meemo

> the first child

valarr is a private man, foremost, but he often finds himself modestly boasting that his little girl is breathtaking and his wife a force of nature. no man is a more devout champion than the prince since his marriage to you. fresh perspective, he will laughingly say when interrogated by lords and soldiers alike.

he's so proud of you, of himself, of his darling little girl. there's no way for this young man to contain his obvious joy as it persistently emenates from him.

the terror and the pain begin to seem worth it when valarr sees you asleep in the piled blankets; the delightful vision of the babe squirming around, causing you to wake. a soft smile and tired yawn cross your face as you gently pat her back - it’s enough to make valarr’s chest seize.

she will be the death of me. valarr thinks to himself, head tilting to watch his wife sink deeper into the blankets.

valarr watches you both sleep from the doorway for a while, not denying the tears on his face or the long minutes it takes for him to calm his heart. he stands on wobbly knees, shoulder pressing into the doorframe as a trembling wave of fear washes over him.

gentle girl, what am I to do with you? he thinks, feet shuffling towards the bed. valarr manages to extricate alayne with careful hands, carrying her to the balcony bathed in sunset. waves crash into the cliffs below, gnawing at the foundations of dragonstone. all the while valarr stands and breathes deep, soothing himself by stroking his daughter’s back in time with the swell and retreat of the ocean.

the first time your daughter sets foot in the red keep, she is deep asleep. though to be specific, alayne’s feet never actually touch the ground in the keep until she’s already a few years old. the first years of her life are lived on dragonstone at the insistence of both parents, if for slightly different reasons. valarr insists his children receive the same treatment he did - five years without burden before they’re expected to be dragged around court.

your insistence had been sharper, more bitter: I hate that damned keep and the stinking city it watches. you are prince of dragonstone, not prince of the bloody east wing.

reluctantly, when his daughter is half a year old, valarr brings you both from the off-shore outcropping to arrive in the night. it’s long past time he presented his child to court and so with great care and a deal of nerves, alayne makes her first sea journey. there’s minimal fuss about the keep upon arrival - the three of you are seen in the courtyard very briefly in the darkness, not received and instead headed straight to bed.

valarr is the one to present alayne in the great hall the next morning, already having fielded off two handmaidens who tried dressing the little princess. many eyebrows raise as the procession enters, expecting it a lady mother’s duty to carry the babe about, but valarr is rather reticent to let go of his first born.

alayne is still a very small thing, drained rather easily by all the overwhelm of court. strangers fussing at her, bustling noises, different smells, the bright chandeliers and stained glass. it's a lot more activity than she's used to back home and so she sleeps soundly as her father carries her around. he's still not broken the habit, mostly because there are no wet nurses on dragonstone and valarr dislikes handing his girl off to members of staff. if it's not your hands or the careful watch of baelor, he will never leave his little girl unattended - even if that means carrying her up the twisting stairs in a little basket and taking her into his offices.

valarr's a keen eyed father and never one for leaving sharp things unattended. further still, his letter opener and paperweights are moved well out of reach. not that alayne makes many reaches. she's a quiet little watcher, like her sire. making her judgements; staring with one striking blue eye and thinking with the brown one. such a precocious little babe that you know will hone a sharp mind.

in the darkened cosy nook behind his desk, valarr's sweet girl will sleep in fits and bursts before suddenly crying out for some kind of attention. and it's good for him, he admits so. it reminds him to step away from his desk every so often to take her for a walk, to come find you for a quiet few minutes, take some food and sunlight and fresh air.

lords and advisors grow used to the sight of the basket on the floor beside the prince's chair. the few who scoff at it in the privacy of their holdfasts are always swiftly chided by besotted wives.

oh, he's such a good father. it warms the heart to see a devoted prince.

and even if it's said with a smile, there's always a tang of bitterness when some poor lady concludes: the princess is very fortunate.

you're certain the prince has no idea the effect little alayne has on his image. valarr seems blind to the fawning looks the ladies in the red keep persistently give him. even married women look on with some kind of hopeful affectation as he pats alayne's back and gives out one of his disarming, dimpling smiles.

the allure is deepened with the rarity of valarr’s appearance in king’s landing. he takes months at a time to scarper back to his island and only occasionally returns to prove the family is all alive and well, but most importantly, present and accounted for.

the young women in king’s landing flock to the handsome prince, drawn in by the five-day shadow under his jaw and the confident way he guards his little girl. many noble ladies ask to hold her, to touch her and kiss the fat of her flushed cheeks, but valarr has a smile and a firm refusal for each one.

you’re certain he doesn’t see it, the way women will stand so they’re almost leaning into him to get a look at alayne. he walks around, entirely oblivious to the commentary and the batted eyelashes. all he has eyes for is his little girl.

at first, you’d found it endearing - the attention lavished on a sweet child who definitely deserved it - but after a while their giggling laughter and fanning hands were too much for you. it drags on the nerves and makes you irritable watching these vultures use your innocent little girl as means to seduce your husband.

even if it doesn’t work, it still irks you.

valarr, bless his soul, sees it in a good light.

“they wish to see the babe,” valarr grins, watching how delightful you look, fresh from the bath and draped only with a towel. “the last child in court was maekar’s, and that was so long ago.”

“they wish to undress you with their eyes,” you frown sourly, towelling your hair. “I watch them bare their cleavage and laugh at your most unamusing jokes.”

valarr’s footsteps are soft and his body relaxed when he stands before you, hands coming up to find your cheeks.

“you find me unamusing?” valarr softly sighs in pretend hurt, thumbs rubbing the crest of your cheekbones and dipping down towards your jaw.

you scoff, still feeling bitter, and dodge his gaze. “you are not taking this matter seriously.”

“no,” valarr smiles, glancing briefly at your lips. “I am not.”

“because you enjoy the attentions.” you begin to argue, starting to feel slightly tearful.

“I enjoy the company of my sweet lady wife more than I do the delicacies of court.” valarr corrects, smiling. he seems so at ease, standing there and weighing up if it is a good idea to kiss his wife while she is touched with rage. “I do not take it seriously because it is not a matter I wish to give my energy to. to entertain it is to feed it.”

“but they’re so …” you sigh, letting your head rest a little heavier in valarr’s hands. “… young and sweet and desirable.”

“not to me,” valarr mumbles swiftly, eyes still flicking down to your mouth every so often. “they are like the tapestries on the walls. beautiful the first time one glances over, but the novelty drains swiftly and they’re not very adept with conversation.”

you laugh in spite of the insecure little beast inside, finding it in yourself to smile up at him. he’s not a man that says thing just to say them - underneath his lighthearted amusement is a bedrock of firm sincerity.

in those early years, especially following the struggle of losses to stillbirth, valarr was certain he never wanted more than one child… but his dear lady wife is rather beautiful and very, very convincing. his lady wife is also rather delighted at the way valarr looks when he’s cradling a babe in the candlelight, speaking soft valyrian words that roll off the tongue.

you lay in bed, watching valarr pace up and down aimlessly. he doesn’t use his thinking stride, the one that always matches toe of boot to the end of the flagstone. when he paces so, you know something has gripped him. but now he aimlessly drifts across the carpet, occasionally stepping side to side. alayne rests her head under his chin, squeezing his thumb with all her might. she laughs at words she doesn’t understand in a language several hundred years removed from her.

