dee 🖋️

It had begun as simple smiles blooming in the dim corridors of the Red Keep, back when you were but a child clutching your father’s hand. Even then, the Lords of the Court possessed no shame; they would boldly petition for your hand to grace their sons’ beds, or, more obscenely, their own.

As the years stretched your limbs, the courtesies grew deeper than necessity required. The compliments became overwrought, smelling of false summerwine. Their eyes would linger upon the curve of your smile or the silk of your bodice a heartbeat longer than was seemly. They looked at you through a glass of unreality, forcing their kindness and sharpening their flattery, all to carve a place in your favor. They hoped, perhaps, to ensnare your heart and bind you to them in the sight of the Seven.

By right of blood, you were the eldest daughter of Maekar Targaryen—his firstborn, a flawless alloy of his steel and your mother’s grace. You were a vision of royalty in its highest splendor: hair of spun silver and a smile that dazzled like sunlight on Blackwater Bay. You moved with the terrifying confidence of one who knew exactly who, and what, she was.

You were a Dragon Princess, as beautiful and volatile as the wildfire burning in your veins.

That was a sin the world would never forgive. Nor would they ever permit you to forget it.

The lesson was learned early and with bitterness: men did not see you. They cared little for the contents of your soul or the mettle of your character. They saw only your name, your blood, and the power of your heritage. You were not a woman to them; you were a ledger of utility.

For that, your life had been spent parrying unwanted advances and shivering through uncomfortable dalliances. Your father had grown weary of swatting away marriage pacts like persistent flies. He had even gone so far as to backhand your younger brother, Aerion, when the Prince had dared to claim you as his own by right of birth.

To the realm, you were a trophy to be hoisted. A prize to be corrupted, to be flowered and bedded, a vessel to carry their legacy under the prestige of your name.

To everyone, that is, except for Valarr.

Your sweet cousin had always been the perfect counterpoint to your own existence, for you understood one another with a clarity that defied words. You were two bright spirits the world sought to quench.

He did not look at you as a ladder to the Iron Throne, nor did he squint to measure the span of your waist or the fullness of your breast to judge your worth as a broodmare. He looked at you because, since you were children racing through the gardens, you were the only one who could read the silences hidden behind his shy, quiet smile. You were patient with him when the court was not; you were his confidante, his shield, and above all, his most faithful ally.

You had covered for one another’s mischief, mending the echoes of broken treasures and whispering secrets as you snuck into the Dragonpit. There, amidst the towering, hollow skulls of the ancient dragons, you would play at being Old Valyria reborn, pretending the stone husks still breathed fire at your command.

When the betrothal was finally cried out, the court hailed it as the ‘Perfect Union’ to secure the succession. With the King’s blessing and your fathers’ consent, the pact was sealed. They saw it as a masterful stroke of politics; for the two of you, it was the first true breath of relief you had ever taken.

For you loved him, and Valarr had loved you since his heart first learned to beat. To him, you had appeared like a Valyrian goddess—radiant, laughing, and full of life. As the years turned, he had found himself a devotee at your altar, a prince kneeling before his own religion. He had always been there to shield you from the grasping hands of men who took advantage of your girlhood innocence.

“I don’t like how they treat you, cousin,” he would grumble, squeezing your hand in his, hidden in the shadows behind a enormous dragon skull. Naturally, that was where you both felt safest, under the dark, fierce gaze of the hollow eye pits of the dragons in their lair. “As if you were some kind of property they could claim.”

Valarr was your guardian. And now that you were his wife, the silver prince had grown more territorial, his devotion sharpening into a protective jealousy that burned as fierce as any dragon’s breath.

That evening, at some royal feast in the Red Keep, the weary pantomime played out once more. You were draped in a gown of breathtaking scarlet and black—the colors of your House—mirroring the doublet Valarr wore.

ogether, you were a vision of dragonblood manifest, your silver tresses woven with threads of beaten gold that glimmered under the fire of the lamps. Your face remained serene, a mask of pale porcelain that the lords of the realm, in their infinite dullness, so often misread.

“Your sweetness is truly exquisite, Princess,” a Lord claims, his flattery oiling the air for the third time within the hour. He pressed closer than etiquette deemed holy, mistaking your silence for the soft bloom of shyness. But as Maekar’s daughter, shyness was a stranger to you. “Surely a woman of your... temperament would find respite from the rigors of the capital. My lands in the south are far warmer, and much more welcoming.”

You do not stir or grow desperate. You merely take another slow sip of your sweet red wine, dangerously calm. You sense Valarr’s presence before you hear his boots on the stone, and so you let him handle the intrusion. You let him mark his territory.

Your husband slides to your side with the natural elegance of one born to wear a crown. He has been occupied in conversation with his father—much to his chagrin, for he detests leaving you alone in halls so thick with that kind of men. 

And Valarr, much like his father Baelor, is a man of precise words and measured gestures.

“Lord Tyrell,” he says, his voice so soft it feels like a caress, though his beautiful two-colored eyes hold the dull glint of an ice floe. “My wife already has all the warmth she could ever need here. The Targaryen fire requires no southern sun to burn fiercely.”

Valarr places a hand to rest gently on the small of your back, drawing you flush against him. 

It is a subtle gesture to the prying eyes of the court, but to you, it is absolutely everything. The heat radiating from his palm and the delicate graze of his fingers against the silk of your gown at the curve of your waist are enough to make the insult—which has begun to climb your throat—dissolve into a lover’s sigh. 

Though, you wish you could have that Lord’s eyes served on a platter for the way he undresses you with his gaze.

