suffering.”

The sound you made then turned into another shiver when his hands tightened.

“You are not suffering very nobly,” you observed.

“No.” He leaned in and kissed the corner of your mouth. “You have ruined my nobility.”

You touched his face with both hands.

And because the truth in you had become too full to keep quiet, you said, “I like this version of you best.”

His breath slowed.

“This one?” he asked quietly.

“Yes.”

He searched your face as if worried he had misunderstood.

You stroked your thumbs over his cheekbones. “Not the heir in the papers. Not the man everyone fears in a dark suit. Not the son at family dinners. This one. The one who comes home tired and asks me to wash his hair. The one who knows which flowers I miss from the market. The one who leaves meetings early because I’ve had a bad day. The one who looks at me as if I am something precious.”

His hands flexed at your waist.

The bath had gone very still around you.

“I have never,” he said slowly, “wanted to be known the way I want to be known by you.”

Your throat tightened.

“You are known by me,” you whispered.

His gaze dropped to your mouth. Lifted again. “Too well.”

“No,” you said, smiling faintly. “Not well enough. There is always more.”

Something almost like pain crossed his face then—too much love, too much relief, too much aching gratitude all at once.

He kissed you because he could not answer it.

You felt the force of his restraint in every measured movement. The way he held your waist instead of dragging you closer. The way his mouth opened on yours with hunger but never roughness. The way his hands caressed rather than claimed. Desire had deepened now into something nearly dizzying, but he still touched you like care was the first law he had ever learned.

Eventually you broke the kiss only to breathe.

His lips brushed yours once more, lingering.

Then he said, very low, “Come to bed with me.”

The plea in the words was soft enough to be devastating.

You smiled against his mouth. “You’re asking very nicely for a man who usually issues orders.”

“With you, I prefer requests.”

The answer moved through you like silk.

You kissed him once more in place of words.

Then you slid carefully from his lap.

The loss of your weight made him breathe out sharply, and you could not help the tiny, pleased smile it drew from you. Valarr looked openly offended by the absence for exactly one second before he stood from the bath as well, all wet skin and far too much beauty for the hour.

Water streamed down him.

He stepped out first and reached immediately for the nearest towel—not for himself, but for you.

Always.

He wrapped it around your shoulders, then another around your hair, rubbing gently at the ends before draping the larger one more securely around your body. His concentration on the task was so sincere that your chest ached with love.

He glanced up and caught you watching.

“What?”

“You always dry me first.”

He looked faintly puzzled by the observation. “Naturally.”

“As if there were no other option.”

“There isn’t.”

You laughed softly.

But emotion stayed lodged in your throat all the same.

He took your face in both hands. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” Your voice came out too soft. “I just love you.”

The words transformed him.

No matter how many times it happened, it still astonished you. The way love lit his face from within. Not showily. Not dramatically. Just enough to reveal the man beneath the iron control—a man still a little overwhelmed that tenderness had found him and stayed.

He bent and kissed your temple. “Come here.”

You stepped into him and he drew you close, the towel bunching between your bodies.

He smelled of cedarwood and clean skin and the faint expensive trace of his cologne not yet fully washed away. One of his hands moved slowly up and down your back. The other cradled the back of your head.

For a while, he only held you.

Then, very quietly, he said, “Do you know what the house felt like before you?”

You looked up. “What?”

“Like a hotel.” His mouth curved without humor. “Impeccable. Silent. Useful. Not mine, despite being mine.”

Something in you softened all over again.

“And now?”

He glanced toward the doorway, toward the dim bedroom beyond, then back to you.

“Now it feels like the place where my life begins again every night.”

Your eyes stung.

He saw it instantly. “No,” he murmured, thumb brushing beneath one eye before any tear could gather. “None of that. I was trying to say something tender, not make you cry.”

“You did.”

“I see.”

His expression turned faintly smug despite the warmth in it. “Then I succeeded.”

You gave him a watery, laughing smile. “Terrible man.”

“Yes.” He kissed your forehead again. “But yours.”

The simplicity of it undid you more than anything else could have.

You rose onto your toes and kissed him—slow, lingering, full of all the love that had been building all night and all the wanting wound through it. He answered immediately, one hand leaving your back to settle low at your waist. Your towel loosened. His fingers brushed the bare skin there and both of you breathed a little differently.

When the kiss broke, he pressed his forehead to yours.

“There is something dangerous about you,” he murmured.

You smiled. “Only now?”

“No. But I notice it most when I am tired.” His thumb traced the line of your waist once. “You make me want softness so badly that it feels like a vice.”

The confession sent heat through you.

You whispered, “Then take it.”

His eyes lifted sharply to yours.

The room changed around the sentence.

You saw it happen.

The depth in his gaze. The catch in his breathing. The way tenderness did not disappear under want, but sharpened around it instead. Like light gathering through cut crystal.

He kissed you then with a hunger that was still careful, still loving, but no longer pretending not to be hunger. One hand slid to the small of your back and drew you against him. The other cupped your jaw with exquisite care, as if even now he could not separate desire from reverence.

You kissed him back with equal need.

Your towel slipped entirely.

He caught it before it could fall all the way, not from modesty but from habit, as though some part of him had made protecting your comfort into instinct so deeply rooted he could not stop even in the middle of wanting you.

That gesture alone nearly ruined you.

You drew back just enough to smile at him. “You are impossibly dear.”

He stared at you, slightly dazed from kissing. “Do not say that to me right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because I already want to put you in my chest and keep you there.”

The words were so absurdly earnest that you laughed, warm and helpless and breathless.

He looked at your mouth as you laughed and his expression softened into something almost reverent again.

“You do that,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“You laugh, and I forget every argument I had before I walked through the door.”

Your fingers slid into his damp hair. “Then I shall have to laugh more often.”

“Yes.” He kissed the corner of your mouth. “For corporate governance reasons.”

That made you laugh harder, and his smile widened in answer.

It struck you then, in one of those quiet lightning moments marriage sometimes gives you, how impossible this would have once seemed.

The old Valarr—the one the papers called cold-hearted, the one his family praised for discipline and feared for severity—would not have stood half-dry in the bath’s doorway teasing his wife while her towel slipped and laughter warmed the room. He would not have said the word dear without irony. He would not have admitted to loneliness, much less spoken of wanting softness like salvation.

He would not have known how to.

You touched his face as the laughter faded. “You really did change.”

His eyes searched yours. “Do you miss the old version?”

The question was so quiet you nearly missed the vulnerability in it.

Your chest ached at once.

“No,” you said.

He held still.

“Not for a second,” you whispered. “I would choose this you in every lifetime.”

Something broke open in his expression. Not visibly enough for anyone else to name it. But you saw it. Love too deep to bear elegantly. Relief. Astonishment. The old wound of being valued for usefulness rather than self soothed by one honest sentence.

He kissed you once. Then again. Then pressed his forehead to yours and stayed there.

“Come to bed,” he said again, voice rough now. “Before I lose what remains of my manners in this doorway.”

You smiled. “You still have manners?”

“Barely.”

You took his hand.

That too had become a private language between you. The simple joining of hands. Your smaller one in his. The way his fingers closed around yours with both gentleness and certainty. Not possession. Belonging.

He led you into the bedroom.

The room was dim and warm, lit only by bedside lamps and the soft glow from the city filtering around the edges of the curtains. The bed had already been turned down. Sheets smooth. Pillows waiting. Somewhere on the nightstand your book lay facedown beside his reading glasses—because yes, your terrifying husband now required glasses sometimes late at night, and yes, the discovery of this had nearly ended you from tenderness the first week of marriage.

Valarr released your hand only to sit on the edge of the bed and draw you between his knees.

He looked up at you.

There was still desire in his face. Plenty of it. But there was also that same familiar awe, as though proximity to you remained a miracle he had not yet become arrogant enough to expect.

His palms slid slowly up the backs of your thighs, not to hurry, only to feel. To worship through touch the way some men worshipped through prayer.

“You should know,” he said softly, “that every man at that table tonight bored me. I thought about coming home to you through half the conversation.”

Your lips curved. “Only half?”

“The other half I spent deciding whether I could ruin my uncle without it becoming tedious.”

“That seems productive.”

“Yes. But you were far more pleasant to imagine.”

You laughed softly and combed your fingers through his damp hair. “What exactly were you imagining?”

His eyes darkened. “You should be careful with questions like that.”

“You have already called me dangerous.”

“You are.”

“But?”

He drew a slow breath and pressed his face briefly into the softness of your stomach, arms wrapping around your waist. The position was so unexpectedly tender that your hand stilled in his hair.

When he spoke, his voice was muffled and warm against your skin.

“I imagined this.”

Your heart squeezed.

“Coming home,” he continued. “You awake. Your hands on me. That look you get when I’ve had a hard day and you’ve already decided to be gentle about it.” His cheek shifted against you. “You in my bath. In my arms. Here.”

A trembling breath left you.

He lifted his head. “I imagined peace.”

It was such a simple word.

And somehow it was the most intimate thing he had said all night.

You cupped his face. “Then have it.”

His eyes closed for one fleeting moment as he leaned into your hands.

When he opened them again, he kissed the inside of your wrist, then your palm, then rested his cheek there as if even your touch carried rest in it.

“I never knew,” he said quietly, “that love could feel this much like relief.”

You felt tears threaten again and laughed softly at yourself.

He noticed at once. “Don't cry, my love.”

“I can’t help it.”

“No.” His mouth softened. “You can’t.”

He rose from the bed and drew you down with him into the sheets.

The rest of the night deepened around the two of you in the way certain nights only ever do for the deeply married—slowly, tenderly, with no need to hurry toward anything because the sweetness was in the unspooling itself.

He kissed you until your thoughts turned molten and soft.

He touched you like every inch of your skin had been entrusted to him personally.

You lay under him, then against him, then over him again, and each position became some new form of closeness, some new confession in touch. He kissed the place where your shoulder met your throat because he knew it made you shiver. You smoothed your hands over his back and felt him go quiet with pleasure. He buried his face in your hair and breathed you in like a man who had come home from war. You kissed the stern line from his mouth whenever worry tried to return to it. He whispered your name against your lips until it became part of the night itself.

There was desire, yes.

There was longing thick and aching and sweet enough to make your body hum with it.

But even then, what defined the night was not urgency. It was worship.

The way he held your face as if it were beloved scripture. The way he paused to brush your hair back whenever it stuck to your cheek. The way he kept asking softly, “Here?” and “Like this?” not because he did not know you by now, but because pleasing you still mattered to him with the intensity of a vow.

And you, in turn, loved him with your whole body and your whole heart. Loved the tiredness still not quite gone from him. Loved the remnants of coldness that only made his warmth more precious. Loved the way he softened when you praised him. Loved the way his mouth went helpless when you kissed his jaw. Loved even his old hardness for the path it had made toward this gentleness.

At some point, later, when the room had gone quieter and your breathing had slowed and the city outside felt very far away indeed, Valarr lay on his back with you half over him, your cheek resting above his heart.

His fingers moved lazily through your hair.

Neither of you had spoken for some time.

Then he said into the dark, “You know they still think you made me weak.”

You tilted your head just enough to look up at him.

He was staring at the ceiling, one arm around you, the other beneath his head.

“Who?”

“My family. Some of the board. Men who liked me better when I looked as though I could love nothing.”

You were quiet for a moment.

Then you pushed up slightly and kissed the center of his chest.

“They are fools,” you said.

A small smile touched his mouth. “I know.”

“No,” you murmured, settling back over him. “I mean it. The world only understands one kind of strength because that is the kind that frightens easiest. Hardness. Cruelty. Distance. Men admire those things because they are simple.” Your fingers traced a line over his ribs. “But to stay gentle when you have every excuse not to? To love tenderly when your whole life trained you for coldness?” You looked up at him again. “That is harder. That is rarer.”

He was quiet for so long that you thought perhaps he would not answer.

Then his arm tightened around you.

Finally he said, voice very low, “You speak of me as if I am better than I know myself to be.”

You smiled faintly. “Someone has to.”

He looked down at you then. The room was dark, but not so dark you could not see his face—the softened edges of it, the eyes still too full when he looked at you like this.

“Stay with me forever,” he said.

The request was so simple.

So unguarded.

Like something from much younger than the man beneath you.

You answered the only way such a thing could ever be answered.

“Yes.”

His hand came to your face at once. He kissed you slowly, deeply, with all the relieved devotion of a man who had built his whole life around surviving and had suddenly discovered he might also be allowed to keep what he loved.

When the kiss ended, he rested his forehead to yours.

“My wife,” he whispered.

“My husband.”

He shut his eyes as if the words were almost too much pleasure to bear.

Outside, King’s Landing kept glittering. The city moved through its night of money and ambition and noise. Somewhere, people still talked about Valarr Targaryen as if they understood him. As if they knew the cold heir, the ruthless successor, the untouchable son of the richest family in Westeros.

Let them.

They did not know the man who came home after midnight and laid his weariness in your hands.

They did not know the way he softened when you touched his face.

They did not know the way he sat in bathwater and let you wash his hair like he had never been cared for properly before.

They did not know the look in his eyes when you straddled his lap and he held your hips like something sacred had descended into his arms.

They did not know that the same man who could ruin lives before lunch would dry you first, every time, because there had never been another possible order of things in his mind.

They did not know that the cold-hearted heir had not vanished at all.

He had simply come home and fallen so completely in love that the warmth in him finally had somewhere to live.

When Prince Valarr Targaryen was nine years old, he saw you kneeling in the godswood with a wounded sparrow cupped in both hands and thought, with the strange certainty children sometimes had, that the world had made a mistake in letting something so soft be born into one so hard.

You were not crying. That was what caught his eye.

Most little girls cried over dead birds and broken dolls and skinned knees. The daughters of great lords were often raised to cry prettily too, their tears turned into small ornaments, their sorrow displayed like embroidery—fine, delicate, expected. But you had blood on your fingers from where the bird’s wing had thrashed against your palm, and your face was very solemn, all stillness and winter grace.

“It will die,” Prince Valarr told you.

He had come to the godswood with his younger brother Prince Matarys at his heels, both boys flushed from escaping their lessons, dark hair tousled by the wind and bright with the thin wash of afternoon sun. Prince Matarys had a stick in his hand and mischief on his tongue. Prince Valarr had only curiosity and the easy arrogance of a prince who had not yet learned that there were things in this world that would never bow simply because he willed it.

You looked up.

He would remember that moment all his life. The leaves overhead had been green and gold, and you had lifted your face through shifting shadows, and your eyes had fixed on him with a steadiness that would one day drive him half to holiness and half to madness.

“It may,” you said.

Your voice did not tremble either.

Prince Matarys, who had never once in his life respected the silence of a sacred place, crouched beside you. “Then why bother?”

