𝐟𝐢𝐚𝐧

You had been staring at the same spreadsheet for the better part of forty-five minutes, and in that time, you had accomplished precisely three things: checking the formulas, rechecking the formulas, and arriving at the slow, creeping suspicion that you had chosen the wrong degree.

The university library hummed quietly around you, the soft percussion of keyboards, the occasional rustle of pages, the distant thud of a textbook someone had given up on and none of it was helping. Your eyes kept dragging back to the same column of numbers that stubbornly refused to cooperate, as though they had developed personalities and were doing this specifically to you.

One job, you thought, pressing two fingers to the bridge of your nose. You have one job.

The spreadsheet did not care.

You leaned back in your chair until it creaked in protest and stared at the library ceiling, briefly entertaining the fantasy of throwing your laptop off the business faculty roof. Or yourself. Whichever was more efficient.

A chair scraped against the floor.

The sound was close, directly across from you and was accompanied by the energy of someone who had absolutely no awareness that other people in this building were suffering. You looked up.

Jacaerys sat down.

He was wearing that smile. The annoyingly bright one, the one that had absolutely no business existing on someone who had just interrupted your academic crisis, the one that made his eyes crinkle at the corners in a way that you found deeply inconvenient given the current circumstances. His baseball cap was pulled low, and he’d dropped his bag onto the seat beside him with the casual ease, clearly his afternoon was going extremely well.

Yours was not.

You stared at him.

He stared back.

“I need your help,” he said breaking the staring contest. You blinked, waiting for context.

“…With?”

He held your gaze with the gravity as if he was about to announce a news of natural disaster.

“It’s about my hair.”

Silence.

You stared at him for a long moment. The spreadsheet still hadn’t balanced. The library still hummed.

Somewhere nearby, someone was highlighting something with aggressive enthusiasm.

“…Your hair,” you repeated.

He nodded.

You sighed and let your head tip back again.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

For even context, you had to go back three and a half months.

Three months ago, Jacaerys Velaryon had kissed you goodbye at the airport with his hair the way it always was: cropped short, a mullet at the end with the barest suggestion of a wave at the crown, the kind of low-maintenance cut that required approximately zero thought. He’d left for a summer internship at Winterfell S-Corp, the sprawling industrial giant run out of the North by the Stark family, a company that had made its fortune in wall defence systems, industrial fencing, and infrastructure engineered to survive centuries of arctic storms and the kind of winters that made King’s Landing people genuinely reconsider their relationship with the concept of cold.

You, meanwhile, had gone south. Tyrell Luxury Group had accepted you into their Maison Tyrell couture division, and for three months you had lived inside a world of silk and structured lighting, watching hairstylists perform what could only be described as amazing work on the heads of runway models. You’d learned things, even things about fashion completely irrelevant to your degree.

Three months.

Different cities. Different climates. Different worlds, almost.

Barely any FaceTimes because the hours were genuinely cruel on both ends, you were often busy creating power points or coordinating things between people at midnight while he was already halfway through a morning site briefing. Mostly texts. Voice notes when you missed each other enough to want the sound of the other person’s voice without the worry of a call.

And then, finally! you’d reunited.

Except.

Jace no longer had the hair he’d left with.

Winterfell, apparently, had other plans. The northern cold air, clean, relentlessly damp northern air had done something to him in the intervening months. Where there had once been a short, manageable cut, there were now curls. Proper curls. Shoulder-length, loose-but-defined, soft-looking curls that caught light in a way that seemed almost deliberate.

The cold climate had transformed his hair into something that belonged in a different century or a fantasy novel, maybe, the kind where people rode dragons and looked devastatingly good doing it. (😏)

You had become, immediately and without shame, completely obsessed with his hair.

It had started the afternoon he’d come back, when you’d reached up almost instinctively to touch one of the curls and felt it spring gently back against your fingers, and something in your brain had simply misfired in the best possible way. After that, your hand seemed to find its way into his hair every chance you got. Watching TV? Your fingers were working slow, idle patterns through the curls at his temple. Studying? One hand on your notes, one hand buried in the soft weight of his hair. Walking together? You weren’t entirely sure how you managed it, but somehow, with enough creative coordination, you found a way.

Jace never said a word about it.

Instead, he’d started investing excuses. Excuses to be horizontal on the sofa or when you were studying at the coffee table. Reasons to rest his head in your lap, or against your chest, his eyes drifting half-shut while you absentmindedly scratched behind his ears and massaged his scalp in slow, looping circles. He’d made a sound once, low and content, like a large cat who had worked out exactly where it wanted to be. You hadn’t teased him about it. It felt too soft for that.

It had become, quietly and without either of you naming it, his favourite kind of affection.

Unfortunately, King’s Landing air had opinions.

The city in summer was a humidity machine. You knew this. You’d grown up with it, the thick, wet air that settled on everything like a second skin, it made fabric cling and tempers shorten and hair do things hair was not supposed to do. It had apparently taken approximately two weeks to undo everything Winterfell had built.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Back in the library, Jace reached up and slowly removed his baseball cap.

You gasped.

It wasn’t a dramatic gasp. It was involuntary, something your body produces before your brain has time to intervene.

“…No.”

His face fell. “What?”

“You-” You pressed your lips together, hard, because the library had a noise policy and you were genuinely at risk of violating it. “You look like Dora the Explorer.”

Silence.

A long silence.

“…Didn’t realise it was that bad,” Jace said quietly.

The curls, his beautiful, Winterfell-blessed, soft and defined curls, had staged a coup. The King’s Landing humidity had gotten to them, and the result was a triangle. A perfect, enormous, fluffy triangle of frizz that began somewhere around his ears and expanded outward with a confidence that was almost impressive. It was not the romantic northern curl situation you had spent weeks running your fingers through. It was something else entirely.

“Hey.” He pointed at you, affronted, which was difficult to pull off with that hair but he managed. “What do you mean I look like Dora?”

You clapped both hands over your mouth.

The sound that escaped anyway earned you a sharp look from the student two tables over.

“I’m sorry,” you managed.

“You are absolutely not sorry.”

“I’m trying to be.”

“You failed.”

You dissolved anyway, shoulders shaking, the giggle fighting its way out despite every effort. There was something about the combination of his genuinely offended expression and the spectacular geometry of his hair that made containment impossible. He was so pretty, normally. The contrast was doing something to you.

“I look that bad?” he asked, and there was something almost plaintive under the indignation.

You nodded. “I still love you though.”

He sighed and dropped his forehead directly onto the table.

You watched him with fondness and residual laughter and with something warm underneath both of those things.

“This is tragic,” he announced, face down, voice muffled by the table.

You reached over and gently poked one of the frizzy curls. It didn’t spring back. It barely moved. That was the problem.

“You need a proper curly hair routine,” you said.

His head lifted. He looked at you like you’d said something in a foreign language.

“…A what?”

“A curly hair routine.”

“…There’s a routine?”

“Yes.”

“I thought hair was hair.”

The look you gave him communicated, as clearly as a look could, that this was perhaps the most incorrect thing he had ever said. “No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“There are routines. Multiple. Depending on curl type, porosity, climate-”

“Plural?”

“Very plural.”

His eyes widened slightly. He looked, for a moment, genuinely alarmed by the scope of this information. You thought of the hairstylist’s backstage at Maison Tyrell, the way they’d talked about curl care with the intensity of chemists and felt something like vindication on their behalf.

“I learned loads working backstage,” you said. “Trying to coordinate things backstage. I watched the hairstylists.”

“So, you know how to fix this.”

It wasn’t quite a question. His eyes had gone hopeful, and something about that expression, eager and a little helpless, so different from his usual composed self, made it very hard to say anything other than yes.

“I think so.”

His whole face changed. The bright smile returned, the one that made the library feel less fluorescent.

“Perfect.” He slapped both palms flat on the table.

“Let’s go.”

“…Go where?”

“Shopping.”

You blinked at him. Then at your spreadsheet. Then back at him.

“Jace,” you said carefully.

“What?”

“I have an accounting quiz tomorrow.”

“And?”

“I need to study.”

He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest with an expression telling you that he is about to present a proposal he’s very pleased with.

“As the top student in our year,” he announced, “I shall tutor you.”

You narrowed your eyes.

“In exchange…” He pointed, dramatically, at his own head.

“You fix this.”

For a moment you just looked at him. The triangle of hair. The hopeful expression underneath it. The absolute audacity of the entire interaction.

Then you started laughing again, quickly muffled behind your hand, earning yourself a second sharp look from the student two tables over who was clearly having a worse afternoon than even you.

“I cannot believe,” you said, once you’d recovered, “that you are negotiating with your own girlfriend.”

He shrugged, entirely unrepentant. “It’s called business.”

“You’ve become insufferable.”

“I learned from the best.”

“…Who?”

“My mother.”

You snorted. You couldn’t help it. Rhaenyra Targaryen was, among many things, a formidably good negotiator. The resemblance was uncanny.

“Fair enough,” you said, and began closing your laptop.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

The Sephora on the high street was cool and white and smelled like overlapping perfumes that somehow managed not to cancel each other out. You stood in the hair care aisle with your notes app open like it was a battle plan because, in a sense, it was.

“Okay,” you said, scanning the list. “We need Gisou Honey Infused Leave-In Conditioner.”

Jace picked it off the shelf and dropped it into the basket without ceremony.

“Done.”

“Ouai Curl Crème.”

In it went.

“Pattern Beauty Curl Gel.”

Another toss.

“And-” You let yourself feel a small, private flicker of triumph. “Gisou Honey Infused Hair Oil.”

Basket complete. Mission accomplished.

Jace held the basket up and examined the growing collection of products thinking about a bill he hadn’t fully anticipated.

“…Is all of this strictly necessary?”

“Yes.”

“It feels expensive.”

“It is.”

A pause. “How expensive?”

You told him a rough estimate.

He absorbed this.

“Right.”

You looked at the basket again, and then a small, guilty feeling began assembling itself quietly in your chest. You’d approached this like it was your own bathroom, your own money, your own decision and it wasn’t.

“Actually,” you said.

Jace caught your expression immediately. He’d always been quick to read you. “What?”

“I feel bad.”

“For?”

“Making you buy all this. It’s a lot. And I just sort of- assumed.”

He looked at you for a moment. Then he reached into his back pocket taking out his wallet and produced a sleek black credit card with ease as if had never once thought about the number on a price tag which he probably didn’t considering his background.

“…Mother’s,” he said simply.

You stared at the card. Then at him.

“Must be fun,” you said, very pleasantly, “being born into nepotism.”

“HEY!”

A woman browsing dry shampoo three feet away turned to look.

“It’s true,” you said.

“I work hard.”

“I’m sure you do, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon.” You said in a teasing tone.

“I am not a prince.”

“You practically are.”

“I take genuine offence at your tone.”

“I take genuine offence at your bank account.”

He laughed so loud, the woman with the dry shampoo gave up and moved to the next aisle muttering about how kids these days are so disruptive.

“You are unbelievable,” he said, still laughing.

“And yet-” You smiled up at him, very sweetly. “You still date me.”

He looked at you. Something in his expression went soft before he could stop it.

“…Unfortunately,” he said.

“Liar.”

“Very unfortunately.”

“You’re smiling while you say that.”

“I know,” he said, and made no effort whatsoever to stop.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Rhaenyra’s penthouse was exactly what it always was: impeccably maintained, decorated in understated luxury that announced itself without trying, and carrying the faint, clean scent of whatever candle she kept burning in the entryway. You liked it here. It felt, in the way that certain places do, like somewhere that was just calm.

You emptied the shopping bags onto the kitchen island and were doing a mental inventory when something clicked.

“Shoot.”

Jace, who had been reading the back of the curl gel with more focus than he’d given most of his coursework this semester, looked over. “What?”

“I forgot my hairdryer.”

“…That’s all?”

“And my diffuser.”

He shrugged with the ease of someone for whom this was a solvable problem rather than a logistical crisis. “We’ll borrow Mum’s. Pretty sure she has those.”

“Are we allowed?”

“We’ll ask.”

The front door opened.

As if summoned by fate itself, in walked Rhaenyra Targaryen. She was still in her work clothes: a black suit, perfectly cut, and not a wrinkle on it despite what must have been a full day inside it. Her laptop bag was over one shoulder. Behind her, Joffrey trailed in from school with his bag already halfway off his shoulder, heading for his room after giving Jace and you a quick greeting. He must have some activity planned for himself.

“Hello, you two,” Rhaenyra said.

“Hi, Mum.”

“Hello!” You said enthusiastically.

She paused, looking between the two of you with a suspicious expression she reserved for moments when something was clearly afoot, but she hadn’t yet worked out what. “What are you plotting?”

“Nothing,” you both said in sync.

She looked at you. Then at Jace. Then at the collection of hair products arranged on her kitchen island.

“I don’t believe either of you.”

Jace scratched the back of his neck, a tell you’d learned to recognise months ago. “Can we borrow your hairdryer?”

“…My what?”

“And the diffuser attachment.”

A beat of silence. Rhaenyra’s gaze moved, slowly and deliberately, between the two of you. She was the kind of person who could communicate volumes without raising her voice, and what she was currently communicating was something in the vicinity of I raised this child, and I know exactly what that face means.

“Should I ask why?”

“No,” Jace said.

“…That’s somehow more concerning.”

You smiled your most innocent smile. “It’s for science.” A brief, long-suffering pause.

“I regret asking,” she said. Then, after another moment of studying you both: “Fine.” She pointed toward the stairs. “But if I come home to a flooded bathroom-”

“It won’t be.”

“Or my hairdryer broken-”

“It won’t be. I’ll handle it” you said quickly.

“Or glitter anywhere-”

“There isn’t glitter.”

“There had better not be.”

She moved toward the door again. She had only returned to drop Joffery back home after school since the driver had to leave for an emergency but then paused, glancing back once more at her son’s hair, the triangle situation, now freed from the baseball cap and said nothing, though her expression said quite a lot.

Joffrey had already made it most of the way down the hall. “You two are weird,” he called, without turning around.

“We know!” both of you answered, at exactly the same moment.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Jace’s room was as tidy as it could be. He hated making a mess and sometimes you teased him about perhaps having an OCD with how he takes pleasure in cleaning his room. His books stacked with a loose intention of order, a desk that looked like it had seen serious work, curtains that let in the late afternoon light in long, golden bars that fell across the floor.

You laid everything out across the desk with the methodical care of someone who was, in this specific domain, taking this extremely seriously. Leave-in conditioner. Curl crème. Curl gel. Hair oil. Diffuser. Borrowed hairdryer. Small microfibre towel. Everything in order.

“Right.” You clapped your hands together. Jace looked up from where he’d been reading a product label again, apparently trying to extract information that wasn’t there. “First things first.”

“What?”

“We need to wash your hair properly. No shortcuts, it needs to be clean for any of this to work.”

“Okay.”

You looked at him. He looked back.

“So,” you said. “Take your shirt off.”

A slow, wicked grin spread across his face like sunrise. “…Yes, ma’am.”

You recognised that expression. You’d seen it before. You pointed at him immediately. “Don’t. You. Dare.”

He stepped closer. He was feeling playful, leaning down until there were only a few inches of air between your faces, his curls (the chaotic ones, the tragic ones) falling forward slightly.

“If you wanted to get me shirtless,” he said, with great deliberation, “you could’ve simply asked.”

You smacked his arm, which made him laugh, and then you physically pushed him in the direction of the bathroom. “Shut up.”

“I was being helpful.”

“You were being annoying.”

“Same thing, sometimes.”

“Not even close.”

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

The sink situation was, in retrospect, predictable.

You’d known it would be a little awkward, washing someone’s hair over a bathroom sink required a certain amount of spatial negotiation but you hadn’t quite accounted for Jace’s general inability to remain still when he found something funny, or his apparent talent for misdirecting water in every direction that wasn’t the drain.

Your white shirt took a direct hit.

You felt it happen. That cold spreading bloom of water soaking through the fabric. You looked down. Then up. Jace had frozen, the guilty expression because he knew exactly what he’d done written plainly across his face.

“…Oops,” he said.

You looked down again. Back up. Slowly folded your arms.

“So,” you said, in a mockingly pleasant tone.

He waited for you to continue.

“If you wanted to see my bra,” you said, “you could’ve simply asked.”

The pink that climbed up the sides of his neck to his ears happened so fast it almost startled him. “I- that’s not-” He pressed his lips together.

Then he laughed, helpless and real and embarrassed, and the sound of it bounced off the bathroom tiles.

“Now you’re using my lines,” he managed.

“I know,” you said, noting in your mind to change your shirt.

The actual process, once it began in earnest, had a quiet rhythm to it.

Jace sat on the low stool you’d dragged in from the corner of his room, which was barely adequate, but he folded himself into without complaint. You worked the leave-in conditioner through his damp hair carefully, section by section, making sure it was evenly distributed before handing him the bottle.

“Work this through while I change,” you said.

He glanced at the bottle, then at you. “You trust me?”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“About sixty percent.”

His expression was deeply offended. “I deserve at least seventy.”

“Prove it and we’ll renegotiate,” you said, and disappeared into the bedroom to swap the wet shirt for one of his oversized T-shirts that lived on a hook behind his door. It smelled like him. You spent approximately no time thinking about that.

When you came back, the leave-in conditioner had, in fact, been distributed with reasonable competence.

“…I’m impressed.”

“I follow instructions.”

“Occasionally.”

He opened his mouth. You talked over him, squeezing the curl crème between your palms and beginning to work it through.

It happened almost immediately. The moment the product touched his damp hair, and you began scrunching, gathering sections upward, coaxing them into shape, the curls began responding. Coming back. Reforming with a soft, almost indignant energy, as though they’d always been there and the humidity had merely been an interruption.

Jace caught it in the mirror.

“…Wait.”

“There they are,” you said quietly.

“I can see them.”

There was something in his voice that wasn’t quite awe but was adjacent to it. You didn’t comment on it, just kept working, methodically and with more care than the task required, because these were his curls and you had spent two weeks deciding you were very attached to them.

The hair or curl gel came next. You demonstrated first by taking a small section, working the product through from root to tip, then coiling the curl gently around your finger.

“See how that defines it?”

He watched, then tried.

“Like this?”

“Almost but make it looser. Let the curl do the work.”

He adjusted. The curl sprang gently into shape.

Something in his expression shifted, he focused with concentration, learning a new thing.

You worked in companionable quiet for a while. Then—

“My hands are tired.”

“Hush.”

“This takes a long time.”

“Curly hair requires patience.”

“No one told me that.”

“I’m telling you now.”

“I’ve made a terrible decision.”

“You asked for this.”

“You like them more. Don’t lie!”

“That’s...true” you said.

The diffuser was the final step, and it was, honestly, the most important one. You attached it to Rhaenyra’s hairdryer, set it to cold, and began working it carefully beneath each section, lifting the curls up rather than disturbing them, letting the air do its work without the disruption of direct heat.

Jace tried to copy your movements once you handed him the drier back but he looked faintly absurd doing it, which was deeply endearing.

“This feels ridiculous,” he said.

“It works.”

“I look like I’m doing something from a tutorial.”

“You are doing something from a tutorial. My tutorial.”

He made a sound that wasn’t quite agreement and wasn’t quite disagreement.

The room filled with the low hum of the dryer and the smell of warmed product, sweet, clean, faintly floral from the honey oil you’d set aside for the end. Outside, the King’s Landing afternoon was doing its best impression of early evening, the light going amber through the curtains. You were aware, at the edges of your attention, of the spreadsheet you hadn’t finished and the quiz that was tomorrow and the tutoring session Jace owed you.

But that was later.

You switched the dryer off.

The quiet it left was comfortable. Easy.

You stepped back. Folded your arms. Regarded him with the gravity of someone revealing a finished painting.

“And,” you said, with appropriate ceremony, “voila.”

“It’s voilà,” he said automatically.

You pointed at him. “Don’t ruin my moment.”

He laughed, and then he turned toward the mirror, and the laughter quieted.

His shoulders went still.

The curls were back. Properly back and not the explosion of frizz from the library, not the soft but undefined waves of the days before you’d intervened. These were curls. Defined and bouncy, with a softness to them that caught the warm light and held it. They framed his face in a way that made him look like himself again, the Winterfell version of himself, the version you’d been very quietly delighted by for the last several weeks.

He turned his head. Slowly. Watching from one angle and then another.

“They actually look…”

“Amazing,” you supplied.

“…Amazing,” he agreed, like he was still arriving at the word.

You added the finishing touch, a few drops of the honey oil, warmed briefly between your palms before you smoothed it lightly over the surface of the curls, giving them that last suggestion of shine and then stepped back for real.

“Done.”

He kept looking at his reflection with an expression you didn’t see often, genuinely caught off guard, a little undone, the studied composure he usually wore without thinking temporarily absent.

“I haven’t seen my hair look like this since Winterfell,” he said.

“I know.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he turned from the mirror, and without ceremony or announcement, he wrapped both arms around you and pulled you in.

“You genius,” he said, into your hair.

A kiss to your forehead. Then your cheek, the warmth of it brief and deliberate. Then the other cheek. Then the tip of your nose, which made you scrunch it. Then your jaw.

“Jace.”

Another kiss found its way to your temple.

“Jace.”

His lips curved against your cheekbone. You could feel him smiling.

“Enough,” you said, though the word didn’t come out with any real conviction.

He pulled back just far enough to look at you, still smiling, and then pressed one last proper kiss to your lips, brief and fond and slightly smug.

“Thank you,” he said.

You rolled your eyes. Fond. Always fond, with him. “Now you know how to do it yourself.”

“I’ll probably forget.”

“Then I’ll make you a list.”

He considered this. “Better,” he decided, with the satisfaction of someone whose problem had been neatly solved and reached for your hand. ┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Rhaenyra walked past the doorway a few hour later.

Jace was at his desk, working through a set of accounting questions with a focused look he put on when he was actually concentrating, a pencil turning slowly in one hand. You were curled in the sofa across the room with your notes in your lap, the study session having you guys dispersed around to concentrate. It was quiet between you in the way it sometimes was, comfortable and unhurried, two people occupying the same space and not needing to fill it.

She paused.

Took one step back.

Looked inside.

Her gaze moved from you to him, and landed on his hair, the curls, soft and defined and clearly the work of deliberate effort, catching the desk lamp light in a way they hadn’t in weeks. She blinked once. Twice. The expression on her face cycled through something unreadable before arriving at something that was, unmistakably, approval.

She looked at you.

“…What did you do?”

You smiled. The small, satisfied smile of someone who had earned it. “Curly hair routine.”

Rhaenyra looked back at her son.

A quiet came over her, and then she said, with perfect composure and a warmth she wasn’t quite hiding: “…Finally.”

Jace looked up from his work. “What does that mean?”

She smiled at him softly and simply replied, “It means,” she said, “that my son’s hair no longer looks like a bird built a nest in it.”

A beat of perfect silence.

Then, from somewhere down the hallway, with the unerring timing of a younger sibling who had been waiting for precisely this moment:

“I TOLD YOU IT LOOKED LIKE A BIRD’S NEST!”

Jace’s expression collapsed into something pained and theatrical. He dropped his pencil. He put his face in his hands.

“I live with traitors,” he announced, to no one in particular.

You and Rhaenyra looked at each other across the room.

And then you laughed, both of you, properly, helplessly until Jace groaned again and neither of you could have answered him if you’d tried.

⬩➤ Want to read more? Check out my MASTERLIST!

Yet for centuries the merfolk had kept to themselves, hidden from human eyes by choice rather than necessity, for the sea was their domain, vast and forgiving, older than any castle built of stone, and they had little wish to share it with a race that seemed forever at war with itself and everything around it.

In time, that same secrecy had turned them into little more than legend, tales spun by sailors over cups of watered wine on nights when the wind howled and the deck rolled beneath them. Sirens were known to lure ships onto rocks with voices sweet enough to make a man forget his own name, and feast on whatever remained once the rocks had finished their work.

Mermaids were a gentler breed by comparison, prone to guiding lost sailors safely home as often as they were blamed for storms and ill weather they had no hand in at all. Two natures entirely, wearing similar faces, and precious few humans who lived long enough to learn the difference between them.

They were beautiful creatures beneath the waves, long tails the colour of pearl and coral fading seamlessly into human torsos, faces too fine and too still to belong to any mortal woman, gill feathers tracing delicate lines along their throats that fluttered faintly with every breath of water drawn through them. Webbing caught the light between their fingers and along the curves of their ears, and their eyes, when a sailor was unlucky or lucky enough to catch one open beneath the surface, ethereal was the word men reached for, when they had any words left at all.

It had been pure chance that placed you so close to the Gullet on the day the battle came, chance and your own incurable curiosity, which your sisters had scolded you for since you were small enough to hide behind their tails.

You had always had a weakness for collecting things. Rings slipped from dead men's fingers, buckles and buttons and the little bronze bells that sailors sometimes wore for luck that had done them no good at all in the end, coins gone green and soft with centuries beneath the salt.

You kept them in the hollow belly of an old sunken hull you had claimed as your own years ago, arranging and rearranging them the way a child arranges shells on a beach, and you were forbidden, absolutely forbidden, from ever breaking the surface to retrieve anything that had not already sunk deep enough to be safely yours. The deep waters near the wreck sites were permitted. The world above the waterline was not.

You had seen fleets pass overhead before, dark hulls cutting shadows across the sunlit shallows, and it had never troubled you much. Ships came and went. Men fought their wars on the surface and left their dead to sink down to you eventually, and you had learned not to think too hard about where the trinkets came from.

What startled you that day, what sent ice through your veins even in water still warm from the summer sun, was the sound. A battle breaking out with no warning at all, not the slow grinding approach you were used to but something sudden and enormous, the water shaking with it as though the sea itself had been struck. Fire that should not have been able to burn beneath the waves somehow did, hissing and spitting where it touched the surface, and ash sifted down through the water like grey snow, and wood came apart in great splintering chunks, and bodies. So many bodies, falling and falling, sinking past you like stones dropped from a terrible height, men who had been laughing and cursing and praying only moments before.

You very nearly got swept into the worst of it yourself. Your pale pink tail caught for one heart-stopping instant on a length of trailing rigging, and you fought and thrashed to free yourself, kicking hard for clearer, deeper water, away from the chaos above. It was then that something struck the surface with such force that the shockwave of it rolled straight through your chest, and you turned back despite every instinct screaming at you to keep swimming, and saw a dragon.

Only the one. You did not know his name yet, though you would come to learn it soon enough. Vermax, green as new leaves, thrashing against water he had never been built to fight, wings beating in great useless sweeps, trying and failing again and again to claw his way back up into a sky that no longer wanted him.

And strapped to his back, tangled in leather that should have kept him safe and now threatened only to drown him with the beast, was a boy.

A very pretty boy, you thought, even through the horror of it, because you had always had a weakness for pretty things as well as shiny ones, and some habits did not care what was happening around them.

He fought his harness with a growing, panicked desperation, one leg caught fast beneath a buckle that would not give no matter how he wrenched at it, and you watched the fight slowly bleed out of him as the water rose past his chin and then his mouth. You watched him press his palm flat against his dragon’s scaled hide, whether in farewell or in simple desperate comfort you could not say, and something inside your chest twisted so hard and so suddenly that it hurt, a feeling you had no name for and no time to think about, and you were moving before your brain had caught up to it.

The buckles gave easily enough beneath your fingers, quick clever things built for human hands rather than merfolk ones but simple enough once you understood the shape of them, all but the one pinning his leg fast, which would not release no matter how you pulled. It was your sister's whalebone dagger, tucked always at your hip, that finally cut him free, the leather parting in one long stroke. By then the boy had gone entirely still, his eyes half open and unseeing.

You spared one moment, only one, though it cost you dearly to spare it, to press your palm flat against Vermax’s scales in something like an apology, for jot being able to save him. The great beast simply closed his eyes, as if content that his rider had found safer hands than his own to carry him the rest of the way, and sank without a struggle into the dark below, leaving no trace but a slow drift of green scales catching what little light remained.

Surfacing was a huge mistake. You broke into open air in the very heart of the wreckage, ships burning on every side, smoke thick enough to sting your eyes, and had barely a breath to get your bearings before an arrow split the water beside you, close enough that you felt the wind of its passing against your cheek and almost hitting the boy in the neck.