“Of course, my Prince,” the portly Lord stammers, recoiling before Valarr’s intimidating stare. “I was only looking after... the Princess’s well-being.”

“There is no need. I am here to ensure my wife's well-being, my Lord,” Valarr concludes with a courtly smile that does not reach his eyes. His fingers tighten at your waist, dipping dangerously toward the curve of your backside as you lean against his chest, looking down upon the other man with disdain.

When the Lord takes his leave, babbling your titles in farewell, Valarr does not step away. He leans close to you, pretending to adjust one of your ruby necklaces at your chest, letting his breath brush against your face and his fingertips gently caress the contour of your bosom, pressed together by the tight neckline.

“They are being especially persistent tonight,” he whispers, frustration lashing his tongue. Finally, that perfect calm fractures a mere millimeter, revealing the possessive zeal that simmers beneath his skin. “I wonder if I should remind them every hour that you are wed to me.”

Your hands travel up his chest, tracing a soft path of soothing caresses until they find the broad expanse of his shoulders, seeking to anchor his rising temper. 

You offer him a tight, strained smile, still tasting the bitterness of the situation; you loathe the way any other man dares to look at you, for in your heart, only your husband holds the right to such intimacy.

Your fingers toy with the ornaments shaped like crimson dragon scales upon his shoulders, and you gaze up at him with big, adoring eyes.

“They all know it, my love. I am yours...”

But Valarr does not relax. He does not release that heavy, searing exhale—as hot as the breath of a dragon—that usually signals his surrender to your charms or the sound of your seductive voice confessing your devotion. That you are his.

Instead, his hand moves from your chest, sliding slowly up the column of your throat until it reaches your chin. He tilts it upward, holding you firm, forcing you to look only at him.

“Then you should stop encouraging them, wife,” he accuses in a husky rasp. He leans down, tilting his head to claim your mouth in a sharp, brief kiss that leaves the faint sound of parting lips as he pulls away, never breaking eye contact.

The phrase falls between you like a lump of stone, cooling the air that a moment ago was burning with the heat of his closeness.

Your hands stiffen on his shoulders as you search for any hint of jest in his gaze, that he is just teasing you, but you see only eyes darkened by wounded pride—a temperament he rarely unveils.

“Encouraging them?” you repeat, your voice a mere thread of incredulity. You cling to the hope that this is some cruel play on words. “Valarr, I have scarcely opened my lips. I have remained as motionless as a statue of Baelor the Blessed.”

“And that is precisely the invitation,” he retorts, taking a long step back, causing your hands to fall from his shoulders as the distance grows between you. “You stand there with a serenity that looks like submission, permitting them to circle you like vultures over a jewel. You should rebuff them at once, reject them with the strength of your lineage before they dare to breathe your very air.”

You feel the sting of injustice prick your chest. Valarr, better than anyone, knows the crushing weight of crowns.

“You know I can not do that, much as I wish to cut out their tongues and pluck out their eyes,” you hiss like an angered viper, lowering your tone so no prying ear might catch the fissure in the perfect marriage—your first true quarrel in months. “I am the firstborn of Prince Maekar. If I humiliate Lord Tyrell or any other bannerman before the entire court for a mere ill-intentioned compliment, I invite a political war that neither your father nor mine desires.” You tilt your head slightly beneath his gaze, which now sparks with anger. “Do you wish for me to be the cause of a dispute between the Reach and the Crown?”

“I prefer a thousand political disputes to the sight of other men stripping you with their eyes while you smile at them with courtesy,” he snaps back at you, the bitterness in his voice palpable, his words measured to wound. 

You shake your head in disbelief, the movement causing your silver tresses to shimmer like cold moonlight against your shoulders. A dry, hollow laugh escapes your throat, though there is no mirat in it—only a sharp, stinging disappointment.

This time, you take a deliberate step back, increasing the distance between you until the warmth of his body no longer reaches your own. You look at him as if he were a stranger wearing the face of the man you love.

“Valarr, this is madness,” you breathe, your voice trembling not with fear, but with the sheer weight of your incredulity.

His hands retreat behind his back, hidden away as if he’s afraid of what they might do—not out of malice, but out of a desperate, clawing urge to reach for you and end this distance. He locks them together, his fingers digging into his own skin, clenching into fists so tight that the knuckles turn a ghostly, bloodless white.

It is a physical struggle, a silent war he wages against his own nature—his lifelong instinct to be close to you, the instinctive urge to reach out and touch you.

By hiding his hands away from you, he denies himself the comfort of your touch, choosing instead to let his wounded pride dictate the space between you.

“At times I wonder...” he adds, his voice dropping to a tone of refined cruelty born of an agonizing insecurity. You can tell he's hesitating for a moment before deciding to succumb to his rage and hurl out more poison. “I wonder if you secretly crave the attention. If the daughter of Prince Maekar requires the adoration of the world to feel like a queen for a fleeting moment, even at the cost of her husband's patience.”

The silence that follows is suffocating, a physical weight that seems to drown out the screech of the fiddles, the roar of drunken laughter, and the rhythmic swirl of the dancers. 

It cuts deeper than any insult from some nameless Lord; Valarr is accusing you of common vanity when your entire life has been a battle to survive the scrutiny of a world that views you as nothing more than a prize to be won.

You hold his gaze, your breath hitching as genuine offense turns to a cold, hard coal in your chest, but you don't let the tears fall.

The ancient, inherited fire of your blood finally flickers to life behind your violet eyes.

