loneliness my master ★ i bow to him alone

You had followed Ser Criston Cole across better than two hundred miles of the Riverlands by now, into this waterlogged country of willow and reed where every field had been turned to soup and every village emptied ahead of your coming. The men around you — Reachmen mostly, with a scattering of Stormlanders and a handful of Northmen like yourself, drawn south for reasons as various and as private as your own — had begun to walk with the loose, hollow gait of men who no longer expected a day to end in anything but more marching.

There had been no great battle since Rook’s Rest. There had only been bridges, and burned granaries, and small ugly skirmishes in the dark that were forgotten by breakfast because no one wanted to remember them.

You were there because Lord Cerwyn had gotten you on a woman he never married and had never found it in him to give you his name for it, whatever fondness he'd shown you in the years he let you ride at his side and learn the sword and pretend, for a while, that bastardy was as a small thing as it could be in Dorne. It was not a small thing. It had never been a small thing, not in the North, where blood and name meant near enough the same, and a bastard girl, however well-loved, could expect nothing of her father's hall once he was cold in his tomb.

You had worn Snow before this, plain and cold as the rest of it. So, when the Hightowers' men came through the North with their promises — fight for the Greens, and the Greens will make you legitimate, will give you a name to hand down to whatever children you might have — you had not thought on it long. You had thought on it exactly as long as it took to saddle a horse.

They had kept their word. That was more than you had expected of southern lords, and it was, if you were honest with yourself, the only reason you had not yet done what half this host seemed to be quietly considering: turned around and gone home.

Word came for you a little after the bridge, while you were still scraping river mud off your boots with the edge of your knife. A boy you didn't know — one of Cole's runners, thin as a reed and twice as nervous — told you the Hand wanted you, and told you to hurry, and did not wait to see whether you would.

Ser Criston Cole's tent smelled of wet canvas and tallow and, faintly, of the wine he no longer bothered pouring for anyone but himself. He did not look up when you entered. He was bent over a map weighted down at its corners with a dagger, a cup, and two river stones, and he studied it the way a man studies something he has already failed to understand and is too proud to admit it.

"You're the Cerwyn girl," he said. It was not a question. He had known who you were since the day you'd killed a Rivermen scout with your hands rather than lose the quiet of a blade, and men like Cole remembered things of that kind.

"I am, my lord."

"Good." He straightened, and his eyes — flat, paler in the lamplight, the eyes of a man who had long since stopped bothering to disguise what he was thinking — moved over you once, assessing, the way you imagined he might weigh a blade before deciding whether it was worth sharpening or throwing away. "Then you'll know the Tullys' whelp is with the river host. Oscar. The one they've propped up now his grandsire's finally had the grace to die."

You said nothing. There was nothing yet worth saying.

"He's young," Cole went on, "and soft, and by every account he should be too frightened to hold that host together. But alas, he is not. I want him dead by tomorrow morning. Not captured. Dead." He said it the way another man might have ordered a meal brought to his tent. "You'll know how to move without being heard better than any of these Reach boys who think stealth is only a matter of keeping their mouths shut."

"The Rivermen keep close watch on their camps, my lord." It was as near to argument as you dared. "Closer than most."

"So do wolves," said Cole, "and your people hunt those too, or so I'm told." He turned back to his map, which was as much dismissal as you were going to get. "Take what you need. I don't want excuses. I want a dead Tully."

You left the tent with your jaw set tight enough to ache, and said nothing to the two guards who watched you go, because there was nothing worth saying to them either, and because arguing with Ser Criston Cole had gone out of fashion in this host sometime around the second bridge, when it became plain that the Hand of the King heard disagreement the way other men heard insects — an irritation to be swatted, never a thing to be properly reasoned with.

You found Gwayne where you generally found him these days, some careful distance from the command tents, sharpening his sword with more attention than the beast strictly required. He knew it would be long before he could swing it again. He looked up when your shadow crossed him, and whatever he saw in your face made him set the brush down.

Gwayne Hightower was not a friend, at least not in the strictest sense of the word. You hadn't shared pints of beer and afternoons of recounting your experiences. But he was a comrade in arms, and you both independently knew you shared the same opinion about Cole's strategy. That made him the closest thing to a friend you could afford.

"That bad?"

"He wants Oscar Tully dead before the sun rises again." You kept your voice low, more from habit than any real fear of being overheard — every man in this camp was too tired to eavesdrop on anything that wasn't his own supper. "Quietly."

Gwayne's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "And he's sending you into a Rivermen camp alone to manage it, I'd wager. No escort spared, no delay to the crossing to buy you better ground to work from. Just — go and do it, and don't trouble him with how."

"That's the shape of it, yes."

"It would be." He went back to the blade in swipes that had less to do with the sharpening than with needing somewhere to put his hands. "Do you know what I think, Cerwyn?"

You looked at him, waiting for his answer. Your father’s House name sat strangely on other people’s tongues, but you had tried to will yourself to ignore the feeling.

"I think Ser Criston has spent so long being clever that he's forgotten a host needs feeding more than it needs cunning. We've burned every bridge between here and the Gods Eye and gained nothing for it but a river host that hates us worse than it fears us, and men of our own who'd sooner desert than cut down one more span of timber for no battle waiting at the end of it. My cousin waits at Tumbleton with a host twice this one's size, waiting on us to arrive like civilized men instead of skulking through the reeds setting fires." He looked at you sidelong. "I mean to reach him. Without Ser Criston's leave, and without his company, if it comes to that."

It was not a small thing to say aloud, not to a woman he had known scarcely two months, not in a camp where Cole's temper had already found cause to hang men for lesser talk. You understood, then, why he had chosen you to say it to — not because he trusted you especially, but because you were a Northerner and a bastard made legitimate and had no particular love for anyone in this host beyond your own skin, and men like Gwayne Hightower had a talent for knowing precisely which coin would buy a silence.

"When?" was all you asked.

"Soon. Anyone who would follow and a night dark enough to cover the noise of leaving." He studied you a moment longer, and something in his face made you understand this was, in its way, an offer, though he was too proud a man to make it plainly. "You'd be welcome among them, if a throat-cutting in a Rivermen camp doesn't appeal to you."

You did not answer him then, only thanked him for the warning and left him to his sword, but the thought followed you back through the mud to your own tent and sat with you long after the camp had gone quiet around you.

You turned it over the way a woman turns over a coin, looking for the false ring in it, and found none. There was, you thought, a certain mercy in the way a battlefield forgave the dead their absences. A woman could go into a Rivermen camp in the black of night and simply not come back, and no one — least of all Ser Criston Cole, who had never once asked whether you wished to survive the errands he set you — would trouble himself wondering whether you had died on Tully steel or merely kept walking, north or east or anywhere that was not this rotting, bridge-burned war.

You thought of your father's hall, which had never been yours and never would be, whatever name you had bought with this campaign. You thought of the name itself, hard-won and already beginning to feel like a debt you were no longer certain you could keep paying in blood. And you thought, last of all, of the Rivermen camp waiting somewhere in the dark, and of a boy called Oscar Tully who had done nothing to you save be born to the wrong grandfather, and you found that for the first time since you had sworn your oath to House Hightower's cause, you were not entirely certain you meant to keep it.

You banked the thought before it could grow into a decision. There would be time enough for that later, you told yourself — after the camp, after the throat you had been ordered to open, after whatever the next crossing cost you. For now, there was only the mud, and the rain that had not stopped in three days, and a war that seemed determined to go on exhausting itself long after anyone left in it still believed in what it was fighting for.

Night had thickened the mud rather than dried it, and you moved through the Rivermen camp the way you'd been taught to move through the Wolfswood as a girl — weight forward, breath shallow, eyes given time to find what the dark was hiding before you trusted your feet to it. Dark leathers instead of mail, a plain dagger at your hip instead of the sword you'd have preferred, and no torch, because a torch was as good as announcing yourself to men who'd spent a month learning to sleep with one eye open.

You said a short prayer to the old gods, out of habit more than faith — the sort that asked for nothing so grand as victory, only that your knife stayed quiet and your feet stayed sure — and moved toward the first of the larger tents. Size told you nothing on its own. It could be any of them.

Snoring, thick and multiplied, answered you before you'd even reached the flap of the first one. A soldiers' tent, several men deep in the kind of sleep that came from a day spent digging entrenchments. You let it be and moved to the next.

That one gave you nothing at all — no snoring, no candlelight bleeding under the canvas, no sound of a man turning in his sleep. Empty, or near enough that it wasn't worth the risk of finding out otherwise. Which left the last of them: a low, steady flicker of firelight at the seam of the flap, and beneath it, silence. No breathing you could make out. A man awake and alone, you judged, or no man at all — either way, the only tent left worth your time.

You went in low and slow, hand ready to let the blade out from its sheath, and found the tent empty enough to make your shoulders drop half an inch before you caught the mistake in yourself and hated it.

A camp bed, unmade. A table crowded with a map you didn't have time to read, its corners weighted with small carved markers, chairs pulled close as though a council had only just broken up. Rugs laid over the worst of the ground, to keep the river's damp from climbing into a man's bones while he slept. No young lord. No Oscar Tully, soft and frightened as Cole had promised he'd be.

The candles, guttering low in their dishes, threw more shadow than light, and left the tent's far corners for the dark to keep. You were three steps from the flap, already rebuilding your plan in your head, when a hand closed hard around your wrist.

It happened too fast to name as anything but instinct. The world tilted, the table's edge caught you hard across the hips, and then you were bent face-down over the map itself, small carved markers skittering off into the rugs, a weight settling into your back that did not care in the slightest how you struggled against it. You threw an elbow that found nothing but air, twisted against a grip that would not give, and found only the greater, immovable truth of the body pinning you down.

"Is Cole really that desperate," said a voice above you, thick with a Northern burr you hadn't heard turned on you in years, "that he's sending women alone into the dark now?"

You knew the voice before you'd finished placing it, and the knowing went through you colder than the dagger you couldn't reach. Roderick Dustin. You had met him a handful of times in what felt now like another life — at Winterfell one long winter, at your father's hall once when you were still young enough to think yourself welcome there — and you understood, with the particular clarity of a woman flattened across a table, exactly why you couldn't throw him off you. He was built from the same stone as Barrowton itself.

"I haven't come for the pelt of an old wolf." Your voice came out steadier than you had any right to expect, though your accent — buried carefully these past months beneath a Green tongue — slipped loose with the effort of the lie. "Cole wanted trout for his supper."

That gave him pause. You felt it in the hand at your wrist before you heard it in his silence.

He turned you then, hard, off your front and onto your back against the ruined map, and before you'd finished the motion his other hand had found the crown of your head, fingers closing in your hair to tip your face up into what little the candles offered. You made a small, involuntary sound at the roughness of it, half pain and half something you refused to name, and he gave no sign of having heard it at all, too intent on what the firelight showed him.

"Robard Cerwyn's Snow whelp," he said.

"Not a Snow anymore." You managed something like a smile, difficult as it was with his fist still in your hair.

"Sold your loyalty for a surname, then."

"Easy to judge a woman for wanting a name," you spat, "when you were born into yours, Lord Dustin."

His house name came out of your mouth twisted, more challenge than courtesy, and you felt his hand leave your hair only to close instead around your throat — not cruelly, not yet you supposed, but with a deliberateness that told you exactly how little effort it would cost him to make it cruel. His eyes found yours in the low light and held them, and you watched him understand, in the space of a breath, that there was no fear in them to find.

"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you here and now."

You held his stare and played the only card you had left. "You're not going to kill me."

"Don't be so sure of that." His hand tightened, just enough to make its point, and he pressed his hips harder into the cradle of yours where he'd wedged himself between your knees.

There was no mistaking what you felt against your thigh then, hard and certain, and you understood in that instant that you had misjudged exactly nothing about tonight except which kind of danger you'd walked into.

"If you meant to kill me," you said, low, "my throat would already be open. And I think, my lord, that you're enjoying this rather more than you'd care to admit." To prove the point, you rolled your hips up against him, slow and deliberate, and felt the small hitch in his breath answer you before his voice did.

His hips answered in kind, harder than you'd braced for, and you let the grin spread despite yourself.

"Do you live up to the name then, Roderick the Ruin?" You asked and watched as something in him gave way.

He kissed you like he meant to win something by it, and you gave him back exactly as much as you took. There was nothing tentative or shy in it — his teeth closed over your lower lip hard enough to sting, and you answered in kind until he made a low sound against your mouth that wasn't quite pain, and it was that sound, more than anything else, that told you he meant to fight you for every inch of this the same way he'd fight you for a ridge line or a river crossing.

You got a hand into the collar of his shirt and pulled, hard, and felt something give — a seam, a lace, you didn't care which — and the small, vicious satisfaction of it emboldened you enough to shove against his chest, testing whether he'd yield an inch of ground. He didn't. He caught both your wrists instead and pinned them either side of your head against the table, and when you arched up to bite at his jaw for the insult of it, he let you, watching you do it with something dark and pleased in his eyes, as though your temper only confirmed what he'd already decided about you.

"Careful," he teased, "or I'll think you enjoy losing."

"I haven't lost anything yet."

You proved it a moment later, twisting free of one wrist while his attention was on the other, and used the leverage to drag him down and around until it was his shoulders that struck the table hard enough to rattle it, and you who stood over him for one triumphant, breathless second, a fist in his hair the way his had been in yours.