You looked up into a row of crossbows all trained your way, men shouting words you did not understand but whose meaning was plain enough in the set of their shoulders, and understood with sudden, terrible clarity exactly how little difference they would see between a dragon’s rider and whatever monster had come to finish the work the sea had started.

You went back under. Humans could not breathe water, but neither, you thought grimly, dragging the boy's dead weight down with you, could you survive a volley of bolts meant to end lives.

You swam hard and fast and low, keeping to what cover the drifting wreckage offered, dragging him through water gone thick and stinging with smoke and ash, until the sounds of battle fell away behind you into a dull, distant roar and the nearest shore rose dark and welcoming against the horizon. You hauled him up onto the sand with strength you did not know you possessed, adrenaline lending you what your body alone could not, and only then let yourself look at him properly.

Your stomach dropped. His lips had gone the deep, bruised blue of a man already claimed by the sea, his skin pale as the underbelly of a fish, and his chest did not move at all.

The old stories. Your grandmother had told them half as warning and half as wonder, back when you were young enough to still believe every tale she spun, of how a drowned man's lungs might yet be coaxed back to life if the sea inside them was driven out in time, before the body forgot how to want air at all. You laid both palms flat over the centre of his chest, unsure of your own strength, and pressed down hard.

Once. Nothing happened. Panic clawed up your throat.

Twice. Your own breath caught, tight and painful.

Thrice, and you pressed with everything you had left in you, uncaring now whether you cracked something beneath your palms, because a bruise, even a broken rib, was nothing at all set against death.

On the fourth press he convulsed beneath your hands and turned sharply to one side, retching a lungful of seawater onto the sand, coughing so violently his whole body shook with the force of it. You sat back, tail curling instinctively beneath you, heart hammering, and watched the grey slowly bleed out of his face as air, found its way back into him at last.

He did not understand, in that first hazy moment, anything beyond the fact that he was somehow, impossibly, still alive. The world swam in and out of focus around him, blurred and ringing. The last clear memory he had was of Vermax beneath him and the water closing over them both in a great green rush, of struggling against a harness that would not give no matter how he fought it, and then a blurred pale shape cutting toward him through the murk like something out of a half remembered dream, and then nothing at all.

He sat up too quickly. Pain lanced through his skull bright enough to make him gasp, and he only dimly registered that he had knocked someone backward in the process, hearing a small startled sound beside him.

"I am sorry- I did not mean to- are you..." The words died somewhere in his throat.

A hand still rested lightly against his shoulder, small and cool and strange. He gaze followed it down past a bare collarbone, down a torso, and then no legs at all, only a long tail the colour of pale coral, still trembling faintly where it lay half in the surf, catching what little light the dying sun still offered.

His eyes came back up to meet yours. Yours were already wide with fright, caught somewhere between diving straight back into the water and staying just long enough to see what he would do with the knowledge now sitting plainly on his face.

"You," he breathed, and could not seem to manage a single word more than that.

You did not wait to find out what he would say next. You began dragging yourself backward toward the water on your palms, tail scraping over wet sand, and that seemed to break whatever had held him frozen in place, because he scrambled after you across the shore despite the state of his own battered, aching body.

"Wait, please, don't go, who are you? What is your name? Why did you save me? Why?" The questions tumbled out of him faster than you could possibly have answered even if your voice had worked properly, one tripping over the next, desperation making him clumsy with his words. When you opened your mouth to try anyway, nothing came at all, no sound, not even a whisper. You touched two fingers to your throat and shook your head slowly.

"You cannot speak?"

You nodded, something apologetic in the tilt of your head.

There was no simple way to explain it to him, not with gestures alone, that merfolk voices were shaped and tuned for the weight and pressure of deep water and simply could not survive in air thin and empty as this, so you only looked at him, sorry, and slid a little further back toward the tideline, the cool water lapping welcome against your tail.

"Wait!" He was on his feet now, unsteady, swaying slightly as he turned to take in the shore around him properly for the first time. "This is Driftmark- I think- and that," he pointed to a dark shape rising jagged from the water in the distance, smoke still curling faintly from somewhere within the battle behind them, "that's Dragonstone. That is where I live. I must find some way to thank you properly, I do not even know how yet, but I will. I swear it."

You gave him one last long look, drinking in the sight of him properly now that the worst of the danger had passed, pale and shaking and utterly unlike anyone you had ever pulled from the wreckage before, and nodded once before the water closed silently over your head.

What he did not know, could not have known, was that you had not truly gone. You lingered just beneath the surface, hidden in the shallows where the light still reached, watching as the full weight of what he had lost caught up to him at last.

You watched his shoulders begin to shake, watched him sink slowly to his knees on the wet sand as the grief he had been too shocked to feel finally broke over him, grieving the bond severed so suddenly with his dragon, a bond you understood was not so different from the ones your own kind shared with the great whales that sometimes let mermaids ride upon their backs through the deep currents. You felt sad and helpless and entirely too far away to do anything about either, your own chest aching in sympathy for a boy you did not even know the name of yet.

Trinkets, you thought at last, retreating slowly deeper into the water where the cold and the dark could swallow the strange, unfamiliar feeling sitting heavy in your chest. I will bring him pretty things. Pretty things always help. Everyone knows that.

By the time Jace made it back to Dragonstone, disguised as best his battered state allowed, the sun had long since set and the castle had already begun to mourn a prince presumed lost at sea.

Rhaenyra, who had spent the whole of that day and the one before convincing herself, against every hope, that he was truly gone, very nearly lost her composure entirely at the sight of him standing whole in the doorway of her solar, swaying but breathing, and threatened violence on anyone who dared suggest it a cruel trick before she was even certain of it herself.

Then he was close enough to touch, close enough that she could feel the warmth still clinging to him despite the cold seawater soaked through every layer of his clothes, and she crossed the room in three swift strides and pulled him into an embrace so fierce it near cracked his ribs, one hand cradling the back of his neck the way she had when he was small enough to carry on her hip.

She pulled back only far enough to strike him hard across the face, the sound of it sharp in the quiet room, then dragged him straight back into her arms before he had time to recover from either the blow or the embrace that followed it.

"Never," she whispered fiercely against his hair, "never again. Do you understand me?"

Jace made no complaint about any of it. He only held on, breathing in the familiar smell of her, flowery and something that had always simply meant home no matter where in the world he found himself, and let himself be scolded and forgiven in the very same breath, over and over, until the shaking in his hands finally began to still.

There would be time to explain everything later, the mermaid and the potion he did not yet know he would go looking for and the strange ache already settling in his chest at the thought of never seeing her again. Tonight he only wanted this, his mother’s arms and the solid stone floor beneath his feet and the simple, overwhelming relief of being alive.

It was two full days before he saw you again, two days that felt considerably longer to both of you than their number suggested.

He had taken to walking the shore each evening as the sun went down, though he offered no one an explanation for it beyond a vague murmur about wanting air, and Rhaenyra, watching her son closely for any sign of the grief she knew still sat unresolved in him, chose not to press the matter, not yet.

On the second such evening, with the light turning gold and heavy across the water at the very edge of dusk, a small shape broke the surface some distance out from where he stood. Only your eyes showed at first, wary, scanning the beach with the caution of a creature that had learned, however briefly, exactly what danger humans could pose. Once you were certain he was truly alone, no soldiers, no crossbows waiting in the shadows, you swam closer, arms full of things gathered carefully from the seafloor over the two long days you had spent working up the courage to return.

He laughed before he could help himself, disbelieving, because you had brought him what looked like a small fortune of drowned treasure: coins gone green with centuries of salt, sea glass worn to the smoothness of river stones in every colour from deep emerald to pale, milky blue, pearls still crusted faintly with the ghosts of the shells that had once held them, all of it cradled carefully against your chest as though it were the finest gift any king had ever received.

"For me?" He pressed a hand to his own chest, incredulous, and you beamed and nodded so hard your whole body shook with the force of it, tail flicking once against the shallows in what he would later come to recognise as excitement.

"I have nothing half so precious to give you in return," he said, quieter now, kneeling properly in the wet sand so that he was closer to your level, and you shook your head firmly, as if to tell him that was hardly the point of any of it, that gifts given freely required nothing given back.

He knelt at the waterline for a long while that evening and talked, filling the silence you could not, telling you his name, his House, that he was a prince of Dragonstone and heir to something called an Iron Throne that sounded, from the little he explained, far heavier a burden than any crown ought to be. Your eyes lit at the word prince, delighted, and you pointed to your own chest in turn, tapping it twice for emphasis.

"A princess, then?" he guessed, and you nodded, pleased as anything with yourself, and something in his chest that had been wound painfully tight since the moment the water closed over his head two days before finally began, slowly, to loosen.

You tried, that first proper evening, to tell him other things too, though the telling was slow and clumsy without words. You drew shapes in the wet sand with one finger, a rough sketch of a tail, of waves, of something that might have been a whale or might simply have been a very poor circle, and Jace watched with a fascination that made you strangely warm beneath your scales, guessing at your meaning and laughing softly whenever he guessed wrong, which was often.

When the moon rose high enough that you knew you had to leave, you leaned in and pressed a quick, shy kiss to his cheek, as if to tell him not to be sad any longer, that you would return, that whatever grief still lived behind his eyes need not be carried entirely alone. That Vermax lay peacefully beneath the sea. And if he had been pretty enough to catch a second glance from you even amid the chaos of a burning battlefield, well.

You had always liked pretty things, and you saw no shame in admitting it, even silently, even only to yourself.

In the days that followed, Jace found himself buried in the library far more often than seated at council, a fact that did not escape his mother's notice for long. The war, if it could even still be properly called that, had cooled in the aftermath of the battle into something closer to a wary, watchful peace, both sides circling cautiously around the idea of parley rather than open slaughter, and so Rhaenyra could afford, for the first time in longer than she cared to admit, to spend her worry on her son rather than entirely on her crown.

It was on the seventh day since his return that she finally cornered him about it, finding him hunched over a table stacked high with scrolls he had clearly been picking through for hours, Daemon lounging nearby against a bookshelf with a look of a man who had already scented an amusing story and had no intention whatsoever of leaving before he heard the whole of it.

"The one who saved me from the water," Jace admitted at last, ears burning red under his mother's steady gaze, "was a mermaid. I have been meeting her at dusk every evening since. She brings me gifts."

Silence, and then Daemon's low, delighted laugh rang out across the quiet library. "A fish," he said, "has stolen my son’s heart. Rhaenyra, did you hear that? A fish."

"She is not a fish," Jace snapped, mortified, colour flooding all the way up to the tips of his ears, and would say nothing further no matter how Daemon pressed him for details, though his ears stayed scarlet the rest of the evening and he refused, quite pointedly, to look either of them in the eye.

It was only once they were alone, Daemon finally chased off by some matter of ships needing his attention, that Rhaenyra asked, more gently now, what exactly he hoped to find buried in all those old scrolls.

He confessed it slowly, haltingly, that he was searching for some means of letting you speak properly above the water, because you listened to him so patiently each evening, tilting your head at his every word as though nothing he said could ever bore you, and he found, to his own quiet surprise, that he wanted very badly to hear your voice in return, to know what you sounded like when you laughed instead of simply seeing it in the curve of your mouth.

Something in her face softened at that, the last of the earlier sternness melting away entirely. She crossed the room and pressed a kiss to the crown of his head, something she would often do when he was but a babe and even now.

"I nearly lost you once already," she said quietly. "I do not think I would survive losing you a second time, not truly. If this girl from the sea brings you peace after everything, then that peace is worth more to me than I can properly measure. I will help you find your answer, if I am able. You have only to ask."

He thanked her, throat tight, and went to bed that night lighter than he had felt in a very long time.

By the tenth day, though, his search had turned up nothing but dust and disappointment, page after page of tidal charts and shipping records that told him everything about the sea and nothing at all about the creatures who lived beneath it, and he was scowling so fiercely at a particularly useless scroll that he did not hear Baela approach until she dropped a stack of books onto the table hard enough to make him jump nearly out of his seat.

"What have I told you about pouting, cousin? It hardly befits a prince, especially not one so recently returned from the dead."

"I am not pouting," he said, pouting.

She laughed, unbothered, and pushed the books toward him anyway, settling into the chair across from him with the satisfied air of someone bearing very good news. "Found these buried in the old archive, behind a shelf half the household seems to have forgotten existed. Scrolls on sea creatures, potions, that sort of thing, all written in the old tongue. Some of it looks to go back to Old Valyria itself, if the binding is anything to judge by. Thought they might serve you better than moping about the library like a wet cat."

His whole face changed, disappointment giving way so suddenly to hope that Baela laughed again just watching it happen. He thanked her so earnestly, gripping her hands in both of his, that she looked half embarrassed by the whole display and waved him off with a mock scowl of her own, and then he buried himself in the texts for the rest of the day and well into the night, barely stopping to eat, ink staining his fingers as he copied out passage after passage by candlelight.

The gods, it seemed, had finally decided to smile down upon him after everything, because tucked among the brittle, crumbling pages he found precisely what he had been searching for all along: an old Valyrian draught, described in cramped, faded script, said to grant a creature of the sea, mermaid or siren alike, a brief and temporary span of human legs, the magic bound to fade again once enough days had passed.

Gathering the ingredients took the better part of two more days, some of them common enough to find in any well stocked kitchen and others requiring correspondence sent quietly to a maester on the mainland who asked no questions he clearly did not wish answered, and finding an alchemist both skilled and discreet enough to brew the whole of it properly took longer still. But by the fourteenth day since the battle, Jace stood at the shoreline at dusk with a small vial clutched tight in one hand, its contents glowing faintly violet in the fading light, and his heart hammering somewhere up near his throat.

You surfaced as you always did by then, cautious first, scanning the shore out of old habit, then delighted once you saw him standing alone, swimming in swiftly with your usual haul of shells and drowned bottles clutched against your chest. He knelt at the waterline and, for once, did not simply talk about his day or ask after yours in the halting, gestured way you had both grown so used to.

He explained the potion instead, slowly, carefully, holding the vial up so you could see the strange violet light swirling within it, watching your face closely all the while for any sign that this was too much, too strange, too great a thing to ask of you.

You went very quiet. Your brow furrowed the way it always did when you turned something over carefully in your mind, weighing it from every side, and Jace, who had come to know that expression well over a fortnight of evenings spent together, made himself sit still and wait, though every part of him wanted to fill the silence with reassurance.

"It is only if you wish it," he said softly, when the silence had stretched long enough that he could not help himself any longer. "I would never have you feel forced into anything on my account, not after everything you have already given me. If you would rather not, I will understand completely, and I will still come to see you each evening, just as I have."

You studied the vial a long moment more, turning the choice over one final time, thinking of your sisters and the warnings you had grown up hearing about the dangers of the world above, of legs that were not truly yours and a voice that might vanish again the moment the magic faded.

Then you looked at him, at the earnest hope he could not quite hide no matter how he tried, and something in your face settled at last, resolve chasing out the last of the hesitation, and you nodded.

He could have wept from the sheer relief of it. He handed you the vial with hands that were not entirely steady, and you drank it down in a single determined swallow, immediately screwing your face up at the taste, which was somehow both bitter and sickly sweet beneath it, like rot dressed up in honey, and Jace laughed at the disgusted noise you made.

The change came almost at once, faster than either of you had quite expected. Your tail began to glow faintly from within, the violet light spreading through the coral pink scales, and then, slowly, the scales themselves began to dissolve and reshape, splitting and lengthening before your very eyes.

You watched it happen to your own body with something closer to wonder than fear, propping yourself up on your elbows in the shallow water to see it better. It did not hurt, not truly, only felt strange, an unfamiliar pulling and settling sensation that ran the length of what had been your tail only moments before, and then, quite suddenly, you had legs. Two of them, unfamiliar and entirely new to you, kicking weakly in the shallows as you tried, with no success at all, to make them do anything useful.

It was Jace who first remembered, with a start that nearly gave him whiplash, that you now had absolutely nothing on at all beneath the water. He spun to face the other direction so fast he nearly lost his footing on the wet sand, hurriedly unclasping his own travelling cloak and passing it back over his shoulder to you without turning around, ears burning scarlet all over again.

"Here, please, wrap this around yourself, I am so sorry, I did not think- I should have thought of it before you drank the wretched thing."

You took the cloak, bewildered by the whole strange business of clothing, and wrapped it clumsily about yourself as best you could manage with limbs that still refused to cooperate properly.

"Why," you whispered, voice thin and strange and entirely your own, and both of you went utterly, completely still.

"You spoke," Jace said, turning back around despite himself, eyes wide with wonder, all thought of modesty forgotten entirely.

"I did," you said, marvelling at the strange, thin sound of your own voice carrying through open air, so unlike the way words moved and pressed through water, lighter somehow, and stranger, but yours all the same.

He knelt properly before you then in the wet sand, something almost formal in the gesture despite how thoroughly absurd the whole moment truly was, both of them soaked and shivering and grinning like fools, and asked if he might finally know the proper name of the maiden who had pulled him back so stubbornly from death's door.

You told him. Your name, spoken aloud for the first time in your life, and that you were the seventh daughter of a house that ruled beneath the narrow sea, a true princess in every sense, just as you had claimed all along through nothing but gestures and a proud tilt of your chin.

"I know this may only last a short while," Jace said, still kneeling, still holding your hands as though he feared letting go might undo the magic.

"And I mean to keep searching, if that is what you wish, for some way to make it last longer, or even permanent. But for now, will you come and meet my family properly? They ought to see, with their own eyes, the girl who saved their prince from the bottom of the Gullet."

You tried to stand at that, eager and entirely too confident in limbs you had possessed for all of ten minutes, and discovered immediately that legs demanded a coordination and strength the sea had never once asked of you. You stumbled, pitched forward, and landed hard on your knees in the wet sand with a startled, frustrated huff.

You tried again, gripping his shoulder for balance this time, and managed perhaps three wobbling steps before your legs betrayed you a second time, sending you tumbling sideways with a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a groan of pure exasperation.

Jace, biting back a laugh of his own though it clearly threatened to escape, knelt beside you and tightened the cloak properly around your shoulders, then slid one arm behind your back and the other beneath the crook of your knees, lifting you up into his arms with far more ease than his still-recovering body should reasonably have allowed.

"I will teach you to walk properly," he promised, adjusting his grip as you settled, somewhat stiffly, against his chest, your new legs kicking experimentally against nothing at all. "Though I think that particular lesson is better suited to daylight and a rather softer patch of ground than this. Just now I have limited time before the magic fades, and I intend to make the very most of it while I can."

The jaws that dropped when Jacaerys Velaryon strode into Dragonstone’s great hall carrying a girl in his arms, salt still drying in tangled waves through her hair, wrapped in nothing but his own travelling cloak and kicking her bare feet with open, delighted fascination at the strange new sensation of having feet at all, were a sight none of the household would soon forget, and several among the kitchen staff would still be whispering about weeks later.

Baela nearly dropped the tray she was carrying. Rhaena’s mouth fell open mid sentence and simply stayed that way. You met Rhaenyra and Daemon’s twin looks of open astonishment with wide, curious eyes of your own, entirely unbothered by the attention, as though growing an entirely new pair of legs within the hour were the most ordinary thing in all the world, and gave the queen a doe eyed stare that made it very difficult indeed for anyone in that hall to remain suspicious for long.

Daemon was the first to find his voice, low and disbelieving, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Well- damn. He wasn’t kidding about the fish.”

Rhaenyra’s palm found the back of his head before he had even finished speaking, a sharp, swift smack that made him yelp and rub at the spot, wounded.

“Mind your tongue,” she warned, though there was little real heat in it, her gaze already softening as it moved from Daemon back to her son and the girl held so carefully in his arms.

In the end, there was little else for anyone present to do but believe it, however improbable the tale sounded when spoken aloud: that the lost prince of Dragonstone had indeed been pulled from the bottom of the sea by a little mermaid, and that she, in turn, without quite meaning for it to happen at all, had followed him all the way home.

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You’re six when you visit Tyrosh for the first time.

Your father, Lord Jason Lannister, is invited to the Archon of Tyrosh’s residence; it is not uncommon for your family to receive invites from all around the Known World, but it is rare for your father to accept them. Most of the time he either goes by himself or sends someone in his stead, but for some reason he has decided to bring you all this time. You all meaning you, your mother and your sisters, Cerelle and Tyshara. 

“I heard your father is searching for a good knight who is willing to watch over you,” your septa tells you, merely days before your departure. “That’s why the arrangements for the voyage are taking so long.”

You are not a difficult child by any means. You behave, listen to what your nurses and septa tell you, and you do everything that they ask of you. It’s just that you have… a tendency. 

Adults can be boring sometimes, and you’re always quiet, rarely interrupting their conversations. Oftentimes you find yourself involved with them simply because your father wants to show off his youngest daughter, the child who’s the perfect picture of how a Lannister should be. And oftentimes, if not always, you simply find yourself… just wandering off, once the attention isn't on you anymore.

You’re so quiet hardly anyone notices your disappearances, usually, but when someone does, it’s chaos. Your parents have a talent for always thinking about the worst scenarios possible, so, if you’re missing from a feast, then surely someone must have kidnapped you. Only for you to be found napping in the garden, curled on a bench like a cat not even ten minutes later. 

You have yet to receive any harm from this tendency of yours, and when it’s between Casterly Rock’s walls, there’s hardly any risk of harm, since it’s well guarded and there’s hardly anything dangerous in there. Tyrosh, however… 

“How many times does she have to sneak off before something bad happens?” Johanna always complains to her husband. “Yes, we are guarded, but who knows who could be hiding within these walls — there's men out there that would do anything for a single golden coin, and we surely don’t lack in that regard. When she sneaks off, nobody notices– and that’s because she’s quiet, and small, and easy to bore. But she is your daughter, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one day we couldn’t find her after a feast and a request for ransom is found in her stead.”

So the search for a sworn shield began. Jason is mostly looking for already experienced knights; it probably won’t be a hard job, they’ll just have to follow you around — plus, he pays good coin. If the knight really wants it, then he can surely act like a nursemaid for you. 

After good research, Ser Morren Westerling is chosen. He’s one of your mother’s distant relatives, an old man in possession of just a title, who fought in the Stepstones and has won a good amount of turneys and melees since then for your father to repute him a good enough candidate. 

Ser Morren is introduced to you the same day you're supposed to leave for Tyrosh. He's a man well in his fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and beard, tanned skin and an ugly scar on his chin. He wears the newly made armour your father had commissioned for him and a red coat with silver linings, also a gift from your father. Clearly, he wants him to be recognisable. 

He looks you up and down, then looks to your father. “I assume I’ll escort your three daughters?”

Your father shakes his head and gently pushes you in front of him. “No, just her. She's my youngest and tends to wander off. Be careful to follow her and make sure she doesn't get hurt or taken.”

The knight blinks. “Ah.”

Your father raises an eyebrow, amused. “‘Tis not what you were expecting?”

He shakes his head. “No, no, it is just… I think this is the most peaceful job I have ever taken.”

The Lord shrugs his shoulders, moving a hand up to smooth his cape. “Be good at it and you'll be allowed to stay in my castle as a guard for as long as you'll like. Or, depends, for as long as my daughter likes.” he turns his attention to you, kneeling down to your level. “This is Ser Westerling. He'll accompany you during our time in Tyrosh. Be good for him.” 

He leaves you with a pinch on the nose and a kiss on the forehead, and you're now in the care of the nursemaid, Ser Westerling and under the watch of your sisters, who are more than happy to coo and play with you. They're way older than you, now almost two-and-ten each, but always ready to dress you up and make up stories for you to play with your dolls. 

The carriage ride to Lannisport is quick compared to the weeks of traveling by sea that take to get to Tyrosh; you discover that you get terribly seasick, so most of your time on the boat consists in puking in a bucket and crying while being comforted by your parents, your sisters or the nursemaid. Your mother sings to you, even if seasick herself, while your father tries to console you by telling you all the gifts he'll buy you once you reach the Free Cities, which by now to you look like a mirage. But they aren't. 

You arrive at Tyrosh at night, when you're already passed out from the nausea that's been plaguing you since the voyage started, and get welcomed by the Archon’s advisor, who shows you your chambers for your stay. 

Tyrosh is as your father promised: shiny, full of merchants with marvelous products and crystalline sea waters. By day you explore the city with the Archon as chaperone, and your father makes sure to make up for the voyage by buying you double the things he had promised to get you. But Tyrosh has a big problem.

There are people in cages. 

You don't understand why they would be there, but when your mother sees them, she makes sure to make you look the other way. That is, until you look the other way and you see something that catches your eye. 

There are two little lion cubs. They're dirty, thin and a bit mangy, surrounded by mosquitos and other bugs, sleeping but looking dead. One cry from you is all your father needs to be on high alert, immediately turning around. “What is it, love?”

You just whine, finger moving to point at the little cubs. “Daddy, I want them.”

Your father raises an eyebrow, the Archon joining you all. “What might the matter be?”

“She wants those… kittens over there,” Jason replies, wincing, clearly not too fond of flea-infested lion cubs. “I'll buy you bigger and better kept lions back at Westeros if you want them, love. Those are dirty, malnourished and probably ill.”

The Archon nods. “Those are kept for arenas. Usually they're bought with the intention of mostly starving them for games with gladiators.”

You sob. Your mother glares at your father, who raises his hands in defeat. “Fine, fine, we'll take them.” 

The cubs are a girl and a boy, so it is only fair you name them Jonquil and Florian, after the mythical lovers that Queen Alysanne and King Jaehaerys were once compared to. They're dirty and full of fleas, but your father has them cleaned by the staff of the palace so that their fur — the parts of it that isn't ruined, burned or fallen off — almost shines gold. 

You try to play with them in the evenings, under the watchful gaze of Ser Warren, but they don't seem to trust you. They flinch back every time you approach and barely even accept the food the servants leave for them. They wince every time a loud noise is heard and hiss when anyone tries to pick them up, baring their teeth like wild animals — which, you guess, they are. 

You start taking your meals in your chambers, only to take the beef out of your plate and bring it to the little cubs. Slowly, they start eating from the plate, soon enough from your hands — and before you even know it, they let you pet them. The boy purrs when you scratch his belly, while the girl meows happily when you caress her head and have her try on your sisters’ necklaces, which are small enough to fit on her neck. 

As they get plumper and healthier, they start following you around, hiding under your skirts and rubbing against your legs, looking for scratches and treats, climbing your gown with their little nails and meowing loudly when you don't give them what they want. Your sisters make sure to keep away from them, as they are pretty skittish and the kittens are still pretty uneasy around people other than you, and the same thing goes for your mother. The only one who actually has the courage to speak up against the cubs is your father, who gently approaches you one day about leaving them behind — either reselling them or leaving them for the Archon to deal with. 

The start of your crying is all it takes to make him relent. So, Florian and Jonquil go back to Westeros with all of you, with brand-new shiny golden collars around their necks, depicting the Lannister emblem on the medallion. 

Not even two moons later, a feast in honor of Prince Jacaerys Velaryon’s seventh nameday is held. 

You’ve never been to King’s Landing before — you’ve never really traveled that much since before this summer, actually. It’s just that you’re finally old enough for your parents to bring you along wherever they go. And, of course, wherever you go, Florian and Jonquil follow. 

They’re now four moons old — at least you think, by what the vendor had told your father — and they are growing quickly. They both still have some belly fat and are always looking for cuddles, and mainly for that, they are your best companions during the day and night. 

They sneak under the covers of your bed at night and follow you during the day; they play with you, attend lessons with you — usually sleeping or tearing down the drapes — and they even sit by your feet at the table during breakfast, lunch and supper. They have now become your favorite and most loyal companions, and the same thing can be said for Ser Warren, who never lets out so much as a cough as he silently follows you throughout the day, never complaining nor saying anything against you. So it is only fair they all follow you on the journey to the Crownlands. 

The voyage is less burdening than the one to the Free Cities, as it is completely done by carriage, and you are happy to babble all you know about the Capital to Ser Warren, who only pretends to be annoyed by it, you're sure. You repute yourself pretty good at reading people, and you just know he’s actually interested in all the facts you know. 