“You have known me since I was a child of three, Valarr,” you say, with a coldness that rivals his own. “If you truly believe I enjoy being a piece of meat on display... then you do not know me at all.”

And then, you wait for just a moment. You wait for his expression to soften, for guilt to cloud his beautiful eyes, and for his hand to seek yours with that touch of regret that always follows this rare moments of tension. 

You wait for him to ask your pardon, to pull you against his chest and whisper that love drives him mad, that his insecurities, his own fears, are to blame for his sharpened tongue.

But Valarr does not move.

He maintains his impeccable, princely posture, his chin high and his shoulders squared, his gaze fixed on a point just above your head. His lips, which have so often whispere promises of eternal devotion, are pressed into a thin, bitter line. There is no retort, no apology, not even a flicker of doubt.  There is no retort, no apology, not even a flicker of doubt.

He simply steps aside.

Without a single word, Valarr moves to the right, clearing the path and leaving you the space to depart. It is the most galling gesture of all: a calculated indifference, a silent invitation for you to retire if you are not prepared to accept his terms. Never before has he let you go while you were angry. Always, without fail, he found a way to hold you until the storm passed.

You feel the knot of indignation tighten in your throat. 

“Very well. This is how it will be, t–then,” you mumble reluctantly, swallowing a lump in your throat. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Valarr echoes, dropping his gaze to the floor, still visibly simmering.

You gather the heavy skirts of your scarlet gown with fingers trembling from rage and you walk past him, keeping your back as straight as a dragon-bone spear, and begin to walk toward the exit of the Great Hall.

You feel the weight of the gold threads in your braids, and above all, you feel the weight of everyone's eyes upon you.

Even from a distance, your father can sense that you are visually agitated and very upset, considering that pout you're holding on your lips. His frown deepens when he glances at your husband standing behind you, his jaw clenched, looking down at the floor, clearly forcing himself not to gaze at you, for his act of indignation would likely crumble into a thousand pieces.

Then, Maekar shares a knowing glance with Baelor, who is sitting next to him, as he too realizes that something has happened between their firstborns.

Now, without Valarr by your side as a shield, the gazes feel even more invasive, more ravenous. You can sense Lord Tyrell watching you from afar with a crooked smirk, noting the sudden distance set between your husband and you. So, you hurry to get out of the place, not even bothering to give excuses to your family.

Valarr had hurt you in the deepest way, doubting your loyalty and integrity just because the rest of the world didn't know how to be decent. Every time you thought about it, about the way he had accused you and looked at you, as if he didn't know you, as if you had been a stranger, you grew increasingly furious.

The seconds turned into minutes, which felt like hours. You abruptly took off your jewelry, letting the rubies fall onto the dressing table with a loud clatter. You let your hair down, letting your silvery locks cascade over your bare shoulders like a fountain.

Finally, as you are settling down for a good night's sleep, relaxing in your spacious bed and solitude, the sound of the door creaking open interrupts your peace.

There is no rush in his movements, Valarr walks in with his characteristic serenity, which now irritates you so much that you are unable to even so much as glance at him.

“Maekar was looking for you,” he informs you, his voice unusually monotone, as he begins to take off his cloak. “I told him you were not feeling yourself.”

You lay motionless beneath the satin sheets, your gaze locked on the shadows cast by the burning embers across the ceiling, imagining that they are dragons.

His words hover in the space of the room, unacknowledged. You offer no expression of gratitude, no hum of acceptance, neither even the faintest gesture of your head in his direction.

For you, Valarr is not there that night. In his place, there is only a stranger who wears his face, one who has had the audacity to question the core of your very soul.

You can hear the sound of leather sliding on wood as he begins to take off his doublet. The following is a heavy silence, charged with the weight of all that has not been said.

Valarr takes his time, moving with that regal slowness that you would usually find charming, and that, on any other day, would have you already crawling up his bare back with kisses and caresses, but now seems like a desperate tactic to get your attention.

It's really pathetic, you think.

He steps to the edge of the bed and you sense the mattress dip slightly under his weight as he sits down to untie his boots.

“You could have waited for me at least,” he is bold enough to keep talking, even when he can clearly see that you are still fuming, bursting the ice again and uttering your name in that gentle tone of his. At least that much has not changed on this catastrophic day.

Indeed, his tone has lost the harshness he displayed in the Great Hall, turning into something closer to a resigned lament. Pathetic.

“I had to make up excuses for my father and yours. It's not like us to put on such a display of disharmony in front of them and the King.”

Once again, you don't respond. Instead, you close your eyes, concentrating on the cadence of your own breathing and then, roll overyourself to turn your back on him.

If he doesn't approve of your polite silence, then you will give him an entire ocean of it.

Valarr sighs, a long, weary sound that betrays his own frustration. He finishes undressing and, after blowing out the last two candles, slips under the bedcovers beside you. 

Typically, the instant your bodies lie side by side in the darkness and comfort of your quarters, he would reach for you, wrap an arm around your waist, bury his face in your neck, and whisper how much he loves you, emphasizing his words with sweet kisses upon your skin that would often lead to passionate lovemaking.

But this time, despite sharing the same bed, the distance between you seems to be unbridgeable.

Valarr lies on his back, very close but not touching you. You can feel the warmth emanating from his body, that warmth that has always makes you feel at home. Your skin tingles, betraying you, yearning for his touch, but your sense of pride—the same pride you inherited from your father, so fierce and intense—keeps you cold and distant.

“You're not even going to look at m–me?” Valarr asks into the suffocating darkness of the bedchamber, his voice cracks with the weight of despair. 