“give her a year,” you mumble, drawing valarr’s reverent attention. his eyes widen slightly at the sight of you in your nightdress, laid on your side and drinking up the candlelight.

“before?” he asks calmly, giving alayne a gentle bounce while his eyes roam deliciously down the myrish lace and silk that stops at your mid-thigh.

“before I give you another,” you promise huskily.

valarr isn’t a difficult man, or a particularly complex one either. not when his wife makes his jaw tighten and his throat feel nervous. advisors and lords and errant knights had all told him the same: the desire dries up when given an infant. men at court will say the scars and changing body sour the experience. it’s just not the same as the untouched, unbesmirched wife one gets to enjoy on the wedding night.

valarr, admittedly, begins to believe there is something rather wrong with him. his body seems determined to disprove every claim the shallow men in the capital had given. he’s never wanted his wife more. she’s got him under some sure kind of witchcraft; dark magic in the form of a low-cut nightgown and half-lidded eyes.

it’s near torture for valarr, it truly is, waiting a handful of months until you’re back to good health and he’s certain that a night of enthusiastic worship won’t harm you. it tears him apart when he has to put himself on a leash, guiltily taking fifteen minutes before coming to bed. valarr indulges himself in the bath, where hot water and slippery hands are enough to prompt the imagination. when he is alone in his office, struggling to concentrate and all but foaming at the mouth, he kicks the door firmly shut and unlaces his breeches with a well-practiced right hand.

in the dead of night when you’re sound asleep, he cannot help himself. he’d tried, truly he had. a night had come where he simply could not sleep. he’d banished himself to the cold balcony for twenty minutes, to no avail. he’d surely paced the length of westeros up and down the bookshelves, taking calming breaths… but the bedroom smelled of your your perfume and warm skin and it was killing him.

guilty hands had pulled the adjoining nursery door shut, shamed feet had carried valarr to the armchair by the fireplace.

backlit by the dying charcoals, valarr had a delightful silhouette of you sleeping. long minutes he’d stared at the gentle rise and sink of your bare shoulders as you laid facing away. he’d studied you as if he did not already have precise knowledge of your flesh - the points where blankets catch and fingers naturally want to settle. like he did not know every crease and the way your spine would twitch for him if he simply reached forward.

valarr let it happen. he gave into the only thing that would put him to sleep. with shaking, traitorous fingers, he plucked your discarded stocking from the stones and leaned back in the chair. the silk of it felt heavenly wrapped around him, especially when warmed by his desperate hand. shame and satisfaction played a nasty game of tug-o-war in his mind but he could not stop himself.

he’d been near his shameful peak when you rolled over, letting out a tired little sigh that sounded so close to a gentle moan. valarr’s hands stopped for only a moment, heart agonising over this gentle betrayal as he checked you remained asleep.

teeth sunk into the meat of his palm, valarr finds himself frantic from nothing more than a stocking and the sight of your bare chest breaching the blankets. absolute, all-consuming euphoria washes him free for a few trembling moments. even without a glance he knows he’s ruined your delicate undergarments, the silk stained, sticky and wrinkled where he’d bunched it in his fist.

it’s fine, he concludes, making moves to clean himself off. I will find an excuse to buy more. a final weak, wet twitch of his hips has valarr mentally flagellating himself for being such a debased man, for not being able to hold himself together. there’s surely not a shred of honour left in him. he feels juvenile, like it’s his first time fantasising about women and he needs to quickly run and confess to a septon of his depravity. he already knows he won’t be able to look you in the eye at breakfast.

as if to lift some guilt, valarr pushes the nursery door ajar to check alayne still rests soundly before putting himself to bed.

valarr waits longer than necessary before giving in to some of his more vigorous plans for you, holding off until you come to him on your own terms. until his guilt is about to eat him whole and he’s no better than an enthusiastic dog; drooling, begging, willing to stuff a pillow between his thighs because he’s grown utterly weak.

until a dinner of political bellyaching is almost ruined by the filthy image in his mind’s eye.

a tyroshi envoy calls port first at dragonstone before heading into the backwater rush to visit daeron and his enchanting wife, lady kiera of tyrosh. valarr nods along at all the right moments, smiles when expected, willing his mind to focus on the words as they come pouring from beneath a richly dyed blue moustache … but he cannot. all he can do is glance helplessly at you as you entertain a contingent of tyroshi women. when your eyes scrunch closed and mouth falls open in a peal of laughter, the intrusive flash crosses valarr’s mind.

the image of his wife laid across the table, gown unlaced to navel as she holds her skirts out of his way. eyes scrunched closed and mouth falling open.

it’s but a lingering thought that hangs so heavy valarr barely finishes his meal. as dessert is served and you’re licking cream from the crust of an apple tart, valarr excuses himself early with a weary jest about sleepless nights and needing to check on his daughter.

valarr takes himself for a walk over the cliffside walls, battered by the cold night winds to shake some restraint back into himself.

because he is never a liar, valarr does head to baelor’s apartments to check on his girl, but only after a long mental scolding and some cold water to the face. valarr will sit with his sire while you finish entertaining and dispersing guests, instead taking his time to appreciate the incredible steps baelor has made in the year and a half since ashford.

he walks as well with a cane as most men do on two legs, though his ability to run is rather poor. it’s taken time - and will take much more - but he has re-learned how to use his left hand for most basic tasks, struggling frequently with the numbness in his fingers. confusion still fogs his mind and on occasion he asks when jena will be joining you for dinner, but for a man who could not walk six months ago, it is rather miraculous.

baelor is also a very good grandfather. one that sits on the rug and helps the little girl develop a scrambling crawl; one that has an inexhaustible supply of bedtime stories and knows each trick to getting young children to clear a plate of vegetables. he is such a good guardian that valarr finds no stress in leaving alayne under such reliable watch.

gods is it freeing to return to his chambers without a babe, unto the darkness of his bedsheets where he can bite down on the collar of his shirt and whine like a fox in heat. he can kick off his boots with desperate haste and bury his face in your pillow, muttering and whimpering and making quick work of his trousers.

valarr feels like divine salvation has come when the door cracks open slightly and he smells his wife’s perfume.

gold light spills in a line from the hall followed by a single flickering, bobbing candle. your hand cups around the delicate flame as the door slams shut, just one solitary glow in the abyss.

you can hear him, of course you can. the whine, the rustling, the relieved intake of breath as he gasps for you to come here, please. it’s been so long. I beg you come over darling, I can take it no longer.

“such a sight,” you mumble, setting the candle by his bedside and gazing down.

he looks a mess, truly. completely wrecked with trousers catching on his thighs and shirt collar soaked with saliva, a hand fisted in your pillow while his head tilts back in agonised desperation.