You are welcomed by your uncle Tyland, who’s Master of Coin in King Viserys’ Small Council. You jump into his arms before your parents can stop you, and he gleefully catches you, holding you tight. “Ooh, look at you! How you have grown, my girl!”

You giggle, hiding your face in his shoulder. “Hi, uncle Ty,”

Tywin is your father’s brother and your favorite uncle — not that you have any other than him. All their brothers died before you were born, so even if they often have some discrepancies, they hold each other deeply close to the heart. Your uncle always showers you and your sisters with gifts, cherishing the little time you spend together, as he has no kids of his own and probably never will. That being said, every occasion is the right one to dote on you three.

The days at the Red Keep are mostly spent in the gardens with Florian and Jonquil, under the watchful eyes of your mother and the other ladies of the court, occupied in gossiping and drinking tea as their husbands go on hunts and talk about politics and discuss business. Most of the ladies are with their children too, some younger, some older, all playing together — princes included. As the Queen has made it clear to your father that she doesn’t want your cubs anywhere near her, her family or her entourage, Jonquil and Florian are let out of the room specifically organised for them only for walks in the hill behind the Castle. 

Queen Alicent and Princess Rhaenyra are never at the small parties on the same days — usually when one is present the other is absent, a thing the ladies have noticed with particular amusement, speculating about the hate going on between the two. 

You mostly keep to yourself, too shy to approach the other kids, and often tend to the flowers in the gardens, teaching Ser Westerling the meaning and provenience of each one like he’s a particularly interested botanist and not a guard tied to your side by a contract. That is, until one day you are brutally and unmannerly interrupted by the Prince himself.

Prince Jacaerys is the main reason your family is in King’s Landing, and also in line to the Iron Throne as his mother’s heir. He is rowdy and loud, like children his age tend to be, so it’s not a new thing to see him covered in mud from head to toe. He has his hands behind his back, blushing furiously under your confused gaze, as Ser Warren raises an eyebrow, glaring in an unamused way at him. The children snickering and whispering behind the Prince, combined with how red he is and the flowers the knight can see he holds behind his back, give away his intentions immediately. 

“I– I…”  the Prince stumbles upon his words, “W– would you like to be my princess in the game?” At this, he holds out the flowers he has clearly just ripped from the garden, some still with dirt and roots attached. You gasp, and being the lover of knight tales as you are, of course you accept, cheeks rosy. You take his flowers and let him drag you to the ‘fortress’ you’ll be held prisoner at — a big bench at the center of the garden — where the ‘dragons’ — meaning two boys you don’t even know the names of — try to fight off the ‘knights’ — also known as princes Jacaerys and Lucerys Velaryon. Three girls sit far across from you, huffing and puffing, probably angry that they weren’t asked to be the princess. 

You sit in your fortress-bench, counting your flowers’ petals and humming songs as the boys fight in the mud with wood swords, screaming and insulting each other. Your mother, Princess Rhaenyra and the other ladies watch from their table, chuckling between themselves — especially when it’s Lucerys who manages to get out of the scuffle first, condemning his brother to fight the other two boys alone, taking your hand in his and declaring eternal love and protection for you. 

Rhaenyra starts laughing uncontrollably, looking at your amused mother. “Looks like the children get along!” she muses. That is until Jacaerys manages to free himself from the hold of the other two kids and smacks his brother as hard as he can in the head.

“I was supposed to save her!” he screams, glaring at his brother, who smacks back. “Well, then you should have fought harder!”

You dramatically gasp, sensitive and easy to scare, and all it takes is a whimper from your mouth for Ser Warren to come to the rescue, taking you by the armpits and bringing you to your mother as you start crying while the boys continue fighting. Johanna coos and wipes your tears, chuckling a bit to herself. “My girl, there’s nothing to cry for.”

Princess Rhaenyra has gone to scold her boys, demanding an apology on your behalf; Lucerys sheepishly asks sorry, while his brother — cheeks all red — gets on his tippy toes and leaves a wet, awkward kiss on your cheek. His mother gasps. “Jacaerys!” she hisses. “That is no proper way to behave! Aren’t you ashamed?”

Your mother laughs it off, as you’re as red as a tomato, giggling to yourself and fiddling with the velvet of your gown, staring at the kid — completely enamored . “That is no problem, my Princess; she doesn't seem to be bothered by any means.”

A kiss on the cheek is all it takes for you to glue yourself to Jacaerys’ side for the days that come, clammy hands usually tied together, a smile on your face and a pout on his. The Prince is quite spoiled and grumpy, you’ve discovered in the time you spend together, but he is also pretty funny — especially when he plays pretend as King Jaehaerys and insists on you being Queen Alysanne. 

So, when one day he invites you to the training yard to see his sword skills, you can’t find it in yourself to say no — because, as your mother says, you may have a tiny, itsy bitsy crush on him. It’s probably the whole knight thing that has swooned you, because you love knights and the stories told about them. 

Ser Warren grumpily agrees to accompany you, not before openly stating his dislike for him. “I just wouldn’t want you to get your hopes up, my Lady,” he says, a bit gruff. “Boys at this age tend to be a little… inconsiderate of a lady’s feelings.” 

You don’t even seem to hear him, little feet scrambling to get a good look at the knights down in the training yard, looking for Jacaerys. There are a few other ladies on the balcony, swooning over the actual knights, giggling and blushing while whispering to each other. You take a good look at Ser Harwin, the captain of the City Watch, and even if you’re barely six summers old and definitely too young for him, you get them. Absent-mindedly, you hope that Jacaerys will look like him when he grows up. 

“So, it is true,” Ser Morren murmurs, leaning over the railing to get a better look, talking to himself — clearly not thinking you can hear him. “Good ol’ Breakbones does look like the brat. Seven Hells,”

“Ser Morren,” you tug at his cloak, “could you pick me up? I can’t see really well from here.” 

He complies, holding you steady against him but making sure you can see the training yard properly. You can see Jacaerys and Lucerys holding up wood swords against two other boys with platinum hair — the other princes, you guess — as they spar, mud coating their boots while the Lord Commander yells corrections and tips on how to perfect their stance and combat skills. 

And while Lucerys exits his battle in triumph, holding the edge of his sword to Prince Aegon’s neck while unashamedly turning to look at the ladies — his brother is not so lucky. 

Jacaerys lands in the mud on his side as his arm makes a loud crack, screaming out while Prince Aemond’s grin quickly twists into something more grim. You gasp, Ser Morren immediately ripping you away from the sight as the knights go and hover around the Prince, who’s whimpering, to examine the arm resting in an unnatural position. In the distance, as your guard drags you away, you hear someone call for a maester. 

While this situation doesn’t present any actual real danger for you, Ser Morren knows you well enough by now. You’re a sensitive girl — you once cried because you accidentally stepped on a bug — and if his instinct is right, what he fears most might come any time now–

You burst out crying. Ah, there it is. At least you’re out of earshot from the princes — he wouldn’t want them to start picking on you and calling you a crybaby. He tries to ignore your gut wrenching sobs as he focuses on just finding your mother. 

Once Lady Lannister is found — surrounded by the other ladies of the court, of course, who coo sadly at you and glare at your protector like he’s the reason you’re bawling your eyes out — she shushes you pretty easily, holding you close to her breast and patting your back soothingly. “Oh, my sweet, sweet girl, whatever has happened to make you so sad?” 

Not even a moment passes from when Ser Morren finishes telling her what happened to when the ladies start to gossip. “Oh, have you heard of what happened just yesterday in the Dragonpit? Prince Aemond must still hold a grudge against the princes.” 

What happened, you guess, must be one of their famous squabbles. They’re pretty common between Queen Alycent and Princess Rhaenyra’s children, you’ve found out. “That is in no way a sufficient reason to do such a thing– while Prince Aemond is one-and-ten, Prince Jacaerys is yet to turn seven summers old! It seems clear to me who’s in the wrong, don’t you think so, ladies?”

The back and forth between the gossiping courtiers goes on until your mother spots Princess Rhaenyra behind the colonnade that heads into the garden and quickly shuts her company up with a single, terrifying glare, petting your hair as you let out soft whimpers, still a bit shook from the earlier experience. 

Princess Rhaenyra approaches the group and waves a hand in the air when some of the ladies are about to get up and bow, smiling sweetly at your mother– actually, smiling sweetly at you. “Hello,” she hums softly, trying not to scare you. “My son Jacaerys is asking about you. Would you like to come with me? He’s fine now.” she holds out a hand, offering it to you. 

You look hesitantly at your mother, who nods, then hesitantly hop off her lap and take the Princess’ hand, brushing sheepishly at your dress with your other hand as she guides you into the castle, Ser Morren dutifully right behind you until Rhaenyra’s personal guard takes over. 

Princess Rhaenyra’s hand is warm but firm and she looks a little disheveled — and you wonder if she spent the last thirty minutes yelling at the servants and knights like your father does when you or your sisters get hurt. “He broke his arm,” she tells you quietly, like she’s talking to a babe, “but the maester has already fixed him up. He seemed more worried about the fact that you saw him defeated than about the fracture.”

Your lips tremble, and you look at her with your big, sad eyes. “I don’t care that he didn’t win,” you whine, “I’m sad because he got hurt, and I don’t want him to hurt.” 

She looks endeared. “Well, then, you tell him that.” 

Jacaerys is laying on his bed when his mother opens the door to his room, Lucerys’ sitting by his bedside, moping, as the maester scolds him half-heartedly about the dangers of sparring in the mud-covered surface of the training yard. “I’ll make sure to have a word with Ser Harwin,” he seethes, “oh, yes, he’ll have to hear me because there’s no–”

“Maester Gylde,” Rhaenyra interrupts, spooking him out of his mind and bringing Jacaerys out of his stupor; he grins embarrassedly when he notices you. “Please, let the boy off his shackles. Having to sleep with that thing on his arm for the next three weeks is going to be enough.” 

With that thing, she’s referencing the tight bandage wrapping around Jacaerys’ arm, bulging with a wooden log to keep the bone from fixing crooked. All it takes you is one look at it and bam– you’re ugly crying again. 

It surprises both Rhaenyra and the princes, who all startle when you start sobbing. Panicked, Rhaenyra tries to shush you by taking you in her arms and cooing softly, but it is all for naught as every time she manages to wipe away your tears, more come out as a replacement — and suddenly she understands why your personal guard always takes you to your mother as soon as you start to tear up, instead of trying to console you himself. 

“‘Tis nothing!” Jace raises his arm, hiding a wince of pain, “Look! I am perfectly fine!” 

His mother gently sits you on the bed covers, heart swelling at the thoughtfulness of her son, who still puts your well-being first despite his own injury. With his good arm, Jacaerys drags you in his arms by your sleeve, cheeks red but not nearly as puffy as yours. “Why do you always have to cry about everything?” He grumbles as you smear tears and snot over his doublet. “‘Twas nothing serious! I’d never let Aemond seriously hurt me, and you should know that a true knight never whines about pain and whatnot." 

Actually he just let his uncle hurt him, and he’s still very far from being a true knight, but that's not his concern right now. His concern is making you stop crying as soon as possible — before you drown in your own tears, at least. “But your arm’s broken!” You whine, hands gripping the front of his doublet as you pull him to and away from you like you’re trying to knock some sense into him. 

“It will heal,” he puffs his chest, feigning offense, “are you trying to tell me that I am not a true knight — and that my injury might last forever?”

For a moment, you stop crying — just to look him in the eye. Then, you pull at his hair swiftly, and get off the bed with an incredulous huff. “A true knight never thinks of a lady’s tears as a selfish whim!” You stutter, lips still trembling — he has no idea where you’ve read that, nor where you got the idea that he was trying to do that, but he’s too stunned by the way you pulled on his strands to say anything. “I’ll find somewhere else to dump my tears! Bye!” 

Before leaving, you furiously bow to the Princess, then let the door slam closed behind you — at least, as slammed as it can be by the force of a six-year-old. Rhaenyra blinks. “…Did she really do that?”

Lucerys, pleased, nods happily. “She did.”

Worried, Jace frowns. “Does she even know her way back to the gardens?”

You don’t. He finds you two hours later, crouched in a fetal position in one of the corners of the castle, crying and talking to a little flower that sprouted between the cracks of the rocky pavement. You’re babbling to the plant like it owes you a reply, lower lip sucked in your mouth when you muffle a sob, and Jace doesn’t even know if you’re still crying because of him or because you can’t find your way back to your mother. 

Without saying anything, he pokes you over your shoulder, smiling when you turn to glance at him, and takes your hand in his without too many questions. You’re back in the gardens in less than five minutes, and you throw yourself at your mother’s gowns, breath uneven. Ser Westerling looks at the Prince like he wants to skin him alive, but other than that, no harm is done. 

Later on, the seamstress has to make certain alterations to his nameday chemise and doublet to make sure that the whole bandage, wooden log included, properly fits so that at least it’s not completely clear to anyone who spares a look at him that his arm is broken. The day of the feast is close, and his parents are all but happy with the fact that he’ll spend it with one of his limbs basically useless, but it is what it is.

When his nameday finally rolls around, you’ve already forgotten all about your little spat, and spend all morning in your mother’s chambers with the latter and your sisters, who coo and swoon at the copious amount of jewels that Johanna has brought here from Casterly Rock for the occasion. Florian and Jonquil purr at your feet as your mother continuously swaps jewels and makes you try on new necklaces, rings and earrings, finally settling on golden ornaments decorated with rubies, so shiny that they make you giggle once you finally see yourself in the mirror. 

You twirl in your pink dress, happy as ever, as your sisters still stress about their clothes in the background. While this may be just a feast to you, for them it’s the possibility to scour the various lords and their sons, as in a few years they’ll be reaching the age where the women of your family begin to look for a husband. 

You play with Florian and Jonquil until the time for the feast to start comes, and throttle your way to the gardens right in front of your mother, Cerelle and Tyshara — your uncle is already there, discussing hushedly with your father, who lights up when he sees you. As you always do, you throw yourself in his arms, and he catches you without a hitch, settling you over his hip. “You’re getting too old for this,” he teases, poking your stomach as you squeal. “Just another nameday, and you’ll have to start acting like a proper lady.”

”I am a proper lady!” You insist, nudging him with the back of your hand, “Look! Mommy gave me one of her kissy rings and let me wear her sparkly things!” 

He guesses that the kissy rings are the ones people are supposed to kiss over her hand in greeting, and just to play along he kisses the back of your hand. “A proper lady calls her parents father and mother, doesn’t jump to be picked up, doesn’t have two lion cubs as pets…” 

But you’re already not listening anymore, playing with his hair to make a braid as you babble about your sisters fighting for a collier earlier, then nudging at his earring and asking why it is devious of any sparkling qualities. Your uncle laughs, but he does not look as amused as he usually is. “You’ve made acquaintances with the Prince, niece, have you not?”

You frown, then look at your father. “Daddy, what does ack-uain-tans mean?”

”Acquaintance, darling,” he corrects you, scowling at his brother. “Uncle Ty’s asking if you’ve become friends with Prince Jacaerys.”

Your eyes light up, and you clap your hands excitedly. “Yes! He crowned me Queen of Love and Beauty at the tourney, and he said that we’re going to get married one day.” The tourney where he forced his younger brother to be the horse, by the way. A very attendable tourney, if you were to ask him. 

Your father pales a bit, but not as much as your uncle, who has to hide a nervous chuckle in his fist — something that could easily be passed off as children playing dress up as adults seems to trouble him deeply. “Pardon– married? Aren’t you too young for that?”

”I am now,” you say sagely, “but I won’t be soon enough, and then we’ll get married, and we’ll live in a big castle, even bigger than Cas-ter-ly Rock, and we’ll have lots of babies-“

”Yes, yes, that’s enough for today, have a little pity on your father’s poor heart,” Jason interrupts, coughing like just the thought is enough for him to feel ill. You coo and press a wet, soundly kiss to his cheek, “Noo, daddy, don’t feel bad, I’ll still love you!”

Some of the courtiers are staring by now, chuckling with no real malice as Lord Jason Lannister gets consoled by his own brat of a daughter, and he pats your back, trying to loosen your hold on his neck. “Yes, yes, I know, honey– listen, Uncle Ty wanted to ask you something.” He then sends a pointed look to his brother, almost glaring at him. 

Tyland coughs again. “Prince Jacaerys, in retrospect, is not the most ideal friend you could make in this court,” he nudges toward the other end of the gardens, where Jace’s uncles — Aegon and Aemond — stand, seemingly having a conversation with other boys their age. The oldest has a wine goblet in his hand, and from the redness of his cheeks, it doesn’t take a fortune teller to confidently say that he’s probably already drunk. “Queen Alicent’s kids, however, will surely pay off one day.”

You frown at way-too-old Aegon and cruel, mean Aemond, and you can’t help but think that while it was the latter who broke Jace’s arm, the oldest didn’t do anything to stop him. Besides, in your eyes, he’s far too scary to even approach, as he’s way much taller than you and has a constant snarl on his face. “They’re old, uncle,” you say in the end — because that's what an eleven and thirteen year old look to you — tightening your hold on your father for support. “And mean. They pick on Jacaerys and Lucerys, and even their little brother Joffrey. And he’s a babe.” you add that with a little indignant huff, like you can’t even imagine how someone could bully babes. 

And it is true — whenever they are around, it’s unbearable. You wish you could just play with little Joff in peace while also hoping to give a break to the Princess and various nursemaids, but no. They always have to be around, tormenting his older brothers, and once they even tried to snatch the babe from your arms before your cries alerted Ser Warren — who promptly dragged the boys by their cuffs to meet their sister Rhaenyra, who scolded them for half an hour about their unrighteous treatment of their baby nephew and how such behaviour would not be tolerated, lest they wished to follow their younger brother Daeron to Oldtown. 

(Of course, their behaviour never really stopped, because as soon as Queen Alicent was made aware of the situation, she made sure to always be overlooking when her sons pestered their nephews so that nobody would dare utter a word. At least they mostly left you and Joffrey alone for now, and you were free to continue playing house with him under the careful watch of Ser Westerling.) 

Tyland huffs. “Well, you see– not everything revolves around what you’d like to do and people you actually enjoy, and maybe it would be best if you found out sooner rather than later.” 

“Tyland,” Jason warns, “now you’re going too far. She’ll deal with that when she’s older.” 

His twin clicks his jaw, bowing his head slightly. “However you wish, brother.” He disappears in the crowd soon after without saying goodbye, and your mother and your sisters join you as soon as you lose sight of him. “Husband,” Johanna greets, tense, “what was that about?” 

Your father pats your back reassuringly as you rest your cheek on his shoulder, “Nothing,” he assures her, even if his irritation is clear as day to someone who’s been married to him for a decade and a half, “it’s just… you know how Tyland is. It seems the Royal Court has just worsened his constant concerns and scheming.” 

A lot of whispering later, your mother winces the slightest bit. “We’ll continue this conversation later,” she hisses to her husband as you play with the golden accents of his tunic, “however, you cannot avoid admitting that it is, let’s say… peculiar for Targaryens to have dark hair.” 

“‘Tis not the place nor the time to speak about that,” your father hisses in response as your sisters feign particular interest towards the flower beds, “I don’t want to hear another word about any of this — understood?” 

It’s not a secret that your parents’ union was not one born from love, and even if in the years they have built a good relationship based on mutual respect and trust, your father never refrains from reminding her to stay in her place — that is, being his wife. You look at your mother, at the hidden resentment in her eyes that she always holds for your father, and can’t help but think that you never want to end up with a man like your father — one who even after three children still hasn’t properly warmed up to his wife.

Jason Lannister is a good father, when he wants to be — which, fortunately, is often. Unfortunately, he rarely tries to be a good husband. 

Jacaerys is welcomed warmly by the guests of the feast — and most importantly, he’s accompanied by his grandsire. You curtsy like your septa and sisters taught you to, even if your balance is still not the best, and soon enough the gathering continues without a hitch — just with King Viserys I strolling around like this isn’t just a child’s nameday celebration, but a full-on political event. You guess that after all, it is one of his heirs that just turned eight. 

Even so, for children like you, pretenses are easy to forget: soon enough, Jace is poking your shoulder and pointing to the far end of the courtyard, where other children are already playing, and takes your hand to drag you with him. 

As they watch you go play with the Prince, Tyland whispers to your father, “You must understand, this is not the best friendship she could form.”

Jason laughs. “One with a prince? Tyland, she’s the same child who befriended wild lions.” 

His twin’s voice is low, so that Jason might be the only one who hears, when he says, “Lions and royal bastards are two very different things.” 

Your father’s spine straightens. “No more of this, Tyland, you hear me?” he hisses. “Royal blood is royal blood. And we’re not going to get our tongues cut just because you can’t bear to see children play.” 

Every answer she sought seemed wrapped in careful avoidance, hidden behind sympathetic looks and half-finished sentences. Servants lowered their gazes whenever she approached, while knights and messengers exchanged uneasy glances before offering the same frustrating response: they did not know.

Yet rumors drifted through Dragonstone’s halls like ghosts.

She heard that Prince Jacaerys had fought bravely against overwhelming odds, leading men into battle with the same courage that had always made others follow him. Some claimed they had seen Vermax soaring through walls of smoke and dragonfire, his emerald scales flashing amidst the chaos before disappearing into the flames. Others spoke of burning ships, shattered fleets, and the sea choked with wreckage.

There were survivors, they said. Men who had escaped the slaughter and returned with tales of fire raining from the sky. There were casualties too—far too many to count—and with each passing hour the lists of the dead seemed to grow longer. But when it came to Jacaerys, certainty vanished.

No confirmation arrived. No raven carried his name among the living or the dead. As the days stretched on, the whispers gradually faded, replaced by something far crueler.

Silence settled over Dragonstone like a storm cloud, heavy and suffocating. It was the worst kind of silence; the kind that left room for hope and despair to exist side by side, tormenting her with every heartbeat.

For three endless days, Y/N remained in her chambers overlooking the sea, unable to eat, unable to sleep, staring out the window as though she could somehow summon Vermax from the horizon.

Her betrothed.

Her future husband.

The man she had loved since childhood.

The man who had promised her beneath the godswood trees of Dragonstone that he would return from every battle.

“Because I have something worth returning to.”

The memory hurt.

Especially because she no longer knew whether he was alive.

Outside her chambers, servants moved quietly. Guards spoke in hushed tones.

Everyone feared giving her news.

Because no one knew what news existed to give.

Then, shortly before sunset on the fourth day, hurried footsteps echoed through the corridor.

Y/N barely looked up.

She expected another servant, another apology, another uncertainty.

The door opened.

“My lady—”

She stood immediately. “What is it?”

The maid looked breathless. “He lives.”

Tears immediately filled her eyes, and for a moment it felt as though everything around her had come to a standstill. The world blurred into silence, the air caught in her lungs, and even the frantic pounding of her heart seemed to falter beneath the weight of what she had just heard.

Y/N stared. “What?”

“He lives,” The maid was smiling now. “The prince lives.”

For a moment Y/N simply stood there.

Then she ran.

There was no thought of composure or dignity as she broke into a run, racing through Dragonstone’s stone corridors and down its winding staircases. Guards and servants alike scrambled out of her way, startled by her urgency, while anyone unfortunate enough to linger in her path was quickly left behind.

Her skirts tangled around her legs as she raced toward the harbor.

Toward the ships.

Toward him.

Please.

Please let it be true.

Please.

The harbor was bustling with activity as sailors unloaded supplies from arriving ships, their voices mingling with the crash of waves against the docks. Above them, the distant roar of dragons echoed through the sky, a reminder that even here, the war was never far away.

And standing at the end of the dock surrounded by soldiers was a familiar figure.

Alive.

Gods.

Alive.

Jacaerys.

His dark curls had grown longer, falling untidily around a face marked by exhaustion. Damaged armor hung heavily from his frame, a bandage wrapped around one shoulder while bruises darkened his jaw. He looked worn and battered by battle, but most importantly, he was unmistakably alive.

Y/N stopped running.

A sob escaped her lips.

Jacaerys turned as if he had felt her presence.

The moment his eyes found hers, everything else seemed to fade into the background. The soldiers surrounding him, the bustling harbor, the crashing sea, and even the war itself ceased to matter as his entire focus settled on her.

Only her remained.

“Y/N,” His breath caught. “My love.”

Her eyes immediately filled with tears. “You idiot.”

A smile appeared on his face. A weak but beautiful one.

Then she was running again.

Jacaerys barely had time to brace himself before she crashed into him.

His arms wrapped around her instantly.

Holding her.

Clinging to her, almost desperately.

As if letting go would somehow make her disappear.

Y/N buried her face into his chest.

“You stupid, stupid idiot,” Her voice broke. “I thought you were dead.”

Jacaerys closed his eyes for a moment, allowing himself to feel her warmth against him and the steady beat of her heart. After days of uncertainty and survival, the simple reality that she was truly there in his arms felt almost unbelievable.

“I know.”

“I hated you.”

A laugh escaped him. “You did not.”

“I did.”

“You love me.”

She pulled back just enough to glare at him through tears. “I hate you right now.”

He laughed again.

Gods, even laughing hurt.

But hearing her voice was worth every ache.

His fingers brushed tears from her cheeks. “You cried.”

“Do not sound pleased about it.”

“A little.”

She smacked his arm.

Jacaerys immediately winced.

The smile vanished from her face. “Oh Gods.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are not.”

“I’m alive.”

“You look terrible.”

He grinned. “You always know exactly what to say.”

For the first time since hearing he lived, Y/N laughed.

A watery, trembling laugh.

Jacaerys stared at her.

Gods.

How many times during the battle had he thought of this?

Of her?

When arrows darkened the sky, when ships burned around him, and when Vermax’s cries echoed through the chaos, her face had remained at the forefront of his mind. Even in the moments when death felt inevitable, thoughts of her were what he clung to most.

He had pictured her face.

Over and over.

The one thing keeping him from surrendering to fear.

Now she stood before him.

Real. Alive.

Beautiful.

More beautiful than memory.

His hand rose to her cheek.

The harbor around them had grown strangely quiet.

Everyone watched but neither noticed nor cared.

His voice came out softer than intended. “I thought I would never see you again.”

Y/N immediately looked away, fresh tears appeared.

“Do not say that.”

“It is true.”

“No.”

“Y/N—”

“No,” Her voice cracked. “You are here.”

Jacaerys swallowed.

The pain in her eyes struck harder than any blade.

Slowly, he pulled her closer, resting his forehead against hers. “I am here.”

The words were almost a whisper.

“I came back.”

“You nearly didn’t.”

“I know.”

Silence lingered.

Eventually Y/N spoke. “Did you think of me?”

Jacaerys stared then laughed softly. “Every moment.”

She looked up. “Truly?”

His thumb gently traced her cheek as a soft smile touched his lips. “Every moment,” he murmured before pressing a kiss to her forehead. “When the battle began.” Another kiss followed near her temple. “When our ships were burning.” His gaze softened as he brushed a kiss against her trembling cheek. “And when I thought I might die, you were all I could think about.”

Y/N’s breath hitched.

Jacaerys smiled gently before pressing another kiss against her skin. “I was not thinking of glory,” he said softly. “Nor victory.” His voice lowered as he rested his forehead against hers. “I was thinking about the fact that if I died, I would never get to marry you.”

Her eyes widened at the confession. The prince who commanded fleets, who was destined for greatness, and who always seemed fearless now stood before her looking unexpectedly vulnerable. For perhaps the first time, she could see the fear he rarely allowed anyone else to witness, as though the thought of losing her frightened him far more than any battle ever could.

Y/N cupped his face. “Then do not leave me again.”

Jacaerys closed his eyes, leaning into her touch. “If I can help it, I never shall.”

“You promise?”

“I swear it.”

“On what?”

A smile tugged at his lips. “On my crown.”

“That is not yours yet.”

“My dragon then.”

Y/N giggled. “Dangerous.”

“My life.”

Y/N immediately shook her head. “No.”

His expression softened. “Then I swear it on my love for you.”

Neither spoke for several moments.

Because some promises felt too sacred to interrupt.