There is a trace of bewilderment in his gentle voice. The situation is terrifyingly foreign to him as well; you have always been the one to reach out and smooth things over with patience. He has grown accustomed to your mercy, leaning on it like a crutch he never realized he needed.

But not now. 

“There is a tournament tomorrow. We are expected to be in the royal pavilion, together. We cannot afford this... this whim.”

A whim?, you think, and rage boils in your gut like the fire-breath of a dragon.

You don't give him the luxury of a reaction to his provocation. You simply adjust your pillow with a sharp movement before lying perfectly still again.

At that you feel him grow tense beside you.

Your husband is not a man of violent outbursts, but indifference is the only force that can shatter his composure. 

For the first time, he is facing the abyss of your indifference, and the overwhelming loneliness of that void is beginning to drown him.

“V–very well,” he finally declares, and this time his voice rings with wounded emotion, despite his efforts to conceal it with a veil of coldness. “Good night.”

The echo of the crowd's cheers reaches your terrace, celebrating every lance broken, every fallen rider. Normally, you would be the star of the royal pavilion, seated at Valarr's side, but today you have chosen the cozy comfort of your own bedchamber.

Earlier that morning, you had sent a message to the king and your father, as concise as it was unconvincing: you were not feeling well, a vague discomfort kept you bedridden. It was a lie, and everyone knew it. But since your whole family already knows that something has been going on between you and your husband, they decided to let it slide.

You can just imagine Valarr, looking perfect and stoic on the outside, but burning with humiliation and solitude on the inside, forced to answer all the questions about the absence of his wife, his other half, who isn't there to hand him the favor of her silk when it's his turn to ride.

The sunset bathes the big bedchamber into a bloody shade of orange as the door is flung open. This time, there is no trace of finesse or restraint.

Valarr comes in like a force of nature then. He has already stripped away the cold plates of his armor, but he still wears the dark, sweat-stained gambeson—the thick, quilted tunic of black leather and wool that served as his last line of defense. It clings to the broad expanse of his chest and shoulders, damp from the grueling effort of the tourney, mapping out the frantic rhythm of his breathing.

His dark hair is all messed up and sticking to his forehead from the sweat and effort he put into the tourney, and that one platinum streak of his, the one that makes you go feral just by the sight of it, is all ruffled up. His two-colored eyes, normally as calm as a peaceful lake, burn with a fury you've hardly ever seen before. 

He looks handsome like that, you must admit, all fired up and sassy.

He tosses his gauntlets onto a nearby table with a loud bang that makes you sit up in the bed, your fingers instantly clamping shut the book you were so absorbed in reading.

“Not a single word,” he snarls, his voice low and dangerous as he storms across the room towards you. “Not a single glance all day. You left me alone in front of the court, in front of my father, like a fool who can’t even run his own household.”

You remain where you are, sitting with a graceful languor and purposeful poise on the vastness of the bed, surrounded by the soft disorder of the silk sheets. You haven't moved to acknowledge him, nor have you displayed any reaction to the agitation he exudes. Instead, you remain leaning against the cushions, your back straight and your scarlet silk nightgown sliding dangerously down the curve of your shoulder, revealing the smoothness of your skin as a kind of silent provocation.

You look devastatingly beautiful, a vision of heaven that contrasts cruelly with the miserable state in which he has returned to you. Your silvery hair flows down over your chest, simultaneously covering and revealing the delicate curves of your figure, as you hold your book with an elegance that is almost hurtful.

That nightgown is his favorite, you both know it. You are keenly aware of the effect you have on him. You know that while he has been away playing the perfect prince, you have been here preparing to be his downfall.

You gradually raise your gaze, and lock your violet eyes onto his with unnerving calmness. At least you grant him that today: the privilege of looking you in the eyes.

“I gave you exactly what you asked for, Valarr,” you reply reluctantly, stretching out your other hand to put your wine cup down on one of the nightstands and crawling out the bed to stand up. “Didn’t you want me to stop attracting attention? Didn’t you want me to hide myself away? Well, here you have it. I’ve hidden myself away from the world. And from you.”

You stand up with a measured nonchalance that only serves to fuel the fire of his rage. You move with the fluid grace of a predatory creature, walking calmly and intentionally avoiding his menacing figure, passing so close that he can smell the scent of your skin, but without allowing him even the slightest touch.

You head toward the balcony, and that's where you pull off your masterstroke. As you walk away from him, the orange, bloody light of sunset filters through the open doors, turning the thin scarlet silk of your nightgown into an nearly transparent veil.

Valarr stands rooted to the spot, his breath catching in his throat, as the sinful clarity of your body's shape is displayed before his eyes: the curve of your back, the sway of your hips, and the curve of your arse, all outlined by the glow of the dying sun as it pierces the thin fabric.

You lean on the stone railing, watching the horizon where the sun sinks like a glowing ruby into the Black Waters. The night wind begins to dance with the hem of your dress, clinging to your thighs and leaving precious little to the imagination.

And you know he's right behind you, following in your own footsteps with the patient determination of a predator. You feel the heat of his body against yours, smell the scent of sweat exuding from his skin, a fragrance that is purely masculine and dominant, making your insides knot with desire.

His warm hands catch you by the waist and pull you forcefully against his chest. You let out a breathless gasp as his face digs into the crook of your neck, and his hot, hungry lips kiss the sensitive skin just below your ear.

You try to call out his name, to scold him, to remind him that you are still upset about his awful behavior from yesterday. “Valarr...”