He let you have the moment — you understood even as you took it that he'd allowed it, the way a man allows an opponent one good strike before ending the bout — and then his hands were at your hips, hard enough that you'd wear the shape of his fingers tomorrow and welcome it, and he hauled you back against him with an ease that should have offended you and instead went through you like a struck match, and turned the two of you again.

"There," he said, low and satisfied. "Better."

Between one ungentle handful and the next, your leathers came away from you in pieces rather than by any lacing you'd have bothered to loosen. He tore what he couldn't be troubled to unfasten, seams splitting under his hands with a sound that should have alarmed you and went instead straight to the pit of your stomach, because there was something obscene and thrilling in being wanted by a man strong enough that he didn't need patience nor care for undressing you. You answered in kind, working the fastenings of his own clothes with considerably less care than they deserved, more interested in the sound of tearing wool than in the state you left him in after.

He filled his hands with you like a man taking inventory of ground he meant to hold — the curve of your waist, the muscle roped along your thigh from years on the saddle, an old thin scar above your hip that he traced once, slow, with an attention that had nothing gentle in its intent and everything deliberate in its execution.

When his mouth followed his hands lower you let your head fall back against the table and let yourself, for one unguarded moment, simply feel it — his beard rough against the inside of your thigh, his hands hard enough on your hips to promise bruises you'd count later, the maddening patience of a man who had decided to take his time ruining you and meant to enjoy every part of the doing.

His fingers found your cunt at last, slow where his hands had been anything but, and he took his time there too, testing your wetness with a deliberateness that felt like its own kind of cruelty — circling your clit until your thighs shook and then withdrawing just short of what you needed, watching your face the whole while with flat, assessing patience.

"Ask for it," he said.

"Go to hell."

He laughed — a short, rough sound, more surprised out of him than given — and gave you what you hadn't asked for anyway: two fingers driving deep enough to make you swear, curling until you were the one fisting a hand in his hair. You worked your hips against his hand, chasing your own satisfaction with as much determination as he'd shown chasing his, and won a taut, strangled noise out of him in turn when your palm found him through what remained of his clothes and closed around the hard length of his cock, stroking once.

You might have kept testing him like that, if the thought hadn't struck you first, sudden and vicious in its clarity. Your hand was already fisted in his hair — it had been for a while now — and instead of dragging his mouth back to yours again, you tightened your grip and pushed, guiding him down, past your collarbone, past your stomach, until he was on his knees at the table's edge with his free hand sliding beneath you to haul you forward, right up against his mouth, and he watched you the whole way down, something unreadable and hungry burning behind what little self-control he had left.

"Let's see what else that mouth is good for."

He didn't need telling twice.

When he finally put his mouth to your cunt there was nothing careful left in him at all. He ate you like a man half-starved, messy and greedy, no finesse spared for patience. His tongue worked broad and flat against your clit one moment and narrow and relentless the next, as though he couldn't decide which he wanted more and meant to have both before he was done with you. It was sloppy, wet enough that you felt it slick against your inner thighs, his beard scraping raw against skin gone oversensitive, and the sounds of it — his as much as yours — were shameless in the quiet of the tent. You found you didn't care in the least who might hear.

You kept your grip tight in his hair, steering him, holding him exactly where you wanted the drag of his tongue, and he let you direct him with a low, growled sound of approval that you felt more than heard, as though being told what to do by your fist in his hair was no hardship to him at all, only another kind of feast.

When you ground down against his mouth, chasing your own pleasure shamelessly now, he only groaned and gripped your thighs harder, holding you open, holding you still, as if the only thing he wanted less than for this to end was for you to stop using him exactly as you pleased.

It was that — his own eagerness, unhidden and entirely unlike the flat, controlled man who'd had you pinned across a war map just a while ago — that undid you as much as his tongue did.

Your thighs closed hard around his head, the fist in his hair gone white-knuckled, and the sound that tore out of you this time you didn't try to swallow, didn't try to spare him, and he only groaned again at the proof of it and did not let up until you'd shaken through the whole of it against his mouth.

He only pulled back once you'd gone still beneath him, chest heaving, and even then he took his time about it, pressing one last, unhurried kiss to the inside of your thigh before he finally lifted his head. His beard was completely wet, his eyes darker than you'd yet seen them, and whatever restraint he'd been holding onto through all of it seemed, finally, to have reached its end.

"Enough," he said, rougher than he likely intended, an order dressed up as a request.

You almost told him no, simply for the pleasure of making him ask twice. Almost. But he was already rising to his full height between your thighs, already gathering you back against him with the unhurried certainty of a man who'd decided the fight was over even if you hadn't, and when he finally pushed into you — slow, giving you every inch of his cock before he gave you the next — you found you'd lost your taste for arguing.

"There," you managed, echoing his own word back at him, and felt him go still for exactly as long as it took him to understand you were still teasing him. He drove into you hard enough to answer his own jest before you could add anything.

After that neither of you had breath left for winning.

He was thick through the middle the way a man built for winters and not for tourneys was thick — heavy in the chest, broad through the belly as much as the shoulders, no lean tapered thing but something wider and far more solid, every stone of him put there by long years of campaigns rather than vanity.

You found, hands roaming greedy over the scarred bulk of him as he moved in you, that you had never in your life wanted anything the way you wanted this — the weight of him pressing you into the table, the give of solid flesh under your palms where a slighter man would have offered you only bone and angle. He was built like the North itself, broad and heavy and made to endure, and you had no wish at all to be anywhere else.

He kept the pace slow at first, cruelly so, drawing out until you dug your heels into the backs of his thighs to keep him from retreating too far, and only quickened when you cursed him for it, low and vicious, in the Old Tongue you hadn't spoken since you were a girl.

His mouth found your breast without asking leave, tongue and teeth working your nipple until you arched hard against him, and when he bit down — not gently, and asking no pardon for it either — you answered in kind, sinking your teeth into the meat of his shoulder hard enough to leave a mark that would still be there come the new moon.

He groaned at that, low and rough and entirely uncivilized, his hips stuttering before slamming harder into you for the pain of it, as though you'd only fed something in him that wanted — needed — feeding.

"Do that again," he said against your skin, and you did, and felt him go nearly feral for it — one broad hand closing hard over your other breast, kneading, rough enough to ache, his thumb dragging over the nipple until you were the one cursing again, while his other arm banded beneath you, angling your hips to take him deeper still.

You raked your nails down the old ridged scars on his back and felt him groan against your throat, felt his rhythm falter and then redouble, rougher now, less patient, as though marking him had cost him the last of the composure he'd been so determined to keep.

There was nothing careful left in either of you after that — he drove his cock into you with the full, heavy weight of him behind it, thick enough that you felt every inch of the stretch and wanted more of it anyway, and he sank to the hilt with every thrust, until the root of him ground against your clit with each snap of his hips and you were meeting him in earnest, working yourself against that friction as shamelessly as you worked against him.

You met every thrust with one of your own, unwilling simply to be moved when you could move with him instead, and the table complained beneath you and neither of you cared enough.

"Say my name again," he said against your ear, rough and low, "and mean it this time."

"Make me," you tested the waters. It was reckless, and you knew it even as you said it, the words leaving you on a laugh that had no business sounding as steady as it did with him buried inside you to the hilt.

His hand left your body and found your throat instead — not gripping at the front of it the way a man might who meant you real harm, but circling to press firm at either side, enough to make the point of it plain, enough to remind you exactly whose hands you were in, without any true intent behind it beyond that. You understood the difference instantly, and something reckless and hungry in you loved him for drawing it so precisely.

You held his eyes and let your mouth fall open in a slow, wide grin, tongue curling out over your lower lip in open, filthy invitation. You didn't have to say what you wanted. He read it off you the way he'd have read a battle line and understood at once.

He spat into your open mouth, and you moaned around the obscenity of it, shameless, while he drove into you again and again, harder for the sound you'd given him, as though it had only unlocked some deeper, hungrier gear in him. You swallowed it while keeping the eye contact and he looked, in that moment, entirely undone from the flat, disciplined man he’d been half an hour ago. You found you had never wanted anyone the way you wanted him precisely like this — wrecked, feral, delighted by exactly how nasty you were willing to be for him.

"Roddy," you finally gave him the satisfaction through gritted teeth, the name breaking out of you on a pleasure so total it startled you even as you chased it, "fucking ruin me."

His rhythm stuttered at that — the diminutive undoing something in him the full name hadn't quite managed — but he didn't slow, driving deep and relentless even as his control visibly slipped its leash. You brought your own hand up to circle his throat in turn, mirroring the grip he had on yours, and felt the low, rough growl that tore out of him at the sensation, more pleased than protesting.

"Send me back to Cole," you said against his jaw, low and vicious and grinning, "with your seed running down my thighs."

His hand tightened at your throat for that — not cruelly, but enough that the edges of everything went soft and bright and dizzying all at once, the whole world narrowing down to nothing but the drag of him in and out of you and the pressure at your neck and the low sound he made at your words, half growl and half something that might, in a gentler man, have been a groan of surrender.

He drove into you once more, hard and deep and perfectly aimed, and that was all it took — your clit caught against the root of him with the force of it, and you broke apart around him entirely, shaking, your hand falling from his throat to claw instead at the scarred plane of his back, your teeth finding his shoulder again and biting down hard enough to answer everything he'd given you.

He hissed at the sting of it, pain and pleasure tangled together past telling apart and followed you over with a groan he buried against the crook of your neck, hips stuttering once, twice, before going still, his breath ragged and uneven against your skin as he emptied himself inside you.

Neither of you moved to disentangle for a long while after. He stayed inside you as your breath came back, in no apparent hurry to be anywhere else, and you found you didn't mind it — didn't mind the tangle of the two of you sprawled half across the now crumpled map and half against each other, sweat cooling on skin you couldn't quite tell from his anymore, his breath still uneven against your collarbone, yours no steadier against his.

The candles had burned low while neither of you was watching, the tent gone dim and close around you, and the cold that had followed you in from the dark outside seemed, for once, to have nowhere left to reach you through the heat you'd made between you.

A low, breathless laugh escaped you, an aftershock more than any real mirth, some last shiver of pleasure still working its way loose from your spine, and you felt him huff something like an answering laugh against your skin in turn.

Your hands found his back without any particular decision behind it, tracing idle, aimless patterns over the ridged old scars there, and after a moment his hands did the same at your hips — the same hands that had gripped hard enough to bruise not a quarter hour before now moving with a careful, kneading gentleness you hadn't felt from him yet that night, as though some of the fight had finally gone out of both of you and left only this.

You let the silence hold a while before you broke it.

"Make straight for Stony Sept and cut the bridge there," you said, into the quiet and the dark. "It will delay them, and you'll have Cole in the palm of your hand."

Roderick straightened without pulling away, his hands stilling at your hips, and you felt the change in him before you saw it — the soldier surfacing again beneath the man.

"You would betray your faction?"

You huffed, a short, humourless sound. "I have never had a faction. Not really. I wanted to stop being the bastard of Robard Cerwyn, and Aegon answered first." You held his gaze steady while you said it, let him look for the lie in it if he wanted to. "And fuck Criston Cole. He's a dead man walking, whatever happens at Stony Sept or anywhere else."

He looked at you a long moment, searching your eyes the way you imagined he'd once searched a battlefield for the weakness that would win it, and found nothing there to contradict you. Something in his face eased. He laughed — properly, this time, the sound rough with disuse, the corners of his eyes creasing in a way that made him look, briefly, younger. It was, you thought, the first time you'd seen him look like anything other than a man carved from the same grey stone as his own hills, and you found you wanted very much to see it again.

"We'll meet the rest of the Hightowers at Tumbleton," he said, when the laugh had faded. "Stay out of the war until then. When it's done, come to Barrowton with me." A pause, and something in his voice went quieter, more deliberate, than anything he'd said to you all night. "Come back home to the North."

This time it was you who searched his face for the lie, some easy way to dismiss it as a thing said in the heat of the moment and forgotten by morning. You found none. Your brow furrowed against the plain, unhidden truth of him, against a kindness you hadn't asked for and weren't sure you knew how to hold.

"I came here hoping to kill a River child," you said, "and I'll leave instead with the trophy of an old, greying wolf?"

"A wolf's pelt keeps you warmer in winter," he said, and tightened his grip on your hips, pulling you flush against him, the slow drag of his cock still buried inside you drawing another moan out of you before you could dress it up as anything else. You canted your hips against him in answer, slower now than anything you'd managed earlier in the night and felt the low growl it won out of him settle somewhere deep in your chest.

Your hand found the back of his head, fingers threading into his hair — gently, this time, nothing like the fist you'd made of it before — and held his eyes as you drew him to you and kissed him again, slow and open-mouthed, gentler than anything either of you had allowed the other yet.

Fuck Ser Criston Cole, you thought, and fuck the Greens along with him.

You could feel the decision settle into you like a blade finding its sheath, certain and complete, as you began to move again — unhurried this time, no longer two enemies fighting for the last word, only two people who had, somewhere in the last hour, stopped pretending they were anything else.