Finally, Jacaerys leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers once more.

The harbor had vanished again.

The war had vanished.

Only the two of them existed.

And after days of fear, grief, and uncertainty, Y/N finally allowed herself to believe the truth.

He was alive, and he had returned to her at last. In that moment, she did not see a prince, a warrior, or the future heir to a kingdom; she saw only the man she loved standing before her.

And as Jacaerys held her against his chest, feeling her heartbeat beneath his hands, he realized something that no battle had ever taught him.

Victory was not surviving the Gullet.

The storm had burned itself out sometime before dawn.

Now all that remained was the steady drip of rain from Dragonstone's black stone walls and the distant crash of waves below the cliffs. Pale morning light slipped through the narrow windows in soft ribbons, washing the chamber in silver.

You wake slowly.

Not necessarily because you're rested, but because you're warm. Far warmer than you ought to be beneath a blanket that had long since been kicked to the foot of the bed.

Jace is wrapped around you as though sometime during the night he'd decided that simply sleeping beside you wasn't close enough. One arm is draped securely across your waist, his face buried against the back of your shoulder, his breathing slow and even. His dark curls are a complete mess, and one bare leg has somehow become tangled with yours beneath the sheets.

You smile to yourself.

"You'll complain about your shoulder later," you murmur.

A sleepy sound, somewhere between a hum and a groan, vibrates against your skin.

"I'll survive." His voice is thick with sleep and his grip tightens just enough to pull you impossibly closer. There's something almost boyish about the way he says it, as though it's a victory in itself.

You turn carefully within the circle of his arms until you're facing him. The movement earns another sleepy complaint, though he makes no effort to let go.

Up close, you can still see the faint flush lingering across his cheeks from the warmth of the room. A thin scratch is visible beneath his collarbone, your own fault no doubt.

You remeber is so clearly, how the rain had battered against the windows, how the candles had guttered low, how his forehead was resting against yours while the storm rolled over Dragonstone. But inside your bed chamber, you'd barely noticed.

"You look terribly pleased with yourself," you say.

One eye opens. "Well, I married you, didn't I?"

"Your point being?"

"It happens to be something I am very pleased about." He studies you for a long moment. "I was thinking..." He continues, thumb brushing lazily over your bare waist. "That I should arrange for more storms."

"Oh?"

"They appear to encourage you to stay in bed."

Outside, somewhere beyond the window, comes the deep, familiar rumble of a dragon.

Jace sighs dramatically without lifting his head. "He's awake."

He presses a kiss to your forehead before finally, reluctantly, releasing you. "If Vermax has flown all the way here simply to interrupt my morning," he declares, "I shall have to remind him who hatched him."

You grin as you reach for the discarded shift lying somewhere beside the bed.

By the time you're both dressed the castle has begun to wake around you.

You trail a step behind Jace, fingers loosely hooked around his sleeve more out of habit than necessity. To be honest, it is a habit you've only recently allowed yourself.

When you first arrived as his wife, you had been painfully conscious of every eye that followed you through the castle.

The princess, the prince's bride. Too young, some had whispered when they thought you were out of earshot. Too sheltered or too soft for Dragonstone.

You had smiled through every greeting, learned every name you could remember, and prayed no one noticed how often you got lost in the twisting corridors of black stone.

Jace had noticed.

Three days after your wedding, he'd quietly taken your hand before supper and walked every hallway, pointing out hidden staircases, quicker routes, which doors stuck in damp weather and which windows gave the best view of Blackwater Bay.

"I cannot believe you've spent an entire afternoon making sure I know my way around the castle." You'd said that evening in your chambers.

"Why can't you believe it?"

"You drew me a map."

"It was an excellent map."

"It had little dragons."

"So you wouldn't get bored."

You laugh. "You named one after Lord Celtigar."

"That one looked particularly grumpy." He grins, a quick flash of satisfaction that softens his usually princely composure, and reaches for your hand.

In your mind, the heir to the Iron Throne ought to be careful, composed, forever aware of watching eyes. But Jace rarely seems to remember, or perhaps he simply doesn't care.

A pair of servants step into the corridor ahead.

The moment they see the two of you, they bow hurriedly. "My prince. Princess."

You smile in greeting, Jace nods once, polite but distracted.

Only after they've passed do you realize he never let go of your hand.

Not even for a moment.

"You know," you tease quietly, "there are people who might think you're terribly devoted."

"They'd be right." He looks at you then with a familiar softness, so unguarded it almost steals your breath.

His thumb brushes absentmindedly across your knuckles. "And I'm not inclined to stop simply because people are looking."

Before you can answer, a deep, resonant rumble rolls across the courtyard outside.

Jace exhales through his nose.

"There he is."

You cross toward one of the narrow windows overlooking the inner yard. Far below, Vermax has landed.

The young dragon stands with his wings half-folded, emerald scales still glistening from the night's rain. A pair of dragonkeepers are speaking to him from what they clearly believe is a safe distance.

Vermax is paying them absolutely no attention. Instead, his great head is tilted upward.

Toward this very window.

You laugh. "I think he's looking for you Jace."

Jace joins you at the window. "No."

He follows the dragon's gaze for a moment before the corners of his mouth twitch. "I think," he says with theatrical resignation, "he's looking for you."

As though to prove his point, Vermax lets out another low, expectant chirr, quieter than his earlier call.

You blink. "Surely not."

Down in the courtyard, Vermax chirrs again.

It becomes impossible to deny by the end of the week. Vermax has decided you belong to him.

"No," Jace says flatly one afternoon, watching the dragon nudge your shoulder with surprising delicacy. "Absolutely not."

You laugh, scratching beneath the smooth ridge of emerald scales where you've discovered he likes it best. "What has he done now?"

"He is stealing my wife."

As if personally offended by the accusation, Vermax lowers his head another inch until the broad curve of his snout is pressed insistently against your side.

Jace stares. "You see?"

"He wants attention."

"I gave him an entire sheep this morning."

You can't help the laugh that escapes you, and it echoes across the training yard, bright enough that even a pair of dragonkeepers glance over with amused smiles.

You and Jace turn to go back inside, but only make it perhaps ten paces before heavy footsteps thud softly behind you.

The dragon has stood and started following.

"Vermax."

He stops, tilting his head.

"You can't come into the castle."

It doesn't stop there.

If you choose to read beneath the old weirwood overlooking the sea, Vermax appears within the hour.

If you wander the beach collecting shells after supper, a shadow passes lazily overhead before circling back toward shore. When you look up, the dragon is gliding against the afternoon sky.

The dragon dips lower, just enough that the rush of displaced air sends your skirts fluttering.

You laugh and wave. High above, Vermax answers with a delighted trill.

One morning you step into the gardens alone, intending only to cut fresh lavender for your chambers. You have barely even filled half the basket when a familiar shadow rolls across the flowers.

Then comes the gentle, unmistakable whuff of warm dragon breath.

You don't even look up.

"Good morning, Vermax." The dragon answers with a contented rumble.

He settles himself just beyond the garden wall, folding his forelegs neatly beneath him.

And there he remains.

When Jace finds you nearly an hour later, basket overflowing with lavender, he stops dead.

"You've got to be joking."

"What?"

He points.

Vermax, his great head rests on crossed forelegs, one eye lazily cracked open just enough to keep you in sight.

You walk over, unable to resist stroking the smooth scales along Vermax's jaw.

Jace follows, and you shake your head, laughing, and slip your free hand into his. Immediately, Vermax opens both eyes.

He watches the joined hands for a long, silent moment. Then, with another deep, satisfied rumble, he closes them again.

A couple weeks later, Dragonstone is hosting a small gathering of sworn lords from the Crownlands. Nothing particularly grand, just an awful lot of petitions, trade disputes, and endless discussions that leave Jace rubbing his temples by supper.

You escape the hall as politely as you can.

"I shall only be a moment," you promise him.

His hand lingers around yours before he lets go. "I know."

"You'll survive without me, Jace, I promise."

The sea air is cooler outside. Rain still clings to the black stone, leaving everything smelling of salt and earth. You breathe deeply, grateful for the quiet after hours of smiling at strangers.

You don't notice the shadow until it passes overhead.

A heartbeat later, Vermax lands beyond the outer wall with enough force to make loose gravel dance across the ground.

"You again?" you laugh.

His answer is a soft chirr as he lowers his head, inviting the familiar scratch beneath his jaw.

You indulge him. "You know," you murmur, "your rider insists you're abandoning him."

You continue scratching him anyway.

The interruption comes quietly. "My princess."

You turn. One of the visiting lords, a pleasant enough man whose name escapes you, has stepped into the courtyard. He offers a courteous bow.

"I hoped I might thank you for your kindness at supper."

"You are very kind, my lord."

He smiles. "I confess Dragonstone is rather less… welcoming than I imagined."

You glance at the dragon. "I imagine it has nothing to do with the fire-breathing beats circling at all times."

The lord laughs and takes a step closer.

Vermax's head lifts. The movement is slow enough that, for a moment, no one notices. Until the rumbling begins. It vibrates through the stone beneath your feet and the lord stops mid-sentence.

His smile falters.

Vermax does not bare his teeth, he does not spread his wings, he simply fixes the man with one unblinking emerald eye.

The rumble deepens.

"My lady," the lord corrects takes an instinctive step backward.

The sound stops.

You blink.

"…That was odd."

The lord laughs a little too loudly. "I believe… I shall return inside."

You think little of it.

Until it happens again, and again, and again. Not only with strangers, but with servants and guards. Even dragonkeepers he has known since hatching.

If someone approaches you too quickly, Vermax appears.

If voices grow heated nearby, he materialises as though summoned by instinct alone. He has become a living wall of green scales between you and the rest of the world.

A fortnight passes.

The castle settles into its familiar rhythm, though Vermax never quite returns to his old habits.

If anything, he grows bolder.

By now, even the servants have stopped remarking upon it.

"Your shadow awaits you, Princess," one maid says one morning with a knowing smile.

You peer from the window. Sure enough, a pair of emerald eyes are already fixed expectantly on the tower.

You laugh. "I do believe I've been adopted."

That afternoon, the weather is fair.

Jace has escaped the council chambers looking thoroughly exhausted, finding you exactly where he expected, beneath the old windswept tree overlooking the cliffs, a book forgotten in your lap while Vermax dozes nearby.

Or appears to.

His eyes are closed.

One wing lies stretched lazily across the grass, shimmering green beneath the sun.

Jace watches while walking towards you, finally bending to kiss the top of your head. Then, without thinking, he reaches a hand toward you.

Vermax's eyes snap open.

The dragon rises in one smooth motion, slipping between you and Jace with astonishing precision. His great neck curves across the narrow space, not striking, not threatening, but blocking.

Jace freezes.

For one suspended heartbeat, neither moves.

The dragon's head turns slightly, one brilliant green eye fixed on his rider, Jace stares back.

"...Vermax."

The dragon lets out a low sound, as though asking something only he understands. Then, just as suddenly, he steps aside.

You blink. "What on earth was that?"

Jace doesn't answer, he is still looking at Vermax.

"I've never..." he murmurs.

"What?"

"He has never stood between us."

By evening, Jace has sought out the dragonkeepers; he wants an explanation.

The oldest among them is already waiting when Jace reaches the caverns.

He bows deeply.

"My prince."

"You've noticed." It is not a question.

The old man is silent for a long moment. "...Yes."

"Then tell me."

Another pause.

"There are tales." The dragonkeeper folds weathered hands before him. "And the tales are all I have."

Jace says nothing, but his jaw tightens.

The old man continues carefully. "Dragons know certain things before men do, sometimes."

"What things?"

"Danger." Jace nods once. "Weather." Another nod. "And..." The man hesitates. "Life."

Jace blinks. "...What do you mean?"

"There are old records. Rare ones. A dragon becoming unusually protective of a rider's wife. Of a queen. Of a princess."

"Protective?"

"They guard." The dragonkeeper's gaze drifts toward the mouth of the cavern, where Vermax sleeps beyond the fading light.

Jace remembers every strange moment of the past weeks and his heartbeat quickens.

"No."

"It is only a possibility."

"No."

"Has the princess been unwell?"

"...No."

"Has she been unusually tired?"

Jace opens his mouth. Closes it again.

"And..." the dragonkeeper says gently, "when did the dragon's behavior begin?"

Jace's mind races backwards until he finally remembers the storm. How Vermax had refused to leave the castle, had hovered outside their chambers, nudging him toward the tower when he'd intended to return to his studies.

He'd laughed. "Apparently, he has plans for us."

Three months, almost exactly.

The dragonkeeper watches the realisation settle over his prince's face. Quietly, he says, "I believe... it may be time to send for the maester."

Jace finds you in your solar not five minutes later. You look up from the embroidery in your lap, smiling the moment he steps through the door, but the smile falters almost immediately.

"Jace?"

His hair is windblown from crossing the castle at nearly a run, his expression unreadable in a way you've never quite seen before. He closes the door behind him without a word and simply looks at you, searching your face as though expecting to find something different.

"What is it?"

He crosses the room in three long strides and kneels before your chair, taking both your hands in his. "Have you felt unwell?"

You blink. "...No."

"Not at all?"

"A little tired, perhaps, but you've been working me through every feast and council dinner on Dragonstone." You smile faintly. "I assumed being a princess was simply quite exhausting."

His thumb traces absent circles across your knuckles. "And nothing else?"

"I've slept later than usual."

"You've always liked sleeping late."

You grin, leaning forward to whisper, "I do when my husband keeps me awake half the night."

The corner of his mouth twitches despite himself, though the smile never quite reaches his eyes. "When was your last moon's blood?"

You stare at him. "What?"

He doesn't repeat himself, and slowly, your own amusement fades. You set the embroidery aside. "I..." You pause, thinking. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I've never had reason to count the days so carefully, Jace."

Silence settles between you. You begin counting backwards in your head, tracing feasts, journeys, the passing weeks. Your brows knit together. "A couple of weeks, maybe," you murmur. "I'm not sure."

His expression answers before he speaks. "The dragonkeepers believe Vermax sensed it."

You let out a disbelieving laugh. "Jace."

"They've seen it before."

"Surely they haven't."

"They swear they have."

You shake your head, trying to make sense of it. "So... because Vermax has decided to follow me everywhere..."

"And because he stood between us."

"...he thinks I'm carrying a child?"

"Yes."

You both fall quiet.

"Oh."

It is the only word you can manage, and Jace squeezes your hands.

"I've sent for the maester."

"You've... already?"

"He'll be here shortly."

The maester, when he finally arrives, is kind and discreet, far too accustomed to royal nerves to comment on the tension hanging in the room. He asks a handful of careful questions, his expression growing steadily more thoughtful with each answer.

When he rises from his examination, he folds his hands inside his sleeves and smiles.

"My prince."

Jace has been standing by the window the entire time.

"So?"

The old man inclines his head. "My congratulations."

The room falls completely still. You look at Jace. He looks at you. Neither of you speaks.

The maester continues, almost gently. "If my calculations are correct, Her Grace is nearing the end of her third month."

He leaves you with instructions about rest, diet, and avoiding undue strain, but you hear almost none of it, too focused on the way the room seems to have shrunk around you.

The door clicks shut.

Then Jace crosses the room so quickly that you barely have time to stand before his arms are around you. He buries his face against your hair, holding you so tightly it almost hurts.

You laugh through the tears threatening your eyes.

"I think..." Your voice catches. "I think we're going to have a baby."

He nods once against your shoulder, voice barely a whisper. "I know."

Jace's spiral into overprotectiveness begins with the reasonable things.

"No more riding."

You open your mouth to argue, but are stopped before any sound escapes by a single raised eyebrow.

The maester, entirely unhelpfully, agrees with him.

Then come the stairs.

"If no one is with you."

"Jace."

"They're uneven."

"They have been uneven for a hundred years."

He insists on taking your arm every time you descend them after that.

By the time your gowns no longer sit quite as they used to, he has become impossible.

Servants carry anything heavier than a book. Meals appear in your chambers if the Great Hall is too crowded. Councils are moved rather than asking you to cross the castle, and if you so much as mention feeling tired, Jace is already leading you back toward your rooms before you've finished the sentence.

"You know women have been having children since the beginning of time?"

"I am aware, yes."

"They don't all require an escort to the library."

"I don't care, because you will have one.

Once, you disappear for nearly an hour.

Jace finds you asleep in the late afternoon sun, curled against the warm curve of Vermax's foreleg with a book lying open across your lap.

The dragon is awake. His head rests protectively around you, just close enough to shelter you from the wind without touching.

At Jace's approach, one emerald eye opens. For a long moment, dragon and rider simply look at one another. Then Vermax lowers his head again.

You stir at the sound of footsteps, blinking sleepily up at your husband.

"There you are."

"I've been looking everywhere."

"I was comfortable."

"I can see that."

By the eighth month, you start to begrudingly appreciate Jace's over-the-top efforts.

"I cannot reach my boots."

Jace looks up from the letter he'd been pretending to read. "You reached them yesterday."

"I was smaller yesterday."

He watches you glare down at the impossible curve of your stomach as though sheer determination might convince it to move. After another unsuccessful attempt, you huff dramatically and fold your arms.

"This child is already causing problems."

"Our child," Jace corrects.

"Our child," you sigh, "has stolen my feet."

A smile threatens at the corners of his mouth. With the patience of a man who has accepted this as his fate, he sets the letter aside and kneels in front of you.

"Oh, don't you dare."

"You said you couldn't reach."

"I did not ask you to-"

"You were about to."

He lifts one foot gently onto his knee and makes quick work of the laces.

"Jace, you don't have to do everything you know."

"I know."

"So why do you?"

He finishes tying the second boot before looking up at you. "Because I like taking care of my wife."

A number of weeks later the castle wakes before dawn to the sound of a dragon.

Not roaring; pacing.

The heavy scrape of claws against stone echoes through the courtyard, followed by a low, restless rumble that seems to vibrate through the walls of Dragonstone itself.

You stir beneath the blankets, still half asleep. "...He's at it again."

Beside you, Jace groans into his pillow. "If he has frightened another stableboy, I swear on all that is holy-"

Another rumble.

Closer this time. Longer, almost a whine in nature.

Jace sits up. "...That's odd."

For the past several months Vermax has scarcely left the courtyard beneath your chambers, but he has always been quiet. Content simply to stand and watch.

The windows rattle faintly as his tail sweeps across the stone.

Jace is already pulling on a tunic. "I'll see what's wrong."

You nod, pushing yourself upright with considerably more effort than dignity. He smiles over his shoulder as he ducks out of the room, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

The courtyard is in chaos.

Dragonkeepers stand well back from Vermax, speaking to him in soothing High Valyrian that goes utterly ignored. The dragon paces in tight circles, wings half-spread, head swinging constantly toward the tower above.

One keeper catches sight of Jace.

"My prince."

"What happened?"

"We don't know."

Vermax notices his rider. Instead of calming, the dragon lets out another deep, agitated rumble and immediately turns toward the tower again, toward your chambers. Then, he stamps a forefoot. Hard enough that dust shakes from the walls.

Up in the tower, you're sitting and waiting for Jace when pain tightens unexpectedly across your abdomen.

You stop halfway across the chamber, one hand finding the edge of the table. "...Hm."

The feeling passes as quickly as it came.

Outside, Vermax lets out the loudest cry you've ever heard him make. It rolls across the cliffs and back again.

You freeze before calling out. "...Jace?"

He is already taking the stairs two at a time. He bursts through the chamber doors moments later, slightly out of breath.

Before he can speak, another wave rolls through you. Your hand flies instinctively to your stomach.

Jace's face drains of colour. "What is it?"

"I..." You breathe carefully. "I think..."

Another pause. Then, despite yourself, you laugh. "I think Vermax has solved another mystery."

For one heartbeat Jace simply stares.

Then his eyes widen.

"No."

"I think so."

As if the universe itself objects to his denial, another wave steals your breath. You grip the bedpost but Jace is at your side before you can blink, one arm already around your waist.

"The maester."

His voice comes out far calmer than his expression.

"Someone fetch the maester!"

Outside, Vermax finally stops pacing.

He lowers himself heavily onto the black stone directly beneath your windows, refusing every attempt by the dragonkeepers to coax him away.

His head remains lifted toward the tower.

After hours of pain and effort the world slowly comes back into focus in pieces.

Sound first; soft voices, the distant rush of the sea, the occasional crackle of the hearth. Then warmth pressed against your side. You blink against the haze of exhaustion and find yourself surrounded by dim candlelight and movement that feels almost too gentle for how loud everything had just been.

Jace is here.

He’s sitting half on the edge of the bed, hair dishevelled, sleeves rolled up wrong, a smear of something dark on his cuff that you vaguely decide not to think about too hard. His eyes are fixed on you with a kind of stunned intensity, as if he’s afraid that if he looks away for even a second, this will all vanish.

“You’re shaking,” you murmur, though your own voice barely holds together.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

A beat of silence passes between you before he exhales and finally lets himself lean forward, pressing a careful kiss against your forehead.

“And him?” he asks, like he’s been holding the question in his teeth for hours.

You don’t even need to answer. The little bundle in your arms shifts slightly, a tiny sound breaking through the quiet and Jace goes utterly still. His gaze drops to the child as though he’s afraid it might disappear if he stares too hard.

“He's beautiful,” he says finally.

You adjust the blanket slightly, and the baby nestles closer, face scrunching briefly before settling again. Jace makes a sound that is halfway between a laugh and something dangerously close to breaking.

“I don’t-” he starts, then stops, swallowing. “I didn’t think it would feel like this.”

“You thought it would feel like what?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. His hand hovers near the bundle, stops short, then retreats again like he’s not sure he’s allowed.

“Louder,” he admits.

You huff a weak laugh. “I'm not sure it'll stay this quiet, so we should probably try to enjoy it while it lasts.”

He finally looks at you again, and there’s something undone in his expression that you’ve never seen before. “I need to see him,” he says.

You tilt your head slightly. “You’ve been staring at him for an hour.”

“Alright, I need to hold him.”

You carefully shift the baby into his arms. It’s awkward at first, Jace holding himself too rigid, like he’s afraid of doing it wrong, like one wrong breath might undo everything, but then the child settles against him and something in his shoulders breaks open.

He exhales, slow and unsteady. There’s a long silence where he doesn’t say anything at all.

Then, barely audible, “I can't believe he’s mine.”

You smile faintly. “Yes.”

Jace looks down again, thumb brushing so lightly over the baby’s cheek it’s almost not there. “He looks…” He pauses, helpless. “He looks like he knows things already.”

“That’s probably just you projecting.”

Outside the window, a deep sound rolls through the cliffs. Jace’s head lifts instantly.

“Oh.”

Jace carefully adjusts his grip on the baby, like he’s handling something far more fragile than steel and fire could ever be.

“I should-” he starts.

You raise an eyebrow. “You should what?”

He’s already standing. “I should show him.”

You blink at him. “Jace.”

But he’s not really listening anymore. Not in the way he used to, at least. This is something else, instinctive and almost urgent.

“Jace, it’s freezing outside.”

“I’ll be quick.”

So you watch him wrap a cloak around himself and the baby like it’s the most natural thing in the world, then walk out of the room.

By the time he reaches the courtyard, Vermax is already there.

The dragon is enormous against the grey morning sky, wings folded, tail curled tightly around the stone like he’s been rooted there for hours. When he sees Jace, he doesn’t move at first.

Then Jace steps into the open.

Vermax’s head lowers immediately.

Jace stops a few paces away, breathing uneven, then lifts the bundle higher against his chest.

“This is my son.”

Vermax steps forward, so carefully. The ground still trembles slightly beneath the weight of him, but he is impossibly gentle as he lowers his head until he’s level with Jace’s arms. One massive eye focuses on the tiny face within the blanket.

For a long moment, he does nothing.

Then he exhales. Warm air, slow and careful, brushes over the child like a blessing.

The baby stirs, and Vermax freezes instantly.

Jace laughs under his breath, disbelieving and wrecked all at once. “It’s alright,” he murmurs. “He’s yours too, apparently.”

The dragon makes a soft, almost questioning sound, then lowers himself further until his forehead rests against the stone directly in front of them, as if offering something wordless and absolute.

Jace finally looks up at him properly, smiling.

“Say hello,” he whispers.

Vermax answers with a quiet, reverent rumble that rolls out across Dragonstone.

A month after the Gullet, the castle still smells faintly of medicines, as though the sea itself has followed Jacaerys home and settled in the stone with him.

You have grown so accustomed to it that you hardly notice anymore.

A month ago, you would have given anything to smell it. A month ago, there had been blood. So much blood. But now there are only maesters, all the time.

Three of them stand gathered around the table right now near the window, speaking in low, serious voices while Jace sits in a carved chair looking increasingly irritated with every minute.

Sunlight spills through the narrow panes behind him, catching in his dark curls and turning the edges of them gold, softening him in a way that makes him seem almost boyish despite everything he has endured in the last couple weeks.

His injuries have faded from terrifying to merely alarming. The worst of the bruising is gone, the cuts have begun to heal, and colour has returned to his face, though not yet enough for you to relax.

Unfortunately for everyone else, so has his stubbornness.

You stand beside him with one hand resting lightly on the back of his chair, partly affection but mostly precaution if you're being honest with yourself, because the prince has developed an unfortunate habit of forgetting that nearly dying is supposed to slow a person down.

"Your Grace is recovering admirably," Grand Maester Gerardys says at last.

Jace straightens immediately, as if the words themselves have restored him. Gerardys clears his throat with the patient air of a man who has spent his life delivering unwelcome truths to the powerful. "Recovering admirably, however, does not mean recovered."

Jace slumps back with all the theatrical suffering of a man condemned to the Wall. Gerardys continues as though he has not noticed the prince's offence.

"Your ribs are still mending. The wound to your side has not fully healed. The fever has passed, but weakness remains. Any unnecessary strain could set back his recovery considerably."

Jace folds his arms. "What strain?"

The three maesters exchange a glance, and you immediately become suspicious. Jace notices it too, his brows drawing together. "What strain?" he repeats, sharper this time.

Nobody answers.

The silence stretches, and stretches, and then stretches a little further, until finally the old maester clears his throat again, looking faintly pained. "This includes physical exertion."

Jace nods at once. "Yes, I gathered that, obviously."

"Excessive physical exertion."

"Yes."

"Particularly..." Gerardys pauses, and one of the younger maesters suddenly finds the floor fascinating. "...marital exertion."

The room falls completely silent.

For a single moment Jace simply stares at them. Then his face changes all at once, horror and outrage arriving together.

"I beg your pardon?"

You turn away quickly because you can already feel laughter rising in your throat and you know if you let it out now you will never stop. Beside you, Jace looks scandalised beyond measure. "What do you mean?"

"My Prince-"

"No." The word echoes off the stone walls. "Absolutely not. This is absurd and I refuse to accept it."

Gerardys remains maddeningly calm. "It is only temporary."

"Temporary?" Jace sounds personally betrayed. "You are forbidding me from bedding my own wife."

The younger maester goes slightly red. You stare very intently at the tapestry across the room, because if you look at Jace now you will lose whatever dignity you have left. He points an accusing finger at the entire collection of healers. "I survived a naval battle."

"Indeed."

"I was shot."

"Yes."

"I nearly drowned."

"Correct."

"And your conclusion is that my greatest threat is my wife?"

The maesters look vaguely embarrassed. Jace looks outraged. And suddenly, despite the lingering ache that still lives in your chest whenever you remember the sight of him bleeding on a bed, you feel lighter, because this is familiar. This is your Jace. He's alive enough to argue and complain. Alive enough to glare dramatically at innocent old men and be stubborn.

Your hand slips from the chair to his shoulder, and immediately he covers it with his own. Gerardys notices, and his expression gentles. "My Prince," he says, "the restriction is not punishment."

Jace groans. "I would beg to differ."

A few of the maesters smile despite themselves. Gerardys gathers his papers, "It is only another month."

Jace nearly chokes. "A whole month?"

"Perhaps less, if recovery continues."

"A month."

"You survived the Gullet. Surely you can survive a few more weeks."

Jace mutters something deeply disrespectful under his breath, and you squeeze his shoulder in warning and affection both. His fingers immediately tighten around yours as he looks up at you, exhaustion and frustration playing on his features.