“You think this is a fucking game?” he grunts, his voice rumbling down your spine. “You think you can just disappear and leave my mind to rot, imagining every man in this kingdom coveting my woman?”

“You pushed me away,” your voice weakens as one of his hands rises impatiently, cupping your breast over the thin fabric of your nightgown, holding your body close to his. “You doubted me, Valarr. My loyalty. My dignity. In front of all those people. In front of my own father. Do you know how humiliating it feels?”

He sighs heavily into your neck, placing one last kiss on your skin before spinning you around in his arms so abruptly that it knocks the wind out of you. 

Instinctively, your hands reach for his shoulders to hold on to him, and he supports you with his own hands, fitting the curve of your waist, incapable of letting you go now that he has captured you.

Seeing the way you're looking at him, he sighs once more, ducking down to push his forehead onto your chest, closing his eyes as his face nuzzles between your breasts. His arms wrap around your waist, pulling you closer to him and ensuring that you can't even consider moving away.

“Forgive me,” he pleads then, his voice cracking just slightly, his lips spelling out the words into your skin. “Forgive me—my love, please. I am just a stupid, jealous fool. I was out there all day, feeling like I was suffocating because you weren’t there. I am—I am so tired of your silence. I can't do it—”

He physically swoons when he feels your hand running through his hair, your fingers tangling in that lock of silver hair you love so much, smoothing it back into place.

The prince lets out a shuddering breath, his forehead still pressed against youe body, leaning into the touch of your fingers as if he’s a man dying of thirst and you are the only well in the desert. 

“I can't do it,” he repeats, his voice a muffled, raw rasp against your chest. “I can not live without your gaze upon me. Without your touch, your voice. Don't go back into that silence, p–please. Come back to me...”

You look down at him, your own anger beginning to fray at the edges, replaced by the heavy, intoxicating pull of the devotion he’s offering.

“I am right here, Valarr,” you whisper, your voice finally breaking the seal of that icy silence. Your fingers tighten in his hair, tugging just enough to force him to look up at you. “I forgive you”

“Thank you,” he breathes out, his voice choked with emotion before claiming your lips with his, and kissing you as if it were the first time he’d been able to kiss you in years away from you. He kisses you again and again and again. “Thank you...”

“I believe you are exaggerating now, darling,” you tell him, struggling to contain a giggle at the way he is clinging to your body, his hands sliding down to palm your arse and squish you closer to him, kissing your flushed cheeks.

But Valarr doesn't laugh. He doesn't even crack a smile. Instead, he pulls back just enough to look you in the eye, his expression so hauntingly solemn it makes the breath catch in your throat.

“I am not exaggerating, my heartfire,” he says, his voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly earnest register. He looks like a man who has just survived a war. “It has been twenty-six hours and fourteen minutes since you last looked at me with anything other than loathing. Twenty-six hours since I last heard you speak my name.”

He leans his forehead against yours affectionately, letting out a sigh of relief now that he has you in his arms again, feeling the pressure of your breasts on his chest.

“Twenty-six hours, Valarr?” you tease, your heart softening completely as you realize the depth of his devotion.

“And fifteen minutes now,” he corrects immediately, his voice devoid of any humor, lowering sheepishly.

A bright, genuine and sweet burst of laughter escapes you, the sound ringing out like silver bells across the terrace and shattering the last of the tension. You lean back against his loving arms, your body shaking with amusement as you realize just how deeply you’ve unraveled your husband.

You feel the heat radiating from his skin as a deep, crimson flush creeps up his neck and floods his cheeks.

“You’re very kind, Your Grace,” you’d said, voice still trembling, even after he’d dismissed your rambled apologies. “I’ve been beaten for less back in Dorne.”

Baelor’s chest flared with anger at the thought, but he covered it quickly with a gentle smile, half-hidden behind his greying beard. “It was only an accident… It would be ungallant for a prince to beat someone for a mishap— or at all, in truth.”

“As I said,” you hummed, bowing your head to hide your smile while you adjusted his silver pin with more careful fingers. “You’re very sweet, Your Grace.”

“Sweet, am I?” Baelor scoffed. “I fear you would be the only one to think so, my girl.”

The term of endearment spilled effortlessly from his mouth, and had for some moon turns since. You were too lowborn for any real titles, but the absence of such in conversation felt strange to him. He did not mean for it to sound as possessive as it did, though your stomach warmed at the thought of belonging to him in some way.

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m the only one that matters, then, isn’t it, Your Grace?” you’d quipped with a wider grin and a sparkling look in your squinted eyes.

Baelor got the feeling that it was custom for you to joke with your ladies in such a manner, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that your words were a prophecy of some kind. Like you knew, as well as he did, that you were going to become a much bigger part of his life than he’d planned.

“Aye,” he grinned. “That you are, my girl…”

Somewhere between now and then, the veil had slipped, and he could no longer distinguish his want for you from his need. He found himself tethered to your very existence, bending to your gravity like the tide and the moon. It sometimes felt like he lived only to be touched by you; the uncertainty of the rest of the world slipped away whenever your fingers brushed his skin.

Even now, he has to fight back a shiver as you slide his rings on one by one — with far more gentleness than should likely be allowed, in the very most literal sense.

Baelor watches you in the long mirror propped in the corner of his chambers while you stand at his side, plucking the silver jewelry from the small table beside you with a precision that feels almost methodical.

His eyes fall over your messily fixed hair, as if you’d done it in a hurry or slept in it the night before; then to your dress sleeve, which threatens to slip down your shoulder, that you make no move to raise again; and to your heeled shoes, peeking beneath the skirt of your dress, which you had kicked off to rest your feet and think he doesn’t notice.