“if you had such dire need,” you murmur huskily, fingers indulging a dinner table fantasy. each lace loosens until your fingers hit your navel, gown slipping onto the stonework. “… you ought to ask.”

“you’ll kill me,” valarr whines, drawing his hand from his breeches to throw off his remaining clothes. he reaches desperately for your bared flesh like it’s water to a man on fire. his jaw slackens simply thinking of at all the places he wants to put his lips, everywhere he knows will make you howl and claw at his hair.

where to begin with such a buffet?

“use me as you need, I’ll serve.” valarr gasps, unmade and vulnerable as you climb atop him. “I’ll do anything you want, just please let me touch you.”

it’s been almost a year but he’s never forgotten what it was like to be so entwined with his wife that the boundaries of a body begin to blur.

valarr lays against the pillows, one hand on your hip and the other braced behind his head. you take your leisure, starting on a desperate move that has your husband gasping and breaking off a prayer halfway on a groan. then you slow down, entirely for your own benefit.

you’ll leave his hips wet and he revels in the sticky, cooling desire in the dark hair on his thighs. he’ll say: ‘thank you, darling. let me give you another,’ and kiss the velvety divot where your throat and collarbones converge.

in a passionate flurry, valarr lurches up to push his chest against yours. with a focused determination, he reaches up for your necklace. the gentle weight of the small pendant at the end of the chain bounces each time you rise, whining and gasping, onto your knees. valarr catches the swinging chain easily and works his fingers delicately under, holding even though he may not move his hand beyond the length of your necklace.

it matters not. valarr's fingers settle up the side of your throat, gentle but present.

"back down here," he mumbles, dragging your mouth towards his. as he kisses you, he takes great pleasure in the way you’ll stutter each time his hips force your mouth to drop open and gasp.

valarr breaks off and rolls you both over without pause, just a winded collapse over the top of you as he braces his knees.

it's all a bit desperate. with sweating, firm hands he’s pushing your hips as open as they'll go, face buried in the side of your hair. you're absolutely enthralled by it, being given such long-awaited relief with his hand by your neck. valarr works a hand underneath to lift the small of your back ever so slightly in fevered worship.

and then, as you're scraping your nails through his hair and trying to kiss his sweat-covered forehead, he's retreating. swiftly, desperately backing out.

"no," you almost yell with overly sensitive despair, hand tightening in valarr's hair. you take a true fistful of it, white and brown all in your harsh, pleasure-deprived grip. "please come back."

"my love, I am being careful with you," valarr protests. already he has a hand on your thigh, fingers gently promising to finish the job. even as absorbed as he’d been in his own depraved fantasy, the rational bit of the prince lives inside at all times.

"I won't be satisfied," you mutter, hips bucking upwards to try feel even just the dull pressure of him against you. "not until l've had all of you."

your hand pulls on his hair again and he drops his head near your breast and whines.

"we already have a daughter ... I don't wish to do that to you again."

"I wish for you to do it to me. please, my love. it's been too long." your free hand searches desperately to line him up with you, but his hips cant backwards out of your reach. "I want you properly. none of this careful treading."

"sweetheart," valarr protests, mouth open and moaning as your fingers find that perfect spot in his scalp and tug insistently. "we should really discuss the matter on calmer grounds."

you're so impressed that valarr can be so verbose even as his body is shaking and he's leaning his head into your collarbone. he's a formidable example of composure but you have one final card to play.

one arm wraps tightly around valarr's shoulder, the other releases his hair and slips between you both.

“there’s no need to pretend, my love,” you murmur into his ear, hand stroking torturously slowly. “I saw how you looked at me when I was carrying. couldn’t behave yourself. it’s alright to want it.”

valarr says nothing, jaw grinding harshly as he tries to find some firmer pleasure against the soft of your stomach. his eyes screw closed, nose rubbing behind your ear like an affectionate cat.

your hand releases him completely and valarr all but sobs into your hair with frustration.

“chain it as you like, it will always be dragon.” you mutter. your teeth scrape the edge of valarr’s earlobe and your ankles once again lock behind his back. “lay claim. let me give you a son, my prince. you’re duty bound to fuck me, a gods-given right.”

valarr snaps his head up in pure shock, eyes widening to check if he’s just heard correctly. his hand comes up to squeeze your jaw in a firm grip as he frowns. his sweet wife promising such delicious things… impossible depravity from the mother of his child.

“… seven hells you have a filthy mouth,” he mumbles, fingers digging gently into your cheeks, forcing your lips to part slightly. “where did this come from?”

“it’s been so long, darling.” you mutter, leaning forward to try kiss him. “I want you.”

there’s a long moment where valarr stares down at your wanton face, the way you try press your skin against him at every opportunity.

“you do?” valarr asks sweetly. there’s a hint of condescension as his eyebrows pinch and he turns your head to the side, denying that sweet kiss so he can bite your collarbone. he lets go of your jaw to instead pin you softly by the side of your head, ever so slightly pushing down into the pillows.

careful lips rest against your temple as valarr lets out a long breath. in the dark you catch the glint of the dress mirror standing by the wardrobe. a tall pool of moonlight and black shapes; the single taper candle flickers and wisps with each rustle of the bed drapes.

with your head tilted you see it all - the naked tangle, the heaving ribs. how beautiful it looks when valarr’s thumb hooks behind your knee and pushes it into your chest.

“do not turn your eyes away,” valarr warns firmly. it comes a shade more serious than anything else he’d said that evening, a reminder that his quiet nature does not mean timid. “look upon my gods-given right.”

> the middle child, the court’s dismay.

valarr’s second child is demanding from the very moment you sense you’re about to labour. such a sudden and impatient child.

after the experience of your first, valarr had dreadfully braced for more of the same - another long day, twenty hours of pacing and swearing and crying. so it is with great shock that it’s a matter of minutes from your waters breaking on a peaceful walk before suddenly the child wants out.

not for the first time in your life do you find yourself laid out on the grass with your husband beside you, but for the first time do you have a silent witness. your brave kingsguard not tempered by this kind of blood and suffering, standing hand on pommel as he protects his prince and kin in the most vulnerable of moments.

he’s the only kingsguard in history to swear an oath of protection over a girl still streaked with her mother’s blood.

a girl so impatient that she was born in the midst of the conqueror’s gardens, swaddled in ser donnel’s white cloak where she took her first breath of cliffside air. smokey, salty sea wind the first thing to touch her fragile lungs.

stubborn aemma comes much swifter and much easier than shy alayne, and with the experience valarr starts to feel a seasoned father. he quietly revels in the drama of the tale - joking to everyone who will listen that his daughter was so fond of the dragonstone gardens she did not want to go back to the keep for supper.

his second girl is - in the beginning - met with the same novelty delight about court. soured lords wishing for a secure succession are still, for a time, assuaged by wives with fond spirits.

with time his second, seemingly unimportant girl becomes a bit of an inconvenience to the court. a political thorn in the side. people begin to mutter about the princess getting no younger - you’re barely thirty - and still there are no princes to be seen. valarr does not ever seem to care. he’s got his family and he’s rather proud, actually. so devastatingly proud. alayne dotes on little aemma in the way young children always tend to - with curiosity and confusion.