You smile at him, and his expression softens immediately.

Then Gerardys speaks again, and the spell breaks at once. "And separate beds may also be advisable."

Jace's head snaps around, "No."

Silence settles over the chamber. Jace's hand remains wrapped around yours, firm and warm and immovable. "I nearly died, so I am not sleeping without my wife."

They exchange glances and then, wisely, surrender. "Very well."

You lower your head to hide your smile, because truly, there are battles even the maesters cannot win.

That evening the matter should have been settled, at least in theory.

The maesters had spoken, their instructions delivered and their warnings had been repeated no fewer than six times over supper, as though saying them often enough might somehow make Jace more inclined to obey.

Instead, he is attempting to negotiate, which is perhaps exactly what you should have expected from him and yet still feels faintly absurd when he is sitting there shirtless on the edge of the bed, looking incredibly offended by the very concept of restraint.

You sit beside him with a fresh roll of linen in your lap while he holds one arm lifted so you can reach the wound along his side.

The chamber is quiet except for the crackle of the fire and the distant, steady sound of waves striking the cliffs below; night has fully settled beyond the windows, leaving only darkness on the other side of the glass and the warm gold of candlelight within.

Carefully, you peel away the old bandage, and he hisses through his teeth at the movement. You glance up at once. “You are being dramatic.”

"Three arrows pierced my body.”

“A month ago.”

“It still counts.”

You make a skeptical sound and reach for the ointment, though you cannot quite keep the corner of your mouth from twitching. For a few moments silence settles between you. You smooth the salve across healing skin, studying the angry scar that is beginning to form there, the sight still makes something twist painfully in your chest.

There are moments when you look at him and see only Jace; your husband, your best friend, the boy who once raced you through castle corridors and stole lemon cakes from the kitchens with the shameless confidence of someone who had never once been told no in his life.

Then there are moments like this, when memory comes back all at once and with it the blood, the fever, the endless waiting, the terrible certainty, however brief, that you might lose him. Your fingers pause before you can stop them.

Immediately, his hand settles over yours.

He notices. Of course he does.

You lift your eyes, and his expression softens at once. “I am all right,” he says quietly.

“Mm.”

His thumb brushes slowly across your knuckles.

Then, because Jacaerys Velaryon possesses the survival instincts of an overconfident golden retriever, he says, “I still think the maesters are being unreasonable.”

You close your eyes for a brief, weary moment. You had been wondering how long it would take.

“You are recovering from grievous injuries.”

“I am recovering exceptionally well.”

“You still tire walking up stairs.”

“Well, I dislike those stairs.”

You begin wrapping the fresh bandage around his ribs. “They are not unusual stairs, Jace.”

"They are steeper than other stairs."

Despite yourself, you laugh, and his grin appears immediately. He tilts his head, thoughtful in the way that always makes you suspicious.

“What exactly constitutes marital exertion?”

You nearly drop the bandage. “Jacaerys.”

“It is a reasonable question.”

You finish tying the linen perhaps just a little tighter than necessary, and he winces. You feel no guilt whatsoever.

“They were quite vague,” he says after a moment.

“They were not vague. They were, in fact, extraordinarily clear.”

Jace considers this with the air of a man weighing evidence in a trial he has already decided to win. “Perhaps to you.”

“To everyone.”

“Not to me.” His smile widens, and you are suddenly struck by the realisation that the maesters should perhaps have prescribed confinement in separate castles.

“They said strain,” he says, as though he's continuing a perfectly sensible conversation.

“Yes.”

“And exertion.”

“Yes.”

“So theoretically-”

“No.”

“What if-”

“Jace.”

He stops, though only because he is laughing now, actually laughing, and the sound fills the room so easily that for a moment you forget everything else.

“You are impossible,” you inform him.

“I have been told.”

He reaches for your hand, and you let him take it. His fingers close around yours with a warmth that feels almost unbearably familiar, and when he speaks again his voice has lost its teasing edge. “Another month is a very long time.”

You shake your head, smiling softly, but before he can begin constructing another ridiculous argument, you lean forward and press a kiss to his mouth.

The effect is immediate. Jace falls silent, blessedly, wonderfully silent, and when you pull back he blinks once, then twice, as though he has forgotten every thought he was having.

A second kiss lands at the corner of his mouth, then another against his cheek, and with each one his smile grows slower, softer, warmer, until by the third he has entirely abandoned his campaign against the maesters.

You feel rather proud of yourself.

He grins and reaches for you, and you allow him to pull you nearer. The blankets shift around you both as you settle beside him carefully, because he is still healing and you are both painfully aware of it.

His arm slides around your waist. Your head finds its familiar place against his shoulder.

The first week after the maesters' decree is irritating.

The second becomes ridiculous.

By the third, it's infuriating.

Jacaerys Velaryon approaches recovery the way he approaches every obstacle in his life: by refusing to accept that it is truly an obstacle at all.

If the maesters insist upon restrictions, then he will simply find exceptions.

One evening, as you sit beside him on the bed with your book open in your lap, he glances over and says, almost casually, “I stand by my opinion that their instructions were imprecise.”

You do not look up. “No.”

“They never actually provided definitions.”

You turn a page. “They are maesters, Jace, not scholars debating philosophy.”

He sighs, long-suffering and theatrical, and shifts a little closer.

Recently, he has become fond of finding excuses to sit beside you, or hold your hand, or drape an arm around your shoulders, or rest his head in your lap while insisting he is 'too weak' to move despite having spent the entire afternoon arguing in council.

“What if,” he begins. You close your eyes.

“What if,” he repeats, undeterred, “the concern is specifically overexertion?”

“It is.”

“Then surely the solution is simply avoiding overexertion.”

At last you lower the book and look at him properly. His expression brightens at once, as though he has won something merely by drawing your attention.

“Jace.”

“Yes?”

“No.”

He groans, and you return to your book.

Three nights later, he appears to have developed a new argument. You discover this when he is sprawled across the bed with his head resting against your shoulder, warm and comfortable and entirely too pleased with himself.

“What if,” he says thoughtfully.

You nearly laugh. “Again?”

“I have had several days to refine my position on the issue.”

“Gods preserve me.”

“What if I simply did not move very much? You could do all the... moving... uh, like difficult parts.”

You lower your embroidery hoop and glance down at him. He looks entirely sincere, which somehow makes it worse.

“Jacaerys.”

“I am not going to do any part because we are not going to do anything.”

He studies the ceiling for a moment, then turns his head just enough to look at you. “I think you are dismissing my proposals too quickly.”

“I think you enjoy hearing yourself talk.”

“I enjoy talking to you.”

Oh, you hate how good he is at being charming.

His arm slips around your waist. “You know,” he says quietly, “I do understand why you’re worried.”

The humour fades a little. You look at him, but his gaze remains fixed on your joined hands.

“You frightened me,” you admit.

Something flashes behind his eyes. “I know.”

Silence settles between you, gentle and sad and comfortable all at once. Then, because he is incapable of allowing a serious conversation to remain serious for too long, he lifts his head and says, “So that is still a no?”

You stare at him.

Jace immediately begins laughing, and when you throw a cushion at his face he catches it easily, looking delighted by the rejection.

Which, unfortunately, only convinces you that recovery is proceeding exceptionally well.

One morning at the beginning of the fourth week you're standing at the edge of the bedchamber, the salt-laced wind moaning through the open shutters as the last embers in the hearth crackle low.

Jacaerys is desperate today, even more than usual

He lies propped against the pillows, his bare chest rising and falling with quick, restless breaths, the angry red scars along his ribs and hip still mapped in fresh pink, but they are scars now, nonetheless.

It's been two months since the Gullet.

To the naked eye he seems fully recovered — he partakes in council meetings, goes on long walks with you along the shore, is no longer winded by those particularly steep stairs — but the maesters’ edict remains iron.

No strain, no exertion, no touch that might tear what they say has barely knit. Yet here he is, dark eyes fixed on you with shameless hunger, voice low and frayed.

“Please,” he murmurs, the words thick with frustration, his hand extended, palm up, fingers flexing as if he can already feel the shape of your waist.

“I cannot do this, I’m not some broken thing anymore. I feel you every night in my dreams, and then I wake up and you won't even let me touch you properly. I need your hand, your mouth, anything. Just… let me feel you again.”

He sits up a little straighter, a small grin finding his lips, voice dropping to a growl. “You’re aching too, I know it. Two months without feeling how wet you get for me-"

"Jacaerys, stop being so crude, you cannot possibly think-" but he continues, completely disregarding your objections.

"Gods, I’d give anything to see you under me like I used to, but I won’t move. I swear it. Just you, I'll even lie still.”

Your fingers tighten on the bedpost, because you cannot dent he's right. You do miss him, painfully so. You miss the feel of his hands on you and the stretch of him inside you, but reluctance still coils tight in your chest.

You take one hesitant step closer.

The cool stone floor beneath your bare feet gives way to the softness of the mattress as you perch carefully at his uninjured side, your fingers brushing the edge of the linen without yet touching him.

“Jacaerys,” you whisper, “I cannot, the maesters said-” But the way his hips twitch, just once, desperate and involuntary, stops the protest on your tongue.

A soft, helpless sound escapes him, and something shifts inside you, because this, in a way, is also him in pain, except this time you actually have the power to help him.

Your hand drifts over the sheet, hovering just above the bulge you can just start to see emerging beneath the linen.

“You must promise me you’ll lie perfectly still,” you remind him, the words gentle but unyielding, “There are reasons they forbid it; you could open one of the wounds.”

His dark eyes flash, jaw tightening as if he might argue, but apparently the months of forced stillness have left him too raw, too aching, and he nods once, a bead of sweat tracing down his temple.

You smile then, small and maybe a little teasing, and let your fingertips graze the linen over the head of his cock.

Slowly you peel the sheet down, then work on the laces of his breeches before pulling them down and finally revealing him fully to the firelit air.

His cock thick and flushed dark, the vein along its length pulsing visibly as you wrap your fingers around the base with deliberate lightness, still not quite sure how this is going to go.

He groans, low and broken, head tipping back against the pillows, but he holds himself rigid as promised, muscles trembling with the effort.

You lean in, breath ghosting over the sensitive head, and press the softest kiss there, tasting the salt of him while your free hand rests lightly on his uninjured hip to remind him of the boundary.

“Only on my terms tonight, dearest husband,” you whisper against his skin, stroking him once, slow and torturous, savouring the way his breath hitches and his fingers clutch the bedding instead of reaching for you.

“I will give you this, you just lay there and let me take care you.”

You tighten your grip just enough to draw another shuddering groan from him, your thumb circling the slick head of his cock in slow, deliberate strokes that make his thighs tense against the sheets.

He’s so hard it must be painful, the heavy length twitching in your fist with every pass,

The sight of your big, strong husband, normally so commanding, now reduced to biting his lip to keep from thrusting stirs something warm and aching in your chest.

It feels like the biggest relief.

You still remember every moment of the last two months, watching him wince at every breath, lying awake beside his bandaged body while fear gnawed at you both, and now here he is, flushed and leaking for you, trying so hard to obey even as his hips give one tiny, involuntary roll.

It’s adorable, that stubborn flicker of dominance surfacing in the way he grits out your name, only for it to dissolve into a whimper when you lean down and drag your tongue along the underside of his shaft.

His fingers fist the bedding harder, knuckles white, and you can see the war in his eyes, the urge to grab your hair and guide you deeper warring with the maesters’ warnings and his own fragile healing.

“Fuck… just like that,” he rasps, voice cracking with need so raw it makes your own neglected body clench.

You take him deeper into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks with a soft suck that has him arching his head back.

It's as if you're watching him heal in real-time, because he’s becoming himself again, that fierce, passionate man who once pinned you laughing to the furs.

You hum around him, savouring the salt-bitter taste of him while your free hand strokes soothing circles over his tightening stomach.

You pull off just enough to murmur against the flushed skin, teasing the slit with the tip of your tongue until his breath stutters.

“Still, Jace.”

Then you resume your rhythm, slow, twisting strokes of your hand paired with wet, deliberate licks. He trembles beneath you, every suppressed sound proof of how desperately he’s craved your touch.

You quicken your pace with deliberate mercy, not seeing a point in dragging this out any longer than you have to, lips sealed tight around him as your tongue swirls and your hand pumps in steady rhythm, feeling the way his thighs quake despite his vow to stay still.

His voice breaks on your name, half-command and half-plea, while one of his hands finds your hair and grips tight, not that you mind at all.

Finally, he spills hot and pulsing across your tongue, thick spurts you swallow with a soft moan of your own. You keep stroking him through it, gentling your touch as the last tremors fade, watching the tension drain from his battered body until he lies boneless and breathless, dark eyes glassy.

For a long moment afterward, neither of you says anything.

The chamber is quiet except for the soft crackle of the fire and the distant rhythm of the sea beyond the windows. The candles have burned lower than either of you realised, leaving the room washed in warm gold and shadow.

Jace lies beside you with that same dazed, contented smile still lingering on his mouth, as though he has not quite remembered how to put it away.

You glance at him from the corner of your eye and shake your head. “What?”

His smile only deepens. “Nothing.”

“Mhmm.”

He gives a quiet, breathless laugh and reaches for your hand where it still rests atop his stomach, threading his fingers through yours. His thumb moves over your knuckles, warm and absentminded.

The sight of him like this, softened and unguarded, makes something in your chest loosen.

You fuss over him out of habit more than necessity, fetching a washcloth, straightening the blankets around his hips and making certain he is comfortable, searching his face and posture for any sign that he has overdone himself despite every promise he made.

Jace watches the whole business with open affection, his expression growing gentler by the moment.

“My darling,” he murmurs, though there is no real complaint in it. You ignore him. “You are checking on me.”

“Someone has to.”

His teasing fades then, leaving something softer in its place. For a moment he simply watches you, and when he lifts your joined hands and presses a kiss to your knuckles, the gesture is so familiar that it catches you off guard all the same.

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

You look up at him.

The words are not playful nor triumphant, not even particularly clever. Your chest aches unexpectedly, because beneath all the bargaining and persistence and impossible shamelessness, you know what this has really been about.

Weeks of fear. Weeks of recovery. Weeks of being careful. Weeks of wondering whether life would ever feel normal again.

You squeeze his hand, and his fingers tighten around yours at once.

“You do not need to thank me.”

“I do.”

His voice is gentle. “I know I was insufferable.”

You giggle softly. “Do you now?”

Without either of you needing to say anything, Jace opens his arm toward you. You move into it at once, as naturally as breathing, as though you have done it a thousand times before. Because you have. Your head settles against his shoulder, his arm folds around your waist, and the blankets shift around you both as you settle more comfortably together.

Eventually you feel his lips brush lightly against your hair, a sleepy, lingering kiss that makes you smile before you can stop yourself.

“Tired?” you murmur.

“A little.”

“You should sleep.”

“So should you.”

The waves continue their endless song beyond the walls.

“Do not pretend to know my mind,” he had sneered in front of his guards as he turned on his heel and strode away.

Neither of you slept a wink.

Now, the afternoon light pours through the lancet windows, bringing warmth over your mahogany desk. You sit alone in the stillness, the silence broken only by the soft scrape of an iron quill across fresh parchment.

The ink glints wet under the sun, tracing thoughts you had carried in your chest for months—words written not to be sent, but to bleed off the ache in your own heart.

I know I ought to harden my heart against his bitter edges,

You write, the delicate script sloping across the page.

Yet I cannot force the warmth from my blood. He wears his wrath like heavy plate, driving the world away before it can glimpse the fragile truths he guards. He glares at the court as though every living soul owes him a debt, yet I have known the strangely soft nature of his spirit when the noise of the realm fades. I find myself thinking of his touch—how his hands, usually so swift to rest upon a pommel, are astonishingly gentle when he tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear. He speaks endlessly of blood and fire, yet when the keep grows unbearable, he turns to me as if I am his only harbour. I catch him watching me across a crowded hall, and beneath all that terrible fury, there is a steady light I wish I could keep forever.

You pause, setting the quill down upon the bronze dish. You do not write his name at the top. To see Aerion penned beside such soft, vulnerable truths feels foolish, almost dangerous, should any eyes but your own ever find it.

Before the page can dry, a soft knock echoes at the chamber door. A handmaiden peeks inside, curtsying low. “My Lady, your father’s steward is below in the courtyard with the baggage. He asks for a moment of your time.”

“Of course,” you reply, smoothing the wrinkles of your skirts as you stand. You leave the parchment resting open on the corner of the wood to dry, stepping out into the cool corridor and leaving the door unlatched, expecting to return before the hour turns.

Not three minutes pass before the doors creak open.

Aerion steps into the room, and held tight in his right hand, is a small box of carved ivory inlaid with mother of pearl—a ridiculous, needlessly expensive apology.

He has come to make amends in his own terrible, indirect fashion. His ego remains thoroughly bruised from yesterday’s spat, and he has spent the better part of the morning pacing his quarters, rehearsing what to say without sounding like a fool.

“You're not here,” Aerion mutters to the empty silence, a scowl tightening his face as his gaze sweeps the sunlit room. He strides toward the desk to leave the box, but as he passes, a flash of wet black ink catches his eye.

Normally, Aerion would pay no mind to a lady’s private notes or household tallies. But the very first line at the top of the parchment seizes the breath out of his lungs.

…I know I ought to harden my heart against his bitter edges, yet I cannot force the warmth from my blood…

Aerion freezes. His broad shoulders set uncomfortably.

His eyes dart across the opening words.

Because of yesterday’s trouble, his mind instantly leaps to the absolute worst conclusion. A sickening weight drops into his stomach. Another man. His fingers grip the edge of the desk so tightly the wood groans beneath his palm.

He reads the very next sentence, pulse thumping violently in his ears.

…I find myself thinking of his touch… I wish I could keep him forever…

Aerion cannot bring himself to read another word. The sheer agony of it burns through his veins like fire. He snatches the page off the desk, his breath coming in shallow rasps, his eyes darkening with a mixture of profound hurt and panic.

In his haste and fury, his thumb presses firmly over the center lines, crushing the parchment in his fist. He knows only that while he spent the entire night agonizing over how to fix what he broke, you were pouring declarations of love onto paper for someone else.

As if on cue, the doors move open behind him.

You step across the threshold, closing the door behind you with a click. The light atmosphere in your chest withers the moment your gaze lands upon the imposing silhouette by your desk. Aerion stands motionless, backlit by the golden sun. His shoulders are rigid, his knuckles white around the crumpled parchment in his fist. The delicate ivory box sits forgotten on the mahogany wood.

He turns slowly. “Is this why you were so quick to walk away yesterday?” Aerion asks. His voice is dangerously quiet, stripped entirely of his usual prideful veneer. It sounds raw. Bleeding.

He lifts the wrinkled paper, a muscle leaping in his clenched jaw as he fights to keep his composure from shattering. “You sit in your room… writing declarations of love?”

You blink as your heart takes a heavy leap. “Aerion, put that down. You shouldn't be reading–”

“Who is he?” Aerion demands, taking a deliberate step toward you. The suffocating presence of him swallows the space. “Tell me his name. Which lord in this miserable keep has earned such… such absurd devotion from you?”

You stare up at him, taken aback. You look up at the wounded shape of his eyes, at the tight line of his mouth, and then down at the crumpled paper in his hand.

Ah.

“Aerion,” you say softly, taking a step toward him.

“Do not,” he rasps, backing up half a pace, though his eyes never leave yours. He looks so fiercely protective of his wounded pride, trying so hard to play the part of a dragon when his chest is heaving with panicked breaths. “Answer me.”

“You didn't finish reading it.” You stop just inches away from his frame.

Aerion lets out a bitter scoff. “I read enough. I read that you think of his touch. That you wish to keep him–”

“Read the rest.” you interrupt.

Aerion tries to pull the paper away, but you are faster. Your fingers gently catch his wrist, anchoring him in place. The warmth of your skin against his sleeve makes him stiffen.

“Right there,” you whisper, guiding his hand down so his eyes are forced back onto the crumpled parchment.

Aerion’s jaw sets, his teeth grinding together as he tries to resist. But as his eyes flick down to the page out of compulsion, the delicate script catches him once more.

…He speaks endlessly of blood and fire, yet his hands are astonishingly gentle when he tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear. He glares at the court as though every living soul owes him a debt, yet when the keep grows unbearable, he turns to me as if I am his only harbour…

The silence in the room stretches, and you take notice of the veins in his necks that start presenting themselves.

You watch as the realization slowly washes over him, sweeping away the jealousy that consumed him moments before. His thumb, still resting against the wrinkled paper, remains in place.

A faint, unmistakable flush begins to creep up the collar of his doublet, painting the tips of his pale ears in a shade of crimson.

“You..” Aerion’s voice loses every drop of its harshness. He looks up from the page, pupils blown wide, caught somewhere between utter disbelief and flustered embarrassment. “This is about–”

“About an insufferable prince,” you continue, the shadow of a smile breaking across your face.

Aerion swallows hard while he looks down at the wrinkled page, his fingers moving with care as he smoothes out the creases he made in his panic. He folds the parchment with precision, slipping it deep into the inner pocket of his tunic—safekeeping the confession directly against his heart.

“You ought to have named me,” he almost mumbles, voice dropping into a low register.

“And deprive myself of watching you storm in here like a wounded dragon?” you tease callously.

Aerion lets out a heavy breath, the tension leaving his shoulders all at once. He reaches back toward the mahogany desk, picking up the small ivory box he had abandoned. He does not hand it to you with his usual flourish. He simply cradles it in his palm, offering it up like a silent penance.

Inside, nestled against velvet cushions, sits a delicate hair comb crafted especially to look like seashells catching the light.

“I brought it before I saw the page,” he says, his eyes fixed on your face, yet avoiding your eyes like a disconcerted child. “I thought... I believed I had pushed you past your endurance yesterday.”

“You are difficult.” you add as you reach out, fingers resting against his cheek, feeling the slight tremor in his jaw. “You are proud… and sharp… and exhausting.”

Aerion’s eyes flutter shut at the touch of your skin. A small sigh escapes his lips, his hand rising instinctively to cover yours, pressing your palm tighter against his face.

“Yet you stay," he murmurs into the silence.

Fire danced with a horrific, erratic grace across the blackened waters of the Gullet, transforming the vital shipping lane into a sprawling, floating graveyard. Flames leapt from ship to ship in hungry arcs, feeding on timber and pitch and the desperate prayers of drowning men. Beneath the merciless onslaught of Team Black’s dragons, mighty Triarchy war-galleys splintered like kindling, their hulls cracking open to swallow their crews whole. Great masts toppled into the waves with the slow, theatrical finality of falling monuments. And yet, this was no easy victory. No clean triumph etched into the history books with golden ink. Below, Lord Corlys Velaryon’s fleet fought with everything it had, attempting to trap the armada in the narrow, choking passage, buying time in blood and smoke and screaming iron.

The atmosphere was a living thing, a suffocating shroud woven from the sharp salt tang of brine, the acrid bite of billowing smoke, the unmistakable iron-sweetness of fresh blood, and the sickening, almost honeyed stench of burning pitch. It coated the throat and burned the eyes.

High above the carnage, roaring through the roiling tempest of fire and ash, rode Prince Jacaerys Velaryon.

He sat astride Vermax like a man born to the sky because he was. The great emerald dragon cut through the smoke-choked air like a gleaming blade, his scales catching the hellish firelight below, wings spread wide. Jace’s riding leathers were already dark with spray and soot. His dark curls whipped against his face. He did not notice. His eyes were fixed on the battle, calculating and measuring, feeling the terrible weight of command settle across his shoulders with the intimacy of something he had worn all his life.

He had locked his mother in her chambers at Dragonstone before leaving. Had stood outside the door and listened to her pound against it, her voice cracking on his name. The sound had nearly unmade him entirely. But she was the queen. She was the cause. She could not be lost, and Jacaerys Velaryon had long since made peace with the arithmetic of that.

She lives. Therefore, I go.

Beside him, Baela streaked across the smoke on Moondancer fierce and brilliant, her silver hair streaming behind her like a war banner. And then, piercing through the mist like something half-imagined, a new silhouette emerged. Jace’s eyes snapped to it. His stomach lurched with shock before his heart swelled with a pride so fierce it nearly hurt.

Rhaena. Flying the wild dragon Sheepstealer.

Of course she was.

Together they were three dragons raining hell from the heavens, and for one blazing, exhilarating moment, Jace believed they might actually win this despite Sheepstealer almost knocking him out. He watched their collective fire devastate Admiral Lohar’s vanguard below, great tongues of flame consuming the armada’s leading ships, sending men screaming into the sea. He felt the savage triumph of it. The rightness.

Then the heavy, rhythmic thrum of scorpions began.

Massive iron bolts tore through the clouds around them. The Triarchy fleet was enormous, he had known this, had known it academically the way one knows a thing from maps and reports but knowing it and watching it materialize below him in all its terrible scale were entirely different experiences.

He pressed Vermax into a steep, dangerously low dive.

Below, through the roiling chaos, Jace had spotted Lord Corlys’s flagship being violently rammed by Lohar’s vessel. The silver-haired sea snake, his grandfather by every measure that mattered, surrounded and struggling. Jace made his decision in the space of half a breath. He would break the enemy lines. He would fly low. He would end this.

He flew too close to the water.

His focus had narrowed to a single burning point, the ships, the threat, the duty and so he did not hear the volley until it was already too late.

A heavy iron shaft sliced violently through the membrane of Vermax’s right wing with a sound like tearing cloth and screaming metal fused together. Another slammed directly into the dragon’s chest with a concussive, world-shaking force that Jace felt through every bone in his body.

Vermax screamed.

The sound ripped through Jace like a physical blade. Not a roar, not the magnificent, terrible declaration of a dragon in battle. A scream. Raw and agonizing and so deeply personal that Jace felt his own lungs seize in sympathy, as though the bolt had pierced him too. The great emerald body shuddered beneath him. The massive wings faltered, losing the steady rhythm that held them aloft. The world tilted.

They were falling.

“No-”

Jace yanked desperately on the reins, his boots straining hard against the stirrups, body thrown forward as the sea rushed upward to meet them with terrifying speed. Wind screamed past his ears. The fire and the smoke and the battle became a chaotic blur of sensation.

“Vermax, fly!”

The dragon fought. Even now, even broken and burning, Vermax fought. A beast born of fire, refusing absolutely to yield to the water. One wing beat heavily, then another. The torn membrane fluttered uselessly, a tattered rag of what it had been, but still Vermax tried, and something in Jace’s chest shattered at the sight of it.

“Soves!” His voice broke on the word, all royal dignity stripped away, reduced to something raw and helpless and very young. “Soves, Vermax! Please-”

One final, agonizing beat of the wings.

It was not enough.

Freezing, brine-heavy water swallowed Jacaerys Velaryon whole. It was not like diving, it was like being struck by the earth itself, like the sea had become solid in the last instant before collision, and he felt the shock travel up through his ankles, his knees, his spine, rattling his teeth in his skull. The sheer velocity of the crash tore his fingers from the saddle. The weight of his armor dragged at him immediately, a slow, patient, lethal pull downward into the dark.

Primal instinct flared.

He unhooked himself and practically clawed upward. His lungs burned. The cold was absolute, the kind that doesn’t feel cold at all but rather feels like being unmade, like the sea was simply erasing him a layer at a time. He could see nothing, only dark water and distant fire and the enormous bulk of Vermax somewhere below him, a shadow become a nightmare. He burst through the surface with a gasp so violent it tore his throat.

“Vermax!”

He spun in the churning water, hair plastered to his face, salt burning his eyes. The battle raged on around him, ships groaning and splitting, men screaming, iron raining from all directions. The world had not paused for him.

“Vermax!”

Through the haze of cresting waves, he found him. His dragon, his Vermax, who had carried him since boyhood, who had grown as he had grown, who had been as much a part of him as his own heartbeat was desperately trying to swim. The damaged wings beat uselessly to try to swim up. His great neck was straining upward. His eyes, when they met Jace’s from below the water, held something that a person with less grief in them might have dismissed as imagination. They did not look like the eyes of an animal.