But there is nothing about you, he’s found, that would not capture his immediate attention.

“This is a new arrangement,” Baelor observes as he peers down at his hand, now adorned in a different array of silver than he’s used to. You’ve switched the usual pattern of them; added a couple new ones and a few he’d forgotten that he had.

“Aye, Your Grace,” you nod with a proud, sheepish smile as you slip the dark dragon insignia ring — which belonged to his grandfather many years ago — down the middle finger of his left hand. You cradle his wrist gently in your free one and absentmindedly trace the ridges of his knuckles with your thumb. “I dreamt of it last night and wanted to see how it looked…”

Baelor grins, and with a teasing squint in his brown-blue eyes, wonders aloud, “Dreaming of my fingers often, are you?”

Your wide eyes snap to his glimmering, mismatched ones in an instant. He watches your shy smile fade in a flash, ebbing into a frightened sort of look — because he has had a way of plaguing your dreams, for a while now, really; and his sudden inquiry on the matter makes you feel nothing short of utterly caught.

“Sorry, Your Grace. That was— That was inappropriate of me,” you stammer and turn away. Baelor mourns your touch when you drop his hand to face the table on your other side. You go to pick up one of the rings there, but have since forgotten which one you’d had in mind, and how to use your hands. “I shouldn’t have— I just meant that—”

“I only jest, my girl, I assure you,” Baelor says with a breathy laugh. “I am not much to dream about, I know.”

You roll your eyes at his self-deprecation, which turns into a squinted look when you glance at him over your shoulder.

“Of course not, Your Grace,” you answer drily, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Because the Crown Prince of the Iron Throne isn’t the most eligible bachelor in the Seven Kingdoms, after all.”

Baelor flares hot under his all-black grab while you pluck another ring from the table — a dark silver paired with a Targaryen ruby in the center. He hopes the embers tingling suddenly in his skin don’t show as red on his face when you turn back to face him.

“Well, most women aren’t exactly searching for an old widower with two kids, are they?”

You shrug, with your lips thinned into a tight line, as you reach again for his left hand. You cradle his palm with your own as you slide the ring onto his barren pointer finger.

“Well, I presume many old widowers with two kids aren’t future kings, Your Grace,” you hum. “And most future kinds aren’t usually so handsome.”

“You flatter me,” he dismisses with a shake of his head.

“Isn’t that my job, Your Grace?” you giggle and turn away again.

Baelor’s eyes narrow at your profile.

“Is that it, then?” he wonders aloud, then smiles at the confused look you give him in response. You try hard not to cower under the weight of his crooked smile and the suspicious glint in his brown-blue eyes. “Are you only so sweet to me because you feel it is your job to do so?”

Your eyes widen, caught again.

You swallow and calculate your next words carefully. “Well, anything otherwise would be… inappropriate, Your Grace, would it not?”

“Aye,” he nods. “It would be…”

You avert your gaze and fumble with the weighty Hand pin left on the silver tray in front of you. Your clammy fingers tremble faintly when you turn back to him, weaving the needle through his black coat.

Baelor watches you with an unwavering gaze, silently praying that you’ll nick him with it like you did the very first time — so that he can be coddled by you, maybe, or so he can bleed and feel an ounce of release.

“’Tis a shame, is it not?” he hums distantly. “A king is allowed only two things: his lady wife and his whores. Anything in between could start wars, history proves. If you were highborn, no one would think to look at us twice…”

The gravity of his words — the confession that lies within them — hits you like a punch to the stomach. It threatens to steal your breath the same way.

“Would you, Your Grace?” you hear yourself ask, voice trembling, as you press the silver pin to his chest. Baelor’s brows raise in an expectant look, and you struggle to find the courage to repeat yourself for several long moments. “If I had been born a lady, I mean… Would you look at me twice?”

“I do already,” Baelor confesses with a gentle smile and a tender look in his mismatched eyes, tilting his head towards the door. “It is only out there that I cannot.”

“So…” you trail off and swallow hard. “If we’re alone, in here, then…”

“Then I presume what the rest of the kingdom doesn’t know wouldn’t hurt it.”

You try to meet his smile with one of your own, though in your sudden stupor, the corner of your lip only flickers faintly upward. “Aye. I guess you’re right, Your Grace.”

Your fingers freeze on the silver sword on his chest when he lifts a ringed hand, reaching slowly for your face. Your breath hitches when his fingers, warm and softly calloused, meet your burning skin. He swipes an eyelash from the apple of your cheek with a touch far gentler than you thought any man could possess.

He lingers there, just against you. Your heavy breaths entwine as the anticipation crescendos within the cobblestoned bedroom.

“Are you going to kiss me, Your Grace?” you ask, already made breathless and heavy-eyed by the thought alone.

Baelor shakes his head.

“No. I’m not,” he mutters, though the heavy look in his glimmering eyes says otherwise. “Not until you say so, anyway…”

You flare hotter when his fingers trail slowly down your cheek and over the curve of your jaw, like he’s memorizing how your skin feels under his touch.

“Nothing happens until you say so,” the older man assures. “If you want me to stop, give me the word, and I will speak naught of this ever again.”

You swallow hard.

“And… If I don’t want this to stop?” you wonder on bathed breath, as the pad of his thumb traces gently over the curve of your bottom lip. Baelor’s lidded eyes train there, and his mouth waters for a taste of you.