You looked at him, then at the sparrow. “Because it is frightened.”

Prince Valarr frowned. “It cannot know you mean it kindness.”

“No,” you said, “but I know.”

There had been no insolence in it. Only fact.

Prince Matarys burst into laughter and called you funny, and Prince Valarr said nothing, only watched as you rose with the bird in your hands and walked deeper into the godswood, your little slippers going damp in the moss. He watched until you disappeared among the trunks.

He should have forgotten it.

Children met children every season at court. Great lords came and went. Their daughters bloomed and vanished like flowers in a king’s garden. But Prince Valarr did not forget.

He learned your name that evening. He learned your father’s house. He learned that you were not pretty in the soft way of courtly girls, but strange and interesting even then, all grave eyes and sharp little wits and some hidden flame that made adults pause when you spoke. He learned that his grandmother liked you. He learned that servants smiled when you passed.

Most of all, he learned he did not like when other people looked at you too long.

At nine, he had no word for that feeling. At nineteen, he had many.

None of them made him gentler.

//

Years made you lovelier in cruel increments.

At twelve, you ceased to be merely unusual and became troublesome. Men smiled too much when speaking to you. Ladies went still in your wake. Old courtiers who had patted your head when you were a child began to lower their voices around you, as if the air itself had grown more fragile when you entered it. You moved through the Red Keep as though born to it and yet never wholly part of it—daughter of a great house, noble enough to be welcomed, not grand enough to be dangerous, not insignificant enough to be ignored.

Prince Valarr hated that balance.

A prince could do little about rivals among kings, lords, or councils. But nameless admiration, idle glances, whispered praise—those he came to despise with a private and ferocious bitterness.

By fourteen, he had begun seeking you out under pretense so flimsy it mocked itself. A message from his grandmother. A lost hawk bell he did not truly believe you had seen. A book he thought you might like. An insult Prince Matarys had supposedly made that required your judgment as impartial arbiter, though you were never impartial where either brother was concerned.

You always saw through him.

That was one of the things he loved worst.

“Your Grace,” you said one autumn afternoon, when he cornered you in a gallery with a volume of Dornish songs he had no interest in and knew you adored, “if you wish to give me a gift, you may simply do so. You need not invent a crime for Prince Matarys every time.”

Prince Valarr leaned one shoulder against the stone arch and looked down at you. He had outgrown boyhood then. There was breadth in him, and grace, and the dangerous beauty that followed the dragonlords like a curse. “Are you accusing me of deception?”

“I am accusing you of laziness. If you mean to lie, at least make it believable.”

His mouth curved. “You wound me.”

“Then heal quickly. I have prayers to say.”

You passed him, and he turned to watch you go.

Prayers.

You had always been devout in the mild way noble daughters were expected to be—dutiful in observance, graceful in ritual, respectful in speech. But that year something changed. Not at once. Not enough for anyone to remark upon it. Only little things.

You lingered longer in the sept.

You fasted on holy days with more sincerity than fashion required.

You began wearing the Seven-pointed star more often, tucked close at your throat.

Prince Valarr noticed because he noticed everything about you. The shift of your sleeve, the cadence of your voice, the tiredness at the corners of your eyes when you had been awake too long, the changed rhythm of your days. He noticed before his grandmother did. Before Prince Matarys. Before perhaps even you understood that devotion had become your refuge.

At sixteen, you grew dangerous to him in earnest.

That was when the songs started.

Not openly. No bard in King’s Landing would be fool enough to set his heart on the prince’s familiar companion unless death had bored him. But songs have a way of sprouting in corners where fear does not quite reach. A river flower in frost. A lady with deep river eyes. A maid too wise for court and too fair for peace. Such things drifted in from feasts and weddings and the drunken mouths of squires who thought poetry could disguise insolence.

Prince Valarr had one whipped.

Only one. He was not careless.

Prince Matarys laughed when he heard of it. “For bad verse?”

“For theft,” Prince Valarr said.

“Of what?”

Prince Valarr looked into his wine. “Something that is mine.”

Prince Matarys went quiet then, because he knew his brother very well.

He knew too that there were some tones in Prince Valarr’s voice that ought not be tested.

//

By the time you were eighteen, the court had begun to count.

A prince was of age. A prince would wed.

Not some distant cousin, not a younger son to be tucked conveniently into the household of another lord. The Crown Prince. The bright hope of the realm. The dragon made flesh. Men weighed daughters the way merchants weighed silver. Mothers sharpened smiles. Houses that had not written in years sent letters wrapped in velvet courtesy.

And you, who had loved him in silence for so long the feeling seemed part of your skeleton now, began to disappear.

Not entirely. That would have been remarked upon. But you slipped from long suppers into early solitude. You missed two hunts and one tourney feast, pleading a headache so politely no one dared challenge it. Where once you had walked the gardens with the Queen Dowager or listened to Prince Matarys chatter through a game of cyvasse, now you might be found in the Great Sept with wax on your fingers and ash on your sleeve, lighting candles until the air around you smelled of smoke and holiness.

Praying.

Always praying.

//

By the time the bells of the Great Sept began their evening thunder, your knees had gone half numb on the cold stone.

The sept smelled of incense, beeswax, and old grief. It always did at dusk. The last of the sunlight came pouring in through the high colored windows in ribbons of red and blue and holy gold, turning the dust in the air to drifting stars. Around you, women in grey and white bent their heads before the Seven. Old men muttered prayers for sons. Young wives prayed for safe births. A crippled knight lit a candle to the Warrior with hands that shook. Somewhere a babe cried, was hushed, and cried again.

You did not look at any of them.

You knelt before the Mother.

Before her, there were already two candles you had lit that afternoon. A third guttered low between your fingers as you whispered words that had long since ceased to feel like prayers and become instead a kind of desperate habit. You prayed in the morning. You prayed at noon. You prayed when the bells rang for supper and when the moon climbed over the city walls. You prayed until your throat ached and your mind went pleasingly empty, until there was room in you for nothing but holy silence.

It was the only thing that quieted him.

Not Prince Valarr as he truly was, flesh and blood and dark-haired splendor. Him as he had become in your thoughts; the shape of his mouth when he smiled with mockery in it, the mismatched brown and violet eyes that seemed forever on the cusp of laughter or fury, the lazy grace of his limbs, the dragon-pride of him, bright and terrible. Him at twelve, stealing figs from a bowl and pressing one into your hand because you had looked hungry. Him at fifteen, grinning bloodily in the yard after a tilt and saying, 'Did you pray for me, little dove? I won, so you must have'. Him at eighteen, bending close enough that the torchlight gilded one side of his face and turned the other to shadow, murmuring, 'You look at me as if I hung the moon. It is dangerous to make a prince vain'.

And him now.

Older. Sharper. The crowned prince of the realm. His father’s heir.

A man who would soon be betrothed to some lord’s daughter with fleets or swords or fertile hips.

A man you had loved too long and too silently.

You pressed the candle down into the sand and watched the flame steady.

“Mother above,” you whispered, your voice almost soundless beneath the murmurs around you, “take this from me.”

Not the love. Never that. You had long ago ceased lying even to the gods.

The wanting.

The ache of it. The humiliating, maidenish, endless ache of it.

You bowed your head lower. “Let him be happy, though it is not with me. Let me be good enough to bear it.”

Your fingers had gone stiff from cold. You clasped them together until the knuckles blanched white.

“Let me forget.”

That was when you felt it.

Not touch. Not yet.

A change in the air, as certain as the shadow of a cloud passing over the sun.

The Sept was full of the faithful, and still your body knew him before your mind allowed the thought. Your spine straightened on instinct. Your breath caught in your chest. The tiny hairs at the nape of your neck rose.

You did not turn.

Perhaps if you had been wiser, you would have.

Or perhaps there had never been wisdom enough in the world to save either of you.

A pair of footsteps sounded behind you, slow and measured on the stone. They did not belong in that place. Men walked differently in septs than in halls, more softly, with a pious uncertainty, as if even bootheels ought to be humbled before the gods. These steps did not humble themselves for anyone.

They stopped just at your shoulder.

For a moment there was only the hiss of candleflame and the faint singing somewhere deeper in the Sept.

Then his voice, low and velvet-smooth and edged in mockery.

“What do you ask them for,” he said, “that takes so long?”

Your eyes closed.

You had spent weeks in this place precisely to avoid hearing that voice.

“Your Grace,” you said without turning.

A short silence followed. It was dangerous, that silence. Prince Valarr’s moods often hid inside silence the way vipers hid in grass.

“At court,” he said at last, almost pleasantly, “they tell me you have become half a septa and you pray more than they do.”

You made yourself rise.

Your legs protested. Pins and needles shot through them. You steadied yourself against the carved rail before the Mother’s shrine, then turned to face him.

“Then perhaps they should improve their diligence.”

The answer was quick enough that another man might have smiled. Prince Valarr did not.

He looked at the candles instead. “For whom?”

Prince Valarr stood with one gloved hand resting on the pommel of his sword as if he were in a throne room rather than a house of worship. He wore black, as he often did, though a heavy chain of red-gold lay over the doublet to mark his rank, and on the breast there was stitched the three-headed dragon in thread so dark it seemed almost wet. He had no crown on. He did not need one. The arrogance of him was diadem enough.

Gods, he was beautiful.

Not sweetly so. Not gently.

Beautiful in the way lightning was beautiful over the sea—brilliant, violent, and liable to kill.

“For the realm, of course. For the king’s health. For peace. For the hungry and the sick.”

His gaze moved over your face with insulting slowness. Then lower, over the plainness of your gown, the wool mantle about your shoulders, the rosary cord at your wrist.

“Is this penance?” he asked. “You dress as if the Stranger has already claimed you.”

“I did not know you had come to inspect my wardrobe.”

His mouth curved.

There it was, then. That dangerous near-smile, the one that always seemed to say he found the whole world faintly amusing and most men in it beneath notice.

“I have come,” he said, “because I grew tired of hearing my name spoken by men who do not know how to say it properly, and your septa friends seem determined to starve me of better conversation.”

“My friends,” you said, “have better sense than to speak to princes.”

“I never accused them of lacking sense.”

The old ease of him made something twist painfully inside you. Once, long ago, you would have matched him jest for jest and watched delight kindle in his eyes. Once, he had sought you out for no greater purpose than to laugh.

That was before he had become the realm’s most watched man.

Before you had learned how cruel hope could be.

You looked past him, toward the carved doors. “You should not be here.”

His brows rose. “Should I not?”

“It is holy ground.”

“Then the gods may strike me down.”

He said it so lightly that you should have laughed, but there was something in his face that kept laughter from coming—something feverish beneath the polish, some dark quickness in the eyes.

You lowered your voice. “Do not mock the gods in their own house.”

“Why not? They have stolen you.”

Your breath went still.

For a beat you thought perhaps you had misheard him. Then his gaze dropped to the three candles before the Mother and hardened almost imperceptibly.

“You come here at dawn,” he said. “At midday. At dusk. My brother says you are spoken of now as if you have taken some secret vow. Lady so-and-so saw you weeping before the Maiden. A septon says you gave alms with your own hands to beggars in Flea Bottom. Every day there is some new tale of your piety.” He took one step closer. “Yet when I send word for you to join us in the gardens, you are too occupied with the gods to come.”

Your fingers tightened on the rosary cord. “I did not know the gods needed your leave to receive prayer.”

His eyes flashed.

“And I did not know prayer required such devotion from a woman who never once seemed devout before.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

Before you.

Before I knew wanting could make a mockery of pride.

Before every song in every hall began to sound like a dirge for things I could not have.

You said none of it.

Prince Valarr watched you, waiting. He had always had a predator’s patience. It was one of the things court mistook for charm.

When you did not answer, his voice went softer.

“Before you heard I was to be bargained like a broodmare.”

There it was.

You should not have looked at him then. You knew that. Yet you did, because at the word bargained some bitterness entered his face that made him, for an instant, not prince but only man—furious and proud and trapped within golden chains.

Rumors had been all through the Red Keep for a moon’s turn now. This house or that one. A daughter from the Reach. A niece from the Stormlands. A princess from across the narrow sea. Every supper birthed a new certainty. Every corridor carried whispers. You had heard them all with the calm of someone being slowly flayed.

“It is no concern of mine,” you said.

A lie. A wretched lie.

Prince Valarr gave a short laugh. There was no mirth in it. “No?”

“No.”

“You waste extraordinary effort convincing me of a thing I did not ask.”

His voice was still quiet, but people had begun to notice. You saw a merchant’s wife glance over and then quickly away. Two old septas near the Crone’s shrine murmured to each other.

You stepped back from him. “Your Grace—”

He moved with you.

“You used to call me Valarr.”

“That was when we were children.”

“And do children cease to know one another when they grow tall?”

His nearness filled your senses; leather, steel, some subtle spice from court, the clean heat of him. It was intolerable that men could pray while he stood so close and the earth did not split open under the offense.

You forced yourself to meet his eyes. “Princes do.”

Something flickered there.

Hurt, perhaps. Or temper.

With Prince Valarr they were cousins.

“You have become cruel,” he said.

You almost laughed then, because it was so monstrous, so exquisitely unfair, that he should be the one to say it.

“Cruel?” you repeated. “I light candles, my prince. I have not poisoned your wine.”

“No. Only deprived me of your company, which is worse.”

He said it with such careless insolence that you stared at him. His expression did not change. Perhaps he truly believed it.

Of course he did. Prince Valarr had been reared on adoration the way lesser children were reared on milk.

You thought of all the ladies who smiled when he entered a hall. The ladies and princesses put forward for his notice. The songs sung of him. The men who bowed. The women who blushed. The fools who called him the realm’s bright hope.

And here he was, darkening a shrine with jealousy because one woman had gone where he could not follow easily.

Some sudden reckless thing rose in you. Perhaps it was exhaustion. Perhaps it was the gods. Perhaps it was the simple madness of having loved him too long.

“You shall be wed soon,” you said, low and clear. “Would it comfort your future princess to know you haunt septs for the sake of an old friend?”

The words landed between you like a dropped blade.

Prince Valarr’s face changed.

Not much. That was the frightful thing. Another man might have flushed or frowned or raged plainly. Prince Valarr merely went very still. The air about him seemed to sharpen.

“At last,” he said softly, “we approach the wound.”

You regretted it at once.

“I did not mean—”

“You did.”

A muscle flickered in his jaw. Then he smiled. That was worse.

“Shall I tell you what comforts me?” he asked. “Not that.”

You looked away first. It felt like defeat.

He leaned closer still, until anyone watching would think he only meant to murmur some courtly nonsense. But his voice, for all its softness, struck like a knife sliding between ribs.