He moved in you slowly, in a way that had nothing to do with teasing and everything to do with a patience you hadn't expected from him — long, deep strokes that let you feel every inch of him, his forehead dropping to rest against yours, his breath mingling with yours in the small space between your mouths. There was no clothing left to tear, nothing left to fight for; only the drag of him inside you, and the quiet, astonished way he watched your face while he did it, as though he were memorising something he didn't yet trust himself to keep.

You wrapped your legs around him, drawing him deeper, and felt him groan low against your throat at the invitation of it, his hips rolling into yours with unhurried, devastating precision, less a battle now than something closer to a conversation neither of you had words for. His hand found your jaw, tilting your face up to his, and he kissed you through it — slow, thorough kisses that tasted of salt and something that had stopped, somewhere in the last minutes, being only hunger.

You found, somewhere in the slow warmth of your bodies, that you had no wish left to hide how thoroughly this had undone you — not behind banter, not behind a blade's-edge grin, not behind anything at all. It should have frightened you more than it did, being known this plainly by a man you didn’t, a few hours ago, even mean to run into. Instead, it felt like setting down something you hadn't realised you'd been carrying at all.

"Look at me," he murmured, when your eyes fluttered shut against the building pleasure, and you did, held his gaze through every roll of his hips, through the slow, building ache of it, through the way his composure — hard-won and iron-bound as it was — completely frayed the longer he looked at you looking back.

"Roddy," you breathed, no taunt left in it now, no weapon, just his name, offered plainly, and felt him shudder at the sound of it as though you'd handed him something he hadn't known he wanted.

He slid a hand between your bodies, pressing slow, deliberate circles against your clit in time with the drag of his cock, unwilling, it seemed, to let you finish without him; unwilling to let this end as anything less than together.

You built slowly beneath his hands, beneath his mouth, beneath the low words he murmured against your skin that you would remember later and never quite manage to repeat to anyone, and when you finally broke it was without violence, without the desperate edge of before — only a long, shuddering release that pulled him over with you, his own climax breaking on a groan he didn't bother to muffle this time, his forehead pressed to yours, his hips stilling deep inside you as the last of it worked through him.

Dawn was still some hours off when you finally dressed for the second time that night, and neither of you hurried about it. He watched you lace your leathers back together — clumsily, in places, where his hands had torn what you now had no way to properly mend — with an expression you didn't have a name for yet, something between amusement and a reluctance to let the night end that he was too proud to say aloud.

"Oscar Tully," you said, buckling your dagger back into place, "will sleep safely tonight. If you need, tell your men in the morning that a woman was seen near the horse lines and nothing more. I'll tell Cole the camp was too well-watched to risk it and let him believe what he likes about my nerve."

"And Stony Sept?"

"Send your riders tonight, before the break of dawn. They have barely any horses left, it will take longer for them to arrive." You allowed yourself a small, crooked smile. "I find I've grown fond of at least one wolf. I'd rather not see him eaten by Reachmen before I've had my fill of him."

He caught your wrist before you reached the flap of the tent — not hard, not the bruising grip of an hour before, but enough to still you — and drew you back for one last kiss, unhurried, thorough, a promise dressed up as an ordinary thing.

"Barrowton," he said again, against your mouth, as though repeating it might make it more binding. "When this is all done."

"When this is done," you agreed, and found, to your own quiet astonishment, that you meant it. You pressed your lips to his again and turned to leave.

You left him standing amid the wreckage of his tent and stepped back out into a night that had not stopped being cold, or muddy, or heavy with a war that would still have to be survived before either of you saw Barrowton or the North again.

There would be a reckoning to come, you knew — for the lie you'd have to tell Cole with a straight face, for the riders Roderick would send before sunrise, for whatever it cost either of you if the wrong man ever pieced together why a Green scout had come back from a Rivermen camp with an empty blade and a steadier heart than she'd left with. But that reckoning belonged to the days ahead, and you found you had no wish to borrow trouble from tomorrow when tonight had already given you more than the whole grinding length of this war had managed to.

You walked back toward the Green camp with something in your chest that hadn't been there when you'd left it. Something stubborn and warm and entirely unlike the girl who'd gone bastard-born and nameless into a war she'd never wanted, fighting for a surname instead of a cause. You had gone looking for Oscar Tully's throat, in the end, and had found instead the one thing this war will not take from you: your resolution.

Walking back through the mud with the first grey hint of dawn still hours off, you did not think you would give it up easily now that you had it.

A.N.: that was steamy hah *lights cigarette* now we can be all horny for Roddy together (can you tell that i was ovulating lol). Roddy deserves so many more fics tbh, spread lord Dustin love with a few reposts pretty please <3

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When noble Prince Baelor Targayren’s most favored page was suddenly replaced without explanation by a steady turnover of less competent attendants, ones who did not know him or his routine half as intimately, nor did half as good of work as you, he took notice quite immediately. Not for mistrust of their skill, or disquiet over his disrupted timetables (although in truth, these newfound setbacks did the exact opposite of relieving the burden of his duties), but out of genuine concern. Admittedly, he had come to see you as something more than a mere servant, and your unexpected absence perturbed him deeply.

You had spent the better part of a decade striving to learn the minutiae of Baelor’s life and everchanging duties, but along with being a proficient assistant you were as well a constant companion. Charming and easy to get along with, Prince Baelor was better for the company. Luckily, too, for he spent more time with you than anyone on a day to day, even his own sons.

The most earnest warmth of his sentiment for you remained unspoken beyond deserved praise, but it was clear Baelor played favorites from the very start. It was he himself who had argued for your installment in the position in the first place, following the death of his previous page—a sour old vassal lord with little patience for tenderness or ornamentation, unlike you—and asserted then that a learned woman such as yourself had an equivalent aptitude to any man. The opinion had garnered quiet derision, but he never doubted his choice in the years you served him. 

You were the seventh daughter of a lesser liege house from the Reach. A determined and spirited young lady of tragically few prospects but great potential. House Targaryen had been visiting your family’s keep for the grossly overdone nameday tourney of one of your elder siblings when Baelor came across you in the library, transcribing by hand the illuminated page of a manuscript— your replica an identical copy, fundamentally flawless. He knew from that moment he had to have you as a fixture in his household, if not as a bride then someone just as intimate. A ripe six and ten years at that time, you had been too old to wed either of his sons, and yet he could not command you wed either of his eldest nephews for then your destination would have been Summerhall in place of his own keep. Indeed, perhaps it was due to the ancient covetousness of his dragonblood that Prince Baelor elected to keep such a skilled individual close. He admired and respected you in a way it seemed no one else bothered to, and for that alone you had proceeded enthusiastically beneath the wing of his governance.

Your virtues did not end with skill and education, however. There was much to be said for your beauty and poise, the diligently precise manner of speech and dress. You had a kind nature and quick tongue even as a nervous girl first folded into the crown’s service. While not as worldly as his previous attendant, you were full of wit and thoughtful opinions Baelor eagerly sought to hear. And when Lady Jena died three years into your service, you did not falter in your comfort and support of him, even when the work became tedious where he slacked in his grief.   

Over those years, your devotion to your position grew, and this pained Baelor as it did please him. He could not have asked for a more dutiful attendant— you who transcribed with perfect precision and penmanship, who waited on him hand and foot and seemed to predict his every need before he even gave voice to them. Yet he found that you did precious little outside of your duties, aside from sequestering yourself in the library or strolling alone in the palace gardens. He knew your quiet demeanor concealed a restless mind, for it mirrored his own in many a way. Baelor oft attempted fatherly advice in that warm yet firm manner that usually worked on his sons, encouraging you to take time for your own interests (for he knew you enjoyed sewing, embroidery, and illuminated reproductions as much as your studies and work), or to mingle with the courtiers near to your age and status, to make friends and perhaps find a worthy husband among them— though the latter notion never failed to cause a sharp ache in the prince’s chest, due, he thought, to the prospect of losing such a valuable agent and confidant to another household. It all fell on deaf ears, however, and you remained steadfastly committed to him singularly. It would be flattering were the man not so concerned for your enduring welfare. 

Undeniable concern gnawed away at the good prince the longer you remained unaccounted for. To him it seemed you had vanished overnight without a trace, and when he inquired after your wellbeing the only answer he received was that you had taken frightful ill and would require time to recover in peace. In the end, you were absent from Baelor’s service for nigh on two long, agonized moons. Long enough for numerous letters and documents to have been mistranscribed, for his least favorite meals to have been ordered from the kitchens and eaten in quiet solitude; long enough that his visiting kin had returned to Summerhall a full moon prior, leaving the Lord Hand alone to his duties without the support of his unwavering attendant, his own veritable right hand. Something in the way the servants were timorous when he repeatedly inquired unsettled him greatly, as though the folk he had known for years were suddenly afraid to provoke a temper never seen from him. 

Unease frayed the edges of his once operational focus, until there came a point where he could bear the mystery no longer. When the second moon of your absence began waxing, Baelor resolved to get to the bottom of the issue. He decided, with sure finality only afforded to a man of his high standing, that he been too long bereft of you. It was no longer a matter of disrupted routine—in truth, it never was—it was something deeply personal. A latent whisper, so jealous and insecure it shocked him, half wondered if you were not ill at all, and had instead quietly departed his services without so much as a word and swore the domestics to secrecy. The thought that you would so flippantly betray his trust was almost enough to enrage the famously phlegmatic prince, until he thought better of it. In no world would you, a solitary lady of such pure devotion to duty, ever depart without good reason, and certainly not without the formality of a resignation.

Even if you did vanish without reason, such an emotional reaction on his part was unseemly for a lord and master. A prince, no less. He was not your father or husband, nor could he truly claim your friendship for he was certain you saw him as nothing more than your prince, yet the lack of your presence felt intimately wounding. The long days and longer weeks solidified Baelor’s surety that he had come to consider you with love in his heart. He had invited no other attendant to sit and dine with him, or keep him company in the late hours after his duties were finished, when his young sons were otherwise too occupied to spend an evening with their father. Outside of you, he had not sought the genteel camaraderie of a woman since the death of his lady wife. Aside from his youngest brother Maekar, eldest son Valarr, and perhaps his liege lord father, you were the only living person he shared the most of himself with. 

Sometime between the recognition of your absence and the decision to solve it, Baelor came to realize the true depth of his feelings for you; those which had been simmering in the quiet shadows of his heart for quite a long time.

And there was something tragic in that, in the tender feelings he kept so close to his chest for fear of overstepping and exploiting the position he held over you. Baelor could not fit you into a role that did not suit you, nor would he force his affections on you. His sympathetic urgings for you to find a suitable husband soured the longer he spent brooding in the hours without you, ruminating on the futility of this delicate blossom, until the very concept of you with another man, even one of his own blood, evoked intense discomfort. Alas, there was no other choice now that he knew his own failings, for even if you did return to his service he could not in good conscience subject you to such shrouded desire. You were a young lady, and he an old prince already once married; such feelings were unfair to you. You deserved more.   

Passionate concern and a need for truth had heated the fire in his veins, and it was with this intensity that he finally found himself at your chamber door one evening, too long into your absence to be tolerated anymore. The prince felt himself mad without you. 

Your status afforded you better quarters than most servants: larger and furnished, closer in proximity to the royal suites for the sake of dutiful convenience; more akin to that of a lady-in-waiting than a common scullery girl. Baelor had only ever been here once before, long ago when the old lord served him, when he lay on his death bed. Fear that such events may unfold a second time struck the prince like a mace. Selfishly, he had not for some time considered that you may verily have taken deathly ill, as the servants claimed. You were young and healthy, but the most terrible of sicknesses did not discriminate and would ravage the body regardless of age. The notion curdled in his mind like a black rot. He had been a fool not to see past the thorny briar of his own regard.  

Baelor Breakspear found his hand trembled ever so slightly when he raised it to knock on your chamber door. The rap of his knuckles was firm and bidding regardless, presenting nothing less than the collected confidence he was known for throughout the realm. Listening closely, he heard a faint shuffle and quiet acknowledgement from beyond the door, and the moments seemed to drag on forever as he awaited your responding action. Anticipation grew in his chest, fit to burst like an overripe fruit. Footfalls came close and he retreated a step backward, surcoat robes shifting hurriedly about the ankle. He was yet unwilling to be caught with his ear to the door like a foolheaded boy. A bolt lock shifted out of place, then the door opened by inches. 

Feet carried by a queer yearning and long-diminished patience, he had known not what to expect when coming here, but the sliver of haggard face which peeked through the opening took him entirely off guard. 

It was your face peering out, doubtlessly. He had committed every aspect of your comely features to memory years ago. You did not appear ill, per se, but something was most definitely off in the yellow flicker of the sconce behind him. The widening of your single unconcealed eye in recognition and horror of the unanticipated visitor beyond your chamber door displayed a cluster of broken blood vessels, a vivid cloud of blood huddled close around the iris. A shifting of shadows with the pained twisting of your expression revealed a horrific gnarl of flesh carefully sutured back together. 

A gasp and soft proclamation of his princely title; the trembling voice; blood-filled eye full of fear. Baelor pushed his way through the door with little mind for the impoliteness of the gesture. 