“Then you need only give me a sign… And I will give you whatever you want…”

Your mouth parts gently. You go to say something, but the words get hung in your throat. You tilt your chin and press a chaste kiss to the pad of his thumb, instead — peering up at the man from beneath your lashes as you test the newfound waters.

Baelor’s brown-blue eyes turn glassy under your touch in an instant, and your stomach swims with a warmer feeling. With a bit more confidence than before, you wrap your lips slowly around the tip of his thumb — which you had trimmed and buffed for him the night before. You can still taste the sweet oil you’d rubbed onto his nail beds when you suck gently at the digit, without ever once taking your eyes off the man in front of you.

You pull away a moment later with a low pop, wearing a spit-slick mouth and a mischievous half-smile. “Is that enough of a sign, Your Grace—?”

His wide palm smooths across your jaw and around the back of your neck before you can properly get the words out. He pulls you closer with a suddenly firm hand, pressing his lips to yours before you can blink and kissing you like he’d swallow you whole if he could.

You moan when he licks into your parted mouth. His tongue feels like velvet against your own, and tastes of mint leaf, blood oranges, and flat cakes from an early breakfast. Your trembling hands reach for the silver chain keeping his cloak in place and tug at the chain to pull him closer. You exhale hard through your nose when his greying scruff scratches at your delicate skin.

Your lips click faintly when Baelor pulls away, far too soon for your liking. He smiles with your spit on his mouth when you try hopelessly to chase his kiss.

“When I asked, earlier, if you had dreamt of my fingers…” he trails off through labored breaths, nudging the bridge of your nose with the tip of his. “You looked frightened… As if I had caught you in some secret… Is that a fair assessment, would you say?”

You nod, not trusting your voice enough to speak.

“And what was I doing with them?” he asks, eyes darting back and forth between both of yours. “In those dreams of yours?”

Your kissed mouth opens to answer him, but nothing comes out for a long, embarrassing beat.

Baelor’s lips curl slowly into a sympathetic grin.

“Show me,” he commands; he pleads.

Your hands shake when they reach for his ringed one, still cradling gently at the back of your neck. Your fingers wrap around his wrist right before you step away from him, just to tug him with you across the expansive room. Your boots slip from beneath the skirt of your dress as your bare feet pad across the cobbles to the made bed against the wall.

You tilt your chin to keep his gaze as you sit gingerly on the edge of it. The feathered mattress, topped with silk and velvet made of Targaryen red, dips under your weight. You lift the thin skirt of your dress to your thighs with one hand, while your other guides Baelor’s between your legs. He smells of leather and something sweet when he towers over you, peering down at you from the chiseled bridge of his nose as his fingers near your warmth.

Your mouth parts with a gasped breath when his middle and forefinger trails over the velveteen edges of your cunt, now blanketed in the thin layer of silk you leak for him. He traces slowly down your labia and up again. You twitch on instinct when he nudges your sensitive clit, and his mouth lifts into a slow half-smile.

Your grip on his wrist tightens as the pad of his middle finger dips into your pulsing entrance. “Please…” you hear yourself beg. It fades into an airier breath when he pierces you slowly with the digit. You coat his skin in a layer of honey that allows him to slip inside you with ease.

He exhales hard through his nose, in what you think is meant to be a laugh, as he smiles lazily down at you.

“Look how easily you open up for me…” he murmurs in a soft, melodic voice. A whimper sounds in your throat when he slides his finger out and back again. “Imagine how well you’ll take my cock…”

Your lip flickers into a dazed sort of smile. “Do you imagine me taking your cock often, Your Grace?” you tease despite your audible breathlessness.

“Aye,” Baelor nods once. “I do.”

He presses his thumb hard to your swollen clit, bending at the waist to swallow your moan with a searing kiss before the guards outside can hear it. He presses you back into the mattress, which feels like it might swallow you whole, and cages you beneath his broader body while he pulls an orgasm from your body with nothing but his fingers.

You have to change the sheets again when he’s done with you.

And he attends the following council meeting with his fingertips pruned and smelling of you.

When Baelor needed help donning his armor that foggy morning before the Trial of Seven, he called upon his trusted handmaiden, as he had done for many years. You dressed him with all the obedience of a hired servant, but carried an air of stubbornness with you that came with loving him as deeply as you had come to.

You were more than his maid by the time you arrived in Ashford — you were the woman who shared his bed when the nights were quiet and empty, the woman who caused the future king to refuse to ever court another. You loved him like a wife, even though you knew the title would never be afforded to you. Baelor always joked that you were as stubborn as one, too, which is precisely why you heavied the room with your silence as you dressed the man in steel armor a size too small for him.

“You’re trembling,” he’d observed as you loosened the clasp on his dragon-crested chest plate.

“Apologies, Your Grace,” you said in a detached monotone.

Baelor only grinned, because he knew you only saved such formal titles for when he’s gotten himself into trouble. “You don’t have to fear for me, my girl— I’m fighting my brother and the King’s Guard; neither will bring harm to me, I assure you.”

“And what if they do?” you’d asked with venom coating your every word. “If you get hurt— If you die on that field— What will come of me?”

“Well, there are plenty of highborns in need of handmaidens—”

You shoved him hard by the shoulder — perhaps the only lowborn in the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms that could do so without punishment — and met his furrow-browed look of confusion with a hardened scowl.

“Do not patronize me, Baelor— Don’t assume that I’m only worried to be out of a job when you know…”

You trailed off with a gasped breath, not entirely sure of what words should follow.

Baelor heard you anyway, even in your silence.

“Aye. I know,” Baelor nodded, soft eyes glittering in the orange candlelight. “And that is why I’m coming back when this trifle is through— You’re not getting rid of me that easily, my girl.”