aemma seemed born to be forging her own path. her locks of soft chestnut hair lack any tuft of white, and her two gentle blue eyes make you think she looks fairly like matarys, though that is where the resemblance firmly ends.

where matarys was, by all accounts, a quiet child more inclined to reading than riding, his niece is a devilish force of adventure. a princess who prefers playing in the mud of dragonstone and learning to run on the black sand shorelines.

when she makes journeys to the red keep with her sire, she’s nearly impossible to contain. without fear she follows her father around - and when she cannot walk fast enough he scoops her up. into the yard, the stables, the kennels. she is everywhere there is adventure to be had.

it’s not particularly befitting of a four year old to be sitting on war horses while they doze in the stable and petting hunting hounds like they’re family beasts. she laughs with delight when those hellish black dogs sniff her hand and try lick it, always looking back at her father for security.

and valarr gives it. he’s always there, gently encouraging her to brave this strange world. he finds the most docile of the destriers and the softest, dopiest hounds. he carries her up the difficult steps and holds her steady so she cannot run along the high walkways.

valarr takes aemma for leisure rides within the keep’s boundary as more of a novelty horseback walk than anything serious. you cannot help the worry seeing your delighted little girl balanced in the saddle in front of her father. you know his arm is strong and seat steady but you’re too nervous at the thought of something going wrong.

to the chagrin of the lordly houses, valarr does not wish to treat his daughters like accessories. seven year old alayne is admittedly the more palatable child - possessed of such a quiet, sweet nature and a striking patch of white that lends credibility to her heritage - while four year old aemma is the wild thing not so easily tamed. valarr had joked, once and very briefly, that aemma would make a fine new jonquil darke were she only trained martially.

no gathered lord found it quite so amusing, and while valarr never put a sword in his daughter’s hand, he’d certainly considered the option. on more than one occasion you’d confided to your husband that if only aemma had been born aemond, the council and advisors would be smitten. valarr agreed each and every time, sighing under the weight of his birthright.

you come to find your wild girl is also a budding mastermind.

aemma rests quietly through a chill, hands clutching your thigh as you stroke her hair. she’s rather robust and usually fights sickness with a day or two - every maester declares it dragon blood that boils out the malady. you’re willing to believe it of your girls. they have always felt hot to the touch, as if coals rest beneath the skin. just like valarr, and you presume, the rest of the family. the heat of a sunbaked stone bleached white in the peak of summer.

aemma is usually rather brave about it when you wake her to drink the maester’s tea. tonight though, she simply will not have it. not even when you kiss her forehead and give promises it will make things better.

it is a great thing your husband is a sharp tactician.

“no, it’s quite alright.” valarr announces, smiling disarmingly as he approaches the bedside. “you do not have to.”

aemma seems satisfied as her father squeezes her cheek gently and takes the wooden cup away. she settles back against you with a petulant whine when valarr takes the pitcher and leaves the bedroom.

in the adjoining apartments - a small network of bedrooms and solars joined by one singular dead-bolted door - you can hear your husband scheming. some rattling, some shuffling. there’s five minute pause where you hear alaynes door open and then a moment later a peal of soft, girlish laughter as your husband does his nightly bedtime rounds.

then, the schemer returns.

aemma, satisfied in getting her way, has settled back to rest. she’s half dozing, still occasionally wiggling slightly.

valarr passes into the bedroom, softly closing the door with his foot. in his hands are a bottle of wine and three goblets, which strikes you as very peculiar. he smiles at you in a conspiratorial manner and sits on the chaise at the end of the bed making use of a little cabinet nearby as a table.

“is aemma asleep?” valarr asks casually, in the same tone he’d used every night the last four years, fingers on his lips as you both watch her.

“… yes, love.” you play along, not stilling your hands on her hair. it takes a lot to contain your giggling as you watch aemma play pretend at sleeping.

“good, she ought to rest,” he sighs, decanting something that’s clearly not wine from a wine bottle. “nightcap?”

valarr hands you one of the fancy goblets - a wedding gift used rather infrequently - topped up with something that smells suspiciously like aemma’s fever tea.

it’s a theatrical ploy that works devillishly well.

aemma rises from her slumber mighty swiftly, looking up at what the two of you are doing.

“did we wake you?” valarr asks, holding a hand out to his sweet child. “I am sorry darling.”

on quiet hands she crawls over and stands at the foot of the bed, peering nosily right into valarr’s cup. she says nothing but continues staring even as your incredibly brave spouse takes a sip of that foul medicine without flinching. he lets it hang in the mouth a moment like it’s a deep vintage needing time to appreciate.

such a performance isn’t lost on you. the detail in the charade is perfect.

"what's that?" aemma asks, standing right in the middle of the bear trap.

valarr smiles, glancing down at it as if it's not very interesting and pats her on the head. "oh, I don't think you'd like it, darling."

aemma goes silent, frowning in her stubborn way. she's beginning to form her own plot but she's nowhere as good as her father. he sits back and takes another sip, crossing ankle onto knee and moving on.

"did you see lord tarly's hair this eve?" valarr asks - he's not even pretending anymore, it's something you'd both meant to talk about. a smiling glance in the great hall held for no longer than a second because you'd surely start laughing.

"gods," you laugh against your cup, finally joining the masquerade and suffering a sip. it's rather like aniseed and while not the worst drink you've ever had, you can see how it would disgust aemma so. "he clings to those final strands."

“it is a ghastly look,” valarr laughs, casually tapping his rings against the goblet.

aemma, all the while, moves her chess pieces. she slumps when her father ignores her and heads over to your cup, peering inside silently and almost gawping.

“what’s that?” aemma asks again.

“it’s wine, dear. you wouldn’t like it,” you shake your head, offering her to sit on your lap.

she refuses, squinting still at the goblet as valarr takes another casual sip.

“can I try?” aemma asks, turning to her father.

valarr makes a spectacular performance, frowning softly at first as if he’s considering it. he sighs and looks into the goblet and then up at you.

“might she? a cup surely would not hurt,” valarr argues, tilting his head reasonably. there’s a look in his eyes, though, that signals to you to push back. make her believe it. make it feel like her victory.

“a sip at most,” you say firmly, letting the pause deepen.

“a sip, then,” valarr nods decisively, offering over his goblet. “come here, aemma.”

she’s a quick mover for a girl incapacitated with a fever, hands steady as she grins and reaches for the metal cup. one deep sip and she lowers it - though you can see the little cogs turning. she’s thinking of another sip before her father can take it from her.

“I like it,” she announces, making a complete heel-turn on her previous statements of: ‘I don’t want to!’ and ‘it tastes bad.’ such a swiftly acquired taste, in fact, that she seems like a cat with a bowl of cream when given her own cup. too satisfied to question why her father had brought three goblets out.

it’s such an impressive bit of tactical moving from your husband. it doesn’t matter he’s never stood on a battlefield, no army could be harder to out-manoeuvre than a toddler filled with dragon’s blood.