They looked like the eyes of someone saying goodbye. A massive anchor, or debris, Jace could not tell which, tangled around Vermax’s exhausted body. The sea accepted its offering. With a final, sorrowful look that Jacaerys Velaryon would carry with him for the rest of his life.

He never resurfaced.

Something inside Jace broke. Not cracked. Not bent. Broke, the way an old bone breaks, the kind that doesn’t ever quite knit back the same way. He hauled his upper body onto a large piece of floating wreckage with the determination of a body that had not yet received the message from his mind that none of this mattered anymore. His chest heaved in ragged, desperate gasps. He was shaking. He was exhausted in a way that reached all the way down into whatever part of him had believed, until this moment, that he might survive this.

He had not brought enough of that belief. He saw that now.

He thought of his mother.

The image of her face, proud and terrified and trying not to show either rose unbidden. He had done this for her. Had done all of it for her. He hoped she would understand, someday, that locking her in her chambers had been the most love he had ever offered anyone.

He thought of Baela. Of Rhaena.

He thought of-

A sharp, dull impact struck his upper back.

Jace lurched forward with a sound that was almost nothing, barely a breath. Confused, of all things, not yet understanding, he glanced over his shoulder. A heavy crossbow bolt protruded from his shoulder blade at an angle that his mind catalogued with strange, distant calm, the way one notices a detail in a painting.

Slowly, numbly, he turned his head toward the source. A Triarchy war-galley drifted just yards away. Lined along the wooden railing stood a row of Admiral Lohar’s soldiers, unhurried, methodical, their crossbows leveled at the figure in the water.

They knew exactly who he was. There was no urgency in their posture, no battlefield fever. This was an execution.

The heir to the Iron Throne, stranded and defenseless. A second bolt flew. It slammed into his chest. He heard it before he felt it.

Then a third...straight to the neck.

A strange, sudden calm washed over him.

The deafening roar of the battle receded, becoming muffled, distant, the way sounds narrow when one goes underwater. The sea rocked him gently now, almost tenderly, as if it had been waiting all along to offer this small mercy at the end. He had not expected kindness. He was grateful for it.

He thought of his mother, safe on Dragonstone.

He thought of Baela’s laughter.

He thought of his brothers.

And he thought with a softness that surprised him, with something that might have been the very last warmth his body could generate, of you. Of a future that would not be built. Of a promise he was not sure, now, that he had ever been given the chance to make.

The last image to imprint itself on the fading mind of Jacaerys Velaryon was that reflection.

A burning sky, mirrored in the water.

Beautiful.

Tragic.

Then everything went black.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

Jacaerys bolted upright with a gasp that felt like surfacing.

His eyes flew open. His hand flew to his chest and then to his neck, pressing hard against his sternum, feeling for something, a wound, an absence, a bolt buried in bone and found nothing but the soft cotton of his t-shirt and the solid, living rhythm of his own heart. He sat there for a long moment, chest heaving, and simply stared at the ceiling.

White plaster. Crown moulding. A small water stain shaped vaguely like a continent.

No smoke.

No dragon.

No sea.

No battle.

Just a bedroom. His bedroom.

Morning sunlight filtered through floor-to-ceiling windows in long, clean shafts, illuminating the warm disorder of his life: the desk buried under business textbooks and notebooks with pages dog-eared and margins crowded with his handwriting, his laptop open from the night before with a lecture slide still visible on the screen, a hoodie slung over the back of his desk chair. Outside the windows, King’s Landing stretched endlessly in the early light, the city already stirring, glass towers catching the sun.

His alarm clock flashed 7:00 AM.

No swords or the banners of House Targaryen. Jace pressed the heels of both palms against his eyes and breathed.

The memories were still there. That was the wrong word for them, memories. They did not feel like the soft, dissolving stuff of ordinary dreams that faded on the edges as soon as you tried to examine them. They felt like the other kind of remembering, the kind that lives in the body rather than the mind. He could still feel the cold of the Gullet in his fingers. He could still smell the smoke. He could still feel the weight of dragon-riding leathers across his shoulders, the particular pull of Vermax’s movement through the air, the way the saddle had sat against the backs of his thighs.

He could still feel the bolts.

Just a dream, he told himself. The words felt inadequate in his own mouth, like trying to describe a storm with the word weather. He muttered them anyway, pressing his face harder into his palms.

“Just a dream.”

A dream where he had been a prince.

A prince who had died.

His stomach dropped with a physical lurch. The alarm was still beeping. He silenced it with a slap and sat on the edge of the bed for one more moment, just one, breathing in the ordinary scent of his ordinary room.. Then his brain supplied the information he had been avoiding.

Classes.

Shit.

He was already late.

He moved through his morning routine with the efficiency of someone running on instinct rather than thought, shower, clothes, a cursory battle with his curls that ended, as it always did, in a draw. He emerged from the bathroom in jeans and sneakers and his favorite dark hoodie, his hair doing exactly what it wanted. There wasn’t time to argue with it. There was rarely ever time.

The smell of coffee reached him in the hallway. It pulled at something in his chest and he followed it through the penthouse to the kitchen.

His steps halted in the doorway.

Rhaenyra stood at the island counter, reading something on her tablet with the focused, slightly stern expression she wore when she was processing information she found annoying. A coffee mug steamed beside her elbow, forgotten. She was already dressed soft grey, elegant, effortlessly so in the way that had always seemed to come naturally to her and she looked exactly as she always looked in the morning, tired by all the corporate bullshit.

CEO of Targaryen Corporation. One of the most influential women in King’s Landing. The most formidable person he had ever known.

His mother.

The word hit him somewhere unsteady. Something twisted painfully in his chest, relief so acute it nearly hurt, threaded through with the dreaming grief of a boy who had watched her face in his mind as the water closed over him, who had spent his last conscious moment believing she was safe, needing her to be safe, and had been right without ever knowing he was right. He crossed the room before he had consciously decided to.

He wrapped his arms around her.

Rhaenyra nearly dropped her coffee.

“Jacaerys-”

She caught herself, setting the mug down with a firm clink on the marble countertop, and then without hesitation, because she had always been this, whatever else she was, she wrapped her arms around him and held him back.

“Sweet boy.” Her voice was softer now. Her fingers found their way into his curls the way they had when he was very small. “What’s the matter?”

Jace swallowed against the tightness in his throat. The dream came rushing back through him like a tide, the war, the weight of a crown his mother should have inherited without blood, the desperate, bone-deep need to protect her. The image of her face as he had walked away from Dragonstone, toward the dragon, toward the battle, toward the Gullet. The way he had looked back.

He shook his head against her shoulder.

“I’m fine.”

“You are clearly not fine.”

Her hand moved in slow, soothing circles against his back. Despite himself, despite everything, Jace felt something in him begin to loosen.

He laughed. A weak, slightly broken sound, but genuine. “I just…” His voice cracked on the nothing he was trying to say.

Rhaenyra pulled back slightly to look at him. Not the way she looked at her board of directors, or at rivals across conference tables, or at the city from thirty floors up. The other way. The private way, that only he and his brothers ever saw.

“What happened?”

He wiped his eyes quickly, hoping she wouldn’t comment on it and took a breath.

“I had the most vivid dream.”

“What kind of dream?”

He hesitated. There was something strange about saying it. As though speaking about it aloud would make it either more real or less, and he wasn’t sure which outcome he wanted.

“I was a prince,” he said.

Rhaenyra blinked. Whatever she had been expecting, it was not that.

“A prince?”

“Yeah.” A small smile found its way onto his face, unwilling, almost involuntary. “You were a queen.” Something passed across her expression something soft, something she would never have allowed in a meeting room. “Oh?”

“I died fighting a battle for you.”

Silence.

She looked at him for a long moment. Then she reached up and brushed a curl from his forehead with the gentleness that had no performance in it, something she reserved for the three of them and no one else.

“Well,” she said finally, her smile warming to something that was almost, almost teasing. “That sounds exhausting.”

Jace stared. “That’s all you’ve got?”

“You are standing in my kitchen wearing yesterday’s hoodie and telling me about dragon wars, Jacaerys.”

He opened his mouth to protest then closed it. “Fair.” She squeezed his shoulder. “It was only a dream.”

“You know,” said a new voice from the doorway, “some families start their mornings with good morning.”

Luke wandered in carrying a cereal box like a trophy, nineteen years old and permanently, professionally smug. He surveyed the scene with the cheerful heartlessness of a younger brother who had found ammunition and intended to use it.

“Did Jace finally lose his mind?”

Behind him, Joffrey, fourteen and grinning with the particular delight of someone who had been waiting for this squeezed past into the kitchen. “About time.” Jace rolled his eyes so hard it was almost an athletic achievement. “There he is.”

“Dreaming about being a prince?” Luke plucked a bowl from the cupboard with casual ease. “That’s because you’re already treated like one.”

The napkin Jace threw hit him square in the face. Luke threw it back. Rhaenyra sighed with the air of a woman who had calculated exactly how many more years of this lay before her and found the number disheartening.

“My sons,” she said, picking up her coffee. “Truly intellectual giants.”

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

Breakfast passed with the comfortable velocity of mornings that had been rehearsed through repetition until they ran themselves. Luke complaining about something, Joffrey eating cereal in quantities that defied his size, Rhaenyra reading from her tablet while simultaneously tracking all three of them with the peripheral attention of someone who had never once been entirely off duty.

Jace was reaching for his coffee when Rhaenyra glanced up.

“Are you still picking up your girlfriend?”

He froze.

The coffee cup remained halfway to his face, arrested in mid-air.

“…My what?”

Luke’s head snapped up. The expression that crossed his face was one of pure, unalloyed joy. He looked like he had been handed a gift.

Rhaenyra stared at her eldest with the patient, faintly incredulous expression of a woman who had not expected to be performing this particular reality check on a Tuesday morning.

“Your girlfriend.”

“Oh.” Jace set the cup down carefully. “Right.”

You.

He had a girlfriend.

A beautiful girlfriend, and she was his girlfriend, and she had been his girlfriend for- he was briefly lost in the arithmetic of it, which was itself a kind of answer and she was wonderful, she was brilliant, she made him laugh, and somehow in the space between waking up with the sea in his lungs and standing in his mother’s kitchen in yesterday’s hoodie, he had momentarily forgotten she existed.

And then, because his brain was apparently in full catastrophic mode this morning: betrothed. Not yet. Not technically. But the word had been sitting in the back of his mind ever since he woke up from his dream.

Heat flooded his face with spectacular completeness. Luke nearly choked on his cereal.

“Oh my God.”

“Shut up.”

“You forgot your girlfriend.”

“Only briefly.”

“Only” Luke dissolved entirely, shoulders shaking. Across the table, Joffrey watched with the dignified appreciation of a connoisseur.

Rhaenyra shook her head slowly. “Honestly, Jace.” “It was a very intense dream,” he said, with as much dignity as one can muster while slowly turning the color of a sunset.

“You forgot your girlfriend.”

“The dream had dragons, Mum.”

She gave him the look. The specific look, the one that had been making him feel twelve years old since he was actually twelve years old. “She’s a lovely girl. I wish you’d bring her home more often.”

Jace stood from the table with the decisive energy of a man drawing a conversation to a close. “I was planning to.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“Today?”

“…Possibly.”

“Good.” Rhaenyra returned to her tablet, the slight smile at the corner of her mouth saying everything she was too dignified to say aloud.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The underground parking garage was cool and dim, smelling of concrete and oil and the expensive quiet of a building where people took the lift rather than the stairs. Jace’s Porsche sat in its usual spot, Oak Green Metallic, catching the fluorescent light.

Vermax.

He had named the car Vermax which now sounded so ironic to him.

He stood beside the driver’s door for a moment, hand on the handle, the thought arriving fully formed and then sitting there in his chest with an odd weight. He had named his car Vermax years ago. He had thought it was because he liked the sound of it, or because it was the name of a character in a book he’d read, or because of some half-remembered reason that had never quite solidified into anything coherent.

He looked at the car. The deep green of it. The long, low lines of it, built for speed, built for the sky-

Built for the sky.

A strange feeling settled over him, the kind of not-quite-vertigo that comes with recognizing something without being able to name what it is you’re recognizing. Like seeing an old friend across a crowd before you’ve registered their face.

He shook it off. Got in and drove.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The street outside your house was quiet in the way that Tuesday mornings in King’s Landing occasionally managed to be, with the morning light that made ordinary things seem briefly considered. Jace pulled to the curb and sat for a moment with the engine idling, window down.

Then the front door opened and you stepped out. He got out of the car.

The morning light caught your hair the way it always did, making you look almost angelic in Jace’s eyes in that moment. You were still in the act of adjusting the strap of your bag when you spotted him, and the smile that crossed your face. Happy just to see him.

And for one strange, suspended moment, another image overlapped the morning like a transparency laid over a photograph. A figure standing on the cliffs of Dragonstone. The sea grey below and the wind pulling at dark fabric. Watching him leave. The expression on her face, your face, heartbroken and resolute and trying to be neither.

Waiting for him to come back.

The image dissolved as quickly as it had arrived. The morning reasserted itself. You were walking toward the car, your bag settled on your shoulder now, your smile still in place, and Jace found himself already stepping forward already moving toward with certainty that was less decision than gravity.

Before you could say a word, he took your hand and raised it, and pressed a kiss against your knuckles. Deliberatea and unhurried. Like he’d done it a thousand times before, in other rooms, in other centuries.

“How are you, my beloved?”

You stopped.

Looked at the hand.

Looked at him.

And then, because you were you, you laughed, the bright, surprised sound of someone caught genuinely off guard. “What has gotten into you this morning?” you questioned him.

Jace grinned, and the grin felt more like him than anything else had all morning. “I genuinely have no idea.”

“You’re being sooo weird.” You studied him with the narrowed eyes trying to grasp his words and actions. “How weird is this going to get?”

“I had the wildest dream.”

“Oh?” Already your expression was shifting into the one you wore when you were preparing to be entertained. He leaned forward and kissed you softly quick, warm and certain.

“In it,” he said against your smile, “you were my princess too.”

Your cheeks went pink with entirely gratifying speed. “Oh my God.”

“You asked.”

“I asked what was wrong with you, not-”

“Details.”

“Jacaerys Velaryon, I am going to need you to be normal for the next five minutes-”

“I make no promises.”

He opened the passenger door for you, still grinning, and the morning felt lighter than it had when he’d left the penthouse.

The dream wasn’t entirely terrible, he thought, settling behind the wheel. If nothing else, it had done this, sharpened his vision, made ordinary things brilliant again. Made you more vivid than you’d already been, which was saying something considerable. He found himself smiling the entire drive to university.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

University should have felt normal.

Instead, Jace spent the entire morning convinced he was losing his mind by degrees as new details of his dream would hit him.

The dream lingered with a persistence that ordinary dreams did not have, the kind he usually forgot by the time he reached the kitchen. This one clung. Every corridor he walked reminded him of castle hallways, the echo of footsteps on stone, and the smell of torch smoke. Every crowded lecture hall conjured the geometry of noble courts; the subtle theatre of power performed through proximity. His Strategic Management lecture had an entire section on resource allocation that kept pulling his thoughts sideways, toward councils and war rooms and Dragonstone. He stared at his notebook.

He had written, in the margin: Corlys was right about the Gullet.

He had no idea when.

“You’re disassociating again.”

Jace blinked.

Across the seminar table sat Cregan Stark, regarding him with the expression he used on everything: tall, dark-haired, slow-blinking, fundamentally and constitutionally unimpressed by the world and all its events. He was from Winterfell like genuinely, actually from Winterfell, which Jace had always found slightly funny without ever quite being able to explain why.

They’d been best friends since secondary school, the friendship that had calcified into something so much more. They were like brothers in every sense. Also, he looked almost exactly like the Cregan from the dream.

Same jaw. Same eyes. Same expression, the one that said I am listening to you and I find you exhausting. Same, in other words, as he always looked well except his had slightly shorter hair.

“What?” Jace managed.

Cregan raised one eyebrow. “You’ve been staring at me for ten seconds with an expressionless face.”

“Sorry.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I had a strange dream. I feel like I keep repeating these words over and over again.”

“You texted me at four in the morning.”

Jace went very still.

“I did?”

Cregan reached for his phone with the patience of a man who had long since resigned himself to the chaos of being Jace Velaryon’s closest friend. He scrolled briefly, then began reading aloud in the flat, informational tone of a news anchor delivering a weather report.

“‘Brother, imagine if we were medieval nobles.’”

“Oh, God.”

“‘You would have loved Winterfell.’”

“Cregan-”

“‘You were Lord of the North.’” He glanced up briefly. “I’m from Winterfell, Jace. I grew up in Winterfell. I know what Winterfell is.”

“Please stop-”

‘I miss Vermax.’

Cregan lowered the phone.

“I don’t know what Vermax is, if its not talking about your car.” he said.

Jace buried his face in both hands and made a sound that was less a word than a comprehensive statement. “You were never meant to read those.”

“You sent them to me.”

“I was apparently not fully conscious at four in the morning. I don’t remember doing this at all.”

“That’s concerning.”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

The question arrived without ceremony, Cregan always asked things he actually wanted to know, dropped into a conversation like a stone dropped into water, watching to see what it displaced. Jace hesitated for long enough that the silence became its own answer.

“Yeah,” he said. Then, quietly: “Not entirely.”

Cregan nodded. He didn’t push. This was something Jace had always valued about him, the Stark capacity to hold space without filling it.

“Tell me later,” Cregan said, and turned back to his laptop.

Mostly, Jace thought. He was mostly okay. ┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

You found him outside the business building at noon, materializing from the flow of students and your smile arrived before you did.

Jace felt the thing in his chest that had been clenched since 7 AM ease, slowly, like a hand opening. There was something about you that operated on him this way, had always operated on him this way, since the beginning. A quality of presence that grounded him, that made the world’s coordinates make sense again. He’d never found quite the right words for it. He’d stopped trying.

You slipped your hand into his without ceremony.

“Better than this morning?”

“A little.”

“Still thinking about your prince dream?”

He laughed, the sound freer than he expected. “Unfortunately.”

“You are such a nerd.”

“I was literally fighting a war.”

“You were dreaming about fighting a war.”

“Details.”

“Jacaerys Velaryon, if this dream becomes your entire personality, I want it on the record that I tried to prevent it-”

“Noted and rejected.”

You rolled your eyes with magnificent feeling. “I make no promises about what I tell your mother.”

Together you walked toward the café nearby. A small, overcrowded place called something Jace could never quite remember but it had had excellent coffee and terrible lighting and was perpetually full of students and professors who had clearly rather be somewhere else. The place that existed to absorb the ambient anxiety of a university and convert it, through caffeine, into something marginally more functional.

You had barely settled into your seats when a familiar voice arrived from approximately two tables away, belonging to someone who had apparently been watching for them.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite nephew.”

Aegon Targaryen dropped into the empty chair beside Jace with the comfortable confidence of a man who owned, and this was literally true, approximately half the building they were sitting in. Twenty-six, blond, expensive, reliably catastrophic. His jacket probably cost more than Jace’s car maintenance for the year, and he wore it with the carelessness never once considering the cost of anything.

He was nothing like the monster from the dream. The dream-Aegon had been something Jace couldn’t fully bring himself to examine yet. Jealous and bitter and capable of terrible things. This Aegon was mostly known for throwing parties that became local legend and mysteriously managing to avoid all professional consequences for anything he did, ever. Jacaerys supposed that has something to do with his mother and his uncle Aemond keeping these things contained.

“To what do we owe the honor?” Jace asked.

Aegon’s attention had already moved to you.

“And how are you?”

“Good,” you said politely.

“Still putting up with him?”

You smiled. “Barely.”

“Excellent answer.”

Jace groaned. Aegon looked absolutely delighted. “You’re blushing,” Aegon observed, with the tone of someone reporting a natural phenomenon.

“I’m not.”

“You absolutely are.”

You leaned over the table, and Jace recognized the look on your face immediately. The collaborative look. The look that meant you had identified an ally.

“He was calling me his beloved this morning.”

Aegon’s chair nearly lost him. He grabbed the table.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“In what context?”

“He kissed my hand. In the street. Before nine in the morning.”

Aegon looked at Jace the way someone looks at an archaeological discovery with facination, slightly appalled, deeply pleased. “This is the greatest thing that has ever happened.”

Jace contemplated his options. Leaving. Changing his name and moving to Braavos. Committing entirely to the persona of someone who had never been caught calling his girlfriend my beloved at eight forty-five on a Tuesday.

None of these were practical.

He reached for his coffee and said nothing, which Aegon correctly interpreted as total defeat.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

After Aegon eventually wandered off, ostensibly to a meeting, credibly to cause chaos somewhere else and so the café settled back into its ordinary rhythms. Students came and went. Espresso machines hissed. The ambient noise absorbed itself.

You and Jace remained at your table, and the laughter faded naturally, the way good laughter does, not dying but simply becoming something quieter.

He was staring into his coffee again.

You watched him for a moment.

“You never told me the whole dream, since it has you in a weird mindset today.” you said quietly.

His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around the cup. He was aware of you looking at him, with your full attention, which had always been more like listening than looking, patient and genuine and without agenda.

“To put it simply, there was a war,” he said.

You didn’t ask him to explain. You waited.

“A civil war.” He looked up briefly, then back at the table. “A war over who would rule over Westeros. My mother was supposed to inherit as was the rightful heir to the throne but there were those who didn’t accept it. Didn’t accept her.”

“And you fought for her.”

“Of course.”

The images came without invitation, Dragonstone’s grey halls, the council table, the maps spreading the whole kingdom out before them like a wound. The feeling of duty that had lived in his chest since childhood, not as a burden but as a definition. This is who you are. This is what you do.

You reached across the table and took his hand. He continued.

“I flew a dragon. I know this sounds no so scary but-” Despite everything, he heard the ghost of wonder in his own voice. “Vermax. He was- he was mine. Since I was a boy. He knew me.” The wonder curdled, softened into something heavier. “He died with me.”

Your thumb moved in a slow arc across his knuckles. “The last thing I remember,” he said quietly, “was dying. Floating in the sea, after everything.” He paused.

“It was strange. It wasn’t- it wasn’t the way I would have imagined. It wasn’t terrifying.”

“What was it?”

He thought about it honestly.

“It was sad,” he said. “But calm.”

You were quiet for a moment. Then you reached up, and the gesture was so unexpected that he went still, your hand cupping his cheek, steady and warm, thumb tracing a line beneath his eye.

He leaned into it without thinking.

“I’m glad it was only a dream,” you said softly trying to calm his anxieties that he didn’t want to confess out loud.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

The tightness in his chest released, not all at once but in stages, like a knot worked loose over time. He turned his head slightly, pressing his lips briefly to your palm, and you let him, and neither of you made anything of it. She’s right, he thought. Whatever that was. Whatever it meant.

He was here. Alive. With his family, with his best friend, with his girl.

Maybe that was enough. Maybe that was, actually, everything.

The afternoon passed.

Classes ended. The university slowly emptied like it did every day at dusk, students and professors releasing themselves back into the city like a pressure valve opening. The parking lot filled briefly with the usual chaos and then thinned.

“My mother wants you over more often,” Jace mentioned, as they walked toward the Porsche.

“Apparently she likes you.”

You brightened immediately. “Really?”

“She said so unprompted. First thing this morning.”

“Good.” You smiled with satisfaction. “I’m charming.”

Jace looked at you sideways. “You are deeply smug about this.”

“I’m charming,” you repeated, pleasantly. He laughed. “Come over tonight?”

You looked at him, with that look you had, the one he’d never found a word for, the one that made him feel simultaneously seen and unsteady in the best possible way. Made him feel a bit giddy.

“I’d love to,” you said.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The penthouse was unusually quiet when they arrived. Rhaenyra was visible through the glass of her home office, phone tucked between her ear and shoulder, reading from a document with the focused intensity and it was clear that the woman needed a break from everything. Luke had evaporated somewhere. Joffrey was reportedly studying, a claim no one in the household had ever been successfully able to verify.

You and Jace settled at the dining table with laptops and scattered notes and the collective fiction of productivity.

For forty minutes, it was remarkably functional. Jace had his economics module open. You were working through something, he didn’t ask, didn’t need to and the sound of quiet typing and the occasional turn of a page created a kind of companionable silence that he had always thought of as the specific luxury of being comfortable with someone. presence. You could simply be in it.

He was reading about capital allocation.

“Jace.”

He looked up.

“You’re getting lost in your mind again.”

“I’m not what are you talking about?” he said automatically. Then, because honesty was something he’d apparently committed to today: “I was thinking about- uhhh. Economics?”

“That is not better.”

“You look pretty,” he said simply.

The silence that followed had a distinct texture. You looked at him for a long moment. Then you slowly, deliberately, closed your laptop.

“No,” you said.

“What?”

“You don’t get to say things like that when I’m trying to study.”

“I was simply making an observation.”

“You are impossible.”

He was very pleased with himself. He did not bother hiding it.

An hour later, the economics module had not progressed. The textbooks had been consolidated into a single pile and pushed to the far end of the table, a gesture that meant these exist and will eventually be addressed, which was as much as either of you were willing to commit to. A film had been agreed upon via negotiation.

Blankets appeared.

The overhead lights went off.

And somehow, as these things always somehow managed, you ended up curled against his chest on the enormous sectional, his arm around your waist, the film playing distantly while neither of you particularly watched it. Your breathing slowed first. His heartbeat was steady and familiar beneath your ear.

The city moved quietly outside the windows.

You didn’t remember falling asleep.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The prince stood before you.

The wind came off the sea like a cold hand, whipping through his dark, curling hair, pressing his black riding coat against his frame. Behind him, Dragonstone rose in its glory against a steel-grey sky, all sharp towers and dark stone, magnificent and terrible, built by people who had never believed in half measures. The sea crashed against the rocks far below. Dark clouds gathered on the horizon with the patient, deliberate advance of something inevitable.

“No.”

Your voice came out broken.

“No, please.”

He looked at you the way he always looked at you as if you were the clearest thing in a world that had lately become very unclear, like looking at you was the one thing he could do without effort in a life that had demanded extraordinary effort from him since the moment he was old enough to understand what he was.

“I have to go.”

“You don’t,” you said, even though you knew it wasn’t true. Even though somewhere beneath the desperate present tense of the argument, the truer, older part of you already knew exactly what was coming. Already knew the shape of this farewell.

His hands found yours.

They were warm. Strong and real, so real that makes their loss so much more brutal than the loss of things you never fully believed in.

“You can stay,” you said. Your voice was steadier than you felt. “You can let someone else-”

“I cannot.” His voice was gentle but stern. He was stubborn and so if he made peace with this decisions, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Tears burned behind your eyes. The fear inside you was almost unbearable and burning, it was twisted and layered, because you knew. You already knew. This was not a premonition, not a vague presentiment. It was knowledge, carried somewhere beneath language, beneath memory, in whatever part of you had been this person before.

You knew what awaited him at the Gullet.

Fire.

Water.

“You promised.” The words escaped before you could decide to say them.

His expression shifted. Something moved across it, grief, tenderness, the ache of a man who loves something too well to pretend it isn’t breaking. “And I will keep that promise but this is a battle I must fight for both myself and my mother.”

He stepped closer, and you let him, and he pressed a kiss to your forehead so gently it barely qualified as a touch at all.

Then he rested his brow against yours. His eyes never left yours.

“If I do not return- which I intend to,”

The world seemed to hold its breath.

“I will find you.”

A tear escaped. Traced the line of your cheek. He watched it with eyes that were very dark and very steady.

“In every lifetime if not this one. I promise.”

The words landed somewhere deep in you, somewhere wordless, somewhere older than the language you used to think with. A promise that had the weight of truth rather than intention.

You memorized his face. The curls. The strong jaw. The eyes, brown and earnest and alive, so alive.

He smiled.

Then he stepped away.

He turned toward the waiting dragon.

Toward the dark water below.

Toward a destiny that was also a death.

And all you could do was watch him leave. ┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

You woke with a gasp that tore itself from somewhere past your chest.

For several seconds, you could not find the room. Could not find yourself in it. There was only the dream...the cliffs, the wind, his forehead against yours, the sound of his footsteps retreating and the grief of it, which was specific and devastating and nothing at all like the vague emotional residue of ordinary sleep.