You could not save him from the stands when the trial commenced and the battlefield turned into a blur of merciless blows; nor were you permitted into the barracks when Aerion yielded and the opposing sides received treatment in separate camps.

You created quite a stir with your cries, and the hysterical curses you spat at the knights keeping you out. You know it’s bound to be discussed in whispers on the morrow, but you can’t quite bring yourself to care about it now.

You and Baelor don’t share a word upon his return — because you don’t think you can open your mouth without crying, and his distant shock is still slow to wear off. You undress him with numb hands that tremble at the sight of crimson blood, and the blooming, plum-wine colored bruises that decorate his pale skin.

You prepare a scalding bath with healing oils and ease the man slowly into the steam. You have to change the water twice before it finally runs clear, untainted by swirls of pink-red blood.

You kneel beside the tub and press a warm cloth to his spine, where a dark bruise turns black at the very base of his neck. Baelor shivers at your gentleness, and at the droplets of silken water that rush down his back. You watch the tendons in his freckled shoulder twitch under the skin. The carnage painted like watercolor along the canvas of his back and ribs makes you feel like crying all over again.

Baelor’s heavy head lifts at the sound of your sniffling. He grimaces at the ache in his neck when he turns to look at you. The pained look etched across your features stings physically at his chest — like a lance to the sternum times a thousand.

“Oh, my love,” he coos, voice laced with exhaustion. “Don’t cry, my girl— Don’t cry.”

He lifts his hand from the water to reach for the one bracing yourself on the edge of the tub. You notice his knuckles are bruised when he cups your fingers in his palm, dragging them to his mouth to press his lips over the delicate skin — not kissing you there exactly, just feeling you.

The rag in your other hand splashes when it falls from your fingers and into the water. You splay your hand over his freckled shoulder to coax him closer before pressing your cheek to the crown of his head. He smells of tea tree oil and clean soap, but the scent of blood still lingers in the grey-black strands.

“I’m sorry,” you whimper in quiet sniffles.

“Don’t apologize, my love,” he whispers against your knuckles.

“I was— so frightened for you,” you confess through gasped breaths. “I thought for certain that your brother’s mace had—”

“Do you feel this?” Baelor mumbles against you, right before he presses a chaste kiss to your knuckles, and smooths his grey scruff over the delicate skin when he turns to look at you. You sit back on your haunches with your features contorted in a confused look, which he meets with a tired smile. “I am here. I’m alive. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Do not do that to me again, Baelor,” you tell him, suddenly hardened.

His quiet smile grows.

“I do not plan on it, my girl, I assure you,” he hums in a melodic voice.

He tilts his bearded chin in a silent plea for you to kiss him. You bend over the tub’s edge to meet him halfway, and fight the urge to cry when your lips lock with his chapped ones. You kiss him once, twice, and then a third time until you lose count. Baelor speaks through each of them.

“I plan on— Returning home with you— And marrying you— In front of the prettiest weirwood tree in King’s Landing— And letting all the rest of it fall where it may—”

Your mouth is softly swollen from his kisses when you part from him. Your heavy eyes flit back and forth between his brown-blue ones, lidded and glimmering with fatigue and contentment. Your brows lower in a worried sort of look — because he had told you, not too long ago now, that marrying anything lower than a lord’s daughter could start a rebellion across the kingdoms.

“Is that wise, Your Grace?” you murmur with an audible waver in your voice.

“No,” Baelor hums with a shake of his head. “But let’s do it anyway.”

Warm water stains your skin when his wide hand smooths across your cheek, dragging your mouth back to his. He kisses you harder this time, deeper, sliding his tongue between your lips like tasting you removes the remnants of war from his mouth. You cradle his jaw and neck in gentle hands while his free one curls around your shoulder, dampening your dress as it reaches down your back to unknot the tie in your corset.

You rise from your kneeled position to loosen it the rest of the way. You slide your arms from the sleeves and let the thin fabric pool at your feet with a soft thud when it hits the cobbles. You try not to cower at the glint in Baelor’s mismatched eyes, as if he were seeing you for the very first time in that moment — discovering something new within your naked body that he had seen a hundred times over.

You take his hand and step gingerly into the bathtub with him. The steaming water feels like satin against your cool skin as you sink down into it. Baelor’s palms splay over your ribcage to keep you steady when you straddle his scruffy thighs. You keep the bulk of your weight on your knees when he tries to pull you closer.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” you tell him, cradling his neck in gentle hands.

“You couldn’t,” Baelor whispers.

You brace yourself on his shoulders, careful to avoid his bruises there, as you reach into the silken water and between your bodies. There’s a dull cut on his ribs, likely from where his armor had dug into his skin from a blow from an enemy lance. You’ll have to fight him to let you tend to it later, you know; but for now, you cup his half-hard cock in your gentle palm and massage him there until he’s fully stiff in your grasp.

Baelor’s grumbled sigh fills the quiet bathroom. He tilts his head back and struggles to keep his eyes open as you shift on top of him. Your breasts rise from the top of the water and press against his scruffy chest when you pierce yourself with the bulbous head of his cock. Your quieter whine fills with his soft groan when you sink fully on top of him.

You go to rock your hips over his thighs, but his hands on your hips tighten to keep you still.

“Stay like this…” he pleads through bated breaths. “Just for a little while…”

Your cunt flutters around him at the thought, though your chest still tightens with worry. “What if someone comes in? What if they see?”

Baelor just grins, dizzy with love and the evasion of death. “Let them see.”