✦

It was not a complete and utter lie. You were ill, in a sense. Abed first in the maester’s ward then subsequently in the solitude of your personal quarters, it had taken quite a concerted effort for you to heal to your present state. It was a devastatingly isolated period, in truth. No one, not even the maester, dared linger in your presence longer than they had need to, as though for fear one might catch your gruesome affliction like the spring sickness, even long after the cause of your scourge departed the Red Keep. Once the physical agonies abated, what remained was the phantom torment of the mind— the fear that you would never be suitable for public appearance again. 

As well, there was the loneliness. That pervasive feeling was worse than the bodily hurt at times. You missed your daily duties as fiercely as the Warrior was like to miss battle during peacetime, and above all you missed the company of your prince. In your fever you longed to wait on him once more, to stand by his side awash in the noble glory of his presence, for your proximity to Prince Baelor was truly what you enjoyed most in life. Mere obligation was not the root of your utmost and unfaltering effort, but a deep, reverent devotion, the kind spoken about in song; kindled in earnest first by an admiration of his quality of character only to eventually be fanned into a flame of loving adoration. The soothing thought of his calm voice, that rich, velvet sound, carried you through the initial days when the pain was most intense and the thought of surviving most distant. The vision of his ever-solemn face, a balm to your strife. Those bichome eyes like the stormy cliffs in the east, one the color of frothing sea and clouded sky and the other dark as soil and stone. Your prince was as much composed of elemental forces as he was of dragonfire, each volatile aspect of his predisposition tempered to a pure benevolence the likes of which were practically unseen before in his line. 

You knew an extended absence such as this would draw scrutiny from your prince, perhaps even breed resentment for neglecting your duties, but by no means could you possibly present yourself to Baelor in such a hideous state. To do so would be an offence not only to his princely standing, but to him personally, and you could not in good conscience expose him to such wretchedness. He was your heart, after all, and to openly invite such scorn would shatter what little remained of your dignity. You only wished to have seen those enchanting eyes once more, or perhaps a charming slip of that seldom given smile.

You loved Baelor Breakspear in the way maidens loved knights in children’s tales. Deeply, hopelessly. In a manner doomed forever to remain concealed within the shadows of the soul. It was immensely improper that a lady, a servant, of your standing should fall in love with the crown prince, a man twice in age your senior and a devoted widower at that. Jena Dondarrion was as good and true a lady as ever there was, with two strong sons and a husband so loyal to her ghost that in all your years as his loyal attendant you never saw him turn his eye to another. Dead for nearly as many years as you served her lord husband, Lady Jena’s memory tormented you most fiercely when your duty became of a devoted sort. While you knew their marriage had been arranged and perhaps not as intimate as a match made in love, you also did not doubt Baelor cared deeply for the woman. It was not as though you wanted to usurp her memory, not nearly, for it was you who still saw to the care of her garden— but guilt nevertheless sat heavy upon your shoulders.

Now, any faint twinkle of hope there may have been was surely lost for evermore. For shame of your affliction, you would have no choice but to resign from your position as the Hand’s page and return to your family to resume the burdensome yolk of “unwed daughter.” It was why you had been permitted the honorable role in the first place, aside from your family’s natural aversion to turning down an offer from the crown. Your father sired one too many children and had naught wealth or prospects to manage them all equally. In a way, this had been simpler than marriage.

The prevailing sentiment amongst the Great Houses was that it was an honor to serve a Targaryen prince of any sort, but privately, you knew the true honor lay with serving a man of Baelor’s integrity, above matters of status or blood. Baelor Breakspear was kind and true, a good knight and better man, a benevolent ruler who already nurtured the realm like a father should, rather than crush it beneath his bootheel. To have cultivated a close bond with him as you did, assisting his every need no matter how trivial, had been unequivocally meaningful. 

If only it had not been brought to early ruin.

You were already run ragged by the night it occurred, practically overcome and all but broken out in a rash beneath the stress of managing the needs of a household more than doubled in size, what with the visitation of Prince Maekar and his numerous offspring, each more troublesome than the last (you did, however, cherish a number of them quite dearly). You were more than capable despite the fractures in your composure, little slips here and there, so Prince Baelor had assured you kindly. 

So, perhaps it had been that modicum of praise or Baelor’s good nature rubbing off that emboldened you to follow the faint sounds of disturbance down the twisting corridors of the royal wing after the conclusion of your day’s work. Hindsight informed you should have minded yourself and continued along your way, to have returned to your chambers for the evening, safe and warm in your goosefeather bed. For then you would never have stumbled across the scene you did. But, had you done so and not followed the virtuous instinct groomed in you by your lord prince, another may have paid the same unfair price you did. 

Prince Aerion Targaryen was the second eldest of Maekar’s children, but anyone could be falsely convinced of the assumption he was heir, based solely on the bombastic way in which he carried himself. Arrogance, vanity, and entitlement fell short of describing the cruel manner of the boy who thought himself a dragon in man’s skin, and you learned quickly to avoid him like the plague when his family visited King’s Landing. You misliked him as much as you distrusted him, and were justly horrified that night to find the door to his guest chamber tauntingly ajar, the princeling within ruthlessly beating upon one of the young serving girls. Her face was bruised and swelling beneath her trembling fingers, and the snow-haired prince was reeling back for what was surely another in a long string of brutal kicks to her abdomen. 

It all happened so fast, looking back. 

Your instinctual action was one without thought of consequence when you flew across the chamber and pushed Aerion aside in your haste to plant yourself between him and the defenseless girl. You were equally as vulnerable as she, but you knew her to be of only a tender two and ten, with clumsy, sweaty hands like to drop whatever was held in them the moment she became nervous. Therefore, upon noting the flagon of fine Dornish wine spilled across the floor and on the lap of the princeling’s breeches, it was not hard to deduce the cause of his fiery wrath. Whomever sent the girlchild here knowing her timid disposition was deserving of a beating themselves. 

You could not remember having spoken a word as you stood between them, acting as chivalrous knight where there was none other to be found. You should have hauled her up and fled in that brief moment when the princeling staggered in disbelief, but you hesitated, and thus sealed your fate. 

It was clear Aerion misliked the interruption of his cruel abuse, and clearer still he detested the audacity you’d possessed to touch—let alone shove—him. Dragonfire danced in those cold, lilac eyes as they fixed upon you and you never felt such fear as in that moment when he slowly withdrew the dagger from his belt. Tauntingly. He wanted to see the fear dawn in your eyes as you realized what terror awaited you by his hand. The blade glinted black and gold in the warm candlelight, winking in anticipation of blood.

“I will inform Prince Baelor of this,” you had asserted, voice trembling.

“I doubt it.” With the dagger he gestured towards the girl cowering on the cobbles. “This was only discipline. You will live to regret laying a hand on the Blood of the Dragon.” 

His first vicious backhand sent you sprawling to the floor in a heap, yet that was the very least of his wicked retribution. Even when your head bounced off the cobble floor and the ringing in your ears muffled his musing on the misfortune of butchering a face “comely, even for a serving girl,” the gods were not kind enough to grant you oblivion through the ordeal. You were unsure if unconsciousness would have benefitted you either way, for you clung to the awareness of all that was inflicted upon you with the panic of a woman who feared worse tortures. Each individual molecule of your being was branded with the weight of Aerion’s lean body straddling your chest, the heavy feeling of the hand at your jaw holding still your thrashing. Every strike of his fist. Every perforation of his blade through your thin skin as he mercilessly carved your face to ribbons. Every futile shriek and wail stolen from off your lips until you had no voice left to scream with. 

Passing seconds felt like a lifetime beneath his blade. 

Blood obscured your vision, or perhaps Prince Aerion carved out an eye. The cloying scent of iron and sweat choked you. At some point during the assault the serving girl must have crawled away and saved herself, for she was suddenly absent when you regained a momentary slip of clarity. She would hopefully live to see another day because of your protection and for that you were glad. Even if you were to die, you would do so with a light heart. Your honorable prince would surely be proud of you, if he ever knew. You longed to see his face one last time before the light faded. Satisfaction in your small achievement burst forth in the form of a mocking little laugh, giggling mad and thick with bubbling blood, and invited another strike of Aerion’s closed fist. A muffled insult, “mad bitch.” 

Once the prince grew tired of playing butcher with you, as all wicked boys eventually grew tired of their broken toys, he dragged you bodily from his chamber by the hair and left you to die like a dog in a desolate corridor not too far from the royal wing. No one would dare raise question against a dragon prince, let alone accuse him of beating two girls within inches. Not without risking their own head for treason. Nevertheless, someone must have heard your pained moaning as you lay bleeding out, elsewise the servant girl fetched help as soon as she escaped. 

The world blurred to vague colors and sounds and piercing agony, minutes slipping into hours and days, until you awoke nearly a week later in a poppy haze to the horror of your new existence. The mouldering stink of your wounds was the worst, at least while the sedative stole away your sense of what was real. The bandages and swelling partially eclipsed your sight for a time, too, leaving little else to do but lie in bed and suffer a slow, agonizing fate. Your face throbbed and could scarcely be breathed upon lest the pain worsen frightfully, but that was the extent of your injuries. Blessedly—or perhaps unfortunately, for some days you thought yourself better off dead—Aerion had not gone further than mutilating your face. 

No one made mention of the incident. The prince’s name left no lips within reach of your ears, though perhaps it was gossiped about in the kitchens and secret corridors. No one would bring it to the attention of the crown, that much was obvious. You sensed innately that rumor had spread amongst the domestic staff, but if word reached the attention of any lords and ladies of the court, none paid you any visits. You were thankful for that much. It was difficult enough to brave the nervous glances of your subordinates and minders. 

You resisted peering into the looking glass for many a day until no longer capable of withstanding that destructive curiosity. The sight you beheld there in the murk of silver glass was gruesome enough to make you sick on the spot. The swelling and black bruising was nothing compared to the meticulously sutured wounds. Prince Aerion had carved a jagged arc into your face, across your forehead and over the right eye, curving down your cheek like a sickle to meet the corner of your mouth in the cruel facsimile of a grin. There was a notch where your lip had not quite been sewn together evenly, due to a shaky hand or the swelling, and left a keyhole view to the tooth beneath. Another line bisected the first at the eyebrow and traveled diagonally across the nose bridge, down to the opposite corner of your jaw. Some smaller cuts adorned the unblemished skin, not severe enough to require mending and already beginning to heal over on their own. The large slashes were so red they looked black, crusted with old blood and catgut stitches, the surrounding skin tender with inflammation. The vessels in your eyes had burst from the beating and it was but by the grace of the gods you retained sight in the one beneath the cut eyelid. 

No one could stand to look at you without wincing when the bandages were still in place, then no one dared look at all once your face was bare to see. Even after the swelling and bruising faded, the scabbing and rot sloughed away; even after the mutilations were little more than angry red scarring, tender and itchy. 

Hideousness was very, very lonely, but you became acquainted quickly, preferring solitude to spectacle any day. You settled into it like a second skin, forcibly accustomed to the skittish brevity of interactions, sometimes even retrieving meal trays from the floor of the hallway after a hasty, anonymous knock at the door. You merely thought this was another such instance— a kitchen girl barely weaned, too horrified by the rumor of a mutilated lady to risk giving her the meal properly. 

This was what you thought, yet it was Prince Baelor Breakspear who stared back at you from beyond the threshold, at last witnessing firsthand the horror of your new face. 

Panic set in like a lance to the heart. You tried to force the door closed on him but it was already too late. He had borne witness to too much of the damage.

“Your Grace!?” Your exclamation was entirely without thought.

You retreated when Baelor pushed open the door, entirely unfamiliar with the ferocious manner that suddenly seized him as he slammed it behind him and advanced like a man possessed. Those sea-and-stone eyes were alight with something frightening, that which sent you spinning away to conceal yourself even as he commanded you to stay put by way of speaking just your name alone. You could have crumpled at the sound of it on his tongue after so long deprived of him, were you not so preoccupied with hiding the shame of your disfigurement. You were too unsightly for the eyes of a prince in your sweat-soaked shift and slipshod braid, your face no better than a butcher’s scrap cuttings. 

“No!” you wailed as you fled, “N—o!”

Snatching a dressing gown from where you’d last left it, you realized what disarray your typically kempt chambers had fallen into. Garments and used bandages lay strewn haphazardly about, old linens in a heap by the foot of the bed. The air in the room was stale, choked with smoke and stinking faintly of old blood and sweat. It only compounded the sheer mortification of your beloved prince barging unannounced into your chambers. 

You were not fit to be seen. Not now, not ever again. A panicked sob broke free as you clumsily wrapped yourself in the robe and attempted to retreat further into your chambers, to cower and hide. But Baelor was still quick on his feet for a man of forty and something. A broad, sturdy hand closed around your upper arm and yanked you. Still, you refused to turn and face him. 

Baelor was indeed horrified, but not for any reason you feared. True, the lady he had known was well put together, never a hair out of place, but he understood as well as any that especially in times of strife, dishevelment could be overlooked. You, however, had never appeared frightened of him before, never unresponsive to his direct address. The ache which had lived in his chest for weeks grew suddenly into a brutal stab. Laying aside all gallantry in a moment of maddened fervor, Baelor forcibly ensnared and twisted you in his arms until you had no choice but to face him. Your watering eyes would not rise to meet his and he burned with a disquieted fury for it.

A warm exhale of shock fanned your face as he looked upon you fully.

“My Lady, what has happened to you? Who has done this?” 