> an abundance of princes

valarr’s final child, born a handful years after aemma, is a complete surprise - unplanned and entirely accidental. loved thoroughly, but never truly intended.

the two of you had returned to the capital alone for a whole week. at nine and six, alayne and aemma could be left with their uncle and grandfather on dragonstone. admittedly, matarys mostly watched peaceful alayne. the two of them read fables and played simplified rounds of tiles. aemma put baelor and ser donnel through their paces, but she was never a terror. energetic and bold but never spoiled. the worst thing that could be said of her is the fact she refused to wear dresses outside of dinner.

with your daughters long out of the infant stage and your trust firmly set in their guardians, you’d finally had a chance to get your husband greedily to yourself. even if it was a celebration for his cousin’s firstborn - daeron and kiera had, after several years, welcomed a little girl - valarr absorbed every moment of the time he could with you.

unaccompanied by children, you cannot help but think on your honeymoon. back to a time when tragedy had not hung low over the family. a time when you were both young and juvenile enough to think testing the strength of particular pieces of furniture constituted royal duty.

the two of you terrorise the ship hands with amorous displays in the locked cabin; you’re late to depart at the blackwater docks and only just manage to leave the carriage unsoiled on your journey into the keep.

not for want of trying.

valarr had made it a game to pull the silk curtains back and see if he was practiced enough and swift enough to have you coming apart underneath bunched skirts. nobody else will ever know the truth inside that rocking wagon, but you’ll never forget the sight of valarr licking his fingers clean before opening his door with a frightening composure.

nobody finds it odd when a lady dismounts a carriage and starts fixing her skirts. valarr glances at you but once and only to hold out his elbow. there are formalities to be had, greetings to be given.

valarr is schooled when you move through the keep, making composed greetings and shaking hands with the fingers that had been pleasuring you only minutes ago. he melts into the easy prince; laughing with guards and advisors, kissing the back of lady kiera’s knuckles and spilling profound congratulations. gifted by his own perspective, valarr is one of the few gathered royalty that shows genuine elation for their daughter. no matter the lingering disappointment in others, valarr has more than enough to make up for it. if he’s adept at anything, it’s dealing with infant girls.

in the private apartments before dinner, kiera first passes little vaella to you. she’s delightful, truly. her honey-blonde hair blends so nicely against her rich skin. you cradle her for no more than a few moments before valarr is giving you a pleading gaze. the same look aemma gives when she wants lemon cakes for breakfast.

“hello, princess,” valarr mumbles when handed the child. the grin that splits his face is enough to melt your heart. he quietly rocks vaella while kiera talks your ear off about finding time to sleep, about nervousness and fears leaving the babe with wetnurses. all the while valarr paces up and down the room, mumbling soft things in valyrian to the little girl. a guttural, tongue rolling language to welcome the babe into the household. valarr fixes you a desperate look over kiera’s shoulder, a pleading gaze that reads as: we should reconsider.

kiera’s questions fade away from you as you focus on valarr’s soft stare. he seems so smitten, clearly reminiscing sweetly on his own girls and you begin to feel the same pull. the allure settles inside because perhaps he is right … perhaps it has been too long.

the two of you manage to behave through dinner and indulge in a spot of dancing. without children to worry over, you let yourself enjoy more fine wine than usual and stay later. for once, you’re not the ones retiring from the gathering early, yawning and working through the routine of putting children into bed.

you’re still so young and blessedly free, walking hand in elbow, unleashed within the gardens. dancing beneath the chandelier uncaring of the opinions of onlookers.

valarr charms the lords at dinner with his worldly knowledge. smart word games are played. debate begins eagerly and flows for hours. he’ll make sharp commentaries on what constitutes morality within law; proposes fairly radical overturn of archaic rule; disseminates the current economic tide. topics which usually set hackles raising and deaden the conversation. but valarr delivers them all with such a charm that disarms all men, be they swift or stubborn or mean.

later, when he’s built that ego and tested the sharpness of his wit, when the children and the reputable guests have long vanished, valarr sips spiced ale and lets you feed him wine-soaked apricots. partly reclined in the seat and unabashed by some drunken onlookers. collar askew but hair still laying so beautifully, this noble man lets you take his jaw in hand in front of peers and subjects. in the training yard tomorrow he will have to make a good showing of his swordwork to sharpen the dragon’s claws you’ve publicly softened.

perhaps to prove a minor point, emboldened by the knowledge his chambers are empty of children and the guards outside are unknown to him, valarr is hard to contain. his worship begins with good faith and a summoned basin of hot water. drinking deep from a fresh bottle of wine, valarr sits on the bed and watches you undress like he’s judging from the throne.

valarr’s deep brown eye flashes amber, at times, in the candlelight. it’s so enticing to stand before him while you unlace each delicate strap. layers slip down and you wash your face, all the while valarr taps his rings to the wine bottle without even bothering to kick off his boots.

“men oft pay for the privilege of sitting in such a seat,” valarr groans, head tilting to appraise the naked curve of your shoulders and back.

“your coffers would be empty within a week.” you reply, looking at him over your shoulder. it’s an invite and challenge, all in one.

“frugal spending and I may last the month.” valarr jokes, boldly staring at your nakedness.

standing just out of his reach, hands cupping at your chest to pretend some shred of faked modesty, it’s enough to drive your husband up the wall. all you can imagine is the sight from earlier, the pleading look from valarr and the swiftness in which he’d wanted to hold little vaella.

it’s that which has you sitting atop him, making gentle moves to undress him. a hand down his collar to feel rushed heartbeats and soft hair on his chest.

“I want a golden dragon for my service,” you huskily threaten, fingers pulling at his doublet. the clasp on his sword belt is the next target.

“surely you are worth at least three,” valarr frowns, sitting back with the wine in one hand and your thigh occupying his other.

“steady, ser.” you warn, taking a perverted delight in the act of naked pleasure when your husband is still fully clothed. “you could not afford to indulge your appetites. three dragons a turn and the kingdom would be beggared.”

“just a copper then, my good lady.” valarr moans, urging you to get out of his lap. steady fingers hold you in front of him, standing between his spread knees.