“I have endured three councils this week,” he said. “One naval dispute, two border complaints, and my father’s endless talk of fertile alliances. I have listened while old men discussed the shape of my life as if they meant to order a horse. And through all of it I have thought only of you kneeling here at the feet of carved stone women, begging them to teach you how not to love me.”

Your heart stuttered.

For one unguarded, treacherous instant, hope flared.

Then fear drowned it.

“Do not speak so,” you whispered.

“Why? Because the Mother will scold me?”

“Because you do not mean it.”

There was the truth of you at last, naked and humiliating.

You saw it strike him. Not the words themselves, but what lay beneath them; your certainty that he played with you, because why should he not? Princes played with kingdoms. What was one woman’s heart beside that?

Prince Valarr drew back just enough to look at you fully.

When he spoke again, all mockery had gone from his voice.

“You think me false.”

You swallowed. “I think you are a prince of the realm.”

The silence that followed was dreadful.

Somewhere above, voices lifted in hymn. Light poured crimson through the Warrior’s window and painted one side of his face with bloody glass.

At last he said, “Come outside.”

“No.”

“Do not make me ask twice.”

A bitter smile touched your mouth. “There is the prince.”

He stared at you for a long beat. Then, to your astonishment, he glanced toward the watching septas and took one measured step back.

“Very well,” he said.

His tone should have warned you. It was too even.

“We shall speak here, before the Seven, if that pleases you.”

You felt suddenly cold.

“Valarr—”

He turned his head and looked up at the Mother’s stern stone face. “Tell me, then. Which of them do you favor? The Maiden? The Mother? The Crone with all her wit?” His gaze slid back to yours. “Or do you kneel to the Stranger because he alone knows how it feels to be shut out?”

“Stop.”

“Why? Does it wound you that I should ask what place I hold in your prayers?”

“You hold no place in them.”

“Liar.”

The word was almost fond. It was all the more frightening for that.

You should have left then. You should have curtsied and walked away and let him stand in impious temper before the gods. But leaving had never been simple with Prince Valarr. Even as children, when he wanted you near, the wanting itself became a kind of gravity.

You hated that some part of you still leaned toward it.

He looked at the candles again.

“You pray to forget me,” he said. “Yet here I am.”

A dozen answers rose to your tongue. All of them dangerous.

At last you said, “The gods test us.”

He gave a low laugh. “Then I should like a word with them, for I am tired of being treated as your temptation and not your salvation.”

You stared.

He held your gaze and said, with shocking simplicity, “You were never meant for them.”

Your pulse beat so hard it hurt.

“Do not say such things.”

“Why not? They are only gods.” His eyes burned now, violet gone nearly black in the failing light. “What have they given you that I did not first place in your hand?”

Your anger returned then, quick and blessed, because without it you might have wept.

“Arrogance becomes you poorly.”

“It becomes me very well. I am a Targaryen.”

“And I am not one of your subjects to kneel when you speak.”

“No,” he said. “You are worse.”

Something in the way he said it—almost wonder, almost accusation—stole your breath.

His voice lowered.

“You are the only creature in this city who looks at me and does not know whether to worship or hate me.”

You found yours with difficulty. “I know precisely which.”

“Do you?”

His mouth curved again, but now there was pain in it, and hunger, and some dark amusement at his own suffering.

“I think not.”

You might have answered. You never knew what you meant to say. Because then a new voice broke across the shrine.

“Brother.”

You both turned.

Prince Matarys stood halfway down the aisle, slim and dark-haired as Prince Valarr but gentler in the face, a candlelit prince where his elder brother was wildfire. He had his hand on the hilt of his sword and an expression that spoke eloquently of alarm carefully dressed as courtesy.

The younger prince bowed to you. “My lady.”

You returned it, grateful enough for interruption that you could have kissed him.

Prince Matarys looked from your face to Prince Valarr’s and seemed to understand at once that he had arrived in the heart of some peril.

“Our father is asking after you,” he said to his brother. “The small council waits.”

Prince Valarr did not move.

“Then they may wait longer.”

Prince Matarys’s mouth tightened. “He is in no mood to be kept waiting.”

“How fortunate. I am in worse.”

“Brother.”

It was soft, but it carried warning.

For a moment you thought the elder prince might ignore him entirely. Then Prince Valarr exhaled through his nose, slow as a man mastering fury. He took one backward step, then another.

But before he turned away, he looked at you, and the look itself felt like a hand about your throat.

“This is not done,” he said.

“I did not know it had begun.”

His eyes narrowed.

Prince Matarys made an almost imperceptible motion, as though urging a hound from the scent of blood.

At last Prince Valarr gave a half-bow so mocking it bordered on insult. “Pray well, my lady.”

Then he turned and strode from the Sept with his brother at his side, black cloak trailing behind him like a strip of night.

You remained standing long after he had gone.

Only when the doors shut behind them did your knees begin to tremble.

//

That night you dreamt of dragons in the sept.

They coiled between the marble pillars with their scales smoking and their eyes lit from within like banked coals. Above them the Seven watched from niches in the wall, calm and blind and useless as carved idols. One by one your candles went out. Then a man’s voice spoke from the dark, low and amused and terrible in its tenderness.

‘You may kneel to them all your life, little dove, and still you will rise as mine.’

You woke before dawn with your skin damp and your heart beating fit to crack your ribs.

By sunrise, the bells were ringing again.

And by noon the rumors had grown teeth.

It began with your cousin, red-cheeked from haste, bursting into your solar without courtesy.

“Have you heard?”

You had not, though the look on her face made you wish to remain ignorant forever.

“He quarreled with the king in council,” she said. “Before lords and maesters both. Loudly.”

You stilled with the brush halfway through your hair.

“Over what?”

She hovered, suddenly eager and uneasy all at once. “His betrothal. Or so they say.”

The brush slipped from your fingers and struck the floorboards.

Your cousin went on before you could stop her. “Lord Rowan’s daughter was to be presented within the fortnight, and now there is talk the prince refused outright. Some say he insulted the Reach. Some say he called marriage a leash fit only for hounds.”

You bent to retrieve the brush because if you did not move, you thought you might shatter where you sat.

“Court says many foolish things.”

“Yes,” she said, watching you too keenly. “But this came from the king’s own usher. They say the shouting was heard in the gallery.”

The brush felt absurdly heavy in your hand.

There were a hundred reasons why Prince Valarr might refuse one match. Pride. Politics. Caprice. Targaryen blood running hot and contrary. It meant nothing. It must mean nothing.

Yet his words in the Sept returned with ruinous clarity.

‘I have listened while old men discussed the shape of my life as if they meant to order a horse.’

You set the brush aside. “You should not repeat gossip.”

“Then you should not look as though you would dearly like more of it.”

You managed a thin smile. “Leave me, cousin.”

She did, though not without a last curious glance.

When the door closed, you stood very still in the center of the chamber and hated yourself for the treachery of your heart.

A quarrel did not change the world.

A prince in rage was still a prince.

And you were still only yourself.

By evening you had gone once more to the Great Sept, because where else should a fool go but to the place where fools laid down burdens they were too weak to carry?

The sky had turned iron-grey by the time you arrived. Rain threatened but had not yet broken. The streets below Visenya’s Hill teemed with sellers and children and the smell of fish and tallow. Beggars huddled against the outer wall with bowls in their laps. You climbed the steps with your hood drawn close and the city’s noise dimming behind you into holy hush.

Inside, the air seemed cooler than before.

You lit a candle to the Maiden.

Then one to the Crone.

Then, after a long hesitation, one to the Stranger, because there are prayers one only dares make to gods who know endings.

You had just finished whispering them when you heard the scuff of a slipper behind you.

A septa stood there, her face lined but kind.

“My lady.”

You bowed your head.

“The Most Devout requests a word,” she said.

Alarm stirred low in your belly. “With me?”

She smiled faintly. “You have become difficult to overlook.”

That, at least, was true.

You followed her through a side cloister where the walls were cool under the fingertips and the windows narrow as arrow slits. At the end lay a small chamber lit by two oil lamps and one high window paling with clouded evening. There an old man sat in carved oak with hands folded over his staff, his face as soft and shrewd as old parchment.

The High Septon had known kings. He had buried queens. He had the look of a man who had watched generations of noble folly bloom and rot and did not expect yours to surprise him.

“My lady,” he said. “Sit.”

You obeyed.

For a moment he only studied you.

Then he asked, “Do you come to the Seven for peace or for hiding?”

The question struck too close. You lowered your eyes. “Must it be one?”

“Often it is both.”

His voice held no reproach, only weary understanding, which somehow felt worse.

You twisted the rosary at your wrist. “If I have done wrong by coming—”

“No.” He sighed. “The gods have room for all wounded creatures. Even noble ones.”

A shadow of humor might have touched him then, but it vanished quickly.

“You are much spoken of,” he said. “And not only by women who envy virtue in prettier women than themselves.”

You flushed despite yourself.

“There are… concerns.”

The word chilled you. “Concerning what?”

He was silent just long enough to force truth from him. “Concerning the prince.”

Your throat closed.

“I do not understand.”

The High Septon’s eyes, pale and old as winter skies, remained on yours. “I think you do.”

You sat very still.

He said, gently, “His Grace has attended prayers twice in two days. That alone would turn heads. Princes seldom climb hills unless there is a maiden on top of them.”

Against your will, heat rose into your face.

“Yesterday,” the old man continued, “he spoke irreverently before the Mother’s shrine. Today he sent gold enough to feed a hundred poor and instructed that it be given in your name.”

You stared.

“I did no such thing.”

“I know that. Yet the city will not.”

You felt suddenly sick.

“Why?”

The High Septon’s look sharpened. “That is what I had hoped you might tell me.”

You could not. Or would not. What answer was there fit for a holy man? That the crowned prince of the realm, famed for charm and discipline, had chosen to wage war on heaven because a woman he fancied had sought shelter there?

At last you said, “He is… accustomed to being obeyed.”

“Ah.” The old man leaned back in his chair. “And he believes heaven has disobeyed him.”

You could not deny it.

The High Septon closed his eyes briefly, as if in prayer or fatigue. “There are men who love power because it grants comfort. Men who love it because it grants safety. And men who love it because it promises they will never again be denied.”

When he opened his eyes, they were very keen.

“The last sort are the most dangerous.”

Your fingers had gone cold again. “He would never harm the Faith.”

“I did not say the Faith.” A pause. “I wondered whether he might harm you.”

The chamber seemed to tilt.

“No,” you said at once. Then, because truth had a way of forcing itself through broken places: “Not in the way you mean.”

The High Septon heard the rest anyway.

Not with fists. Not with blades.

With wanting. With claiming. With that fierce dragon certainty that what delighted him must belong to him, and what belonged to him must never be permitted to drift beyond reach.

He studied your face.

“You care for him.”

It was not a question.

You said nothing.

“That is often how such dangers begin,” the old man murmured. “With tenderness mistaken for holiness.”

He looked toward the tiny window where the first drops of rain had begun to strike the glass.

“Take care, my lady. Gods may forgive pride. Men born to crowns seldom do.”

It rained in earnest by the time you left the chamber.

Heavy spring rain, sudden and warm, drumming against marble and turning the steps into shining slate. The Sept’s great doors stood open to the storm. Beyond them King’s Landing had become a blurred grey wash of roofs and smoke.

Your litter had not been sent for. You had not thought to summon it. Foolishly, you drew your hood close and prepared to make the descent on foot with two household guards.

You had just reached the top of the steps when a voice out of the rain said, “You are becoming difficult to find.”

Your guards stiffened.

Prince Valarr stood beside a carved pillar as if the storm itself had spit him there. He wore no cloak now. Rain darkened his black velvet and made silver of the loose strands of hair at his temples. Water ran down the line of his cheek and jaw, yet he seemed not to feel it. Two kingsguard waited several steps below, careful and distant as men who knew better than to approach a dragon in a foul mood.

Your heart sank clear to your shoes.

“Your Grace.”

He glanced at your guards. “Leave us.”

They hesitated.

You should have told them no. You knew that. Yet some old instinct, half trust and half ruin, made you say, “Go stand under the lower arch. I shall call if I need you.”

One looked unhappy. Both obeyed.

Rain sheeted between you and the city, making a private curtain of water.

Prince Valarr did not smile. “You met with the High Septon.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What wisdom did the holy man offer you about princes?”

His tone made plain he already guessed.

You should not have answered honestly. Yet perhaps the rain, or the long strain of fear, or the sheer absurdity of him appearing at every threshold you fled to had rubbed your caution raw.

“He told me to take care.”

Prince Valarr’s mouth twitched. “Wise. I am rarely safe.”

“You think this amusing?”

“No.” His gaze held yours. “I think it contemptuous.”

The rain struck stone between you like thrown pearls.

“Why?” you asked before you could stop yourself.

“Because old men in robes presume to warn you from me, and because some part of you listens.”

“Some part of me has eyes.”

That did it.

He moved so quickly the space between you vanished before your breath did. One hand caught the pillar beside your head—not touching you, never quite that in public, but caging all the same. Rainwater ran from his sleeve to your wrist.

“You mean to wound me,” he said softly.

“And you mean to let me breathe?”

His nostrils flared. “Do you know what I did after I left the Sept yesterday?”

“No.”

“I refused Lord Rowan’s daughter.”

The world narrowed to the sound of rain and the hard line of his body too near yours.

You stared up at him.

He went on, voice low and merciless. “Then I told my father I would sooner set fire to the marriage bed than take a bride chosen for me like tribute from a vassal house.”

“Valarr—”

“He was displeased.”

You might have laughed at the understatement had your pulse not been thundering so hard.

“This is madness.”

“Yes,” he said. “At last you name it properly.”

His eyes searched your face with frightening intensity, as if he might read every prayer you had ever whispered there.

“I am done pretending ignorance,” he said. “Done with councils. Done with watching you flee me under cover of piety while every fool in court decides where I am to plant my seed.” His voice roughened. “I have been patient beyond reason.”

A terrible tenderness went through you at that word, because no one who knew Prince Valarr would ever have called him patient. Yet in his own mind he likely believed it. He had waited years while you smiled and talked and stood beside him and never once said what lay between you. Years while you both played at innocence because naming hunger makes it harder to govern.

Your voice came thin. “What do you want from me, my prince?”

The rain softened. The bells above the Sept began to ring the hour, each peal shivering through the wet air.

Prince Valarr looked at you as if the answer had always been too obvious to deserve asking.

“You,” he said.

No prince’s son, no practiced courtier, no heir to the realm.

Only a man, for a heartbeat. A dangerous, possessive, impossible man—but a man stripped to the wound.

It would have been easier if he had lied.

You shut your eyes. “Do not.”