The inquiry was gentle from his mouth but no less commanding, colored by the disturbance worn plain on his noble features. He beheld your whole visage now, or what remained of it, woefully unobstructed. You were certain he would throw you to the floor at any second, disgusted by your hideousness. 

Instead, he held you unwaveringly fast against his chest with one thick arm round your back. The other hand raised, fingers tracing the outline of your face without quite touching. You could not bear it. Tears flowed freely and without end as you resisted the comfort of his inescapable embrace. Baelor had never held you, never so much as touched you elsewhere than your hands and arms—and once, a cherished memory, had he laid a chaste, whiskery kiss upon your cheek—and now he had armfuls of you, this wretched, miserable creature. 

Would that Aerion had killed you, for you would not now have to suffer the agony of this horror.

“My Lady!” He spoke your name with urgency, jerking you bodily as though he might knock the words from you.

“Your Grace!” you wailed, writhing pitifully in his grip. “I am not fit for your sight. I beg, please leave me be!”

“I see now I have been lied to at every turn. This is no common illness you are afflicted with. You have been gone from me for two moons and I demand the truth of why. Who did this to you?”

The stern reprimand in his tone had never once been turned upon you in all your years with him. It stung like a slap now. Yet there was tenderness in it, too. A desperate need for clarity, if only to settle his own spirit. 

“I cannot— I cannot say, my Prince. Please. Please, look away from me. Avert thine eyes!”

The attempt to bring your hands over your face was thwarted when Baelor wrestled you to your bed. He forced you to sit at the edge then followed quickly, close enough for his thigh to press along the length of yours. He kept your wrists imprisoned in his fists, not cruelly, but assuredly and without any intention of letting go. You would have felt less exposed had he flayed you of all your flesh. Rendered unable to cover your face, you turned your chin against the shoulder furthest from him, until he switched both wrists to one hand and seized your jaw in the other. You always fancied his hands, strong and lean, graceful in the delicate way they moved— but now those long fingers had your chin fixed, forcing you to face him alone, and you detested them. This tenacity, this persistence, it was thoroughly wasted on a wretch like you. 

The notion of using his station and strength to bend your will soured Baelor’s mouth, but you could be as stubborn as a mule. Stubborn as his beloved brother Maekar. He jerked your chin pointedly when your gaze slipped. He hated being so severe with you, his delicate lady, for it was not inherent to his nature, but drastic actions called for drastic measures.

“There is nothing you cannot tell me, my darling. Out with it, I command you.” 

His words brought a wobble to your lower lip. Tears streaked afresh down your cheeks. They caught in the grooves of the fresh scarring, following predestined paths down your face. You could scarcely endure his expression— that handsome face, twisted and furrowed in a fearsome grimace. The tight knot of his dark brows shadowed the blue eye, casting it as dark as its fraternal twin. 

“My Prince…” 

The words deserted you just as your mouth went bone dry. Your throat was closing, suffocating. You would die here with no air in your lungs. His hand fell from your jaw to press flat against your chest, fingertips fanning your collarbone, palm over your thundering heart. He inhaled deeply, a wordless encouragement for you to mimic him. It was a struggle to catch your breath for several tremendously drawn minutes, largely due to the pervading warmth of his palm and its separation from your bare skin by a mere slip of fabric. This was the closest you’d ever been to him, to true bliss. 

“I-It was my doing, my Prince,” you whispered. 

His face twitched in a questioning sneer. “I struggle to believe you mutilated your own face. Give me the truth, now. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

The visible weight of shame and guilt darkened your swollen undereyes and drew inward the pitch of your shoulders. Everything about this, your words, your manner, was absurd. Baelor was thoroughly perplexed, for what shame was there in being victimized? Surely you did not mean to think yourself responsible for this? The damage was extensive and severe, carving across your face like a vine of thorns. You were no less beautiful for the scarring, Baelor could see that as clearly as when he first met you. He still saw you beneath it, as magnificent as you’d always been, merely obscured behind the pall of grief consuming you.   

Seeing you had not chanced looking away for quite some minutes and your breathing evened satisfactorily, Baelor’s hand curled inertly by the slope of your neck. Close enough to your jaw if in the event he was given cause to draw you back. Under any other circumstance he would call this intimate proximity improper and withdraw for your sake, most especially seeing that you were clad in little more than your underthings, but in no world could the good prince allow someone he considered a close companion to fall into such intense despair without support. Certainly not after you had been a fortification when he needed it most. Certainly not when he loved you so dearly. And certainly not when it had become glaringly evident that you’d been viciously brutalized.

“N-No, your Grace. Not I,” you tenderly corrected, and cleared your throat of a thick lump of unease. “But— I incurred his anger. I pushed him from a serving girl. He was beating her, you see, for spilling the wine. I took her punishment and more. And now I am… this.”

Baelor softened somewhat at the timid admission, though his resolve remained immovable. “Of whom do you speak, my Lady?”

“I… I should not say.”

Even through the overwhelm of shame and indignity, it was plainly obvious to you that Baelor was displeased with your murmured answer. The corners of his eyes creased with scrupulous uncertainty, braced in anticipation of the worst of your truth. He gingerly cupped the side of your head and it took every ounce of restraint not to nuzzle into his palm. The intensity of his expression mellowed but did not vanish altogether; transformed rather into something more direct and concerned. It was then you noticed the wet sheen of his eyes. 

“My sweet girl. I insist you must tell me who did this terrible thing to you.” 

Shaking your head as if to deny his interrogation, to deny the sore veracity of your claim, the name yet slipped from your lips in a furtive, breathless whisper. “Your Grace, it was your nephew, Prince Aerion who did it.” 

Baelor Breakspear went rigid as stone, save for the furious tremor in his hands and in his breath. He pursed his mouth in a thin line and allowed his gaze to drop momentarily. A tear dripped unbidden from his blue eye and slipped into the bramble of his hoary beard, the first raindrop of a storm. He could not stand to look at her while such volatile feelings coursed like fire through his veins. Maekar had always been the short-tempered brother amongst the four of them, and Baelor the most reasonable, but the issue of his nephew’s burgeoning cruelty had seeded an unnatural germ of blackened rot within the royal family. 

He did not for a moment doubt your attestation, nor the claim Aerion had savaged another of his servants before you. That he had not been informed immediately was another complication entirely, the responsibility of which laid elsewhere than upon your head. His nephew was of the royal blood, for true, but such ignoble behavior simply could not go unpunished, by his father’s hand or Baelor’s own. Wickedness was meant to be nipped in the bud, not permitted to thrive and choke out the garden. It was clear his brother’s fool boy had meant to leave you disfigured, maimed. Left to suffer a life of whispers and ridicule for the crime of being more knightly than himself. 

The first words Baelor managed to conjure were enough to turn his innards to ice with the dread of their outcome. Yet duty compelled him to face the horror of what his kin had wrought. “My Lady, did he… Did he harm you elsewhere?”

“No! No… T’was only my face he maimed…” You shied, regretting having spoken at all. The implication was clear enough, and you were promptly mortified at the discussional insinuation of your womanly virtue— with the object of your affections, no less. “Forgive me, your Grace. He is your blood. I mustn’t speak ill—”

Overcome by a swell of sorrow for your calamity, Baelor leant forward and pressed a lingering kiss to your cheek, killing that pitiful groveling where it lay on your tongue. The salt of your tears wetted his lips, and the most severe of frowns deepened the creases bracketing his mouth. He was only so relieved to learn the fool boy had not abused you further.

“It matters not that Aerion is my nephew,” he said in the even cadence of a man much more composed than he felt himself to be at the moment. Overwhelm was beginning to etch away at his good sense. “Such vile actions brought against innocent maidens cannot be so silently tolerated. This misdeed should have been brought to my attention immediately, not danced around in secret. I am obligated to inform my brother straight away of his son’s heinous behavior.”

Baelor then made to stand and withdraw from you and in a moment of panic all you could think of was how you never imagined you would see him again. His overhasty departure threatened the loss of his warmth against you, the comfort of his bare hands against your skin. You surged up and grasped at him, all notions of propriety damned as you fisted his black doublet and fought to keep him squarely in place. 

“Your Grace, please! You must not, you cannot. Prince Aerion will name it treason and I will be beheaded!” 

Tanned hands closed around your own and held them there against his chest. Baelor blinked down at you with nothing short of incredulity. The storm in his eyes receded like the tide. 

“My sweet, darling girl… No such thing will ever happen while I have breath in my lungs. No more harm shall ever befall you, I swear it on my name and honor.”

“Do not call me such sweet nothings, I beg.” Fat tears rolled down your cheeks. He was cruel in his kindness, your beloved prince, for he did not know the pain in your heart. “My Prince, I beseech you, allow me to quietly withdraw from your service and return home!”

Baelor startled at the request, more so than he did your sudden act of falling at his feet. Your hands were at his ankles more quickly than he could pull away, your kisses upon the toes of his silk slippers before he could tell you to stop. 

“Why ever would I do that?” he questioned breathlessly. “How could I ever send you away from me?”

“So you will not be forced to suffer the sight of me!” You wept at his feet, staining the fine silver silk dark with your tears and spittle.  

It was a pitiful sight. Had his brother’s offspring still been present in the keep, he would be like to beat the boy within an inch of his own life in recompense. It was a kinslaying thought. Sinful. Baelor put retribution from his mind and instead turned his focus entirely towards you. You needed him now, more than ever.

“Get up, my Lady. Do not sully yourself upon the floor like so.” He bent down and gently guided you back to your feet. His thumbs brushed your knuckles then tenderly swiped the tears from your cheeks. “True, it was before your time in my household, but I was once a warrior. I’ve the stomach for battle and have seen worse wounds than these. Not to say they are cat scratches, but they do not diminish your beauty. Not to me.” 

“My Prince, you know not what you say.”

“Don’t I? Are they not my words?” Baelor’s voice was tight with heartache as he spoke your name low and sweet like a prayer. “I was lost without you by my side. I never wish to feel such loneliness again.”

The tender kiss Baelor laid upon your lips took you entirely off guard. It was nearly enough to sweep your feet from under you, brief and chaste as it was. His neatly trimmed whiskers were bristly against your sensitive skin; the sensation you’d thought only possible through dreaming was, in reality, utterly divine. The steady hands at either side of your head prevented you from chasing his lips once he pulled away. 

Something else took root in his expression, in the glassy sheen of his eyes. He looked suddenly abashed, almost remorseful. The handsome olive tone of his skin had gone rather pinkish at the cheeks. 

“I— I do apologize, my Lady, that was foolish of me. I fear I have overstepped.”

“You have not overstepped, my Prince—”

“Baelor. When we are alone, please call me Baelor.”

His earnest plea was raw and wrenched straight from the heart. Your own stumbled behind your ribs. The entreaty suggested an intimacy you could not have imagined ever coming to fruition before now. Something had changed in your time woefully cloistered. It frightened you as it did thrill you.

“All right… Baelor… As I said, you have not overstepped. You could not if you tried, for you are honorable and virtuous. There is not a bone in your body capable of misdeed, therefore no need to apologize to me.” 

“I fear I am not as virtuous a man as you have made me out to be.” He paused, inhaled deeply, then appeared to settle on sharing something very grave. “Forgive me, my Lady, but I can no longer conceal the truth that I have yearned greatly for you in your absence. I was blind to the depth of my affections until I no longer had the pleasure of your smile and company throughout the day. I was a fool to doubt the sincerity of your absence, and a fool to have not sought you sooner. I have taken advantage of your kindness and proximity all these years and for that I shall never know peace.”

“Your Grace—er—Baelor, I—”

“Please, my love, allow me to finish, then you may rebuke me as you wish.” Baelor’s eyes fell shut, brows pinched tightly. “I will not force you to remain here, if to leave is what you truly wish, but I shall not force you to retire elsewhere for the sake of perceived vanity, either. I understand if my honesty has put an imposition on you, and shall not fault you for not reciprocating such feelings as these. Yet I feel you must know you are no less beautiful to me now than you ever were.” 

Baelor Breakspear’s final word was muffled by the fervent press of your lips. It was complete madness, to kiss the heir without express invitation, but he did not push you away nor scorn your unladylike behavior. You felt yourself akin to a wild woman, tear-streaked and whimpering into the man’s mouth as you dragged him closer by the collar. You could die happily knowing the press of his mouth, warm and wine-sweet. His hands had not once parted from your head during his speech and now kept you firmly locked against him. 

You managed a rasping whisper through the breathlessness of passion and disbelief. “You cannot imagine how I have longed for the taste of your kiss, my Prince. I am only sorry it had to be now, when I—”

“Be still,” Baelor gentled, lips brushing yours by a hairsbreadth as he spoke. There was a trembling quality about him now as he resisted diving in for another kiss, like a bow strung too taut. Your words had affected him markedly. 

“Forgive me, Baelor, my beloved Prince. I do not want to leave you, not truly. It is mine own vanity that incites such turmoil in me, not any fault of yours. It has pained me immensely to be apart from you.” 

“Be my wife.” Even amidst the tempest of so many other shocking admissions, the statement was rather abrupt. Plain, in a way typical of his somber manner. “If you have the strength to stay, then do me the honor of being my wife.”