“I’ll make a gift of a different dragon,” he vows, kissing below your bellybutton.

for all his filthy talk, when valarr laid you down after that dinner party he’d been intending to do as he always did, finish elsewhere to spare you such discomfort and terror. to spare having to put your very life in the hands of a godly whim. no matter the depraved muttering of possessive desire, valarr pulls out, always, to paint the small of your back or the valley of your chest white. he’ll cover your lower stomach with himself and then take you into the bath afterwards.

but a knock on the door had startled the two of you so badly. focus interrupted, he’d been slower than he would have liked in his retreat.

valarr thought he’d succeeded rather deftly until he glanced down and realised that while most was, indeed, dribbling from his slender fingers to land obscenely on your stomach, there was more than a generous helping of himself slowly dripping from you. there had been a slight drop of panic in his over-sensitive aftermath - only for a moment - before appreciating that delicious sight and thinking … is it really such a terrible thing?

naturally, he’d thought two girls were more than enough. but at that point, what is one more?

in any matter, he’d rationalised, having had to deliver a firm reminder for staff not to bother unless urgent, it may not take. it may never happen. his girls had needed years to take root. perhaps this would be nothing but a pleasurable accident and no more.

a pleasurable accident that by year’s end gifts him, at last, his final child. on a grey afternoon as torrential summer rain batters the parapets and flows from balconies, a boy is born.

your husband had been well prepared with names for more girls, somehow convinced you would add a third into the mix, so he finds himself on the back foot when the midwife laughs and passes over ‘a little prince, my lord.’

for days and nights he agonises over it, leaving the babe to simply be called ‘our boy.’ he knows he ought to send a raven back to the capital, at the very least mentioning his wife had safely delivered again, but terror grips him worse than ever in his life.

it’s something he’s been told to want for as long as he could remember and yet fear lives in him. it nestles in alongside his love and his guilt - preemptive worry that he’s going to fail this kid worst of all.

choosing a name is the hardest part. titles like aegon and daeron and jaehaerys give a child arrogance and burden. it breeds entitlement and inferiority in tandem. a blighted standard. as much as he adores his wife, valarr refuses suggestions like martyn and jon and petyr. a valyrian prince cannot take a westerosi name, no matter where his mother comes from.

valarr spends hours silently deliberating, watching you cradle the boy when he’s far too afraid to hold him. he circles through as much of his ancestry as he can pull to mind, recounting aenys, aelyx, gaemon, daemion … not a single one seems to fit when valarr lets his son grab at his fingertips.

as the first week passes and no inspiration strikes, valarr starts taking his wife’s other suggestions. you’ll sit in his office in the reverent spot by the window he’d set out; afforded the place of honour by the sunny window, blankets piled in the deepest, softest leather armchair valarr could locate on the whole island. the boy rests in your elbow, fed and happy and making grabbing hands for your necklace.

valarr claims to be working, but truly he’s flipping through scrolls and books to find answers. to find something to name his boy.

“my love, what is the valyrian for bird?” you ask, head tilted to watch the calming swell and rush of the ocean.

“hunte,” valarr replies, not looking up from his book.

you frown, having hoped for something better, something with more substance. “how about … rain?”

“daomio.” valarr purrs quickly, flicking a page and not breaking his gaze.

you turn it over in your mind, finding it not the worst outcome. but still, you have questions.

“what is pride?” you say, looking down to play a soft back-and-forth game of finger squeezing with your boy. he’s a grabber, to be certain. already you’re making mental notes to keep the dangerous things on high shelves.

“it depends,” valarr sighs, abandoning his reading and sinking back in his chair. “to be proud, or to inspire pride?”

you frown a moment, too tired for his games of verbiage. “either.” a pause. “both.”

valarr laughs and stretches his hands above his head, cracking his upper back with a groan. he comes over with a tired yawn and stands near the window, weighing up your question.

“hōzigon is pride itself. jōzigon is to be proud of.” he answers, settling a hand on the top of your head.

“why must you ask?” valarr queries. “I remember teaching you valyrian. it cannot have been long after our wedding.”

you chuckle from deep in your chest, a hand coming to reach for valarr’s wrist. “you made love to me on the library desk. minimal tutelage was involved as far as I recall.”

“nonsense,” valarr tuts with offence, lacing his hand with yours. he crouches down beside the chair, resting by the window and glancing out. pink mid-morning sun catches on the spilling sea foam, but he finds his gaze always drawn back to you and the boy. “I strongly recall giving lessons. you were proficient at reading, at least.”

“yes, dear, I can read it, but I do not understand it.” you laugh, stopping the boy from pulling too harshly on the ends of your hair. “I certainly remember you saying many things… but I believe by that point I was beyond teaching.”

“test your memory.” valarr grins as if he’s digging his teeth into a fun challenge. “it has been a few years, can you speak it?”

“aōhon iksan se ñuhon iksa was our vow … and I believe that is the entirety of my knowledge.” you think, distracted by the comfortable seat and tranquil setting. “when you come home after a long trip, you say jaehio ilīritas.”

“I do,” valarr smiles. he rests his head forward and lets go of your hand, head against your knee as he sits down properly.

your free hand settles atop his head, absently making gentle movements. “why?”

“it means …” with a fond sigh valarr leans back into your hand. his cheek rests against your thigh and the edge of the boy’s calf like a supplicant at an altar. “a goddess smiles upon me. a term of endearment. what else stirs in your memory?”

“I recall dijāves ilībio, too.” you say, pulling more untranslated phrases from the fog of years.

valarr’s face reddens as you recount your meagre lessons. “yes, well.” he clears his throat and composes himself. “never repeat that with an audience.”

“what does it mean?” you laugh, poking softly at his temple.

“it’s…” valarr blushes and digs his face into your thigh, caught on a surprised laugh. “a particularly … eager woman of … ah, nefarious employment.”

you gasp and can’t help but burst into deep, scandalised chuckling that has the boy rocking slightly in your grip. “you called me a lusty whore?”

“words to that effect,” valarr laughs in return, not even hiding his deep amusement. it’s so enchanting to hear him enjoy an unguarded bit of joy. he almost never laughs in the red keep, but on dragonstone he laughs with such honesty that his newborn son thrashes about as if calling out to his happiness. instinctively wishing to join.

valarr sighs and sinks into the easy joy of family life, something he’d struggled to feel without fear since his boy arrived. my cousins can keep summerhall, valarr thinks, staring up at you with reverence. all I want is the island.

he’s not sure how long he sits on the cold stone floor before you ask him to move. “excuse me, love. I need to put the boy to bed.”

“he tires?” valarr yawns, hands on his knees as he pushes off the floor.

“you tire,” you laugh, standing stiffly and somewhat aching. “… might we name him soon? I cannot keep calling him boy.”

“… I am still thinking.” valarr mumbles guiltily.

“he will be a man grown by the time you decide.” you warn, rocking gently.

“love,” valarr pleads, taking himself to stand wearily near his desk. he barely looks up when you bring the boy over to see if valarr wishes to hold him a moment. “I will not raise an aegon. you are holding a king … gods, I cannot think.”

“I am holding a babe,” you argue softly, leaving valarr with a stern glare. “name your bloody son, or I will forever fear you do not love him.”

valarr stands helplessly for a long string of minutes. long enough that the scent of your perfume has faded from the room and he’s certain you’re not returning. you’re probably playing with alayne or trying to chase down wild aemma. the desk digs into the back of his thighs and the sun rises to reach the midday peak over the ocean.

valarr never returns to his writing, instead confronting intense dread. my boy, my poor little burden. how can I force him into a life I never wanted? he paces, toe of boot lined so precisely with each edge in the flagstone. for hours he paces, strides, worries. until his legs ache and he starts to feel sick with hunger. that boy holds all my fear and all of my hope.

it comes so sensibly to valarr that he wishes to curse himself for being so blind. he wants to strike himself and swear in frustration because how did it never occur to him?

one’s own hope. jaelarys.

a pure valyrian name, one not already claimed and soiled. his hopeful boy, untouched by the harshness of the world. the boy that will be better.

hands shaking with pride, not fear, valarr unscrews the cap from a jar of ink. he searches for a quill under the mess of his desk, pushing a few unimportant parchments off to the side. frantic, he flattens out a small strip of paper and dips the quill.