His voice dropped. “Do not what?”

“Do not say it now. Not like this. Not when you have the power to ruin everything and I have none.”

Silence.

Then, unexpectedly, he removed his hand from the pillar and stepped back.

Rain cooled the air where he had been.

When you opened your eyes, he was watching you with a strange expression, some painful mixture of anger and understanding.

“You think this is about power.”

“What else could it be?”

A ghost of a smile. A bitter one. “That is precisely the tragedy.”

He looked away, out over the soaked city, where the river beyond the walls shone dull as hammered pewter.

“When I was ten,” he said, “you pushed me into the pool at Dragonstone.”

You blinked. Of all things, you had not expected memory.

“You deserved it.”

“I had pulled your braid.”

“You called me solemn.”

“You were solemn. You looked like a tiny old septa even then.”

Against your will, a laugh escaped you. Quick, startled, helpless.

His eyes came back to your face at once, caught by the sound like a hound by scent.

“There,” he said quietly. “That.”

Your laughter died.

He took one step nearer, but slowly now, as if approaching a skittish creature.

“I have wanted that all week,” he said. “That face. That voice. You with your guard lowered and your eyes bright. Not this ghost who kneels to gods for scraps of peace.”

His hand lifted, then paused in the rain between you. When you did not recoil, he touched one wet curl near your temple with two fingers only, reverent as sin.

“I know I am feared,” he said. “I know what men say of dragon blood. I know what you have begun to fear in me.” The fingers at your temple tightened slightly. “But do not insult me by pretending this is a game I play because I am idle. I would have let ten kingdoms burn before I came to heel for any woman I did not love.”

The word hit like a blow.

You should have stepped away. Instead you stood utterly still, because the earth had tilted under you and nothing felt trustworthy anymore—not breath, not prayer, not the rain.

“Love,” you repeated, scarcely above a whisper.

Prince Valarr’s mouth twisted. “Must I carve it into the Sept door?”

Tears stung before you could stop them. Fury rose with them—at him, at yourself, at the years wasted, at the cruelty of being told the thing you had most desired only when it had become too dangerous to bear.

“You cannot say such things,” you said raggedly. “You cannot say them after years of nothing and expect the world to bend because you have finally decided to speak.”

His face changed again, struck by the truth of it. For one rare instant, guilt crossed there plain as daylight.

“I know,” he said.

The softness of that answer undid you more than anger would have.

You turned away, bracing one hand on the wet stone rail. Below, the city was all blurred lamps and rain-mist. You could not let him see you weep. You had done too much of that before carved gods already.

Behind you, his voice came quieter than you had ever heard it.

“I thought if I waited, they would give me leave to choose. Or you would say something first. Or I would wake one day and be sensible.”

A humorless huff of breath. “I woke instead more in love than before, which is intolerably inconvenient.”

You laughed through tears, because of course he would make even confession sound affronted.

He came to stand beside you at the rail, not touching.

“When they first told me I must wed soon,” he said, watching the city, “I thought only of war.”

“That is a prince’s answer.”

“It is a Targaryen one.”

“Those are not always the same.”

At that, a true smile touched him briefly. “No.”

You looked at him then. Rain beaded on his lashes. His profile, hard and lovely against the stormlight, might have been stamped on a gold coin. Yet there was something exposed in him now you had never been meant to see. Not weakness. Prince Valarr would die before naming it that. But rawness. The prince flayed open beneath the silk and steel.

He turned and caught you looking.

“Say it,” he murmured.

You knew what he wanted.

I love you.

The words hovered like treason.

“I cannot.”

“Cannot, or will not?”

“Both.”

His gaze darkened. “Because of the gods?”

“Because of the realm. Because of your father. Because I will not be the folly that undoes you.”

He laughed then, sharp and almost furious. “You think I may yet be done some good service by being tied to a stranger with broad lands and childbearing hips?”

“I think the realm is not built on what either of us wants.”

“Then the realm is built badly.”

You turned to him fully. “And if your father commands it? If the council threatens rebellion? If your mother weeps? Will you burn them all for me?”

He met your fury with one of his own.

“If that were the price, I should consider it.”

The honesty of it chilled you more than a lie would have.

“Valarr.”

He saw your fear then and grimaced, a flash of self-knowledge cutting through temper.

“No,” he said. “No. Listen to me.” He dragged a hand through rain-wet hair. “I speak wildly when I am angry. You know this.”

“I know you too well. That is the trouble.”

He looked at you a long while.

Then, very slowly, he bent one knee on the rain-slick stone.

You stared in horror.

“Have you gone mad?”

“Entirely.”

“Get up.”

“No.”

He looked absurdly splendid there, kneeling like some blasphemous knight before the doors of the gods. Rain ran over his shoulders. The kingsguard below pretended very hard not to see. Your own guards had gone rigid with alarm.

“Valarr, for pity’s sake—”

“Not for pity,” he said. “Never that.”

Then, lower, so only you could hear…

“You once told me that if I ever wished something truly impossible, I ought to pray. I have tried pride. I have tried silence. I have tried obedience and discovered I hate it. So now I try your way.”

His eyes, lifted to yours, were fever-bright and terrible and heartbreakingly sincere.

“Marry me.”

The world stopped.

No bells. No rain. No city. Only that.

You had imagined many cruelties from him. Not this mercy. Not this disaster.

“Your father will never allow it.”

“Leave my father to me.”

“Your council—”

“Damn my council.”

“You are heir to the throne.”

“And you are the woman I love.”

The tears you had held back spilled at last. You hated them. Hated that he saw them. Hated that some wild bright thing in you unfurled at his words like a banner in wind.

You shook your head because you did not trust speech.

Prince Valarr rose at once, not offended, only intent. “Is it no?”

You covered your face with both hands. “It is impossible.”

“That is not no.”

“It ought to be.”

He caught your wrists gently and drew your hands down. His own were cold from rain.

“Look at me.”

You did.

The city blurred behind him. The Sept loomed at your back. Between those two great powers—crown and gods—you stood trapped by a prince who had always mistaken wanting for destiny.

Except perhaps he had not mistaken it at all.

“I will not let you vanish into piety because the world frightened us into silence,” he said. “I will not hand you to the Seven because old men say a prince’s heart must be spent elsewhere. If I must fight for this, I shall. If I must shame myself, humble myself, beg—” A strange smile touched his mouth. “Though gods know I despise begging.”

“You would despise marriage more if you were made to beg for it.”

“I despise all things that keep me from you.”

It should have sounded boyish. Instead, on his lips, it sounded like oath and threat in one.

You laughed shakily. “You are impossible.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yet here I am.”

His thumb brushed the inside of your wrist where the pulse fluttered madly.

“And here you are.”

Rain dripped from the edge of the roof in silver threads. The bells ceased.

For a long moment neither of you spoke.

At last, you whispered the question that mattered most. “If I say yes… what becomes of us?”

Prince Valarr looked almost startled. Then his expression softened into something so rare upon him it nearly broke you—a tenderness without arrogance, wonder unguarded.

“We become what we should have been years ago,” he said.

You laughed once, wet and disbelieving. “That is not an answer.”

“No,” he admitted. “It is only the one I have.”

He lifted your hand and pressed his mouth to the knuckles. Such a courtly gesture. Such a ruinous one.

“I do not know what shape the storm will take,” he said against your skin. “Only that I am done pretending the sky is clear.”

You stared at him.

At the prince soaked in rain before the Great Sept. At the man who had mocked gods and fathers alike because he could not bear your distance. At the boy who had once stolen figs and laughed at your solemnity. At the danger of him. The brilliance of him. The madness.

At the love of him, finally spoken aloud.

In some wiser life, perhaps you would have said no. In some gentler world, perhaps no would have been enough.

This was not that world.

And you had never once been wise where Prince Valarr was concerned.

So you took one shuddering breath and said, “Yes.”

The word scarcely sounded.

It shook him anyway.

You saw it, the stillness that overtook him, as if all the wildness in him had gone suddenly reverent. He lowered your hand slowly. For the first time in all the years you had known him, Prince Valarr Targaryen seemed at a loss.

It lasted only a heartbeat.

Then he smiled.

Gods preserve you, but that smile might have started wars.

“There,” he murmured. “Now they may all go to hell.”

You almost choked on laughter and tears together. “You are not to say such things on the steps of the Sept.”

“Very well. They may go elsewhere.”

He stepped close and laid his forehead to yours. Rain cooled both your faces. Below, you heard one of the guards clear his throat with severe embarrassment.

“Tomorrow,” Prince Valarr said softly, “I speak to my father again.”

“You quarreled with him already.”

“I shall improve upon it.”

You groaned. “That is precisely what I fear.”

“I know.”

He did not apologize. Prince Valarr apologized as rarely as eclipses happened. Instead he kissed your brow, absurdly tender.

“I know,” he repeated.

//

The storm broke the heat of spring and left the city washed raw.

By morning the Red Keep buzzed like a hive struck with a stick.

The prince had refused the Reach.

The prince had ridden to the Sept in rain.

The prince had spent the evening shut in with the king.

The prince had emerged white with fury.

The prince had ordered half the court from his sight.

The prince had shattered a goblet in Maegor’s Holdfast.

The prince meant to wed for love.

The prince meant treason.

By noon, the whispers had reached even the kitchens.

By dusk, they had reached your father.

He came to your chamber with his face carved of thunder and shut the door behind him harder than courtesy liked. A great lord, stern and battle-tested and never once a fool, he stared at you for so long that your stomach knotted.

“How long?” he asked.

Your pulse stumbled. “My lord?”

“Do not trifle with me. How long?”

You sank into a chair before your knees betrayed you.

He saw enough in your face to answer himself.

“Gods,” he muttered, and then much more softly, “child.”

You had expected anger. You got grief instead.

“I never meant—”

“No one ever means it with princes.”

He paced once to the window and back. “He asked the king for your hand.”

You went cold.

“He did?”

Your father gave a short, incredulous laugh. “You did not know? Then he is even more reckless than I was told.”

He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “The king refused. At first. There were words. Loud ones. Then the queen dowager intervened, and half the court is now pretending deafness while the other half gorges itself on scandal.”

You rose too quickly. “What was said?”

“Enough to make me consider taking you home this very hour.”

The room swayed.

Your father came closer, his face lined with worry. “Listen to me now. You may still choose to leave. If you say the word, we are gone by dawn. Let the prince rage. Let dragons howl. I will not hand you to danger because danger has a beautiful face.”

Tears pricked again.

Oh, Father.

So many men in this story meant to save you.

So many did not understand that Prince Valarr had long ago become the place from which saving was impossible.

You took your father’s rough old hand in both of yours.

“I love him,” you said.

He shut his eyes.

When he opened them, there was heartbreak in them and reluctant resignation and something like pride, though he might sooner have bitten his own tongue than admit it.

“Of course you do,” he said.

Then, after a long silence, “Does he love you?”

You thought of rain on marble. Of a prince kneeling on holy steps. Of his voice saying ‘You were never meant for them’ and ‘Marry me’ and ‘I would have let ten kingdoms burn before I came to heel for any woman I did not love.’

“Yes,” you whispered.

Your father exhaled.

“That,” he said heavily, “may be even worse.”

//

King Baelor made you wait three days.

Three endless, suffocating, rumor-choked days in which no summons came, no verdict was spoken, and every corridor seemed to hum with the aftermath of storm.

On the second day, ladies who had ignored you for years suddenly found reasons to speak your name. Some were sweet as poisoned cream. Some only watched. You endured them with as much grace as you could muster and fled whenever possible to the godswood or the Sept, though after the High Septon’s warning, even prayer had begun to feel like hiding in a place already compromised.

On the third day, Prince Matarys found you beneath the red leaves of the heart tree.

He approached alone, unarmored, carrying two cups of wine as though this were an ordinary courtesy call and not the younger prince walking into the center of all court scandal.

“My lady,” he said, offering one cup.

You accepted it with gratitude. “Your Grace.”

He sat beside you on the worn stone bench and looked up through the branches.

“My brother has not slept.”

The quiet statement held neither reproach nor surprise.

You cradled the cup in both hands. “Nor have I.”

Prince Matarys smiled faintly. “Then at least you injure one another fairly.”

You could not help but laugh.

He glanced at you sidelong. “That is more laughter than I have heard from him in days. You should visit the council chamber and improve the place.”

“I think your lords might leap from the windows.”

“Some of them deserve to.”

That, from gentle Prince Matarys, startled another laugh from you.

He sobered after a moment.

“He is impossible,” the younger prince said. “You know that.”

“I know.”

“He has been impossible since he first understood that wanting and having are not the same.”

You looked at the dark wine in your cup. “Did he speak of me to you?”

Prince Matarys considered. “Not often. Which, for Prince Valarr, meant constantly.”

Your breath caught.

He traced one thumb along the stem of his cup. “When we were boys, he once bloodied the mouth of a page for calling you plain.”

You blinked. “Plain?”

“He was eleven. His taste was underdeveloped.”

You stared at him, scandalized and bemused. “I never knew this.”

“Valarr made the page swear silence.” A pause. “He also stole a sapphire clasp from our mother because he thought it would suit your eyes.”

You covered your face briefly with one hand. “Gods.”

“Yes. They have been invoked often of late.”

His tone gentled.

“He loved you badly for years,” Prince Matarys said. “That is to say, like Valarr loves all things—too much, too proudly, and as if the world ought to rearrange itself to spare him pain.” He met your gaze. “Yet it is love.”

Something inside you softened painfully.

“Do you think this can end well?”

Prince Matarys looked toward the keep, where sunlight gleamed pale on towers and battlements.

“No,” he said candidly.

Then, with a trace of a grin, “But I think it may end magnificently.”

//

The summons came that evening.

The king received you not in the throne room but in a smaller solar overlooking Blackwater Bay. It was almost worse. In great halls men performed power. In smaller rooms they used it.

King Baelor stood by the window when you were shown in, silver and dark-shot hair caught by sunset, hands clasped behind his back. Age had not gentled him. He had the grave, measuring stillness of a man long accustomed to judgment.

You knelt.

He let you remain so for one breath too long.

Then, “Rise, my lady.”

You did.

There was another figure in the room, half-shadowed beside the hearth.

Valarr.

Your heart kicked once hard. He wore dark red this time, not black, and there was a fresh tightness about the mouth that told of recent battle, if not the steel kind. His gaze found yours at once, then gentled almost imperceptibly.

The king saw it. Of course he did. Kings missed less than men hoped.

He turned from the window. “My son has made an extraordinary nuisance of himself.”

Prince Valarr’s jaw flexed. “Father—”

“Silence. You have enjoyed enough of your own voice.”

The prince held his tongue. Barely.

King Baelor looked at you. “Do you understand what is asked, if this goes forward?”