The air left your lungs in a rush and you could do naught but gawk at him for a long moment. His eyes shone with sincerity such as you’d never seen before, so warm and entreating, more honest than any man in the realm. You knew then he meant it when he claimed the scars did not bother him in the same way they bothered you. You had not changed in his eyes, had not become hideous nor unworthy of sight. He wanted you for a wife, even now, like this. 

“I swear by all that is sacred to keep my vow, that no harm shall ever befall you again so long as I draw breath. Even if you do not hold love for me as I do for you, I promise to keep you contented and well looked after, if that is what you wish.” 

“Your Grace—” you gawped, mildly stupified and yet unused to addressing him informally. “I do not understand. You never showed interest in taking another wife…?”

“I did not seek another for my heart already knew to whom it belonged. I was blind to what was already within reach, and I do not intend to make the same mistake twice. You do more for me than any attendant has ever been expected to, and all without promise of reward or renown.”

“I have no need for either,” you protested airily, half disbelieving the words from out his mouth. He permitted your errant fingers to rake through his grizzled beard and leaned into the touch. “My greatest joy is to serve you, and ease the burden of your great responsibility.”

“Serve me as my equal, then. You have waited on me long enough, allow me to return the favor in kind. If, that is, you will have no other.”

“Foolish man, there has never been another. I have only had eyes for you.”

“You will have me, then, as your lord husband?”

Your mettle wavered, if slightly. “What will the court say? Will such a match not be deemed improper?”

“To seventh hell with the court! I shall decide what is proper and what is not.” He blew out a breath and continued unbothered. “It should come as no surprise to anyone that my heart would eventually be won by my closest confidant. Besides, the propriety of appointing a beautiful maiden Lady such as yourself to the position has long been a point of contention.”

The addition of the last reminder seemed almost roguish on Baelor’s part. You flushed at the suggestion of rumored impropriety. You were no stranger to it, nor the ridicule that followed you in whispers for years—a symptom of being a woman in a man’s world—but now the apprehension of public perception was compounded tenfold by the brutal alteration of your face. 

Baelor sensed this agitation and sought to temper it. He laid a chaste kiss on your brow and tucked your head against his chest, then hummed thoughtfully.

“I cannot tell you how to live, nor what choice to make that will best suit you, but I can assure you that you need not worry yourself with the opinions of anyone who does not have your best interest at heart.”

“Like you do.”

Baelor’s smile was soft with compassion as he gazed down at you wrapped in his arms. “Like I do.”

Your heart brimmed so full of love that it seemed there were not enough words to accurately express the breadth of the feeling. So, instead of wasting breath on futile poetics, you nuzzled your face into your prince’s warm neck and smiled for the first time in many weeks. 

“Yes, I will marry you, Baelor.”

“Good,” he announced, shockingly measured, then suddenly withdrew from you. “Now, let us breathe some life back into this stuffy chamber, hm? You will feel better for it, my dear.”

An incredulous little laugh bubbled up in your throat as you spun to watch him cross the room, picking up odds and ends off the floor as he went. “What?!”

“Well, I simply cannot have my betrothed waste away in an oppressive cell.” 

Without further tarry he threw open the shutters and unlatched the window and let the salty night air rush promptly in. Your chamber faced the sea, and in daylight the sparkling water reminded you of his pale blue eye. 

✦

The day of the wedding came calamitously fast. You felt hardly prepared for it, but perhaps no less than any other maiden was prepared for her own wedding day. You scarcely had room or time enough to breathe once the betrothal had been announced in the weeks following your reunion with Baelor. First he had insisted your wounds be seen to by a parade of different maesters, each more higher ranked than the last and all with the same verdict: that nothing more could be done to facilitate the healing for it had to run its own course, and that the extent of the scarring would likely be permanent. 

Next, you were spirited away to a lavish chamber located in the royal wing. Baelor could not get away with folding you into his own quite yet, and by rights the private quarters would be granted to you even after the wedding, but that did not stop him from treating yours as an extension of his own, nor his seeming endless need to be near you always; sneaking in and out under cover of dark like a lovesick boy and not the crown prince of the realm. Yet even on blessed nights when he slept abed with you, he insisted he would not touch you in any way that might compromise your maidenly virtue, which he esteemed greatly. This primarily meant him sleeping above the bedclothes and avoiding kissing you while arranged so, to avoid undue temptation. It was a frustration you were content to endure if it meant he would be pleased— though you knew it frustrated him just as greatly not to claim you for his own each and every night that passed in anticipation of the wedding. He wanted the pomp and circumstance of your wedding to be done properly, so he said.

Your new chamber was larger than the previous, sporting a regularly refreshed bowl of fruits and the most splendid copper tub you’d ever seen; still with a view of the sea but now with the welcome addition of a balcony. This was where you spent a majority of your free time, embroidering little dragons on the necklines and hems of your dresses, or reading to the peaceful tune of waves and gull caws. 

Little else changed aside from the scenery and your status in the Red Keep, though both were largely superficial. And, naturally, there was your prince’s newfound propensity for affection. He quickly grew more generous with praise and compliments, both for your work and—more frequently—regarding you personally. He recognized how the mutilation had affected your confidence in everything from your appearance to your capability as a page, and thus strived to undo the damage in piecemeal. His lips had memorized the tracks of scarring one hundred times over already, and grew to know the taste of your mouth twice as well. 

Yet unwilling to abandon your position as Baelor’s attendant, you found yourself partially responsible for the wedding planning— mostly concerning the drafting of dozens of notices and invitations, and the transcribing of legal documents on behalf of the Prince Hand, which admittedly felt a little queer. When it came time to draft the invitation to Prince Maekar and his children, your writing hand shook so fiercely that Baelor took over the task for fear of you spilling ink across the rest of the day’s parchments. 

As promised, he had not made a spectacle of the incident between yourself and Aerion; but at the same time Baelor had also forbade you to transcribe the pertinent letter to his brother. That was a charge he felt obligated to bear alone. Whatever was resultantly exchanged in the following letters was so vehement that Prince Maekar himself showed up again at the Red Keep in the following weeks to personally apologize for his son’s monstrous actions. It was clear both brothers knew not to subject you to Aerion’s presence again, elsewise he would have been forced to apologize on his own behalf. The humbleness and integrity it required for Maekar to take a knee before you and beg forgiveness with his brow to your knuckles earned your admiration and reminded you much of his eldest brother. It was not as if you ever misliked him or the rest of his children—for in fact you did quite like the lot of them given how infrequently you saw them, with one obvious exception—but the freshness of the scarring, both physically and emotionally, set you on edge at the thought of seeing them again so soon. Thus, your goodbrother swore to forbid his second son from attending the festivities, congratulated you on your betrothal, then spirited away with Baelor to speak in private on the matter; from there you did not see him again until the time of the celebration. 

King Daeron the Good blessed the betrothal with all the munificence of a father who dearly wanted to see his firstborn son happy again. Seeing as though you had already been deeply entrenched within the household for the better part of nine years, there was little to do in the way of proving yourself worthy of the match to Baelor’s kin. They knew you to be devoted and loyal, doting to a fault even prior to the betrothal. 

Despite being tied to the heir first in line to the Iron Throne, there was not nearly as much pressure on you as the second wife. Barring some horrible misfortune, gods forbid it, his heirs were already secured; there was no obligation for you to be of immensely noble blood for the sake of affixing alliances, nor an urgency for you to bear sons. A match for love had practically fallen into Baelor’s lap. 

Then there came the sons. Valarr was younger than you by quite a few years, and Matarys younger still, but they too had known you from boys and oft delighted in your company. If either took issue with their father’s choice in you for a wife, it was not mentioned within earshot. Once, in private, Valarr even confessed how his father appeared more lively than he had in quite a number of years, not since before his mother passed. You could not replace Lady Jena Dondarrion, you knew this for true and nor did you want to, but you were nonetheless determined to do your best by the boys who would be your stepsons by law, and in that remain a steadfast harbor for them had they ever the need for womanly guidance. As well, it pleased Baelor that you had a respectful relationship with his cherished sons.

News of the incident and your pronounced scarring must have broken quickly and quietly within the family, long before you had the chance to be reintroduced not as attendant but as betrothed, for none expressed outward shock or made mention of it— at least not to your face. The servants no longer seemed so averse to the sight of you either, and eventually you began to wonder if their avoidance had merely been a figment of your tormented mind; your own revulsion with yourself transposed unconsciously upon the innocent actions of others. Could be they were just as disturbed as you and knew how to address the matter just as little. Indeed, as time progressed your presence earned smiles and warm greetings like had always been, and even garnered curious attention from the ladies and lords who had never paid you any mind before the announcement of the betrothal. Whispers shared amongst those courtiers were less than kind, you knew, for the intrusive glances and mouths hidden behind fingers gave them easily away, but as Baelor frequently reminded, there was no point in minding the opinions of those who did not matter to you.    

You were informed on the morning of the wedding that Aerion would be sent to Lys for an extended period in the hopes he would finally learn the qualities of dignity and humbleness, that which he sorely lacked. Maekar darkened your doorway like a long, pale shadow and revealed the thoughtfully planned sentencing himself, though clearly it pained him to do so. Through the severance of the vanity’s silver looking glass you saw how the admission of wrongdoing and accountability for his wicked son weighed heavily on him, how he loved the boy so dearly it wounded him, and once again you found you admired him for it. Any man could be a father but not every father could love his children half so fiercely, even in spite of their failings. He was as good a man as Baelor, only an ill-tempered—mayhaps a shade more bedraggled—version. With a sisterly kiss upon his pox-scarred cheek, you thanked him for his fairness, and sent him (perhaps a touch redder in the face than when he’d arrived) to join his brother in preparation of the ceremony and festivities.

You felt you were in a dream as the hour drew nearer, until at last the chambermaids had bathed you and finished lacing you into your gown and it was time to depart for the sept. All things considered, the dress you chose was rather plain for a crown princess. One of your own make, you had yet to reveal the culmination of your tireless work to Baelor and were quite eager for his reaction. Elegant but simple, as was typical for your wardrobe, it sheathed your figure in a deep Targaryen red, with a neckline that sat low upon the shoulders and narrow sleeves which ended in points at the knuckles. Trimmed with the knotwork of your family in silver and gold threading, the garment stood as a symbolic joining of your houses, trivial as the notion was, being a seventh daughter and second wife. You were pleased with it, regardless.

Your feet were so numb in their red silk slippers that you feared tripping as your father walked you to the altar of the Great Sept of Baelor I. It was no secret that you’d never been the most prized of his numerous children, but in the days leading up to the wedding when your family converged upon the Keep, he presented himself as vastly more obliging, presumably as a result of your newfound status. His blessings upon the union had come readily, perhaps a touch overeager, for now he had the ear of the royal house and would mean to exploit it for his own gain. You warned Baelor of this upon their arrival, and your betrothed assured you there was no uppity lordling he could not handle. Despite his claim, he retired to your chamber the same evening in great need of a flagon of the strongest wine in the palace. Your many siblings and their spouses and children, whom had all for the most part managed to temporarily break free of their assorted duties, had evidently not been informed by your parents of your disfigurement, and upon reuniting in the entrance hall swarmed you with questions of varying sensitivity. You too had retired with thoughts of blissful drunkenness, and thusly you and Baelor made merry and complained lightheartedly of the veritable army your impetuous parents had spawned.  

The ceremony was largely unmemorable, identical to every other well-to-do wedding you’d ever attended, aside from the glaring fact you were surrounded by dragonblood royalty and that it was you who occupied the altar this time. It passed you by in a daze of murmured prayers and pledges, and before long you were feasting in the great hall beneath the ornamented cloak of Baelor Breakspear, your lord husband. 

Those in attendance whom had never heard tell of you nor seen your face did not bother to hide their intrigue. Askance glances and probing gossip swirled as freely as merriment. The young daughter of a lesser lord seemingly plucked from nowhere, alleged attendant of many years to the Hand of the King (it could not be true, for who ever had heard of a maiden page?) and now his lawful second wife. A woman with horrible facial scars as mysterious in origin as herself. And you did not mind one iota— for Baelor gazed upon you with such open and unabashed affection that it scoured away all thoughts of despair. 

As the lauded newlyweds, the opening dance of the evening was yours alone to commence. Any notion of shying under the attention of the crowd withered once Baelor swept you into his arms and led you in the traditional first dance. Your ceaseless smile pulled taut the scar upon your upper lip and tempted a kiss from your husband, he who managed to slip a worshipful compliment against the shell of your ear just before being drawn apart by the converging celebrants. You were spun until the point of dizziness for hours and as well somehow monopolized for nearly half the night by an already quite drunken Stormlord, one by the name of Lyonel. He was rather handsome in a roguish way, and a wholly entertaining dance partner at that. 

Maekar’s daughters disappeared with Matarys some time after the revelry began, no doubt to cause blithe trouble amongst the kitchen maids, and almost every minute you were not dancing was spent with Aegon perched upon your lap as he regaled you with childish tales. His eldest brother Daeron, half unconscious in his cups nearby, lifted his honey blond head only once to declare your face had saved the realm. You minded him not, albeit puzzled. 