Tears burned behind your eyes. Your heart was pounding.

You pushed yourself upright. A blanket tangled around your legs. The room was dim, the film long since ended, the television showing a menu screen. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, King’s Landing glittered in the full dark of night, the city’s lights reflected upward in a warm wash against the low clouds. Jace must have moved you to his room when you fell asleep.

The bedroom door opened.

Jace stepped in carrying two mugs, steam rising from both. He had apparently, at some point during your sleep, been productive.

The moment he saw your face, he froze.

“Hey.”

The concern in his voice was immediate, the shift from normal to careful happening in the space of a single syllable.

“What’s wrong?”

You didn’t answer. The words were somewhere on the way, but in the meantime your body had already decided what it needed, and what it needed was to close the distance between you and him as quickly as possible.

You stood.

Crossed the room.

The mugs barely survived. He caught them against the edge of the side table with an impressive reflex, setting them down quickly before his arms came around your waist, and you buried your face against the side of his neck, and breathed him in.

“Sweetheart?” Low and careful. His chin came to rest on top of your head.

You stayed there for a moment just letting the reality of him replace the dream of him. The warmth of him. The solidness.

Then you pulled back. Not far. Your forehead came to rest against his, which put you close enough to feel his breath and see the small crease of worry between his brows.

“I had a dream,” you said. It seems it was your turn to utter those words.

Something moved across his face. He went very still in the way that meant he was paying every variety of attention he had.

“What kind of dream?”

“I saw a prince.”

His breath caught. You felt it.

“I saw him leaving for a battle. He was going to fight-”

Your voice faltered, then steadied. “He knew he might not come back. And he said-” You stopped.

Jace’s arms tightened around you, almost involuntarily. “He said he would find me,” you continued. “That if he didn’t return-” Your eyes met his, and something in your chest recognized something in his. “He would find me in every lifetime.”

Silence.

Complete, absolute silence.

Jace stared at you.

Because those were the exact words. Not a version of them, not a paraphrase but the exact promise, the exact phrasing, the exact scene, the stone of Dragonstone under grey skies and wind coming off the sea. He had lived it from one side and you had lived it from the other, and here you both were, in a penthouse above a city that did not have dragons, with the memory of them living in your bones.

His throat moved.

You smiled softly with tears still bright at the corners of your eyes. Your hand lifted, your fingers moving gently through his curls, the same gesture that felt simultaneously new and ancient.

“I don’t know what any of that means,” you said.

“Neither do I.”

“But if it was real-”

His forehead pressed more firmly against yours.

“You kept your promise,” you whispered.

He felt his throat close.

And for the first time since he had woken to the sound of an alarm clock and a bedroom that wasn’t the sea, he stopped wondering whether the dream had been real. He stopped wondering whether he was grieving something imagined or something true. He stopped needing to know.

Because you knew.

You had been there.

You rose onto your toes.

Your lips met his.

It was slow and gentle. He kissed you back like someone returning to something, like a navigator finding a landmark in familiar water.

Like he had been waiting centuries and perhaps his soul had waited for this moment. The moment to return to her. ┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

The knock was soft.

They both startled apart with the excellent reflexes of guilty consciences, then immediately demonstrated the dignity of two people pretending they hadn’t. Jace cleared his throat. Rested his forehead against yours for one final second. His breath was unsteady in the best way.

Another knock.

“Jacaerys?”

Rhaenyra’s voice, measured, carrying through the door with the easy authority of a woman who managed board rooms and board members and the shenanigans of three sons as a single uninterrupted professional skill.

“Dinner is ready.” They heard the muffled voice of his mother.

Jace answered at a volume calibrated for normalcy “We’ll be there in a minute!”

A pause that had weight.

“Five minutes,” his mother’s voice returned, drier than a desert, and entirely aware of everything and perhaps making a wrong assumption of you two being alone in his room.

You laughed, pressing your face briefly against his shoulder to muffle it. He was already smiling.

“Your mother doesn’t trust you.”

“She absolutely does not.”

“And honestly?” You poked his chest. “I don’t blame her.”

“You wound me.”

“Good.” You pulled your hand back, but he caught it, quick and easy, and pressed a kiss to your knuckles again. The same gesture as that morning. The echo of it traveled through both of you clearly.

Your cheeks went pink.

He watched it happen with a feeling in his chest that was too large and too simple to require any examination at all.

There she is, he thought. My girl.

My princess.

He took your hand properly, fingers laced and led you toward the dining room.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈ They heard the argument before they reached the dinner table.

Luke and Joffrey, seated across from each other in the arrangement that the family had collectively accepted as a flaw, were conducting a debate with the commitment of two people who had come to win.

“No, because you’re objectively wrong-”

“I’m objectively right-”

“You don’t even know what objectively means.”

“I literally do.”

“You used it wrong.”

Joffrey groaned with his whole body. “I hate this family.”

“You are this family,” Luke pointed out.

Joffrey considered this. “Exactly.”

Rhaenyra, at the head of the table, was pinching the bridge of her nose with annoyance. This was her normal and yet it was tiring.

The moment she saw you, her face entirely changed.

“There she is.”

You smiled. “Hi.”

She stood and pulled you into a hug with a warmth that was, Jace thought privately, rather more enthusiastic than his own homecoming greeting most mornings. “I was beginning to think my son had invented you.”

“Mum.”

“What? He never brings you over.”

“That’s his fault,” you said.

“Traitor,” Jace said.

“You’re literally my boyfriend.”

“Exactly.”

You smiled sweetly. “I’m allowed.”

Rhaenyra looked delighted in the specific way she allowed herself to look delighted when she was genuinely pleased, a rarity outside this apartment. Luke immediately leaned toward you.

“See? This is why she’s my favorite.”

“I’m sitting right here.”

“Unfortunately.”

Jace threw a bread roll at him.

Luke threw one back.

The war began immediately, and lasted approximately five seconds before Rhaenyra’s single sharp look ended it. She had a look for this. It was very effective.

“Sometimes I wonder,” she said, settling back into her chair and accepting a bread roll from the basket with the serenity of someone who had already mentally exited the building, “if I raised wolves.”

“That’s insulting,” Joffrey said.

Everyone looked at him.

The fourteen-year-old shrugged with the composure of someone who had thought this through. “Wolves are smarter.”

The silence held for two seconds before Luke’s expression cracked. Jace looked at the ceiling. Rhaenyra’s attempt at severity collapsed at its foundations.

You sat beside Jace with your hand warm against his under the table, and you were already laughing, and the sound of it filled the room the way laughter does when a room is already full of people who are glad to be there.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

Dinner found its rhythm.

Conversation moved in the easy, overlapping way it does with people who have logged enough hours together that they no longer need to manage it consciously. Luke complained about a group project with the vivid resentment of having decided the problem was everyone else.

Joffrey explained something about a game or a film or a historical period but the audience could not quite keep up, but that seemed to be part of the experience. Rhaenyra complained, with great economy, about company politics, and then told a story about a colleague that had everyone at the table paying full attention (It was Aemond who everytone is afraid of in their company).

You listened to all of it.

Jace, mostly, watched.

He had not expected this. Had woken this morning in the sea, or the memory of it. Had spent the drive to university with the dream still active in his body, had sat through lectures half-present, had carried the weight of Vermax’s last look in his chest all day like a stone.

And now.

He watched his mother smile at something you said. He watched Luke do the thing he did when he was actually amused, which was different from when he is pretending. Watched Joffrey explain something to you directly, having apparently determined that you were worth the effort, and watched your face do the thing it did when you were genuinely interested in something, slightly forward, slightly bright, entirely present.

You fit here. Not as a guest, not as someone being accommodated. As someone who belonged. He thought of the dream again.

Remembered standing at the dragonpit of Dragonstone with his armor on and the dragon saddled and the sea grey behind him, and looking back at everything he was leaving, his mother, his brothers, you, the stone halls and the cold salt wind and the ordinary miracle of a morning that didn’t require a king’s son to die for it.

He had wondered, in those last seconds at Dragonstone, if he would ever see any of them again. He had his answer now.

The realization settled in his chest quietly, without drama. Not a revelation, something more like a confirmation. A peace he hadn’t known he was looking for, finding him here, at a dinner table with a bread roll dent in the tablecloth and Joffrey currently holding forth on something no one else understood.

No war. No dragons. No succession. No battles. Just family. Just love.

Just this.

Halfway through dessert, Joffrey’s phone lit up. “Oh!” He reached for it with the speed of receiving news they’d been waiting for. “Dad’s calling.”

Jace felt himself smile before the screen even showed Laenor’s face.

It appeared a moment later, that face, familiar and warm and slightly tanned by whatever sun was currently shining on whatever harbor on whatever coast he was sailing toward. Behind him, a bright blue sky suggested somewhere in Essos, probably. The man was perpetually in motion, perpetually somewhere else and yet found time for them. He was not their real father, but he might as well have been. After Harwin passed away, Rhaenyra had remarried Laenor as more of a deal since Laenor wasn’t interested in anything but he cared for Rhaenyra platonically and it seemed to have worked out great and that’s all that mattered.

“There are my favorite children.”

Luke snorted. “We’re your only children.”

“And yet somehow still my favorites.” Laenor’s gaze found you across the table, and his face smiled “There she is.”

You laughed. “Hello.”

“Good. Finally, someone sensible has arrived.”

“Hey!” Three voices, simultaneous.

Laenor continued as though he hadn’t heard. “How are you, darling?”

“I’m well, thank you.”

Jace groaned. “Why does everyone in my family like her more than me?”

“Because,” Laenor said, and the timing was beautiful, “she has manners.”

The table erupted. Even Rhaenyra, which was a significant achievement.

Laenor spent twenty minutes on the call, chatting about his route, trading insults with. He heard both Luke and Joffery’s rambling. He asked Rhaenyra about the board meeting she’d complained about, and listened to her answer. He asked you about your studies, and remembered something you’d mentioned three calls ago, and asked a follow-up question about it.

The man had walked into their lives years ago and simply decided, without announcement or conditions, that these were his sons. No performance of it. No documentation. Just- love, extended to fill the available space.

Dream Laenor had disappeared. The thought arrived gently, without bitterness. The dream-Laenor, who had been present mostly in his absence, who Jace had barely known, who had been lost before Jace could understand what losing someone meant. This version was here. This version showed up.

And Jace was, quietly and completely, grateful for that. The call ended. The dessert finished. The evening moved toward its natural conclusion with the comfortable inevitability of all good evenings. Luke vanished in the direction of his room. Joffrey disappeared with a quantity of snacks that could feed a whole army. Rhaenyra retreated to finish what she’d started, she always had something she was finishing, this was simply who she was and the penthouse settled into quiet

Which left you and Jace, alone on the balcony.

┈┈・ ✦ ・┈┈

King’s Landing stretched below them without end. The city was all light from up here, not the individual lights, not streets and windows and the moving points of cars, but the collective glow of it, the warmth of a few million people living their lives in proximity, translated upward into something that looked, from this height, almost like its own kind of fire.

A cool breeze moved through the dark, carrying the city’s particular nighttime mixture of warm pavement and distant food and the faint, improbable ghost of something floral from a rooftop garden somewhere below. It found its way into Jace’s curls and did what it wanted with them.

You stood beside him. Close enough that your shoulders touched.

Neither of you spoke. Neither of you needed to. The city was enough, for a while.

Then you broke the silence the way you often did when a thought entered your head.

“Do you think it was real?”

He didn’t ask what you meant.

The dreams. The prince and the princess. The battle. The promise made at the edge of the world on the morning of an ending. The specific weight of standing on Dragonstone and knowing.

“I don’t know,” he said.

You slipped your hand into his. Your fingers were cool from the night air. He closed his hand around yours.

“But it felt real,” you said.

“It did.”

Another silence, this one richer. Weighted, but not heavily, weighted the way a good book is heavy, in a way you want.

“If it was real…”

Jace looked toward you. The city’s light caught you from below, softening the angles, turning you luminous in the warm way of a portrait painted with care. The same thing he’d thought this morning returned, effortlessly, as though it had simply been waiting for the right lighting.

Radiant.

The same as the princess from the dream. The same, and also entirely herself.

“If it was real,” you continued, a smile finding the corner of your mouth, “I think she’d be happy.”

“Who?”

“The princess.”

Your fingers squeezed his.

“Because she got her prince back.”

Something moved in his chest and he felt a giddy sensation.

“And he got his princess,” he said quietly.

The smile you gave him in return was the specific, undone kind that he privately thought was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He doubted this would change.

“You know,” he said, after a moment, “I’ve spent all day thinking about the battle.”

“The Gullet?”

“Yeah.” He looked down at the city. “The part where I died.”

You were quiet beside him.

“And?” you said, finally.

He looked back through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse.

His mother, visible in her office, signing something. The small movement of her hand showing her actions. Luke in the hallway beyond, typing away at his phone aggressively with determinations of someone looking to win an argument even if he may be wrong.

Joffrey somewhere in his room planning a prank on his mother.

And all of it, all of this life, this ordinary, extraordinary life, glowing warm behind glass thirty floors above a city that had never known a dragon. His family.

“I think that prince would’ve liked this,” he said.

You followed his gaze.

You understood immediately. He could see it in the way your face softened, not with sadness but with tenderness that recognizes grief and holds it carefully.

A life without war. Without the weight of a crown.

Without sacrifice, the kind that swaps one beloved thing for another in an endless, devastating ledger.

Just family.

Just love.

Just peace.

You rested your head on his shoulder.

He turned his head and pressed a kiss to your hair, slow and quiet.

Neither of you saw it.

But just for a moment, a breath, almost a blink, the glass of the balcony door held a reflection that was not quite yours.

Two figures. Side by side. Dressed in black and red, the colours of a house that had once held the world.

Standing exactly as you were standing. Looking out at exactly what you were looking at.

Smiling.

At each other, and at this, and at everything that had managed, against all odds, to survive.

Then the image dissolved.

The glass held only the room behind it, warm and lit and full of the sound of Luke losing the argument.

And Jace, and you.

Exactly where you were always meant to be.

⬩➤ Want to read more? Check out my MASTERLIST!

"Mm?" You pull back an inch, confused, already smiling. "Don't move, why, is this a bit—"

"I'm serious. Don't move." His voice has dropped into a register you've genuinely never heard from him before— flat, careful, controlled in a way that immediately sets off every alarm bell you own. His eyes have gone somewhere past your shoulder, fixed, unblinking, tracking something with the exact focus of a man defusing a bomb.

"Megumi, you're freaking me out, what—"

"There's a spider on your shoulder."

The words take a full second to land. Then they land completely.

"WHERE."

"Don't—" Too late. You are already off the bed. You are already three feet away, standing on the mattress at a truly unsafe angle, both hands slapping frantically at your own shoulder, your arm, your entire left side, spinning in a full panicked circle like you're trying to physically outrun your own body.

"GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF, WHERE DID IT GO, IS IT STILL ON ME—"

"I told you to stay still—"

"THAT WAS NEVER GOING TO WORK, THAT WAS A BAD PLAN FROM THE START, WHO SAYS 'DON'T MOVE' TO A PERSON AND EXPECTS COMPLIANCE—"

"Most people, generally—"

"I AM NOT MOST PEOPLE, I AM A PERSON WITH A SPIDER SOMEWHERE ON MY BODY, MEGUMI, DIFFERENT RULES APPLY—" You're patting yourself down with the specific, full-body violence of someone convinced there are several spiders now, possibly a colony.. "IS IT ON THE BED. DID IT GO ON THE BED. I CANNOT GET BACK IN THAT BED IF IT WENT ON THE BED—"

"I don't know, you launched off the bed so fast you might've flung it into another area—"

"GOOD. GREAT. IT CAN LIVE THERE NOW. NEW LIFE. FRESH START. I WISH IT WELL, JUST NOT NEAR ME—"

He's sitting up now, one hand pressed over his mouth, shoulders shaking, and you point at him with the full righteous fury of someone who has just survived a genuine ordeal.

"Are you laughing."

"I'm not—" He absolutely is. "I'm not laughing—"

"YOU ARE LITERALLY LAUGHING RIGHT NOW, THERE WAS A SPIDER ON MY BODY, MEGUMI, THIS IS NOT A LAUGHING SITUATION—"

"You went from zero to launching yourself off a bed in under a second, I've genuinely never seen you move that fast, you don't move that fast when we're late for things—"

"BECAUSE THINGS BEING LATE DON'T HAVE LEGS—"

"It had, like, six legs, it was tiny, it was smaller than my thumbnail—"

"SIX IS TOO MANY, ANY NUMBER OVER FOUR IS TOO MANY, THAT'S JUST MATH—"

He's laughing fully now, doubled over slightly, the lamp light catching the shake of his shoulders, and despite the fact that you are currently standing on his bed in a full defensive crouch scanning the sheets for movement, some small traitorous part of you registers that he looks unbearably cute doing it, which is deeply inconvenient given the circumstances.

"Don't just laugh at me, help, do something useful, you're supposed to be the brave one in this relationship—"

"I told you it was there! I was handling it! You're the one who launched into orbit before I could actually do anything about it—"

"YOUR HANDLING METHOD WAS TELLING ME NOT TO MOVE, WHICH, AGAIN, WAS NEVER A REALISTIC OPTION—"

"Fine, fine—" He's up now too, still grinning, scanning the sheets with significantly more composure than you, lifting the corner of the comforter, checking the pillow, moving with the calm efficiency of someone who has clearly dealt with a hundred more spiders in his life than you have and is not remotely rattled by this one. "I don't see it anymore. It's probably long gone. You scared it half to death too, probably."

"GOOD. IT DESERVES TO BE SCARED. IT STARTED THIS."

"It was just sitting there. It didn't start anything."

"IT WAS SITTING ON ME, THAT'S AN ACT OF AGGRESSION, THAT'S BASICALLY A DECLARATION OF WAR—"

He finally straightens up, looking at you— still crouched defensively on the mattress, hair mussed, eyes wide, absolutely ready to bolt again at the first sign of movement anywhere in a five-foot radius, and something in his expression softens past the laughter into pure, helpless fondness.

"Come here," he says, holding a hand out.

"Is it gone."

"It's gone."

"Are you sure—"

"I am extremely sure. Come here."

You inch toward him with the exact caution of someone re-entering a crime scene, letting him pull you back down onto the bed, though you keep one eye on the sheets the entire time, scanning for movement.

"You know," he says, arm settling around you, still fighting a smile, "for someone who talks a whole planet's worth every night without running out of energy, you sure found a way to sprint."

"I contain multitudes, Megumi, I told you this already, sometimes those multitudes include Olympic level spider evasion—"

"That wasn't evasion, that was just you  screaming and jumping."

"Same thing."

"Not remotely the same thing."

You settle back against him, still not fully relaxed, eyes doing one more slow sweep of the pillowcase before you allow yourself to actually lie down properly, and he watches this with open, undisguised delight, pressing a kiss to your temple.

"For the record," you mutter, "I'm never letting you say 'don't move' to me again. That phrase is banned. New house rule."

"Even if there's an actual emergency?"

"Especially if there's an actual emergency, that's exactly the kind of moment where I need to be moving, Megumi, staying still is how you get eaten—"

"By the spider."

"By ANYTHING. It's a general life philosophy now. I'm implementing it retroactively."

He laughs again, quieter this time, pulling you in properly, and you let him, finally settling with your head back on his chest, heart rate slowly returning to something resembling normal, though you do keep one hand loosely fisted in his shirt, just in case, just for backup, just so you have a head start if round two ever comes.

"I love you," he says, into your hair, still smiling, "even when you scream loud enough to wake the neighbors over something the size of a raisin."

"I love you too," you say, "even though your emergency protocol is apparently 'ask the victim to stay calm and stationary,' which, frankly, I'm reporting to whoever trains people on that—"

"Go to sleep."

"Check the bed one more time first."

"I already checked."

"Check again."

He checks again. There is, predictably, no spider. You fall asleep anyway with the lamp still on, just this once, because— you inform him, very seriously, very late, right on the edge of sleep— "a person needs visibility after an incident like that," and he doesn't argue, just leaves it burning low and gold on the nightstand, one arm around you the whole night, keeping first watch.

Kinich pays in exact change and leaves with his paper bag of buns with little fanfare. Only after Kinich has left the boundaries of the Scions of the Canopy, Ajaw decides it is finally late enough in the morning to make his presence known. 

“Ughh, Mini Asha Pockets again? Is that all you eat? Bread Girl was right, you gotta start trying more things—or at least things that aren’t old… Then again, maybe you’ll catch food poisoning and finally kill over, haha!”

Kinich does not deign to respond. He instead stuffs the last pastry into his mouth with one hand while crumpling up the bag with the other. He heads towards the meeting area of the day’s commission, mentally calculating how much he should charge for the travel fee.

“Shit—you really saved our skin, Malipo! We’d be seriously screwed without your help. We’ll double—no, triple your compensation as thanks…”

It has been a while since Kinich’s pockets have been so full. The mora is a heavy weight on his hip as he returns home through the Huitztlan market. He considers what he could spend the unexpected bonus mora on, drowning out Ajaw’s own ridiculous suggestions being shouted in his ear.

Perhaps Kinich should take a vacation. With this amount of mora he could afford to take several days off from hunting to rest or enjoy some cliff-diving, maybe even purchase some new climbing gear if the price is right.

As he frequently does when he finds himself with a decent amount of money, Kinich unwillingly remembers his father.

He remembers the “good” nights when his father stumbled through the door laughing, boisterous and flushed with alcohol as he offered a colorful box of chocolates to a young Kinich and a sweet-smelling bouquet of roses to his mother. 

Back then Kinich had been too naïve to understand why his mother would see those pretty flowers and immediately start to cry.

“—a fuckin’ steal! That’s like two week’s worth of bread for only a thousand mora!”

Kinich’s pace slows as he watches two middle-aged men exiting the tent just a few meters ahead, their arms carrying burlap bags stuffed full of baked goods. Even without a logo Kinich recognizes their origin. The cute, puffy shape gives away your iconic Mini Asha Pockets. The sight alone causes Kinich’s mouth to water, a convenient reminder that he has yet to eat dinner. 

“I can’t believe that story worked! You’re one hell of an actor.”

The two men erupt into laughter, shoulders knocking against each other as they all but skip down the street. Kinich stands frozen in place, eyes glued to the familiar shop sign ahead. 

“Oiii—are you even listening to me, lizard brain? How dare you disrespect your Almighty Demonlord, K’uhul Ajaw—oh, is that the bakery? It smells good—hey, why don’t you put some of that shiny new coin to good use and feed me, you stingy bastard!”

To Kinich’s dismay, Ajaw was onto something. It seemed your bakery was having some sort of sale, a bag full of bread for only one thousand mora? That was a ninety percent discount, he would be a fool not to take advantage of such terms.

With that thought, Kinich enters your shop for the second time today while ignoring Ajaw’s animated celebration featuring confetti and a noisemaker he most certainly does not need.

Inside, Kinich half expects to see the shelves completely barren with brightly colored signs announcing some sort of clearance sale or everything must go. Thankfully, your stock is more or less how it usually is at this time in the early evening, limited but not bare, and there is no indication of an imminent permanent closure. 

As he reaches the back of the shop he spots you at the counter, handing a bag of colorful Saurus Crackers to a small child. The child hands you a few coins in exchange and even from a distance Kinich can tell the amount is insufficient. He expects you to point it out, perhaps make one of those clever jokes you seem so fond of that subtly clues the child in on the missing mora. Or perhaps you will opt for directness, something you tend to do with particularly new customers who may not understand your sense of humor yet, kindly pointing out that the payment is short so the child can rectify his mistake.

To Kinich’s disbelief, you do not even bother to count the mora in your hand. Your warm eyes remain on the young customer, bidding him a cheerful farewell as he returns your smile with a toothy grin of his own. Shouting out a cheerful “thank you, miss baker,” the child turns on his heel and runs out of the shop with excitement, clutching the bag of treats to his chest tightly.

Kinich watches, mildly appalled, as you simply put the unknown amount of mora in a glass jar and turn back to review some paperwork on your counter. 

“Heeey—are we getting some snacks or are you just gonna stare at Bread Girl all day? I’m starvin’ here!”

Ajaw’s voice—earsplintering as always—startles you into looking up. Your wide eyes flicker between the floating dragon and Kinich before flickering with recognition that has your shoulders visibly relaxing. 

“Hey, Ajaw,” you greet with a smile before shifting your attention to him. “Kinich.”

Your expression shifts into something still positive but slightly less sweet than what you had offered Ajaw. He has noticed it several times before but he is reminded yet again that you seem to regard him differently from your other customers. The distinction makes his chest twist in a way he can not quite identify. 

It tends to be easier to read your emotions than his own.

To his left, Ajaw has already started spouting some backhanded praise towards you for acknowledging his presence first, something he claims should be common sense, but neither of you pay him any mind. 

 “It’s quite unusual to see you in the afternoon,” you continue, “have you finally grown tired of eating day-old bread?” 

“I heard rumors of a sale,” Kinich explains, stretching the truth only slightly, “a bag full for only a thousand mora.”

Your brows furrow in confusion, head tilting as you seem to parse through his words. Kinich’s gaze flickers down as your lips move, seeming to form the beginning of a question before you pause. Something seems to click then because you are suddenly smiling again, eyes dancing with mirth. Privately, Kinich wonders at how effortlessly expressive you are, a direct contrast to his stolid tendencies.

“Oh, the two men from earlier?”

He nods and your expression changes yet again to something much softer, almost forlorn as you sigh.

“Those two—archons bless them—were recently injured on a dangerous commission. I just wanted to help them out a little while they're unable to work, no one should go to bed hungry.” 

Kinich recalls the two lively men in his recent memory, playfully jostling each other and chattering about which beer goes best with bread. They seemed to be far from recently injured and unable to work. He is beginning to have a sneaking suspicion…

“What about the one just now,” Kinich presses, “he conned you out of a few mora for those cookies.”

Your sympathetic expression melts back into more of the teasing amusement he is used to before you give him a brief lookover, hands raising to rest on your hips. The pose conjures up fuzzy memories of his mother, an exasperated but fond tone calling his name and lightly scolding him for staying out to play just a little too late. Kinich is not sure but he suspects that you and his mother would have gotten along.

“That was a child, Kinich. He didn’t con me, he probably just miscounted.”

For the first time since he has known you Kinich finds himself slightly irked in your presence. Your nonchalance towards something as important as mora is off-putting, conjuring up memories of people he would rather forget. The sneaking suspicion has become a full on red alert.

“But that means you’re short by several thousand mora today,” he attempts to explain patiently. “What if someone comes in tomorrow claiming that they are sick? Or that child tells all of his friends to come here for the same price?”

You simply wave him off, shaking your head with a smile like it’s nothing. It frustrates him more than he thinks it probably should.

“That’s fine,” you say, “mora isn’t everything, y’know?”

“Ha! Seeeee, Kinich? I've been tryin’ to tell this stingy bastard that for years–!”

Kinich has concluded that you are simply incapable of reading people. 

It is ironic, really, considering you seem to have read him so well. While most tend to confuse his muted expressions and blunt dialogue for boredom or annoyance, you never seemed to have such premonitions. You seemed to have a knack for knowing when Kinich was in a particularly positive mood—those were the days you allowed the friendly banter to linger a little longer. Likewise, on the days that were darker, when the haunting memories and expectations seem to have finally caught up with him, you distract him from his thoughts. You could read Kinich—the man notoriously rumored to be cold-blooded and pragmatic to a fault–like an open book and yet it seemed even the most obvious of liars could get over on you. 

Kinich has found himself in your bakery at random times nearly every day this week. Last week’s large payout has freed him from the usual time constraints of daily commissions, allowing Kinich to visit your shop during the much busier lunch and evening hours. On every visit he has seen you interact with various customers and each time you have gotten ripped off.

On Monday it was a small child, a little girl with curly pigtails and missing front teeth taking full advantage of her innocent face to ask if she could have some extra treats in her bag for her family’s “new puppy.”

You tossed several puffed grainfruit bars into the bag without hesitation.