You chose truth because anything less would have been insult.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Then say it.”

So you did.

“I understand that a prince’s marriage is not private joy but public matter. That alliances are coin of the realm. That if you permit this, some lords will call it weakness, others folly, and still others romance because they have never had to pay the cost of either.” You drew breath. “I understand I would be hated for what I am not, watched for what I fail to give, and blamed for every trouble that might have been soothed by another match.”

The king’s face revealed nothing.

“And yet,” he said, “you stand here.”

You met his gaze. “Yes.”

For the first time, something like approval flickered in his eyes.

Then he looked to his son. “And you? Have you grown any less obstinate since dawn?”

“No.”

At least Valarr was consistent.

The king’s mouth twitched despite himself. “I feared not.”

He went very still.

“When your mother wed me,” he said, “the realm muttered that I had chosen heart over advantage. They were wrong. The Stormlands  was advantage enough. Love was only the sweeter part.”

He looked between you, one by one.

“In your case, I see much sweetness and very little advantage.”

Prince Valarr opened his mouth. The king raised one hand. The prince shut it again.

“Yet,” Baelor went on, “I have watched you these last days, and I know my son well enough to understand that denial will not cure him of this.” His gaze sharpened at Prince Valarr. “It may only make him crueler.”

A silence.

Then the king said, with all the stern resignation of a man signing peace with a storm.

“If this marriage is made, it will be made because I judge the risk of refusing greater than the cost of yielding.”

Prince Valarr exhaled once.

You scarcely dared breathe.

King Baelor stepped closer. “You will both remember that. The realm is not asked to admire your happiness. Only to endure it. Give it as little cause as possible to regret the bargain.”

You bowed your head. “Yes, Your Grace.”

Prince Valarr said, more quietly than you had ever heard him speak to his father, “You have my word.”

The king looked at him for a long beat. “I would rather have your discipline.”

But he did not take the permission back.

When you left the solar, your legs trembled so violently you had to pause in the corridor.

Prince Valarr caught your elbow at once.

“It is done,” he said.

His voice held awe, triumph, and the faint disbelief of a man who has wrestled fate and found it momentarily winded.

You turned to him.

Around you, torches burned low. The sea beyond the windows had gone black with night.

“It is done,” you echoed.

For one instant the fierce prince vanished and the boy you had known shone through him—astonished, bright, beloved.

Then he smiled slowly.

“Little dove,” he murmured, “the gods have lost.”

You laughed, though your eyes stung.

“No,” you said. “I think perhaps they have only tired of hearing us.”

He drew you into the shelter of an alcove, hidden from passing eyes by carved stone and shadow. There he took your face in both hands and looked at you as though learning it anew.

“I hated them,” he confessed softly. “These past weeks. Every time you knelt, I hated them.”

“I know.”

“I thought—” He stopped, annoyed perhaps by the frailty of the thought. “I thought if you gave them enough of yourself there would be nothing left for me.”

Your heart broke a little for the boy buried under the prince.

“There was always something left for you,” you whispered.

His gaze searched yours. “All of it?”

You smiled through tears. “Too much of it.”

He laughed then, low and relieved and half disbelieving. Then his mouth came down to yours.

Not courtly. Not polite. Not the kiss of a prince stealing favor in a dance.

It was rain and fury and long hunger finally named. It was every year of silence breaking at once. His hands cradled your face as if it were precious; his mouth said everything his pride had delayed. You kissed him back with equal recklessness, because the worst had already come and become miracle.

When at last he lifted his head, both of you were breathing hard.

“Say it now,” he whispered.

You knew at once what he meant.

This time the words came easily.

“I love you.”

Prince Valarr closed his eyes briefly, as if the sound itself struck deep.

When he looked at you again, his expression was almost unbearably soft.

“I know,” he said. “I have been insufferable for years on the strength of it.”

You laughed against his mouth.

“And I,” he murmured, touching his brow to yours once more, “love you more than is wise, more than is holy, and very likely more than is good for the realm.”

“Then let the realm pray for us.”

His smile sharpened. “No. Let it pray for itself.”

And because he was Prince Valarr, because he would never wholly cease being proud and dark and impossible, you loved him the better for it.

Later there would be songs, no doubt. Later there would be knives hidden in silk, ladies’ smiles, lords’ complaints, the long hard work of turning scandal into survival. Later there would be courts to win, heirs to hope for, kingdoms to soothe. Later there would be new griefs, because all mortal stories have them.

But that night, beneath the old stone and the darkening sky, with the sea wind breathing through the corridor and the taste of him still on your lips, there was only this:

You had gone to the gods to forget him.

Instead the gods, in their cold and lofty mercy, had given him back.

Or perhaps they had simply stepped aside at last, with all the patience of heaven, and let dragonfire take what it had wanted from the beginning.

Either way, when the bells of the Great Sept rang out across the city, Prince Valarr only smiled against your hair and held you closer, as if every prayer in King’s Landing had been answered in the wrong language and to the wrong man—and he was delighted all the same.

//

You wished to not be married to a stranger, or better yet, never be married at all. You could become a septa or perhaps a silent sister. Getting your tongue cut off and spending the rest of your miserable life as a silent sister dedicated to the faith would be far greater than marrying some old lord who would use you as his broodmare. But alas, if you weren’t noble born it would be possible, but your father insisted, and then your mother got involved, and there’s no stopping her when she puts her mind into it. You just hoped and prayed that they’ll choose someone who is at least kind, not because of their name or how ancient their bloodline is.

“And it’s a Baratheon, gods be good.” You could barely take a breath as your hand trembles around the parchment that your father and future husband have signed.

“It’s not set in stone yet,” your mother had said, “the Bracken boy gave your father a good offer too. But the lord of Casterly Rock would give us a patch of land if we choose his heir.” But the paper in your hand cements the former, even if it’s not the marriage certificate as of yet. It’s an agreement that if the heir to Storm’s End could give a better offer than the rest of the flock then your father would honor the agreement. It’s practically etched in stone.

You’ve tried to delay this as long as you could, but there have been whispers of you being sick in the mind as the reason why you’re teetering from becoming an old maid.

“I heard that the laughing storm is…gallant at least.” Your handmaiden utters under her breath as she helps lace your gown. Her lashes flutter as she gazes into the looking glass, staring right at your knitted brows.

“You hesitated.”

“I did not, m’lady.”

“You did, Juniper.” Whirling towards her the moment the gown is all laced up, you raise a teasing brow at your oldest friend.

“Perhaps.” Juniper sighs, hands on her hips before taking hold of your shoulders to turn you back around towards the mirror. Her hands stays on you, chin resting atop your shoulder as she smiles. “But I did hear that he’ll be at the same tourney that your father would be attending at Ashford. Perhaps he could fully convince him there.”

“Or perhaps he could not.” That earns a snicker from her as she sits you down in front of the vanity to fix your hair.

“It’s either him, the Bracken boy or a Lannister. You choose.” Her expert hands weave around your hair, untangling it as she braids it.

“You sound as if I have any choice at all.” Throwing the parchment down into the table beside the vials of sweet smelling perfume, you stare at it as if your eyes could cast a spell on it to light it on fire. “Mother said that I would have the final say, but that doesn’t mean that father will honour it.”

“You have more power than you think, m’lady. You just need to find it.”

“Well, that doesn’t make any fucking sense.” Inhaling deeply, your fingers grip into the silk of your gown tightly, almost tearing it with your nails alone.

“Perhaps the laughing storm is the perfect match for you, I heard that he’s as crude.” She snickers, looking over your head to look at you with a curl of her lip. “Would you prefer him or the dastardly handsome prince Aerion? I heard that he’s also looking for a wife.”

“If I end up betrothed to the prince then I shall fling myself off the moon door.”

She giggles, shaking her head with a grin. “Why not? You’d be a princess.”

“Please, word is that he’s mad. He’s more of a monster than a proper princeling. And our children would be heirs to nothing.”

“Oi,” she lands a slap on your shoulder blade, it’s light enough to not sting but it still had her patting you as an apology. “Watch your tongue, men don’t like a dirty mouthed woman.”

“How would you know?” Tone tilting, you tease her with a smirk as you look over your shoulder. “Did Ser Andros finally talk to you, Juniper?”

Clicking her tongue, she forcefully turns your head back around as your barking laughter echoes around your chambers. “We all don’t have the privilege to have our husbands chosen for us, hm? Some of us have to find one the old fashion way.”

“How could I choose when I know nothing about any of them?” Picking up a small braid, you brush the ends of your hair against your cheek, a nervous tick of yours that is hard to shake off so easily.

An idea pops into your head, and your eyes widen as Juniper takes note of your sudden silence.

“I do not like the look on your face, m’lady.”

“I know nothing of them, then I must know everything about them.” Vaulting out of your seat, hair half done, Juniper tries to match your eager pace, frantic as she follows you out of your chambers.

“Wait, what does that mean? M’lady, don’t do anything reckless!”

—

You burst through your father’s solar like a thundering storm. Eyes boring into him with purpose as he almost jumps off his seat from your abrupt appearance. He looked at you like you were crazed or drunk from mulled wine, but then you straightened your back, shoulders squared as you raised your head up high, looking like a proper lady of your ancient house.

Your father could barely get a word through you as you told him of your plan, not all of it of course, but you gave him an excuse as to why you wanted to attend the tourney with him. Citing that it will show unity amongst house Arryn if you were there beside him, that it would do him some good to bring you and show off the Vale’s joy when your mother detests tourneys, and your brothers would be too occupied by trying to win glory. You even dangled the idea that you could possibly find a husband there, someone who could grant him a bigger plot of land, or perhaps a seat at the small council in King’s Landing if you catch a prince’s eye. Which you only said to help convince him.

You’ve given him something to hook on, an idea that has taken root that you know him well enough that he will bite at. You played well into your father’s pride, and the moment the conversation ended, you closed the door behind you with a gentle click only to then bolt towards the gardens where your mother could always be found. With Juniper hot on your tail, you gather your skirts and run like a dragon was hunting you down. Once you found the lady of the Vale herself, basking in the afterglow of the morning sun, you told her the exact same thing. But this time in a much sweeter tone, playing as her perfect little lady, the one she always wanted, and not a sword wielding girl, who can’t memorize her prayers.

For added sweetness, you even brought her a bowl of fruit, strawberries and oranges, her favorites, before asking her if she could finish your hair as you fluttered your lashes at her. She obliged, heart squeezing at the rare sight.

From her smile alone, your plan started rolling.

—

Your plan was brilliant. Within a day, your father called for you to his solar, telling you to pack your best gowns, the finest ones, all the silks you got from across the narrow sea, and of course the shiniest jewels you’ve inherited.

If you can’t live your life in peace without a husband by your side, you’d be damned to marry one who is dull, or as terrible as Maegor the cruel.

And now as you sit in your family’s carriage, rattling inside as the uneven king’s road brings you closer and closer to your destination, your fingers wring around the silks of your gown, as if you’re in line for the axe.

Juniper’s eyes stare at you, seated adjacent from you as the horses neigh outside.

“Say what you want to say, Juniper.” With a hum, you roll your ring around your finger, trying to keep your mind at ease, trying to keep your hands busy lest you manage to rip your finest gown. It’s not too late for your father to send you home if you do manage to do that.

“You’d have me dragged with you just so you could escape?” Her brow rises to her forehead, lips tucked into a thin line.

“I’m not going to escape.” You scoff, biting the inside of your cheek. It’s not a bad idea, but you have no one else, you’d either get kidnapped and sent to the free cities or worse, married off without you ever choosing your husband. “Where would I go? Get on a ship headed to Lys? It’s too bloody warm there.”

“Then why are we headed to Ashford?” She winces, stretching her back. “My arse hurts from all the travelin’. I am not built for this, m’lady.”

“It was barely a month of travels, Juniper.” You feel for her, but the long journey is a necessary evil. Knowing your father, he might actually talk to prince Maekar about a marriage alliance, based on the whispers of court about his second son, you’d rather marry a brutish bore than him. If you were there with with your lord father, he would have to hear your opinions. You might not be his heir, but you are his only daughter, and dare you say, the favorite.

“A month too long.” She utters under her breath. “Just for a bloody nameday.”

“It will be worth it, I promise.” Leaning forward, you take her hand, gripping it lightly until a soft smile appears on her lips.

“If you would actually tell me of your schemes.”

Sighing, you relent, sitting back down with a sour look on your face. “I came here to get to know each of my prospects. And if I found none that is suitable for me then I shall join the faith.”

“The faith?” She scoffs, chuckling. “M’lady, I don’t even remember the last time you prayed to the seven!” Her laughter fades when she realizes that you’re serious. “M’lady, no.”

“Hush, my brothers could hear you.” You whisper yell, a finger atop your lips as your shoulders sag.

“You will not survive the faith,” her tone quiets down, exhaling deeply as she looks into your eyes. “they eat hard salt beef, and bread as tough as Prince Maekar’s arsehole.”

That manages to get a chortle out of you. “Gods, now I can’t get that image out of my head.”

“Pray that you won’t see the prince in the tourney then. With you being a pious lady and all.” Her teasing has you shaking your head with a subtle smile.

“I might as well start practicing my prayers then.”

Juniper rolls her eyes as the carriage slows to a stop, with nerves crawling on your neck, you take a peek through the carriage curtains as the sunlight breaks inside the carriage.

The sprawling meadow basks in the morning glow, tents and pavilions in different make and colours are raised up high, each having banners of their houses fluttering in the wind. From where you are, you could see the Tully pavilion with their sigil, they’re an old kinsmen of yours, related through your grandmother’s side. Perhaps you could pay them a visit.

Beside them is the Hightower pavilion, greener than the grass below, its hightower sigil is raised up high, dancing in the wind. You always wanted to see Oldtown and look through their vast collection of tomes, but alas, if only you were born with stones then you would’ve preferred to become a maester.

Then a yellow pavilion catches your attention, bold with its stag antlers decorated around its silken walls. Your eyes never caught the fluttering sigil atop the tent, and yet you already know who resides there, a Baratheon. Specifically, the laughing storm, whom your father has taken a shine to since he felt a kinship with Lyonel Baratheon’s lord father after fighting alongside him during the Blackfyre rebellion.

Your nerves are alight at the overwhelming colours of the meadow, and the scent and sounds that come with it. The wet grass, fermented meat, ashes from a forge nearby, and the squelch of mud underfoot together with numerous loud conversations. Merchants bark out their goods, trying to sell steel or armours, some are selling ale by the tankards, and one of them is screaming about some puppet show. Your ears snag onto uttered Tyroshi tongue, and from a few ways ahead, a booming laughter accompanied by cheers.