You lost yourself in merriment in a way you’d never done before, for this was the most joyous day of your life thus far. Belly full of wine and good food, spirits lightened by the swell of music, surrounded by pleasant—if eccentric—company, you could not have asked for more. And Baelor, your beloved prince! You watched as he flitted from lord to lord, extending gratitude and good tidings to all in attendance. When he eventually picked his way back to the high table and called for a toast deep into the festivities, every man, woman, and child turned an ear and listened to the good prince. He again thanked all in attendance, thanked his honorable sons for welcoming his new wife with open arms, and above all thanked you for deciding he was worthy of a second chance at love. Someone (Ser Lyonel, most like) howled when the prince bent down to steal a kiss (to which Aegon, still in your lap, mocked gagging over). This only prompted Baelor to break the news to the restive crowd that there would be no formal bedding ceremony and that he would charge them all with respecting this wish. 

The cacophonous reply of many of the guests was remarkably drowned out by the resumption of the music, and for the first time since the celebration began you felt a thread of unease weave its way unbidden into your merry disposition. Thought of the bedding ceremony had slipped your mind completely, so caught up in the preparation and festivities as you’d been, and you suddenly felt very much like you’d escaped the headman’s axe. You looked at Baelor, imploring. 

Knowing your mind, he spoke without prompting. “I have already been through the ceremony once before and found I do not care for it.” He chuckled to himself, though it was a sound devoid of true amusement, then gingerly cupped the back of your head. “Besides, you have been put through quite enough indignity, my dear.” 

You preened under his attention, leaning into his palm like a flower in the sun. “You have my deepest gratitude, my beloved Prince.” Wine slurred your words only slightly; you were not yet without your bearings or wit.

“Better for it,” Maekar grumbled as Baelor resumed his seat between the two of you. “The Stormlanders would have misliked me to beat the likes of the Laughing Storm from off my goodsister.” 

Baelor’s following laugh was more spirited and he permitted himself the brief pleasure of drinking in the sight of you, curled in your highback seat with his young nephew nestled to your bosom, half-dozing now like his elder brother a few seats away. There was fiery passion in his bichrome gaze, deep and hungry.

“My bride is quite the prize jewel, is she not? I shall have to keep a close eye on her.” 

No sooner had he relaxed in his seat did Baelor rise again, and this time offered a hand for you to join him. You blinked, wondering briefly if he intended to dance once more, then caught sight of his entreating expression. Mouth pursed, eyes softened. Little Aegon was bundled out of your arms and into the custody of a tarrying nursemaid who would see him safely to bed, then with departing kisses upon the cheeks of Maekar and King Daeron II (who himself was beginning to nod off as well as his grandsons), you quietly withdrew with your husband from the great hall with the sound of revelry at your backs. 

Making for the royal wing felt clandestine, and Baelor was almost boyish in the way he pulled you, giggling, into alcoves and doorways to avoid the scrupulous eyes of servants and wandering guests. He kissed you breathless countless times along the way, those articulate hands feeling up your arms and sides as often as he was able without tripping over his own feet. The pair of you finally tumbled through a chamber door, whose you could not tell— least until you parted for breath and had the opportunity to collect your bearings. It was revealed to be Baelor’s chamber, for the space was obviously longer lived-in and the grand four-poster bed sat against the opposite wall as yours. The air here was thick with the smell of him, of parchment and leather and sumptuous perfume; or perhaps it was just his actual proximity, that strong body pressed unreservedly against you. 

Alone together for the first time this day, you were finally afforded a chance to admire your princely husband in his entirety. Husband, you adored the very word! He was resplendent in a silver-threaded doublet and livery collar of dragons in flight linked by jaws and tails, the pin denoting his honorable station fastened at the breast; his leather surcoat long since been abandoned in the great hall. Just this morn he had neatened his whiskery cheeks and trimmed the short silvered hair upon his head. Your beloved prince granted you a radiant smile and you felt yourself melt against him.   

“I have been remiss in not telling you how handsome you look, my Prince.” You cupped his face and kissed the side opposite your hand, breathing in deeply the fragrant scent of his tanned skin. You nuzzled your face into the hollow of his cheek and hummed contentedly. “My Husband. My darling Baelor. Oh, what a splendid day you have given me. I think all in attendance enjoyed it, don’t you? Even Maekar seemed gladdened by the festivities.”

Thick arms snaked around your back and as your feet easily parted with the floor you were reminded of why he was called The Hammer. A shriek of giggles served in reply as he spun you round in a circle, to then reluctantly place you back on your feet that much closer to his bed. Baelor’s tongue tasted of sugared fruits and wine, sweet and heady as the act of kissing itself. His hands were fiery brands at your waist where they cradled you. 

“Gladdened by you, most like,” he said. “You have been involved with this family for so long, my darling wife, and now you are truly a part of it. It is because of you this day is so splendid. Now all the realm knows what a prize I have won.” He stole another lingering kiss then touched his tongue to the corner of his mouth in thought after parting. There was a jaunty glimmer in his striking eyes, the blue one nearly as dark as the brown with its pupil blown so wide. “The night is getting on, my Lady. The dawn of a new day will soon be upon us. What say you, we retire to bed?” 

Your answer came as a furtive whisper, as though speaking too loudly risked shattering the serenity. “I would like for nothing more, Baelor.” 

His head dipped. “As you please.”

Your slippers and his boots were lost somewhere along the way to his bed, followed shortly by his ceremonial swordbelt clattering negligently to the floor. Curious hands slipped up his age-softened belly while he put aside his pin and dragon chain, then assisted in divesting him of his doublet. The white linen blouse beneath was soft with use and billowy at the sleeves, and that too followed its predecessor to the rug below. Stripped of half his clothing, Baelor Breakspear still looked every bit as intimidating as spoken of in his tales of glory. Broad of chest and thickly muscled through the arms, you beheld the majesty of a form which had only ever been suggested to you through the cut of his attire. Coarse silver hair neatly coated his chest and trailed down his stomach to the place where it disappeared into the band of his breeches; not a Targaryen silver, but silver like his beard, silver like shimmering moonlight. You swallowed thickly and walked your fingertips along the shadow of his abdominal muscles. 

“This dress is one of your own make, no?” Baelor inquired softly, fingering the fabric at your waist. He had always expressed genuine interest in your hobbies and endeavors, and never failed to commend the work you shared with him. 

You nodded bashfully, incapable of anything more substantial. His slowly meandering gaze was weighty with appreciation, lingering for a time on the accentuated shape of your figure. Sword-calloused fingers raised to trace the enticing neckline, just close enough to the edge that they ghosted along your soft skin. 

“It is stunning on you. Red suits you well… I should like to see you in this color more often. You have quite a skill, my darling.” His fingers dipped into the hollow of your throat and felt the quickened pulse there, your neck unadorned by necklace or jewels. You needn’t any spectacular ornamentation to enhance the beauty already present in your features and figure. “Scarcely anyone could take their eyes off of you, least of all myself.”

A warm flush crept up your neck. Each touch was more gentle than the last, as though you were a skittish rabbit in need of soothing. You had dreamt of this moment for years, of your wedding, of Baelor, and now that it was upon you, suddenly you did not feel so brave. 

“You’re trembling,” he observed, stoic but not unconcerned. “Are you nervous?”

Your shoulders lifted in a noncommittal gesture, eyes fixed upon his bare sternum. You could not say for certain what you were feeling, but you wanted to continue nevertheless. 

“You need not be, precious girl.” The hands retreated from your body to instead cup your face, coaxing your gaze to meet his own. Baelor was so staunchly assured that you felt a mite of his knightly courage rub off on you, emboldening you to be strong. You loved him so dearly, your rock, your fortress. “We shall proceed slowly and I will be as gentle as you require. You must tell me if you become uncomfortable and I will halt immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Baelor.” You nodded meekly, twisting your fingers in knots. “Would— Would you help me out of my dress?”

His smile was enough to melt all the ice in the North and then some. “It would be my honor.”

Those long fingers of his were unsurprisingly deft at picking open the lacing down your spine, and soon the sumptuous velvet garment gathered in a pile around your ankles. You hoped it would not wrinkle there in such a heap, but had little mind to pick it up once Baelor began kissing the slope of your shoulder. Your shift barely clung to your frame like this, and with your hair intricately braided and looped around your ears it gave him full access to your neck, much to his evident satisfaction. The man shifted close and embraced you tenderly, chest rising and falling against the curve of your back while you stroked the sinewy arms around your middle. Veins stood out more prominently the further down his forearms your fingertips trailed, until you had covered his broad hands with his own. 

“You truly are so beautiful.” Lips brushed your bare shoulder, whiskers rasping against soft skin. The sincerity of his tone brooked no argument. “How am I so lucky?”

“It is I who am the lucky one, my Prince. For I have the honor of saying mine husband is the truest knight in all the realm. He who has dragon’s blood and the handsomest eyes of sea and stone.” You turned in his hold, fitting against him like a piece once missing. “Now, if you please, I’d like to finally be made your woman.”

Having waited long enough, Baelor set upon you with vigor, his kiss clumsy and full of crooked, smiling teeth that clicked wonderfully against yours. You felt utterly devoured as you fell back upon the bed, lips flushed and bitten, knocked windless by the man’s fervor. Dragonblood, indeed.

“My darling, my heart,” he was murmuring. “My wife. I shall worship you as I should have from the moment you stirred such feelings alive in me. I cannot tell you how arduous these many moons have been.”

A soft whimper slipped unbidden from betwixt your lips when Baelor seized your waist tight in his hands and pressed a kiss to your soft stomach. Your shift was rumpled and riding up at the thighs, slumping at the shoulders, and the gesture of devotion only then seemed to remind him that your skin was separated from his lips. So, without further dawdling, your prince doffed the garment completely. Nothing remained to conceal your modesty, and the actuality of the circumstance dawned on you dazedly. This was truly your wedding night. Although warmth enveloped you from all sides—the lit hearth, the warm night air, the wine in your belly and your husband’s hotblooded body so close against your own—gooseflesh prickled along your newly bared skin, raising the fine hairs on your arms and legs and tightening your nipples. Baelor’s gaze raked across your body like a tangible weight, and were it not for the unadulterated adoration in his expression, you would have hastened to cover yourself. 

“Beautiful…” He exhaled slowly to temper himself, then dared to slide a hand up your flank to cup your right breast. “My love, you are magnificent, and I shall never tire of telling you so.”

You flushed under his focused attention, bashfulness curling in your belly. If someone had told you mere moons ago that you would be in this position, literally laid bare before the lord prince you had devoted your life to, now your husband before the eyes of gods and men, you would have laughed and called them mad. But now it seemed mad not to arch into Prince Baelor’s touch, certainly so when his forefinger and thumb tweaked your pebbled nipple. He had not removed his solid rings, and so the metal adorning both hands bit indentations into your pliant flesh as he groped hungrily at you. 

A needful sound burst from high in your throat when he bent over you and kissed a trail from neck to chest. Charming teeth scraped the top of your breast in the suggestion of a bite and you squirmed fitfully. Your hands flew to his head, nails raking through the coarse, short-cropped hair there, and your chest rose to meet his face.

“I need you, Baelor,” you whined pitifully, though you did not know exactly what you called out for.

“I know, sweet Princess,” Baelor soothed. His voice was roughened and deep, as rasping as his beard against your belly as he slunk lower down your frame. His usage of the title sent a girlish thrill singing through you— you were a princess, and he your prince! “You must be patient with me. It has been quite a long time since I have indulged in the warmth of a beautiful woman. I want to enjoy you thoroughly, and make this most pleasurable for you.” 

His moistened lips touched down just beneath your navel and you spasmed in surprise, half lurching up from your sprawled position to get a better look at him. You were shocked to find his face mere inches from your nethers, that hot, labored breath stirring the coarse hair there. Baelor’s noble brow was wrinkled, his eyes pinched shut and fingers anchored into the meat of your hips. He looked almost pained. You opened your mouth to say something, a palm hovering unsurely above the crown of his head, when he sighed deeply. 

“I have wanted you like this for so much longer than I realized.” You gathered he was speaking more to himself than to you. “All you have done for me… I regret not taking you to wife sooner.”

“Do not regret,” you whispered, half smiling. “You had my love and admiration then as you have it now. The only difference is that I may now dream of my Prince without guilt.” 

Baelor hummed thoughtfully then kissed the tantalizing spot he had previously, his expression subdued and mirthful.

“Lie back,” he instructed. 

Perplexed and a touch nervous, you obeyed. Blinking up at the shadowed canopy, you awaited… well, you did not know what to expect. Situated with your fists by your head and your legs partially dangling off the edge of the bed, Baelor had crouched between your knees, preventing them from closing to conceal your modesty. One calloused palm slid up your stomach and stopped right below your breasts, using just enough force to keep you from jumping back up again if you spooked. 

The prince’s name had only barely left your lips in the beginnings of a timid beseech when you felt his touch between your thighs. Whatever query you’d had died on your tongue and was promptly replaced by an unladylike squeak. Two mindful fingertips parted the lips of your sex and probingly rubbed until finding a sensitive apex that caused you to thrash most uncouthly. Almost in the same moment, his face pressed downward against the intimate flesh and nuzzled hungrily, as though he had not eaten his fill of the feast. The hand atop your abdomen kept you pinned but did not prevent your hands from flying southward, where one clasped around Baelor’s wrist and the other came down a touch too hard upon his head. You tried grasping at his hair but it was too short and only slipped between your curled knuckles. 