On Wednesday it was an elderly woman who swindled you with a sob story about her grandchildren coming to visit for the first time. The grandmother droned on and on about how her children had all moved to other nations and started new lives, too busy to send more than a few letters a year and that she regrets missing the birth of her precious grandchildren.

Through teary eyes, you offered her a fifty-percent discount.

On Thursday it was a young couple. Newly engaged, they had said, constantly cuddling up against each other and stealing kisses in a nauseating display of affection. The wedding would be a small affair, only attended by their closest friends as neither family approved of the marriage.

You smiled sweetly and offered to make their wedding cake for free.

You listen to everyone without pretense, believe every impossible circumstance and unlikely scenario without batting an eye. He has never in his life met someone with so much disregard for common sense. 

Kinich does not understand it. Every time he has interacted with you, you seem to see right through him, eyeing him knowingly when his eye catches on the fresh batch of Mini Asha Pockets or insisting that he takes a few days of rest after a particularly challeging hunt. What about other customers made them so difficult for you to read? 

And even more concerning than your inability to read people is your inability to see the value in mora.

He knew your background—it was something you had shared with him on several of his visits. He knew that your family was well off and that they had sent you to the best mentors in Natlan to study maths and history. You spoke eloquently when you wanted to, he knew you were far from a fool. And yet you insist upon underselling your own goods at every turn.

“Mora isn’t everything, y’know?”

Except mora quite literally is everything. Mora is the water in the river, the meat filling your belly, the colorful box of chocolates that promise no more pain for tonight. Everything and everyone has a cost. How did you not understand that?

Kinich initially tried to let it go. The two of you were not exactly friends, barely even acquaintances, really. Despite how familiar and friendly you seemed to treat him you were simply the girl he buys his daily bread from and he was simply your customer. 

Then he found out about the papers.

It was not uncommon to find you hunched over a haphazard pile of papers during slow hours in the bakery. Kinich had not thought much of it—they were likely recipes or inventory order forms–standard fair for a business, he assumed.

But one morning he had approached the counter only to find you fast asleep. The sight was foreign, he had never seen you anything less than energetic even in the earliest hours. He had asked before—well, really Ajaw had asked but really it was the same thing–how you managed to be so peppy working at the crack of dawn. You had replied with a smile so bright it made the whole bakery feel several degrees warmer.

“Making my customers happy gives me all the energy I need.”

Yet here you were, slumped over and completely vulnerable in a way that made his chest feel tight. 

Kinich mentally thanks the archons that Ajaw hates early mornings too much to appear right now. 

He should wake you up, he thinks. Anyone could come in at any moment. If a customer comes in and sees you asleep you might miss out on a potential sale.

Or if a thief comes in…

That trail of thought ends abruptly. He is here so you are protected, he is Malipo Kinich afterall.

His attention is drawn back to the present when you softly murmur in your sleep, nuzzling your cheek deeper into the stack of papers beneath you. A small line of drool leaks from the corner of your mouth, catching Kinich's sharp gaze as it drips down and smears a bit of ink.That is when he finally registers what is written at the top of each page.

PAST DUE INVOICE – FINAL NOTICE

Kinich freezes as you begin to stir awake, yawning loudly before you notice the presence of another person and jolt. Your wide eyes meet his own before glancing down at the bag of discount Mini Asha Pockets in his hand then back up to the first few rays of sunrise peaking behind him. 

“Oh archons—I am so sorry,” you fluster, nearly tripping over yourself to open the cash register, “I’ve never fallen asleep at the bakery before but I haven’t been sleeping as much lately with the new hours and—ugh, now I’m rambling—your total is three thousan—"

“New hours?”

You pause and suddenly turn sheepish, avoiding eye contact to Kinich’s frustration.

“Ah, yeah. The bakery hasn’t been doing so well lately so I’m trying to stay open later to hopefully increase sales during the summer months.”

Kinich opens his mouth, not entirely sure himself what he was planning to say when Ajaw appears, startling both of you. 

“The Almighty Dragonlord, K’uhul Ajaw, grows thirsty and demands a cup of the finest fruit juice!”

You process Kinich’s purchase quickly after that and he pays in exact change, as always. He manages to leave the bakery only a few minutes later than usual, still plenty of time to reach his destination. Ajaw is momentarily placated with the promise of ample quenepa berries prime for juicing along their route. The paper bag of Mini Asha Pockets in his hands look and taste the same as always and yet the sight of the little yellow “30% off” sticker causes his stomach to roll with something unpleasant.

A hero may adopt many different roles within a community.

At least, that is what Kinich tries to tell himself when he is threatening a pair of grown men over a pack of Puff Pops. He stands tall, quietly staring down the two men cowering on their knees as they beg for forgiveness from the Great Malipo Kinich and promise to only pay full price for goods from now on.

Truthfully, Kinich has not really done much in the way of violence. His reputation as an experienced hunter and Ancient Name bearer alone tend to set an air of unease amongst those he meets for the first time, only amplified by his utilitarian approach to business. It is actually Ajaw who seems to do most of the work for him in this case, the abrasive dragon more than happy to spew creative threats involving various forms of ancient torture. Kinich chooses to disregard that most of Ajaw’s threats seem to begin with: “Once Kinich finally kicks rocks and I take over his body…”

In Kinich’s defense, this confrontation had not been premeditated. Kinich had not set out this morning with the intentions of threatening the members of his own tribe but he just happened to once again be visiting your bakery in the late afternoon when he spotted the two “injured” men from a few weeks ago in the process of delivering yet another piss poor sob story to you. 

“It’s been a real tough past few days with the wife sick and the kids strugglin’ to make friends–would really mean a lot if we could bring home some extra treats for ‘em, y’know? But the guild has been really stingy with commissions and you know I still have that issue with my hip–” 

Kinich nearly rolls his eyes at the balding man attempting to mime a broken hip, his friend beside him pretending to help him balance. His bored gaze shifts over to look at you behind the counter only to see you clearly eating it up. You star at the two men with pitiful, watery eyes, nodding along sympathetically. You are so unbelievably gullible. 

It is when you begin reaching under the counter for a box of expensive imported chocolates that Kinich decides he needs to intervene. With three large steps, Kinich physically cuts into the conversation, grabbing each man by the back of the tunic and pulling them away with the excuse of needing to discuss the details of an upcoming commission.

Following a stern reminder not to swindle anymore bake shops, punctuated with some very vivid threats courtesy of Ajaw, Kinich returns to your bakery with the pair of men looking unnaturally pale right behind him. You welcome the men back warmly but they suddenly seem disinterested in conversation and pointedly avoid eye contact as they quickly complete their purchases at full price with a generous tip. Once the men have left–practically tripping over each other in their haste to leave–you shoot Kinich a suspicious look to which he innocently shrugs.

The next few weeks progress similarly. 

Kinich finds himself feeling more and more like a security guard, silently keeping tabs on customers and “encouraging” any who attempt to take advantage of your bleeding heart for a discount. You seem oblivious to it all, cheerfully remarking that profits are higher than usual this month followed immediately by gratitude towards the archons for their blessings. Kinich merely nods along, taking his time to look through each item in your bestsellers section. 

That is perhaps the most obvious change. Kinich finds himself gravitating towards the slightly more expensive fresh pastries, much to your delight.

“You’ve finally had enough of the stale leftovers?”

“...something like that.”

“Haha, well since you’re my dear friend I’ll give you a discount–”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Kinich assumes all is resolved. Your profits are at an all-time high, the store has returned to its usual hours, and even his daily bread tastes better now that it is fresh.

That all takes a turn one Friday afternoon. 

Kinich is negotiating a deal for a rare Nagadus emerald necklace with a foreign merchant insistent on overcharging. He is calmly arguing, something about the abundance of emeralds in Natlan, when he happens to spot you exiting your shop out of the corner of his eyes. You’re holding a tote bag full of packaged pastries and happen to look in his direction. Once you spot him you shoot him a dazzling smile and enthusiastic wave. He watches as you make your way towards a group of small children playing in the dirt. You offer a loaf of bread and within moments the children all swarm around you in a circle, jumping up and down in excitement as you pass out pastries and rolls and cookies to each one. Kinich doesn’t realize he has stopped talking mid-sentence until the merchant chuckles, turning to look at you as well.

“That yer girlfriend? She’s a cute one ain’t she.”

Kinich bristles, shoulders tensing at the comment. He opens his mouth to say something–a correction or a threat, he isn’t sure himself–but before he can the man is already speaking again. 

“Kind girl, too. She’s always givin’ to those in need–saved my skin a few times when sales weren’t doin’ too well.”

Kind or foolish? A month ago the answer was simple to Kinich. Everything has a cost, from the meat that fills your belly to the canopy above your head. To willingly deprive yourself of things was insanity.

And yet as he watches you hand an Asha Pocket to a scrawny child who looks up at you with starry eyes, Kinich sees himself. Only six years old but already an adventurer, tanned skin littered in bruises and scrapes. He remembers his stomach would always hurt back then. On the days father came home drunk he would go to bed hungry, the aches in his stomach matching the throbbing in his swollen cheek. On the days father came home with succulent boar and potatoes and pita bread Kinich would eat and eat, stuffing himself so full his stomach ached because he could not be sure when his next meal would come. 

If he had met someone like you he wonders how differently things might have been. 

“Tell ya what,” the merchant suddenly says, startling Kinich as he drops the necklace right into his hands, “I’ll give it to ya—ayni wawqi—today for you, tomorrow for me. In exchange, I want ya t’ thank ya girl for me.”

The merchant nods before turning to leave Kinich to stare in mild shock at the necklace in his hand.

“What a steal–!”

Ajaw cheers, flickering in to examine the green gem more closely,

“This is a gem fit for even the Almighty Dragonlord, K’uhul A–hey, where are we going!?”

Your tote bag is half empty by the time Kinich reaches your side, Ajaw unwillingly dragged alongside him. Wordlessly, Kinich takes the bag from your hands and begins distributing treats to the remaining children. You nearly gawk at him but he pretends not to notice, focusing instead on handing a pack Mini Asha Pockets to a little girl. The girl receives the package with both hands, nearly reverent as she thanks him with starry eyes. Kinich stiffly nods and the girl runs off towards the other children who have already begun sharing their spoils amongst each other. 

“Well, well,” you begin with a teasing lilt to your voice, “never thought I’d see the day the stingy Malipo Kinich offers anything for free.”

Kinich spares you a glance, saurian eyes catching on the curve of your smile.

“It’s not free.”

Your smile falls and you blink at him with confusion.

“Huh?”

“It’s not free,” he repeats, fishing out another pastry from the bag, “these children…one day they will become the scholars and hunters and heroes of our tribe. They pay us by growing up and building a stronger Natlan.”

The explanation is very pragmatic, very Kinich. Your eyes crease as laughter bubbles from your lips, amused and touched all at the same time. He feels his own cheeks pull into a smile as he watches you, warmer and more dazzling than the desert sun. As he thought, everything has a cost…

But perhaps not all costs must be paid in mora. 

“Bleeegh, since when did lizard brain become such a sap!?”

The fire's light danced in Jacaerys’s dark eyes as he looked up from the book he had been pretending to read. His gaze drifted to you, who were intently absorbed in a book of your own. Your brow furrowed in concentration, and a small smile played on your lips as you turned the pages.

“Do you think,” Jacaerys began, breaking the comfortable silence, “that if we had a dragon in this library, it would prefer curling up by the fire or snoozing among the books?”

You glanced up, your eyes meeting his with an amused sparkle. You closed your book with a soft thud and stretched your arms before replying, “Definitely curling up by the fire. Dragons do seem to like warmth and comfort, don’t they?”

Jacaerys grinned, leaning forward slightly. “And what about us? Do you think we’d be like the dragon or the books?”

You raised an eyebrow, playfully challenging him. “Are you saying you’d rather be a dragon?”

Jacaerys chuckled, the sound rich and warm. “I think I’d prefer the dragon’s company. Much more exciting than a pile of dusty old books.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “You’re incorrigible, Jace. Always finding a way to distract me.”

Jacaerys’s eyes softened as he leaned closer. He reached out and gently took your hand in his, his touch warm and reassuring. “But isn’t that what you love about me?”

Your heart fluttered at the gentle pressure of his hand. You looked down at your intertwined fingers, feeling a blush creep up your cheeks. “Perhaps. But don’t let it go to your head.”

He grinned, his smile widening. “I’ll try, but no promises. I do enjoy making you smile.”

You sighed contentedly, leaning your head on his shoulder as you both looked at the fire. The warmth of the flames and Jacaerys’s gentle presence created a perfect moment of tranquility. You felt as though nothing else in the world mattered except this quiet, shared moment.

As the fire crackled and popped, Jacaerys began to softly hum a familiar tune, the melody intertwining with the rhythmic crackle of the flames. The gentle sound was soothing, and you closed your eyes, letting the warmth and peace envelop you.

“Jace,” you murmured, “sometimes I think I could stay here forever. Just us and the fire.”

He pressed a soft kiss to the top of your head, his voice a warm murmur in your ear. “I could think of nothing better. As long as I’m with you, I’m happy.”

You smiled, feeling a deep sense of contentment. “I’m glad we have these moments, Jace. They mean more than you know.”

He pulled you a little closer, his arm wrapping around you protectively. “Me too. And I promise, there will be many more.”

The fire continued to dance and crackle, casting a golden glow around the room. In the heart of Dragonstone, surrounded by the quiet presence of the man you loved and the warmth of the fire, everything felt right.

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"We only have the fried fish My Queen..."

It took you quite awhile to finally find the courage to speak. You bet you looked like a fool, throat dry and hands far too shaky as you take another sip of your drink; as if enough ale could calm down your nerves and forget this day ever happened, but for your brother Lucerys you endured. Even when everything in you urged you to shrink back and hide away with your sisters upstairs.

"I am sure it is... different from what you are use too. I apologize for sullying your tastebuds."

You could hear screeching over the sounds of crashing waves from outside your window, along with the cries of the goat and sheep your neighbors had kindly offered in the stead of your own, just while your shoulders tense up; all to cement your reality further.

Three bloods of the dragon were sitting in front of you with eyes of amethysts and hair like white gold, while their fire breathing beasts were bathing beneath moonlight at the front of your lawn.

They had arrived unannounced- scaring half the island to death while waking up the other- when they landed their mounts to shore.

Only one of them didn't have the striking Valyrian features their kin were known for, a man right about your age, seated to the left of the Queen- his mother- but he remained princely all the same.

You could see the resemblance between him and the boy you had taken in as one of your own. Though he was much more handsome, with a stronger jaw and poutier lips, leaving your face hot whenever your eyes would meet.

Right now, he was looking right at you- dissecting you fully. And you tried to avoid his gaze as effectively as you could.

The Gods, whether the old ones or the new, could strike you down right now and you would thank them for it. Just so this awkwardness would end.

"It is quite alright." Queen Rhaenyra waved a hand in the air as if to dismiss your words. "We are grateful that you have invited us in."

Despite the kindness of her tone, no food touched her lips. The consort and the Prince did not touch their plates either.

It didn't escape your notice but you weren't about to point it out.

You blamed it on the nerves. You preferred your head to be attached to your neck after all.

Your brother Lucerys had a different thought all together.

"You should eat what my sister made for you... She worked hard to prepare it."

Underneath the table you wanted to kick his shin. He had a tongue on him. Always had beneath his sweetness, him using it was rare, yes, but he had it in him to do so. But when he wrapped his fingers around yours in comfort, to remind you that he was there, you couldn't bring yourself to follow through.

Sweet boy. Always looking out for you despite you being older, even in the face of dragons. Even in the face of his blood.

"Do not disrespect our mother by speaking to her with that tone." Jacaerys did not raise his voice, but the firmness in it was clear.

"Do not disrespect my sister by refusing our food."

The crown prince's brows furrowed and he sneered.

"She is not even your blood." he spat the words like fire. Hoping the truth would burn into his younger brother's skull and make him remember. "We are your blood."

Rhaenyra's hand struck the table and the bickering between the two princes stopped.

Since she arrived she had never laid her eyes on her second son's face- fearing she'd wake up and realize it was a dream like most nights after his supposed death- but she wasn't asleep anymore.

This time, she looked at him. This time, he didn't melt away.

Only one tear had escaped her then.

"I apologize, sweet boy." Lucerys bristles at her words, the familiarity in her tone. It was odd hearing the endearment from her lips instead of his sisters. "It is only right we eat what is given. We did not mean to offend."

"I am not offended-" Rhaenyra doesn't wait for you to finish before taking a bite.

"This is ridiculous." Daemon grumbled, picking at it like he had never seen a fish before. Though you would imagine he had never been served a fish this small.

But Jacaerys, ever his mother's son, quickly followed her lead. The king consort was the last to do so.

You had handed them the three largest fish you and Luke had caught a day prior. Doused in every fresh herb you could find from your cupboards.

At least now, you and the rest of your kin would live until dawn.

"It taste like lemons." Jacaery's compliment was hollow, but you took it anyways.

"Thank you M'lord. It 'twas my mother's cooking." a light laugh escaped your lips.

Maybe you could imagine this as a simple dinner with extended family. Maybe then you wouldn't want the earth to open up and swallow you whole.

"You must teach us how then, so when we take my brother back, he will have something to remember you by."

He went straight for it, not giving anyone a moment of respite.

Rhaenyra wince. She was hoping for a more subtle approach. "Jacaerys-"

"No." Lucerys digs his palm into the table to lift himself up, rattling the plates and cups. His mother and brother raised from their seats trying to catch him, eyes drawn with worry- but Lucerys pulls away, choosing you for stability instead.

You sighed at his coldness. Handing him the large staff he used in place of his missing leg.

"You can't take me away from the only family I have ever known as if I am a mere pet that you can pick up as you please!"

"Of course not, that was not what your brother meant at all."

You never thought royalty could be so desperate. You never thought the Queen of the realm would break under the eye of the boy who- not a week before- had slipped into some cow dung, and when he caught you laughing, threw it at your face.

The Queen rambled on and you pitied her for it.

"We would never intend for you to cut ties with them- we could give them land, titles even-" a scoff bellowed out in the corner. "You could even marry her if y-you so wish. I would approve of it, if it means you would stay happy. If you would return home."

The suggestion only seemed to anger him. "I call her sister, and your solution to my fears is to have us wed? This home is of the faith of the seven, do not bear your sins as if they are our own."

Daemon grits his teeth. His sheathed blade, dark sister, peeked through the slits of his cloak. "You are of fire and ash, boy. You might have fucking forgotten that but your blood does not."

Lucerys had not backed down in the slightest, unflinching despite the intimidation. He had never been so brave, at least never in his memories.

"I am of the sea and the salt. A fisherman, not a dragon."

"Mind your tongue," Jacaerys raises his hands in frustration, as if he couldn't believe the words out of his mouth. He to agreed at the ridiculousness of it all. "Or else I'll strap you to Vermax myself and fly into the night."

"I would like to see you try-"

"Enough." you pull Lucerys back and for once the stubborn boy had listen and you praise the Sevens that he did so.

You could feel the stare of his blood brother on your back, a steady presence on your skin, and you wonder to yourself if staring was his favorite past time.

"Clearly, there are a lot of pent up feelings as of now... Maybe we should rest and talk about it once morning comes."

"I say we go with my plan. He will accept his fate soon enough." Jace quietly mouths to his mother.

Rhaenyra squeezes his shoulders gently before shaking her head. "I agree, we should rest." her response was diplomatic and because she was Queen- and their mother, and their wife- they followed.

Daemon had grumbled. Jacaerys had pursed his lips. But they did so anyways.

You, like the proper host you were, had given your guests the biggest room. While the rest of your siblings were cooped up in the smaller one.

"Truly, we are grateful you have allowed us to stay." The Queen's hands were gentle on your free arm, thumb strumming against the roughspun before she retreated into the room for the night.

"D-do you plan on giving me to them?" Lucerys had asked in a shaky breath. Your sister's eyes were blood shot, their arms around him tight in fear that he would leave.

You turn to fully face them, gentle hands ushering them into the other room.

"Father said that blood does not make family." His voice grew louder once you were inside. "He said that he was my father and you my sisters despite it-"

Your hand had found his way to his cheek and it had silenced him mid sentence. "We will discuss this in the morning, do not make your sisters afraid."

At least for tonight, the reminder you still saw him as kin was enough to quiet his doubts and let himself rest.

It was not the most comfortable of sleeping arrangements.

Their snoring, the tight fit atop the bedding, the way their tiny feet and Lucery's stump would dig into your sides, had left you sweaty and restless. Forcing you to slip away from thin sheets and tiptoeing down creaky stairs just to get a fresh breath of air.

"Oh Sevens-" You quickly bit your lip and spun at your heels, trying to stay quiet as you shut the front door, heaving against it.

It was not fresh air that had greeted you, but a large body of scales.

The dinner had been such a mess you had almost forgotten that there were other, more dangerous, beings that neared you.

"Fuck..." You closed your eyes, hand against your chest to steady your breathing. You had never been so close to a dragon before.

"Is that where he gets it from?" A sudden voice asked followed by the sounds of heavy boots hitting wood.

You lifted your eyes to find Jacaerys. Sleep had missed him as well.

"My brother's sudden rudeness... did it come from you?"

You point at yourself, confused. "What are you talking about M'lord?"

He sighs, now at the bottom of the steps. "Forget it... I know better than to blame you."

Jacaerys was closer now, large hands running through his brown locks.

They curled like the waves. You noted the freckles on his skin. The way he was prettier up close.

"We're you about to go outside?" His voice no longer held roughness, with less bite than the one at dinner.

"No," You lied through your teeth. "Just wanted to see if the dragons were asleep which they- um- are. Goods, yes?"

With your hands at your back and your posture stiff, you tried to exude ease- as if dragons were not tales of legend but mere talking points in common conversation.

You wonder if he could hear the way your heart was beating rapidly against your chest. If he had, he was not subtle in his amusement.

"Asleep? Why? If you had caught them in their wake, would you have sung to them until they find their rest?"

"I could have..." You turned your head to look away. Damn him.

"Its alright if they have frightened you." A half-smile was on his lips, more than what you were use too from him. "It is only natural to be frightened."

"I am not afraid-" But when he had reached for the metal loop and your hand had sprung out to take his wrist, it was clear to him that you were.

The rustling from outside had startled you too.

"Hmm?" His smugness rolled out in waves. In this light he looked more boy than man.

"I thought you unafraid?"

You should strike him, wipe his face clean of that grin. He looked similar enough to Luke Lucerys that you think you could get away with it if you claim your sight had been hindered by the dark.

Instead- you remembered yourself. Dropping the offending hand to smoothened out your skirt in a nervous tick. You could feel his breath against the curve of your ear and you shivered, and his dimples deepened.

"If it is fresh air you seek, I should escort you outside." the distance between you grew as he took a step back, palm extending outwards to you. "Take it as an apology for my actions from earlier. The dragons will not harm you in my presence."

A sigh escapes you and you begrudgingly agree, his palm warm against your own.

For a moment, beneath the stars, you forget you are fisher folk and that the man beside you was a dragon prince. Imagining yourself as a girl simply breathing in the ocean breeze rather than what you actually are- a girl trying to find solace from her plights.

The shawl you had brought- which your mother had made long before you were even born and the one your father took inspiration from so Lucerys would have a matched with his girls the week after he had arrived- was tight around your shoulders as you watched the sea from a distance.

"Thank you..." Jacaerys whispers, finally speaking. "For taking care of him..."

Like he had promised the dragons paid no attention to you, even when a few of them had stirred themselves awake, keeping themselves busy by flicking their tails and leaving claw marks into the dirt.

"It was nothing really." you shifted your feet awkwardly at his thanks.

A lull. Then he speaks again.

"You could have turned him away... I'm sure most people would have, especially in his current condition."

"Well, he was sleeping on my father's boat when we had found him so he wasn't easy to ignore. Besides, my father loved to take in strays and I am certain the boy would have found a way to hobble after us if we had left without him."

You smiled at the memory, at the young boy with a damp mop of curls, shivering and sniveling inside your lowly fishing both. He had no memory of who he was. How his leg had gone missing- the only truth he knew of was that his name was Luke and that he was alone.

Pirates, you suggested once. Dragons, your father suggested back.

Many small folk had been made victim to the dance and by then, word had gotten out that its reach had spread to your shores. Your father thought that Luke must have been one of them- whether his boat had got caught by a hungry beast, the wind carrying the scent of the fish nets up into the air and to its senses- or hit by a stray breath of flame.

Unlikely but not wholly impossible.

Back then you had laugh. Dragons were of the air, what dangers did they pose in the sea?

Now, you are certain that he was the one bellied over in laughter.

"What are you smiling for?" Jacaerys asked. You whipped your face at his voice.

"Nothing." You insist. "It's just... if my father were here, I am certain he would find this situation most amusing."

"He was a happy man, your father?"

You nod. "The happiest."

At the corner of your eye, you could see that Jacaerys looked pleased at that fact.

"I am glad... that in the five years he has been gone- he had found his way into a happy home. Trust us, when we say that we will reward you for your efforts."

"We did not take him in for a reward." His eyes were wide, caught off guard by your quickness. You raised your hands up defensively.

"Truthfully, I never thought he was a Lord. Much less a Prince." you continued on, crinkling your nose in a playful jest.

You had given that boy to many clouts in the ear- chores you doubt he was ever expected to do in his time in King's Landing- and had laughed with him and acted without propriety to his true born station.

"Of course not-" his words stumble for a bit before it regained its footing. "I did not mean to imply that you did so, nor did I mean to imply that you held ulterior motives in your heart."

He was trying to be polite. You couldn't help but laugh at that too.

Stretching your arms out, you could feel your body lax before unceremoniously making a bed out of the grass- tired from staying on your feet for far to long.

Supposed you could go back inside and lay in a proper bed with the rest of your siblings- but this day had been stressful and you believed you deserved a moment of calm.

"He got sea sick the first time we took him out fishing." Another laugh escaped your lips, scratchy in its timber and leaving a bitter sweet taste on your tongue. You could feel a tear dip down to your temple before disappearing into your hair. You caught the next one before it could drop.

So many thoughts had filled your head: about your family, about the Targaryens... the little paradise you had made by the shore- but there was nothing you could make sense of.

The Prince tilts his chin down to meet your eyes, gaze focused even as he takes up the empty space of grass beside you. You bet you looked like a fool.

"He hurled all over the nets and we had to cancel the trip short- said he couldn't handle the waves rocking him. To think... that boy may leave us to be the Lord of Driftmark."

Jace had never forgotten the way his brother was at sea. The irony was not lost on both on you.

He rest his head on the grass, hair weaving into its blades in soft motions. He turned his head so he could still look at you as he spoke. "He was the same when he was a boy."

"I can imagine the same green face in fancier robes." you sniffled.

"Oh I'm sure you can." he raised a hand to the sky waving it around as he told tales of youth, of stories between him and a Luke you hadn't meant yet, making a show of it.

"I have always been better at the sword than my brother." he commented after telling you a story of them sparring by the shore. He moved to a more comfortable position, grace measured as his muscles flexed beneath the velvet- catching your eye.

He smirks, satisfied, before continuing. "I hope we could continue to spar once he warms up to me."

"He will M'lord. He is a friendly boy."

It was colder now, the wind had picked up and the sounds of the waves crashing against the rocks had grown louder.

"Are you not cold, My Prince?" The shawl slips off your shoulders so you could offer it.

He rubbed his hands together for some warmth, cupping it around his lips so he could blow in some hot air. "What kind of a prince I would be if I took a young Lady's shawl?"

"A warm one." you retort, throwing half of it over his frame, while the other half remained on yours. A few seconds later the tremble in his lip stop. The wool was not much but it did its job blocking the wind well enough.

"Is it your habit to save Velaryons?" he says breathlessly.

"I hardly call sharing a shawl saving, My Prince."

"I could die from a simple cold." his tone was matter-of-fact. "You very well could be saving me."

A snort rumbled from your throat. Jacaerys didn't seem to be put off by the sound. "We should head back shortly. Morning will arrive sooner in our sleep."

He nestles deeper into the shawl but nods.

"Yes, we probably should."