Besides from your palpable worry, you’re in awe, it’s your very first tourney. The one your father organized for your first nameday doesn’t count when you were just a babe then. A part of you is excited to see the sport, to stroll around the meadows and smell new food from different parts of the realm and possibly enjoy the occasion rather than dread it. But the thought of marrying a stranger and living in their unfamiliar keep looms over you like a dark cloud overhead.

It’s unavoidable, but you still have some semblance of power to choose who you will be shackled to. Even if that power is dwindling with every second that passes by like your father’s patience. Perhaps the laughing storm is tarrying for the same reason as you, he doesn’t want to marry a stranger either.

“Stop gawking, m’lady.” Juniper’s hand readies to open the carriage door, the corners of her lips are curled up, eyes shining under the spilled sunlight. “Shall we go?”

“Is it too late to throw myself out of the moon door?”

Your handmaid’s cackles meld with the sounds of the busy meadow as she opens the door.

—

“Your father would have me beheaded!” Juniper whisper yells, eyes wide as she cradles your silks in her hands. The braziers illuminates the panic in her expression, and the dark blue of your house’s pavilion adds contrast to the warm glow.

“Please! I will owe you my life,” you plead, moving closer to her as you flutter your lashes. “I will grant you land if you do this for me.” You could offer her the whole realm and she’ll still refuse your offer.

“M’lady, my loyalty has an end.” Grimacing, your poor handmaiden, plops herself down on a plush seat, shaking her head as she winces. “This is wrong.” She utters, softer this time.

“Please?” Smiling, you pour her a cup of wine and offer the goblet to her.

“Well if you asked so kindly.”

“Thank you—”

“I am not going to dress up as you.” Your face falls from her words. “This is your big scheme? Sneak about in commoner clothes while I pretend to be you in bed all day?”

“Yes.” Shrugging, your eyes lock onto the simple cotton dress and cloak on the bed that you had to borrow from Juniper. Borrow is a strong word when you were caught digging inside her trunk. Now that she found out about your little plan, you have no choice but to tell her and let her in on it. Not because you want her to get in trouble too but if not she might run and tell your father. She might be your oldest friend, but she’s also right about testing the bounds of her loyalty to her lady. “Please, no one will know, my father would be too busy mingling with the other lords while my brothers would be too occupied with debauchery.”

“Pray tell, what would be your excuse, hm? That you’ve come down with the pox?”

Taking her nervous hands, you look into her eyes as she scoffs. “I would tell them that it’s my moon blood, simply from that they would leave you alone. You could attest to their behavior, they always let me be.”

“I know because it was always up to me to entertain you.”

“Then entertain me one last time, Juniper.” Your cadence lowers into a serious tone, eyes steely as you kneel before her, hands still holding her own. “I refuse to marry a man I do not know. You told me that I have more power than I realize, this is me taking hold of that. And if this is for naught, that my father would still choose someone I disagree with then so be it, at least I tried. At least you let me try.”

When she doesn’t answer, you hold onto her hand tighter, refusing to give up. “Juniper, please. Don’t let me be shackled to a man that would hate me, or gods forbid, hurt me. If you do not want to help me, then please, let me go outside.”

“You could get murdered out there.” Her tone quiets down, filled with genuine worry. “M’lady, I do not want that in my consciousness. It will eat at me, I will never forgive myself.”

“Then I shall bring my dagger, you know that I am decent at it.”

“More than decent.” Cracking a smile, you could see the cogs in her head turning. “The second someone gets too close to you, you flash them your knife.”

Relief is palpable in your bones as you grin and peck her intertwined hands. “Thank you, you won’t regret this, I promise I will do just that—”

“I am not done yet.”

“Yes, of course.” You immediately settle down.

“You hide yourself well with the hood of your cloak, you don’t stop to eat or drink anything, gods know what’s in them.”

“Yes, I understand—”

“And you don’t talk to anyone, especially your prospects.”

“I am not planning on mingling.” You cross your fingers behind your back, you can’t possibly know anything about them when you can’t ask the people around them. “Just observing.”

“You’ll be back here before the sun rises.”

“I will.”

“Or I will drag you back here myself.”

“Yes, understood, drag me if that pleases you.”

“Oh, it will please me.” She lets out a sigh, finally taking a long gulp of the wine you’ve given her. Once she settles, Juniper runs a hand down on her face. “And you will tell your father to increase my pay and bring me with you to Storm’s End or whichever keep you’ll find yourself in once you marry.”

“You want to come with me?” Your eyes glisten over, lips wobbling into a smile.

“Who would keep you in line, hm?” Taking your cheek, she pats you affectionately. “Now stand up, it’s unbecoming for a lady to kneel.”

With her helping hand, Juniper takes you to get dressed in her robes. “Thank you, Juniper, I will do just that.”

“You fuckin’ better.” She unlaces your dress with some annoyance. “I’ll distract the guards so you could slip out. And…” she hands you the sheathed dagger with its embossed falcon right on the leather. “Do not forget this.”

—

Your eyes rake around you like you’re a wanted woman of the realm. You try to keep your eyes peeled for your kin or anyone that could know your face. Getting caught means getting locked inside your tent for the duration of the tourney, and you’d rather not miss out on all the fun. Sneaking out was the easier part whilst the guards were talking to Juniper about your supposed ill disposition in a hushed tone.

As you clutch onto your cloak, hiding your face from the roaming crowd under the cover of the early evening, you walk around Ashford as you try to blend in. Mud squelches underfoot as you look for your first mark, the Bracken pavilion.

You knew it wouldn’t be easy sneaking inside a lord’s tent without someone mistaking you for a woman of the night. And you cannot possibly tap your prospect on the shoulder and ask him questions, you might get a dagger to your throat if so.

The soft ends of your hair tickle your cheek whilst you brush it nervously along your jaw as you stand in front of the Bracken tent, brown and red with their prancing stallion sigil dangling atop it. The braziers heat at your front as you look for a guard or a steward that could answer your questions with the help of a golden dragon inside your coin pouch.

“You lookin’ for work?” A woman asks you from behind, voice high with the unmistakable accent from flea bottom. “You look like a lost deer.”

Whirling around, albeit unsteady as the mud hugs at the sides of your boots, you look at the source of the voice. “No,” clearing your throat, you hug the cloak tighter around yourself, feeling cold on her behalf. “But you might be able to help me.”

Her green eyes roam from your face down to your feet then back to your face again. “I haven’t done anything with a woman in a while, but for a silver stag I’m willing to change that.”

“Oh,” faltering, you cough out, biting your bottom lip. “N–Not that kind of…help.”

“Then why are you loiterin’? You’re gettin’ all the eyes from my customers.”

“What?” Sure enough, you look over your shoulder to see a Bracken guard looking you up and down. “Seven hells.” Uttering under your breath, you cross the short distance towards the red headed woman. “What will a gold dragon get from you?” Whispering, you see the way her eyes shine, painted lips curling seductively.

“For you, sweetling? The whole fuckin’ lot.”

—

“I have to tell you that doin’ it in a forest is uncomfortable.” The red head leans against a tree casually, eyes smiling at you. 

“I—” you blink rapidly, clearing your throat loudly. “I don’t want that.”

“That’s a first.”

“I want information about Lord Bracken’s oldest son.” 

Her face sours, nose scrunching. “Please don’t tell me that you’re an assassin, you’d have to tell me if you were y’know.” 

“I am not, I promise you that.” Stepping forward, you hand her a gold coin. “Please, just information, anything you know.” 

Her eyes darts down towards your hip, right where you keep your dagger. “If this was a copper I would have screamed.” She then takes the coin, biting into it to check before humming in satisfaction. “What do you want to know?”

“How do you describe him?” 

“In bed?” She scoffs, snorting with a chortle. “Like a crazed horse, but after that he’d cry in my arms for some woman. You didn’t hear it from me but I think it’s his mother.” From the shock on your face, she waves her previous words away. “Shit, are you his lady wife? Oh, I am sorry for you.”

“N–No, gods, no, I hope not.” Shivering, you exhale out the image in your head. “I don’t want to hear how he is in bed.”

Her nose scrunches again, “there is nothin’ much to say, he’s like his father, a brute. After every visit I pay them I bathe immediately, it is as if the scent of horse and ale clings onto them like second skin.” 

“Anything else? Is he kind—”

“Kind?” She scoffs without humour. “Only after he reaches his pinnacle. He’s far from kind, m’lady, and they said that the Targaryens are the mad ones.” Her eyes flick towards your flat expression. “But you didn’t hear it from me.” 

“Fuck me,” fingers kneading at the space between your brows, you shut your eyes. 

“I’d do that for free at this point.” Giggling, she twirls her curls with her index. “Any more questions?”

“Do you know why he’s not part of the lists?”

“Oh, he was.” She scoffs, shaking her head with the roll of her eyes. “He pulled out of it, citing stomach pain in favour of having his younger brother to get into the lists, that fuckin’ coward.”

“Oh,” you didn’t know that your disappointment would get worse. The red head waits for you to ask more questions patiently as the sound of owls hoot in the treetops. “Indulge me,” she tilts her head coyly, making you backtrack. “I mean— I have a particular question.” 

“If you’re asking how big—”

“No! Not that.” With your hands up, you stop her as she chuckles at your reaction. “If you were married to him, would you be happy?” Even though you know what her answer would be, you still decide to chance it.

She thinks for a moment, eyes staring at the night sky before returning to look at you. “Yes.” 

“Why would that be?” Your voice lowers, gaze searching her face for clarity, you first thought that her answer would be different at first. She’s pretty under the moonlight with her red hair dancing in the breeze. “After everything you said.”

“Anythin’ is better than what I have now, sweetling.” Her tone is steady, not at all with the usual teasing lilt, as your brows furrow worriedly. “I can handle him, you need not worry. He’s dumb as a horse. And if…if he asks me to wed not just to bed me, I would.”

Your brows pinch together with concern. “Someone once told me that you have more power than you think, You just need to find it.” Her lips purse together in contemplation. Nodding, you hold up your hand for her to shake. “I thank you, my lady.”

She looks at your outstretched hand for a moment before taking it lightly. “Red, my name is Red.”

Smiling genuinely, you retract your hand. “I wish you well, Red.”

“You as well, sweetling.” 

— 

Your talk with Red was disheartening, a strike to your senses. What if your father promised you to the Bracken? What would have happened to you? Surely your brothers would have known of the tales about him, and they would have put a stop to the betrothal. But you cannot always rely on other people to save you, that is why you’re continuing on your journey. This time, towards a gold and red pavilion with its lion sigil floating in the balmy air. 

It was easier said than done. The Lannister pavilion is pitched up in the middle of the field, right alongside the houses of great renown. And that means it’s much closer to your house’s tent, which poses a greater risk with you being found while sneaking about. You’d rather have one of your brothers find you than your father.

As you cover your face with your hood, you linger around the Lannister tent. The musky scent of sweat and fermented meat hits your senses from the outside, even as the flaps are closed, you could smell the feast in full swing. Music fills the meadows, each having their own tune from each tent, some are more jaunty, a tune for dancing, and a few are for filling the quiet air. The one you could hear inside the Lannister pavilion is the latter, a song that you’re quite familiar with during usual suppers, just something to infuse the room amongst the clatter of goblets and plates. It’s a direct contrast to the Baratheon tent, whose music and laughter triumphs over the sounds of the meadow.

You’ve been trying to stop attendants and guards for a quick chat, but they either ignore you and continue about their work or throw you a pinched look. It seems to be in vain until the tent flaps open, revealing a man clad in a gold cloak, a red doublet and a head of flaxen hair, as yellow as the gold that they are proud of.

“My lord, excuse me?” You don’t expect him to look at you, moreso to even acknowledge you, but he does both as he turns his sad eyes at you.

“Y–Yes?” He talks as if he swallowed flour. 

“Um,” your eyes widen in realization, this man is most definitely a Lannister, you’re sure of that the moment you saw him, but he’s your age, and you know that there are only two Lannister men at the tourney, one as old as your father. And this man is definitely not the lord of Casterly Rock. “You’re Tybolt Lannister…” you say, almost breathless.

“I am.” He sniffs, brows furrowed, eyes glancing at your feet, as if you suddenly grew a head down there. 

“I—” you’re at a loss for words. You can’t exactly bribe him with a gold coin when it would just be a copper compared to his coffers. So you swing towards honesty, you’re already face to face with him, might as well introduce yourself. As you curtsy, you give him your true name. “From house Arryn, my lord.”

“Oh,” his eyes widen, gawking at you as he fumbles to return the curtsy with a bow. “I am sorry, my–my lady, I didn’t recognize you.” 

“I meant to not be recognizable.” Shrugging, you chuckle at his slight panic that you find quite endearing.

“What—” he whirls around on his heels, possibly looking for your escort. “What are you doing here all alone?”

“It’s a long story. Perhaps I could tell you somewhere more quiet?” 

“I—I don’t know.” His hands wring together, twirling his golden ring around his finger.

“It will be quick, I promise. It’s about our potential betrothal.” The word catches in your throat.

“That… I didn’t have a hand with that.” He says it like he has committed something dishonourable towards you.

“As do I.” Stepping closer, you duck to meet his eyes. “I want to get to know you, my lord. In case we do end up being wed after the tourney.” You utter quietly, as if saying it loudly would cause it to come true.

Tybolt looks back at the tent with a slight grimace before looking back at you with some reluctance. “Alright, but we cannot go far.”

You nod, urging him behind the pavilion where a stack of crates and a cart lays unattended. “Thank you, over here.”

The space is sparse with light, save for the muffled candlelight inside the tents, it’s dim and smells of day old fish. 

Grimacing, you hop onto the back of the cart, a very unladylike action for you but your feet have been aching from all the walking you have done recently. And the cold mud clinging to your feet makes you want to claw at your legs and dip them in cold water. 

The lordling gazes anywhere that isn’t you, blue eyes glimmering as he crosses his arms on his chest, jaw set and back slouched. You can’t tell if he’s afraid of you or disgusted, either way, he looks uncomfortable in your presence. 

“I must apologize for meeting this way, my lord.” Your tone falters for a moment before squaring your shoulders, hands atop your lap as you raise your chin, a perfect lady. “But I wanted to introduce myself before my father could decide.” 

“What for?” He mumbles, barely heard above the sound of a barking laughter from the Baratheon tent. “It isn’t needed.”

“To see you for myself.” 

His eyes glance at you wearily before returning to your mud covered boots. “You have seen me now.”

“Yes, and I…” the awkward air around you two feels stifling. And you wonder if it will be like this forever if you wed him. “I wanted to know the real Tybolt Lannister, not from the whispered words of gossip. I thought asking one of your people would help, but it seems that they fail to notice me in this garb.” You let out a gauche chuckle.