‘grandfather. it is my joy to inform you my wife safely delivered of a son. jaelarys, first of his name. prince of dragonstone.’

valarr strides around the corridors, seeking his father and his wife to spread the good news. and for the first time, he’s charging to the nursery on desperate feet to hold his son and apologise. he needs to cradle this child at long last - to comfort and protect it in spite of whatever he may fear.

no matter the frantic insistence that returns on raven scroll, valarr fends off the threat of the red keep. two months, three, four. time for his fear to make a softer home inside. time for him to feel shaky and nervous when he sees his son’s hair grow in a fearfully pale blonde. much lighter than aemma’s, but not so white as his own streak. not a strand of brown to be seen.

the gods truly have a unique humour.

like alayne, jaelarys is not brought forward for half a year. it takes a lot to convince valarr that all will be well, that it is only a spot of court gossip to endure. and so, as bells ring out from baelor's sept, the newest prince enters the red keep at long last.

almost immediately are the excited celebrations heard around court. it takes not even a few hours before valarr is urged to have more. another. as if that’s something within his control. with his little boy in arms and a blushingly proud grin on his face, valarr receives the well-wishers.

in your life, you will never forget the day lord tyrell blundered so awfully before the prince.

“congratulations at long last, your grace,” lord tyrell bows and grins, bowing a second time under the guise of honouring you.

“were my other children not worthy of your congratulating, my lord?” valarr asks sweetly, smiling as he rocks his boy. it’s a disarming look that has lord tyrell tittering nervously.

gods. you want to eat him alive.

“perhaps a brother would be good company?” lord mooton asks. “to remind your grace of his boyhood.”

“perhaps not,” valarr supplies firmly. “I wish to enjoy these first years of my son.”

“but… your grace, a spare heir is strong insurance.” lord hightower intercedes. “your sire understood this well enough.”

“this is not an issue of poor comprehension,” valarr says flatly. “what I struggle to understand is the nature of marriages in the reach. here, good ser, my wife’s comfort is not supplanted by your strategic insistences.”

“of course, your grace. I would not hope to imply otherwise-”

“and yet you did.” valarr muses, brushing the apology aside. “my boy is not even a year old and you are not satisfied with him.”

among those paying respects to the new prince are a few guests of honour. having made the several week journey on horseback, the prince of dorne manages to appear well-kempt and incredibly regal so far from his typical climate.

maron martell and his eldest son come forward near the end of your stay in the capital. as great-uncle to valarr and brother of the good queen myriah, you know they would have been brought before you much sooner had the journey only been swifter, though no journey is too long to pay respects to a future king.

draped in apricot silks and rich, orange cotton, prince maron approaches the throne and pays his obeisance to his sister and brother-by-law. his hands jangle with layered gold rings and bangles as he rises from his honourable bow. with the crown appeased, the dornish prince turns to valarr.

unlike the other lords, prince maron first greets valarr with a bow at a distance, then more intimately when closer. you suspect had it been you holding jaelarys, maron would have clasped valarr’s hand and made a familiar greeting. you can see the shreds of his ancestry stronger than ever when valarr stands in front of maron. the cut jaw, strong nose and dark hair.

prince maron gives due respect to you and your girls when he stands before you - a proud element of dornish court that you desperately wish would be brought north.

when marons eyes sweep valarr’s family - his rather becoming young wife and their two girls - it is with nodding approval. in particular, the prince sizes up your eldest.

“now that,” maron grins with satisfaction, wagging a proud finger down at alayne. “is a dornish dragon. the brown eye is my sister's handiwork.”

such an abrasive sentence would, no doubt, have sent smaller men into an insecure anger. valarr instead takes it with a proud nod, thinking of his grandmother, of his father and how myriah’s gift remains strong. it’s enough to bolster valarr’s self esteem for many years, finally helping him drop that last juvenile insecurity about his appearance. no longer do aerion’s taunts of mongrel prove a thorn in his side.

maron seems at least vaguely interested in the little prince, at least insomuch as a grown man can be interested in a baby that is not his. it’s a good showing for the family and as king daeron grows older by the year, security and unity are the greatest remaining worries to succession.

valarr enforces his personal tradition and raises his son away from prying eyes. jaelarys, like his sisters, lives hidden away on dragonstone for five terribly short years. valarr takes extended visits to the capital, naturally, for no more than a month at any one time.

at eleven and nine, his daughters may choose to join at their leisure. there’s no explicit expectation they follow their father along, but alayne is rather fond of sea travel and always comes back with a new hairstyle to trial. aemma doesn’t always seem inclined to leave you - not since she discovered there are catacombs beneath dragonstone. you’re certain she’s a test from the gods to see how much worry a mother can endure each time she appears in the family chambers covered in soot and dust.

there’s always a spot of murmuring when the prince arrives at the keep without his heir, but valarr’s advisors eventually concede that the babe’s first years are not of great import. there is nothing useful to be done with a boy of three.

you know his teen years will be terrible, but jaelarys’ precious boyhood remains untouched.

each time valarr extricates himself from the capital, he is shocked to see how swiftly his son has grown in a matter of weeks. it is as if your husband forgets his own long-limbed appearance and that of his sire, too. each time he leaves you brace yourself for the longing. the ache in your chest each bedtime when jaelarys asks for ‘papa’ never seems to lessen.

you know the distance and the duty eat away at your husband, but solace is taken knowing he’s only up the blackwater rush. the seven would have to spare your heart if he was ever summoned off to war. you simply could not bear it.

carrying your son, you’ll wait on the docks, staring out for any sign of black sails on the horizon. aemma often struggles to stay in one place for an extended period, with the only exception being waiting for her father’s ship. that, you all have infinite patience for.

so each time the giant black vessel moors and you look up into the sun towards the deck, it truly is a little gift from the seven. you’ll shield your eyes from the bright daylight and stare up at his silhouette cut against pale sky. you’ll endure those painfully long minutes while the sailors and ship hands secure the anchor, for the simple reward of boots on the dock.

steady steps come down even though you know valarr would run to you if he could. you’re all there waiting and as much as valarr absolutely adores his children, and as much as you’ve been devastated missing alayne on her trip, your husband is the first person you wish to see.

alayne seems more grown than you’d like, a reminder of the years. you’re certain that she’s the darling of the women’s court and it pains you somewhat to wonder what you’re missing out on - tortured in the same gentle way valarr is at the absence of his boy.

despite all of the longing and the distance and the missed weeks of childhood, the first person valarr wishes to greet is you. he bypasses his sire and his heir because the first person he needs to embrace is his wife.

the woman whom, without her, none of this existence would be possible.

chewing through the bars of my cage to get to oscar morgan. I saw that picture of him. you know the one. he’s so fine.

index for book characters here

mist hangs in the horrible dawn. the terrible, sleepless morning. you’d spent all night wondering who would champion the hedge knight and who might be scared enough to fight for aerion. an obsessive kind of fear. your husband had stayed fairly stoic and responded with quiet humming and silent nods. clearly, his mind consumed by something worse. after a few attempts you gave up speaking entirely.

it’s a long and despairing night. when you curl up, arms tucked about your middle and crying gently, valarr still moves to hold you though he never speaks and doesn’t let the tension fall from his shoulders. he lays sleepless as you, arms unwinding and turning over again when your tears dry up. no words are calming. he feels so distant and it kills you, it truly does.

before dawn valarr is already risen and dressed, pacing like a caged dog as you find a dress and take pauses to sob into your sleeve.