You cried out, canting your hips against the stalwart glide of his fingertips, their press aided by an embarrassing dampness seeping like nectar from your core. The sensation of your wetness brought a dangerous heat to your face and one hand quickly withdrew from him to touch your scarred cheeks, testing the fever beneath your skin. The prince’s regal, twice-broken nose traced a path along the tender skin of your inner thigh and his bristled cheek nestled to the crease of your hip, eyelids heavy as he watched himself pet you open. You throbbed desperately, aching for him to touch you in that particular way once more and invite an ecstasy you’d never dreamt of. 

“Oh, seven hells,” you panted, “Baelor, what—”

Your babbling was cut short in surprise. Nimble fingers slid lower to make room for his mouth as it sealed over that swollen bud; it pulsed in delight under the suckling pressure of his lips and you keened with reckless abandon, bucking ardently up into his touch. Any notion of mortification in the act that had been brewing was overshadowed by a tidal wave of sublime sensation. Baelor devoured you like a man starved, huffing and groaning as he did, as though the act brought him as much satisfaction as it did you. The hand bracing your middle dragged higher and harshly groped at a heaving breast, dimpling the plush flesh. Your answering whine was thin and high. 

By the time he searchingly petted your slit, a fire had already begun building in you, nestled in the cradle of your pelvis behind the quivering navel. Your fingernails anchored into Baelor’s scalp as he pressed a digit inside you. The pressure was slow and unfamiliar, experimental, not unwelcome; made painless by your ample wetness and the prince’s own saliva. Back arched, neck craned, you could scarcely gather yourself enough to breathe— especially not when one finger became two and he caressed something inside you so reactive it set your legs to quivering and earned a breathless cry. 

Baelor’s mouth parted only to pepper a trail of open-mouthed kisses all the way up to meet your lips. You practically smashed his face against yours in your fervor to clutch him, hands spanning the sides of his head like he was at risk of vanishing at any moment. Your beloved prince’s beard was wet and musky with your arousal but you did not care an inch as you nuzzled to his mouth. Those wicked fingers withdrew from your cunt after a thorough pumping to instead focus on your pulsing desire. Your resulting twitches and moans were swallowed readily by him. 

An arm slipped beneath your head as a cushion, bringing you that much closer into Baelor’s orbit of enchantment. Dazzled, you stared shamelessly up at him. His eyes were heavily lidded, teeth peeking through parted lips in a suggestion of relish. His cheeks were flushed darkly. He was so agonizingly handsome like this. 

You thought yourself on the brink of fainting when his fingertips found a particular angle and bullied it mercilessly. The sensation of fire in your belly coiled almost tangibly, pulling more and more taut until you could hardly stand it. Your head tipped listlessly back over the support of Baelor’s forearm in conjunction with a reedy moan, exposing your throat to him. Flushed lips touched the arch of your neck, then the taunting scrape of foreteeth.  

“Baelor…!”

“That’s it,” he gentled. “Feel yourself come undone. Yes, good girl, just like that.”

His strumming fingers quickened in time with your breaths and sweet, hiccuping cries, until that surging feeling inside you burst like nothing you’d ever known. Your body spasmed violently, legs drawing up around Baelor’s intruding hand, your lungs forcing out sounds you did not know yourself capable of. You clung to your prince, your husband, hard enough to make the muscles of your arms ache. 

“Oh, Baelor… Sweet Prince…”

“I have you, my Princess.” Grinning rather wolfishly in spite of his kindly tone, Baelor pecked your lips and slowly withdrew his hand from between your thighs. It then rested inert upon your belly, warm and reassuring, a touch damp. “How do you feel?”

You gaped silently for a moment, for what words had you to describe such wondrous pleasure? The septas had never spoken of such interactions between man and woman, after all. Limbs ever so slightly still quivering but not entirely without strength, you ventured to thread one foot between Baelor’s shins to tangle your legs with his. 

Finding a satisfactory reply, you hummed. “I think I shall never want to leave this bed. I love you, so very much.”

Baelor laughed openly at that. His face creased handsomely with the joyful expression and brought an unexpected pang of bittersweetness to your heart. You had feared him lost to you forever in the height of your strife—then, when he had not even truly been yours—and now you could not imagine a life without him. Without this— his carefree smile. You caressed his cheek sweetly, savoring this rare moment of his untroubled respite.

“I will gladly take that compliment, wife. I expect no one shall question the validity of our union if we are not seen nor heard from in a few days,” he japed and chanced to steal another kiss as he folded you into his arms. “I also expect quite a few men here today wished it were their cloak you had been taken under instead.”

You rolled your eyes and scoffed lightly. “Surely not. I have a face only you could love.”

Warm fingertips traced the gnarled scar up your cheek and across to the opposite eyebrow. You found it difficult to believe him, though you knew in your heart that the good prince did not lie. Disgust had never once colored his expression, never darkened his eyes against you.

“You bear the face of resilience,” Baelor corrected firmly, leaving no room for dispute. 

“As you say, my Prince.” 

You gladly yielded to him, and in that yielding allowed him to resituate you comfortably amongst the lavish cushions of his bed. You felt swallowed by silk and goosedown, lit by firelight and the passion burning in your breast for your lord husband. Raised upon your elbows, you peered on in curiosity and trepidation as Baelor at last rid himself of his breeches. Now nothing at all remained between you, and for the first time you were simply man and woman together, stripped of the frivolities of class and costume. 

Baelor was adorned in a constellation of scars of his own, some fine lines and others larger, each with a story of its own. His generous muscles were smooth and pliant beneath your exploring touch, his back broad and rippling when you snaked a hand across it. The silver-black hair that had previously disappeared into his breeches now presented itself to be a neatly kept thatch of curls at the root of his manhood, which in turn stood eager and thickened with impassioned blood. The alien sight of it intimidated you, but did not stop you from reaching to touch it. The skin there was silken and blushed darkly as you rubbed him experimentally. Baelor jerked and inhaled sharply when your thumb nudged at the weeping slit of his cockhead. He fisted the pillows either side of you in an effort to cool the flaring heat of his dragonblood. 

His resulting smile was doting, if a touch strained. “My darling, I fear I will not last long if you touch me thusly. Please… Allow me to take you properly first.” 

You wanted to argue that you had all night to explore one another, all week, forever— but you could not deny the temptation of his plea nor the draw of your own tiredness. You doubted you would last another hour awake. Exhaustion and the consequence of a number of cups were slowly fading the peripheries of your awareness, and a deep soreness had set into your legs from dancing all night. A pleasant fuzz had grown like moss over your mind. You at least wanted Baelor inside you before you fell fast asleep.

You nodded quickly and relocated your hands to his noble shoulders. “Yes. Yes, please.” 

“Always such a polite girl,” he mused, ducking to peck at your jaw. “Remember, if you feel discomfort or pain, do inform me immediately and I shall cease.”

A small noise of acknowledgement was coaxed from you as Baelor arranged you: bedcover flung aside, the curve of your buttocks and backsides of your thighs braced along the tops of his, ankles locked behind his back. You watched rapt as he pumped himself once, twice for good measure, then aligned himself. His brow was damp and furrowed in concentration, a forked vein stood out down the center. You felt the slick glide of his cockhead along the seam of your cunt, first kissing that sweet bud which had brought such pleasure, then lower to the place his only fingers had delved previously. Baelor pressed an inch or so forward once he located your entrance and you sucked a sharp breath through your teeth, rearing back against the pillow beneath your head. 

He hesitated. The Hammer should ne’er hesitate. 

“‘Tis only a pinch,” you reassured, only half a lie. “Please, Baelor. Please, don’t stop. I need you.”

Baelor hissed softly through clenched teeth, eyes bright with want. “Wicked thing…”

You begged so sweetly and pulled him down by the neck and he could not resist you. He worked himself in slowly, as if that would spare you any pain— when all you wanted was for him to ravage you utterly. But, you did not raise quarrel with his gentle treatment of you, his new and delicate bride. The sharp sting had subsided to a dull ache by the time Baelor seated himself entirely within you, and from there it gave way to a sublime feeling of fullness. The intense pressure was oddly comforting.

Baelor Breakspear punched a quiet but guttural sound from deep in your chest when he withdrew only to immediately press back in, scarcely more than a hairsbreadth in measure but enough to be felt deeply. Your hands scrambled across his back, fingers sinking wherever they could find purchase along the shifting furrows of his ample muscles. Parted lips traced the line of scarring across your cheek, straight where its counterpart curved; not quite kissing, rather feeling the difference of tissue texture. Baelor’s breath fanned hot over your face, the taste of his sweat like the salten sea of his right eye. 

“You feel divine. So warm,” he rasped. One hand fell to your belly as he continued; “You’re seized up here. Relax, my love.”

He was correct, naturally. Once you realized the tension in your abdomen and hips and permitted yourself to release it, the pleasure of his intrusion turned from a trickle to a gush. Your limbs went slack, body like warm dough. Every thrust revealed an increasing vigor and you took each with gladness, sighing and moaning shamelessly as Baelor’s pace steadily grew quick and hard. He could do precious little to conceal the pleasure he took in you, answering your sounds in kind with grunts and murmurs of his own. Baelor gathered as much of you against himself as he could manage, one arm curling beneath your neck again while the other scooped around your hips, folding you to him in a fierce embrace. Scarcely any part of you did not make some sort of contact with his flushed skin; you were wholly enveloped by his blistering affection and loved every second of it.

He shuffled to fit more snugly and the motion canted your hips upwards by a hair, your lower half elevated off the bed by the wedge of him beneath and around you. Facilitated by the changed angle, his inward strokes now hammered against something consuming and divine. You cried out and writhed in agonized pleasure, tipping thusly over the edge of a precipice you had not seen rushing up to meet you. Your body spasmed helplessly in the tight clutch of Baelor’s embrace, fingers like talons in his back, mouth seeking his kiss. You felt the heat of your loins constrict as if to drive him out from you, but he remained steadfastly unbudged. With a sweet moan against your open mouth and a stitch in his brow, Baelor’s own hips rutted with harsh finality. He rooted himself deeply and spilled within you. A strange warmth gushed from where you were joined and only then did the man uncurl from around you— though you quietly would have preferred he stayed crushing you beneath his comforting weight.  

Baelor’s breath was ragged as he rolled onto his back, his stately face flushed and beaded with the sweat of exertion. It was doubtful you looked any more composed than he, with errant locks of hair escaped from their meticulous arrangement around your face and a sheen of perspiration collected in the valleys of your body. Your sex was slick with the trickle of his spend and your own moisture when you went to draw your legs together and turn towards him. Perhaps the blood of your maidenhead, as well, you pondered without bothering to verify. Your face scrunched, for the feeling was invigorating as it was uncomfortable, but you could not be troubled to do anything about it. Baelor responded to your movement without opening his eyes and gathered you to his side on instinct. He hummed and pressed his lips to your brow, allowing the chaste kiss to remain while his breathing evened out. 

As a gratifying soreness began to settle low in your core and tiredness weighed down the lids of your eyes—one always drooped lower as a result of the taut scarring—you shifted to snare the rumpled ruby bedcover and drag it over your cooling bodies before a chill set in. Halfway through doing so, Baelor stopped you with a gentle grip around your wrist.

“Pray, just a few more moments then I will rise and retrieve a cloth to clean you with, my dear.” 

His voice was a low gravel as he adjusted more comfortably on the pillows, appearing about as inclined to depart the bed as you. You could not help the petulant whine that built up in your throat in response. 

“But I’m tired.” 

“Fine, I shall go now so the Princess does not suffer.”

“No, don’t get up at all!” 

You groaned loudly when he did not heed your pitiful plea and buried your face in his pillow just as soon as he slipped from your arms. Everything was thickly permeated with the scent of him—his soaps and oils, his perfume, the musk of his skin—and you could naught but inhale the reminders of him as you awaited his return, sighing and lamenting as though he had gone off to war. You supposed his bed would smell of you now, too. Your small claim upon his lavish chambers.

Baelor was still charmingly nude when he returned to the bedside. The chamber was several candles darker, all extinguished save for the crackling hearth. It lit your princely husband in a golden glow that only accentuated his handsome Dornish features. The pale eye was shadowed nearly to the shade of the brown one as he gazed lovingly down upon you, and it gave him more the look of an ordinary man than that of a noble descendant of Old Valriya. Baelor folded easily into your beckoning embrace but refused to settle until he had tenderly wiped the sweat from your face and the mess from between your legs. His touch was light and thoughtful as he did so—worshipful, it felt—and he politely made no mention of the slight red tint on the linen cloth once it came time to use it on himself. It was tossed elsewhere once it had served its purpose, a problem for the morrow, same as your array of discarded garments.  

Your giggle was airy and not quite awake when Baelor scooped you up and nestled himself snugly along the length of your body, a tangle of arms and legs beneath the bedcover pulled childishly up to your heads. He scattered jovial kisses across your face, upon the filigree of scars and the tip of your nose. 

“Thank you.” 

The words were murmured so quietly against your languidly smiling lips that you almost did not hear them. Your girlish laughter subsided to a contented sigh and you burrowed closer as if to fuse yourself to Baelor. 

You pecked his pointed nose, ever so slightly crooked. “What for, your Grace?” 

“For agreeing to be my wife… It could not have been an easy decision, considering.”