His head is hanging low, staring at the mud as he wrings his hands together. Shadows dance on the side of his face, and he looks small in your eyes, not a future lord of an ancient house. “Mayhaps you should listen to the whispers. They are right.”

“That you’re utterly timid? A lordling with a quiet disposition that prefers inked words than people?”

Wincing, the Lannister tugs at his sleeves, trying to hide his hands as he nods like a child getting chastised. 

“I have also heard that you are kind.” Your voice softens, gazing at him empathetically. “And that’s a good trait to have, kindness is rare these days, my lord.”

Even if your future husband isn’t plucked from your fantasy, a brave knight with a heart of gold that makes you laugh, you’d consider yourself lucky if he is kind, most women aren’t that lucky. Tybolt may not don armour and wield a sword for your hand, but you can find it in yourself to love someone like him. He’s not the worst, and you can don the armour and wield the sword on his behalf. 

His gentle blue eyes finally look into your eyes, glimmering as he tries to read your expression. “I–I don’t know what to say, my lady.”

“Tell me what you prefer to do inside your keep.” Scooching away, you pat the space beside you, waiting for him. “Only if you want to. And I could possibly tell you something about myself. We would just be  talking, my lord.”

Clearing his throat, Tybolt takes a tentative step before sitting down beside you, whilst making sure to keep enough space between you. His head is still hanging low, but this time his eyes glances at you every so often. When he realizes that you’ve been patiently waiting, he tugs at his collar, inhaling deeply before talking.

“I—I wholly prefer being alone in the library.” He utters under his breath, blue eyes flickering towards you before looking away, as if you caught him staring. “And playing the lute.”

You hum in satisfaction, smiling gratefully. “I like reading too. And I could play the lyre, although quite badly.” Chuckling, the sound garners his attention as he cranes his neck to face you.

Lips tugging into a small smile, he lets out an exhale akin to a chortle. “Perhaps…” his head turns away again just as you meet with his eyes. “Perhaps you could teach me.”

“The lyre? Oh, my lord, I am middling at the instrument.” 

He lets out a laugh, quiet but loud enough for you to hear. “Or—or I could teach you the lute? If my lady pleases.” 

A sigh of relief rattles your bones as you give him a wobbly smile. “That would be lovely.” You could see yourself being happy with him, right? “My hands are calloused from training with a sword, but I am sure that it would give me an advantage.” 

“You know how to wield a sword?” His head tilts to the side, brows knitted as he purses his lips. 

“I—” perhaps that wasn’t the right thing to say. “I insisted, I was jealous of my brothers but if that bothers you—”

“It doesn’t bother me, my lady.” His expression softens, finally gazing right at you without trepidation. “It is outright…endearing.” 

The air feels calmer around the small cart, and you find yourself eased by his presence, smiling at him even. “I—”

The stench of ale and smoke reaches your senses as a looming shadow appears from behind. You’d think it was someone you know, and that you’ve been spotted, but as you look over your shoulder, you see a large unfamiliar man with a sneer that sends shivers down your spine. 

“How much?” The stranger asks before harshly spitting out into the muddy ground. 

“Excuse me?” Scoffing, you’re immediately on your feet, grasping the dagger on your hip as you stand in front of Tybolt. “I think you’ve come to the wrong place, Ser.”

“I ain’t no Ser,” his dark eyes glance behind you, snickering wildly, as his hand rests on the pommel of his sword. “Do I have to wait for the little lion to be done with you? I’m willing to wait, or even share.” His guffaw has you drawing your blade, flashing it in front of him as you grip it tightly and just like how you were taught. 

“Leave us.” You simply say, fire in your eyes as you feel Tybolt shift uncomfortably behind you. “Now. I won’t ask twice.”

“What are you goin’ to do with that, huh? Open my neck?” He takes a step forward, lumbering towards you as you raise the blade higher, right at his heart, and yet he doesn’t stop. “Right here?” His index taps at his throat. “I do like it when they fight back.”

“You fucker—” there’s rapid footsteps from behind, retreating away as you whirl around to see Tybolt scrambling away in a panic. “Seven hells. Tybolt!” 

You’re yanked back by the scruff of your cloak, getting dragged around as the slippery mud has you slide around. “No!” Muscles aflame, you slash blindly behind you, until you land a solid slash right at his wrist. Blood splatters out, dripping down your cheek.

The world turns around itself as you’re tossed to the side as the large man groans in pain, and you land harshly right into the crates, breaking one as you feel splinters puncturing through your cloak. “Fuck!”

“You—!” Thundering footsteps race towards you as you blindly pat around for your dagger. 

But the pain doesn’t hit you, nor the cold kiss of a blade right at your neck, instead, you hear bodies fall into the mud just a few ways beside you. 

Opening your eyes, squinting in the dark, you see another large man wrestle with your assailant right on the muddy ground.

“Are you alright, my lady?” Another man appears, clad in a red doublet, smelling of apple cider as he reaches a hand out towards you. 

“I think so.” Taking his helping hand, he pulls you up to your feet gently. “Thank you, who—”

Fists meet skin as the sound garners your attention. The assailant now lays under the larger man with sandy hair, his bloody fist raised up high, as if waiting for the other man to stand back up before putting him down again.

His chest heaves, eyes wild as he grits his teeth. The shield on his back is faded and worn down, you could barely see the sigil on it from the cover of darkness. You walk towards him slowly, trying to get a look at the man who tried to take you, only to find him unconscious, nose completely broken and bleeding. 

Anger bubbles up in your throat as you hiss a curse at him. “Serves you right.” You’d spit at his face if it weren’t for your mouth being dry so instead you kick up more mud at his face, pretending it to be horse dung. 

The unfamiliar knight inhales deeply, fist coming down to his side as he licks the cut on his lip. “Are…” he then turns to you, big blue eyes staring at you worriedly. “Are you alright, m’lady?” 

“I am, Ser. I owe you a great debt. Come.” Giving him a hand, he slides his large calloused palm into yours, he feels like a furnace, all the while staring at you with the same worry. 

He stands to his full height, and you find yourself craning your neck up to face him. “You owe me nothing, m’lady, I just–just wanted to help.”

“And help you did.” Your gaze flicks down to the unconscious man with his wrist still bleeding. “I am grateful.” Smiling up at him, you note his raggedy clothes, a cloak that has seen better days and the sword at his hip held up by his side with a belt of rope. He didn’t even need to unsheath it to get the upper hand. “You’re a hedge knight?” 

Head bowing, he bashfully looks at you. “The name’s Dunk, Ser Dunk, and this is—”

“Raymun Fossoway.” The one smelling like an orchard smiles at you, “I believe this is yours, my lady?” He hands you your dagger, muddied and bloodied. “It’s fine work.” 

“It is.” Clearing your throat, you take the dagger and sheathe it immediately. “It was my brother’s.”

“Your brother has an eye for good craftsmanship.” There’s suspicion in his narrowed eyes as he stares at you, trying to place your face.

“Aye.” You say in an attempt to throw him off your scent, whilst pulling up your hood and rubbing away the caked blood and mud on your cheek. Turning back towards the hedge knight, you take some gold coins from your pouch and offer it to him. “For your help. I feel as though I should pay you, Ser. It would be a disservice not to.”

“Oh,” Dunk shakes his head, staring at the gold dragons in your palm. “No need, m’lady, helping the innocent is why I am a knight.” 

Raymun stares at him in the corner of his eyes, not so subtly nudging the hedge knight’s shoulder. 

“Knights still need to eat and tend to their horses.” Taking his wrist, you place the coins into his hand. “Please take it, I would feel horrible if I don’t give you anything in return.”

“Um,” if not for the dimness of the space, you think you could see a slight dusting of pink on his cheeks. “If it pleases you, m’lady.”

“It would please me.” You say softly, smiling at him genuinely as you let go of his hand for him to tuck the coins in his pockets. “For you—”

“No need, I barely did anythin’” The Fossoway boy shakes his head with a scrunch of his nose. “I have no need for it.”

“Oh, very well then, thank you, really. I owe you my life, Ser Dunk. Same to you, Raymun Fossoway.” 

With his hand on the pommel of his sword, Dunk once again bows his head. “It was my honour, m’lady.” 

The moonlight catches on his face, and something about this hedge knight has you endeared. That he’s genuine, a true knight. Gallant, someone who honours his vows without a single doubt, a rare sight to see.

“I should head…home.” Your hands are clasped together, a finger twirling around your ring.

“I should escort you, m’lady, there could be more after you.”

“Oh I’m sure that the lady lives nearby.” Raymun mumbles.

“I—” your eyes catch sight of Dunk’s split knuckles, gasping with worriedness. “This needs to be tended to.” 

“It will be fine—”

“This could get corrupted. Who knows where that man has been.” You look down at the still unconscious stranger with disgust.

“I know a place.” Raymun gestures for you to follow.

—

The said place is the Baratheon pavilion. You stare at it with a dumbfounded face, rooted in place as you grimace and pull your cloak closer to yourself. The antlers around it seemingly makes the tent more intimidating, as if it’s ready to barrel through you and stab you with its horns. 

“Ser Raymun—” 

“I’m not a knight, my lady. Just a squire.” He simply says, the side of his face is illuminated by candle lights from within the pavilion. “C’mon then, let us not tarry any longer.” 

“Oh,” you share a worried look with Dunk as Raymun enters the fray. “I don’t think this is proper—” you were staring at him one second and then you’re talking to nothing but the cold night air when your large companion has found himself tugged inside. “Gods be good.” 

Looking over your shoulder, where the fluttering banners of your house peeks over the raised tents, you consider your options. But the night is still young, and you couldn’t possibly abandon your plan when you’re right in front of the very place you were about to walk into. 

With the deepest of inhales, as if you’re about to take a dive into a deep pond, you push through the leather flaps of the Baratheon yellow pavilion and enter your marriage prospect’s abode. 

The scent hits you like a wounded war horse crashing into you. The air is filled with the smell of mulled wine, ale that clings to your nose and cooked meat that has your stomach grumbling. It would have you salivating if not for the stench of sweat and burning tallow from the candles that fills the whole pavilion with warm light. Despite that, the atmosphere is calm, and nowhere near what you thought it would be. 

You find your new found acquaintances in one of the long tables. Following suit, you dodge serving folk whilst hiding your face from the noble born that could possibly recognize you.

“Is this alright?” Sidling beside Dunk, you’re unsure whether to sit beside him or not. 

“It is perfectly fine, my lady.” Raymun asks you to settle down simply with his eyes as he hands you a fresh goblet of wine. 

Dunk seems to share the same sentiment as he looks and feels like he’s out of place, eyes raking around unsurely, not knowing what to do with his hands. 

“If you say so.” With unsteady feet, you sit with your back turned away from the main table up front, refusing to look towards your future husband lest he recognizes you. He hasn’t met you just yet, but in your mind, somehow, he would recognize you in common robes. 

A cackle echoes from behind you, and you immediately know it came from him.

“Lyonel Baratheon, the laughing storm they call him.” 

“I thought he’d be taller.” Just from Dunk’s words, you resist the urge to look behind you.

Taking your handkerchief, you dip the clean end of it into the wine as Dunk watches you with furrowed brows whilst you ignore the nagging feeling of curiosity, wanting to look behind you to see him for yourself.

“What are you doing?” Dunk asks tentatively as Raymun snatches a plate of a whole turkey for him.

“Cleaning your wound, come closer.” In a come hither motion, you wait for him to lean closer as your index and thumb grasp onto his chin gently as if you’re taking care of your own. “We can’t let this fester, Ser Dunk.” 

He slouches, big blue eyes blinking as you feel him swallow thickly with a staggered breath. From the candle light, you could see the blush on his cheek, a pinkish hue that reminds you of a young squire you used to fancy when you were still a child yourself whenever you would greet him with a toothy smile. 

With so much care, you dab the wine stained cloth into the cut on his lip. “It’s the least I could do. I’ve seen simple scrapes turn into large gashes if left untreated.” 

“I have a profound thought!” You stifle a chuckle from the drunken words of Lyonel as the pavilion quiets down for him.

“You’ve tended to a lot of wounds before, m’lady?” He tries to talk without moving his bottom lip as you hear Lyonel Baratheon speak about the origin of jousts, something that goes over your head in favour of treating Dunk’s wound. 

“Superficial wounds.” You whisper back. “My brothers were prone to scrapes when they were younger and afraid of going to the maester.” Satisfied, you move to dip the fabric into wine again before taking him by his wrist and dabbing at his split knuckle, doing the same thing with gentleness. “They would rather have their younger sister tend to them than some old sod. They’re lucky that I’m well read.” Finishing your handiwork, you turn your eyes up towards him, finding that he’s already staring right at you warmly. “And please refrain from calling me my lady so much, I prefer you call me by my name.” 

Leaning close you tell him your name, without saying your house of course. You trust Dunk, for some odd reason, you just feel that you could trust him wholeheartedly, but you can’t trust the wandering ears of the folk around you.

He tests your name on his tongue, pulse jumping from underneath your touch before fully letting him go. His fists open and close, wincing from the dull ache. “I thank you, my— thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome, Ser—” 

“Fuck it!” The sudden booming voice has you instinctively looking at the source. “A hundred gold to the man or beast that sticks me best!” The crowd cheers as Lyonel Baratheon tosses a bag of heavy coins onto a table.

You shouldn’t have looked. His carefree smile strikes you first, dark eyes shining under the warm candle light as his salt and pepper curls brush along his temple. A gold earring dangles from his ear, like a pirate that has sailed the seas. His trimmed beard reminds you of the knights that you used to read before bed, something out of a maiden’s fantasy that you had Juniper smuggle inside the keep. The thought alone stirs your belly. With a golden cloak on his shoulders, it makes him seem like he’s dripping in molten gold over a deep green doublet. 

The stag crown takes your gaze away from his handsome yet rugged face, a crown fit for a Baratheon. It enchants you, just like the falcon crown that your father refuses to wear for he sees it gaudy. But you like it, it shows how mighty and ancient your house is with falcon wings spreading along its sides, just like how the antlers open along the side of his crown, intimidating for its enemies, and yet welcoming all the same for its allies.

If the Brute and the coward isn’t meant to be your husband, mayhaps the mighty stag could be. 

Your thought has your nerves bubbling to the surface, gods, you feel utterly ridiculous, a blushing maiden falling to the whims of her fantasies. 

It would just be that, a fantasy, until you lock eyes with Lyonel himself, and his grin stretches wide, a warm glow on his face, eyes crinkling in the corners as he tilts his head curiously at you, or at your presence.

You should leave. And yet, you find yourself raising your goblet at him, with a smile no less, not at all cowering under his eyes, like someone meeting an old friend on a battlefield. 

A chortle leaves his lips before taking a generous sip of his wine whilst keeping his gaze on you. You turn away before you could capture his attention again, not out of fear of him, but you’re too afraid to be recognized, your reputation would be even more sullied otherwise. 

Dunk, mouth full of roasted chicken, furrows his brows. “Where did Raymun go?”

You could only hear the tail end of Lyonel’s words. “...so we could dance!” 

—

The tables were moved to the side for people to dance at the center, but you quite prefer it that way since you could observe Lyonel better from the sides without garnering his attention once again. Dunk has found his own rhythm by the dessert table, munching on a tart as you finish your own plate of bread and cheese. With the jaunty music, you feel more at ease, letting the warmth of wine flow through you as you watch people dance along to the rhythm.

You have a deep curiosity to get to know him, but your last encounter with an heir didn’t go well, so for now, you prefer observing from a few ways away, lest he reads your intention and calls you out.

Lyonel doesn’t seem so bad from afar, he smiles like he lives to grin and laugh and love life itself. He smiles with purpose, and it’s a welcoming sight from all the darkness in the realm. He’s loud, and arrogant like any other lord but he’s not like the Bracken boy, too green to actually have an achievement under his belt, all bark without real action to make up for his hollow words. Lyonel is arrogant and boastful for a reason because he has proven himself many times over. He didn’t get the title for nothing, and if your father’s praises were truthful, the laughing storm is a force to be reckoned with, a thundering hurricane on horseback. 

Your older brother had the fortune or misfortune, according to him that is, to joust against Lyonel once during a tourney at king’s landing celebrating the birth of young prince Valarr. Even though your father and the whole Vale has boasted about your brother’s skills, he was unhorsed by Lyonel in just two lances. You would have killed to have seen it for yourself. He’s still sour about it, and your brother might be the reason as to why you’re skeptical about Lyonel when he has said nothing but bitter words about the heir to Storm’s End. They were both young then, but perhaps Lyonel could still unhorse your brother in less than that. 

While watching Lyonel over the rim of your goblet, you see movement in your peripheral. Dunk lumbers over to the main table, and your heart rate immediately spikes. 

From the music, you could barely hear their conversation, but from the way Dunk shuffles his feet, bouncing on the heels of his boots, it doesn’t seem to be going so well. 

Lyonel puts his fist against his cheek, mocking a punch to his face as Dunk shakes his head, his hand trembling around the half eaten tart.

When the laughing storm points a dagger right at your new friend, you find yourself vaulting from your seat, feet taking you over to his side.

“I–I don’t slouch.” You hear Dunk say, tone getting caught from nerves.

“Oh, you’ve been cowering all evening like a maiden on her wedding night.” Lyonel laughs as his eyes flick towards you. He raises a brow, craning his neck towards you as he plays with the sharp end of an ornate dagger. His eyes don’t rake up and down your form uncomfortably, it seems that he’s studying your face, trying to place you from his memory, or questioning your identity.

Dunk doesn’t realize that you’ve sidled up beside him. “I meant no disrespect, Ser, honest. Where I grew up, you learn to go unnoticed, is all.”

You feel for him as you curtsy properly, lips pursing together as you feel Lyonel’s heavy gaze on your face. “Whatever he has done, he only meant well, Ser.” Gazing right into his dark eyes, you act braver than you really are. Hands clasped behind your back, chin raised and shoulders squared, but your hands wring together, fingers tangling with each other as you let out a shuddered breath. Because if you learned anything from being a lady, you cannot show fear.

Lyonel hums, tilts his head and sucks in his teeth as he regards you in his gaze. “Who might you be? His wife?” There’s a slight disappointment in his last comment.

“No.”

“N–No, my lord.” Dunk is quick to answer just like you had.

He hums again, the corner of his lips curling into a subtle smile, earring dangling as it catches the candle light. “Who are you then? His companion?”

“We recently just met, my lord.” Looking up, you give Dunk a reassuring smile. You know how to handle pigheaded lords, or at least you know how to when you’ve seldom interacted with them that aren’t your kin. “The good Ser here saved me from a thief.”

“Did he now?” There’s a lilt in his tone, grinning as he shifts his gaze back to the hedge knight. 

“But— she managed to stab him first, my lord.” 

A grin spreads across Lyonel’s cheeks, impressed, as if seeing you in a new light, looking at you as you are. “It’s true.” You take pride in yourself, and it seems that he approves of your arrogance.

“And yet your hero is slouching when he could be taller than the whole room.” He snickers, teeth flashing from in between his curled lips. The dagger is once again pointed at him, threatening, but you find no threat in his next words. “The seven above gave you tallness. So, be tall.” His hands gestures dramatically around him with the dagger in hand before settling down his grin and a scowl replaces it. “Or I will name you a heretic and burn you. Drown you, drop you off a tall pl– I don’t know what do they do to heretics?” Or so you thought that there’s no ire in his words, but you understand the meaning under it, in Lyonel’s own way, he’s encouraging Dunk to have confidence in himself. But the same message doesn’t seem to register that quickly to the hedge knight.

“Burn them, my lord.” His companion drawls his answer.

“Fine.” Lyonel tosses the knife on the table, gaze glancing from Dunk over to you every so often as if trying to get a read of you through the haze of wine in his veins. “What have you brought me?” Now you’re the one panicking.

“Uh, Ser I— beggin’ your pardons. I didn’t realize.” You could just feel the palpable panic in Dunk.

“You wish to curry my favour some. Yet you come with an empty hand.” Lyonel’s tone turns dangerous, jaw clenching as raises a brow at the two of you. “Lord Cafferen, the smug bastard in red,” he gestures to a man dancing behind you. “He is scarce to pay his rents. Yet even he shinied up this…” picking up the dagger again, he haphazardly tosses it on the table as it lands with a clatter. “bauble from his family’s coffers, for he understands that all men, in their way, wish only for your help, or your head.” His cadence lowers, dark eyes staring at Dunk like a hunter. “You’ve come for my head then?”

“What? No, no.” 

With quick thinking, you rip off your ring and place it on the table right in front of Lyonel. “Will this suffice?” 

His eyes dart to you, glinting against the light as he leans towards it, taking it carefully in between his index and thumb. “Presenting me with marriage already, my lady? I must apologize but I am already promised to an Arryn.” The people around him snickers, whilst he studies the simple silver band of your ring. For a moment you thought that he’d refuse to take it because of his honour and yet, he puts the ring on his pinky, admiring it in the light. “Yes, this will suffice.” 

Dunk exhales with relief, shoulders easing until he realizes that he’s slouching again only to straighten his back once more.

“What of your hedge knight?” Lyonel’s words send shivers down poor Dunk’s spine. “This is her favour, not yours. Will it be your sword or your head, hm?”

Shit. “The favour is from the both of us, my lord.” You answer with your head held up high.

Clicking his tongue, Lyonel shows his teeth at Dunk, and not in a happy way. You wonder if it’s the wine talking or this is all from your future husband. If it’s the latter, you have no idea how to make of him after his senseless threat. The shadows elongate the antlers on his head, looking like he’s about to collide and butt heads with the hedge knight. 

“I–I didn’t bring anything, m’lord.” Dunk lowers his head in apology, as you run out of ideas on how to save him.

“Then, why the fuck are you in my tent?”

“S–supper.” 

There’s a heavy pause, tension rising until Lyonel laughs wholeheartedly. And the heavy air subsides as you and Dunk give each other a relieved smile.

“Supper.” Dunk says more steadily now, lifting his pastry as evidence.

“Alright, actually makes sense.” Shrugging, Lyonel chuckles, sitting back on his chair as the light catches in his eyes when he captures your gaze. “You don’t feed your men, my lady?”

“I would but we found ourselves in your tent and it was too late to leave when we found you so…welcoming.” It’s a jab towards the heir that he recognizes quickly. His eyes crinkle in the corners, amused by your bite instead of meeting you with ire. 

“What is your name?” He asks, giving you a curt nod, eyes warm and hearty with  daze from the wine. 

You tell him of your name, of course without your family name. “I’m a blacksmith’s daughter, from Lannisport.” You’re too good at lying, a new found talent of yours.

Of course you’d lie to keep your identity a secret so you could observe him closely without him changing his tune only because of your change in status. You’d prefer for Lyonel to interact with you just as he is, normally, how he’d usually talk to others, without your title getting in the way of his judgement. You want to know the real him. From your first meeting, he’s an enigma to you, he’s hot and then suddenly cold, not just to you but at Dunk too. He’s still got the pride of a noble lord of course but he is genuine about it, unabashed with confidence. And with your morbid curiosity, you find him interesting, someone you’d like to keep observing, not just because you are to be wed to him, but to satisfy your curiosity that the whispered gossip you’ve heard of him won’t be able to get close to.

Your name falls from his tongue like thick honey, “huh, curious, you have the same name as my Arryn.” Sniffing, he then turns to Dunk as you try to hide the way you stiffened from his words, hands hidden behind your back as you hide the warmth on your cheeks. “What about you, man?”

The man beside you straightens up even more. “Dunk, Ser Dunk.”

“That’s ridiculous.” His nose scrunches, pointing at him while staring at you as if to say, ‘do you believe this man?’ while you stifle a chuckle. “And you, you weren’t paying attention earlier.” Lyonel addresses you with the same arrogance he showed Dunk. 

“Yes, I was.” You answer with mirrored arrogance. “You were talking about the origins of jousts through stags. But you didn’t finish.” Eyes glinting, you take a deliberate and brave step towards him, regarding him in your vision just like has done.

“I’ll have you know that I always finish, my lady.” You continue to stare at him with a teasing glint in your eyes before he surrenders, leaning back on his chair further. “I blame the wine.” Clearing his throat, you could see him thinking as he rubs at his beard. 

“I’m sure it was wholly profound.” You utter, drawling the last word, victorious for now at least as Lyonel chortles under his breath.

Leaning over the table, cloak draped upon his shoulder, earring dangling, his eyes shimmered mischievously, accompanied by a smirk. “Do you like dancing?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Dunk sounds more sure of himself this time, albeit wobbly at the end.

Lyonel grins, turning his attention back to you with the same mirth. “What do you say, my lady? Care for some revelry?” 

Fuck it, maybe it’s the wine or the warm atmosphere but you find yourself smiling at him genuinely. “I would love to join the revelry.”

— 

You’ve gone dizzy in the fog of wine and blurry candlelight as you spin around and around, arm in arm with an awkward dancing hedge knight. The tune crescendos, strings playing a jaunty tune that you cannot lie makes your blood rise as a giggle rises up in your throat. 

With a hand hiking up your dress, you watch Dunk dance with the grace of a large tree, or a goose. Whilst Lyonel dances atop a table, carefree, throwing his head back flamboyantly to the music. He looks like Garth the green as he dances over to you and Dunk with his dark eyes illuminated by the warm candlelight.

The laughing storm barrels towards the two of you, colliding against you and Dunk, breaking you apart with his plucky dancing. 

As you twirl away from the pair, your eyes are glued onto them as you dance arm in arm with another lady, getting passed down from stranger to stranger whilst you keep an eye out on them just in case things go sour between the two. 

Lyonel stomps on Dunk’s foot, making the bigger man wince. And yet it doesn’t seem to be an accident when Lyonel tries to stomp on his foot once again, only this time, Dunk dodges his attacks again and again, until the hedge knight steps right on his foot back with the same force he felt, making Lyonel yell like a wounded stag.

You’re afraid for Dunk.

For a second you thought that you’d see your new friend punished for what he has done, and Dunk looks like he’d lose his head come the morn. Whilst he thinks of his choices, Lyonel lifts his head with a grin cracking across his face. Dunk eases up with a light laugh, pushing the heir of Storm’s End as the said man retaliates with his own push. They dance together, with Dunk’s less awkward dancing and Lyonel’s plucky drunken dance as he moves around him like a falcon circling around a field. The leather hose of his doublet dances alongside him like a whirlpool of molten gold, twirling around him, enticing you, calling for you to join.

Laughing with relief, the sound garners Lyonel’s attention. He takes you by the arm, looping his around yours, as you feel his warmth seep through his sweat soaked doublet, twirling you around and around until you don’t know where your right and left is. Your giggles follows the two of you, and his laughter melds with yours in perfect harmony.

Arms floating by your side, he stops your whirling with a warm hand on your waist, keeping you still, not squeezing nor roaming his hands all over your dress, just holding you there, gazing right at your face with the brightest grin you’ve ever seen. His eyes swirl with thoughts, a softened gaze, something that you’ve only thought possible to see in your romance books. For a moment, it feels as though it’s only you and him in the tent whilst his eyes remain on you and only you. 

For a beat, he stares warmly, until he turns away with a booming laugh that could rival the thunder before taking Dunk by his arm whilst you in the other, making a circle as the dancing continues wildly. You feel like a carefree child of the forest dancing in the woods.

He seems to have embodied Garth the green fully, full of mirth, sweetened wine in his belly, a woman in one arm and a man in the other, a man born for feasts and spread the same mirth around him. But according to your house’s maester, Garth was a warchief and a king rather than the god of revelry and fertility. For you though, you believe both. And Lyonel seems to embody both, a force to be reckoned with when faced with adversaries, and someone you’d love to break bread with and share a drink with during peace time. You hate to admit it but, Lyonel seems to have crawled right out of your fantasies.

Although, you feel that once you get a good read on Lyonel, he does something to make you reassess what you’ve learned. He’s unpredictable, like lightning that doesn’t strike the same place twice. 

You have found something about him that you like, something that is utterly dangerous that would turn into fondness if left unchecked— his confidence that teethers on sheer arrogance. It’s a quality that most would be annoyed of, and yet, you like that about him, his unabashed confidence that you find infectious. It’s exhilarating to be around him, although exhausting, but it’s the good kind of fatigue, as if you just flew on dragonback over the realm and your knees have gone wobbly, and yet a smile stays on your lips despite it. 

He’s not a bore to be around with, and you’d like to keep being around him.

A hazy dream like air fills your senses as you twirl around with him and Dunk arm in arm. You hate a part of yourself for becoming so pliant to Lyonel’s smile and charms. 

It goes on for some time, your legs hurt from all the dancing, jaw aching from all the smiling and laughing. The night draws to a close as some of the lords and ladies have left the Baratheon pavilion. The musicians have gone home, and the food has gone cold, and yet you find yourself sitting at the head of the main table beside Lyonel as he gives Dunk some wise words for the tourney that you just now forgotten from all the dancing.

Juniper’s going to kill you.

His golden cloak is now draped on your shoulders, heavier than you thought it would be as it weighs you down on your seat. It smells of wine and grass after a downpour as it warms you, whilst you watch the couple in front of you dance together sweetly.