“are you nearly ready?” valarr softly prompts. you can sense there is some guilt in his frame as he stands behind you, hands unsure.

“yes,” you say weakly, a complete and utter lie. you push through it and slip your sleeves on fully, reaching back to try find both little laces.

“… you do not have to watch.” valarr says, carefully pushing your hands aside and taking up the loose edges. “I would not blame you closing your eyes.”

“I … I want to go home,” you sniffle, hiding your eyes behind your hands. it’s horrible and it’s childish but you cannot deny it.

“… so do I.” valarr admits, pulling the middle two laces. “soon we shall leave for the red keep and this will be a poor memory.”

“poor memories fill the keep, too,” you sigh, rubbing your tears away. the last two laces feel a little more snug than usual. not drastically but … the threat of it is there. “I long for our home. I want the quiet of dragonstone with my husband back.”

“I have not left you, I swore never to,” valarr turns you around, holding lightly to your shoulders. “you will never lose me.”

“and yet,” you mumble, heart fast and afraid. “there are days I do not recognise the man before me.”

valarr winces as if hit, nodding and taking it. “…he is the prince.”

“he is a cold man,” you reply, stepping for the door and moving past his sad stare.

together you walk in a harsh silence through the darkened corridors. the drapes on each window hang like funeral palls, blocking the outside world. a grey dawn hung with fog.

in spite of the early hour, you are both some of the last to arrive. the matter is not helped by valarr’s quiet detour towards his pavilion. there’s a black horse saddled outside, no page and no squire to watch.

frowning, valarr breaks away from your elbow at a light jog to inspect the strange rustling behind the canvas. you find you do not wish to be abandoned in the middle of the path and follow behind, hoping to put off this miserable morning.

you can already hear horses circling in the tiltyard; in the corner of your eye flashes the cloak of the kingsguard.

“what is … what are you doing?” valarr demands, charging inside the tent. you follow at a run, crashing into his broad back in the entryway.

“the hedge knight has the truth of it,” baelor of all people replies. he sits on a low stool, bent forward while securing his shin braces. no, not his shin braces. it’s valarr’s set of armour he’s stealing. “I am sworn to defend the realm, protect the innocent and uphold the law of man. on my honour.”

“I am knighted by the same oath. aerion has befouled my honour more than most.” valarr desperately argues, keeping helm and gauntlet out of his father’s reach. “I should fight alongside ser duncan.”

“son, this is not a personal slight. this is on my honour, as the head of this wayward beast.” baelor vows, holding one patient hand out. “this house is losing its way and I must stop it.”

“you will not fit my armour,” valarr argues. “please, you cannot do this.”

“we are of a size. have you forgotten how tall you are?” baelor smiles and tightens the buckle at his thigh. it’s incongruous at such a time. men are about to die and he’s smiling.

outside you can hear horses crying out in excitement. men shouting. doors banging in the wind. one man’s clear cut bellowing in the still air.

has honour and chivalry deserted the noble houses of westeros?

valarr hears it and closes his eyes, drawing a heavy inhale while finally letting go. he hands the gauntlet over and nods. twice he nods again.

“darling, hold the horse steady for us,” valarr orders, swiftly helping his father fix the chestplate.

you stand outside and stare at the beast, feeling a lingering pain in your chest. it might be dead in a handful of minutes. a gentle, calm life taken for the sake of man’s hubris.

I refuse to believe it is so!

the pair burst through the canvas flap on hurried legs. baelor is fully armed, easily filling out his son’s armour. valarr may not see it, but the two of them are so very alike - he is only missing the peppered greys of aging. with shaking hands valarr cups baelor’s foot to help him step into the saddle. as baelor finds his balance, you let go of the reins and scramble back.

are there no true knights among you?

the bellowing cuts clear and sharp into the three of you. valarr stares up at his father, you look helplessly at your husband. baelor stares forward, looking down the long, misty channel into the tiltyard.

baelor adjusts his helmet and rides forward, stern and firm - the very image of the warrior. it’s much too late for the two of you to find your seats at the top of the wooden box; you’re completely unsure if your legs will even support the ascent.

in the gathering mist, you and valarr instead stand watching from the channel baelor just abandoned. the black of your regalia draws the two of you into the background, stood in the shadows while everyone else stares fixated at the misty battleground.

the men on the field watch on as maekar and aerion meet baelor in the middle. tense words pass back and forth but the fearful ringing in your ears washes them out. you do not know what to do with yourself as the men line up horses. valarr looks as if he wishes to throw himself onto the field with no regard for his lack of arms and armour. it’s a painful silence where the tips of your fingers brush nervously.

valarr laces his fingers slowly with yours as the heralds clear the way and a horn is prepared.

you find you truly cannot watch any more of this horror and tuck your head into valarr’s shoulder the second the horn blows.

“I can’t,” you cry, face pressing into the expensive fabric and ruining it with tears.

“close your eyes,” valarr mumbles, hand cupping the back of your head. his voice sounds torturously focused and you know he will never be able to tear his gaze from his father.

you hear the shrapnel rain down and the screaming of colliding horses. grunting, pained yelling. sword and shield striking each other. your breath hiccups and you cannot stop it. one arm winds around valarr’s middle as he shakily inhales.

“I have wronged you,” valarr mutters in agony, one hand covering your ear as he watches on helplessly. “I should have left you in the keep. I should never have come here.”

there’s a few brutal outcries from the crowd that make you tense up against valarr. his arm squeezes you tighter, pushing your stomach into his hip.

“we will endure this and we will leave,” he all but groans. “I would give you anything, love, if it could wipe this foul memory.”

you take solace in the fingers tightening in your hair with conviction. there’s relief when you hear valarr’s breath shake, knowing it is not just you so terribly affected.

you only lift your head when you hear the distinctive wail of little egg, his insistence to wait, to watch something. through the mist you see baelor and lord baratheon both trying to restrain maekar. like a wounded hulking bear, the hedge knight drags aerion forward by an ankle. such a sight would have made you glad a fortnight ago but now you are too empty to take joy in his downfall.

there’s no joy either, when the horn blows to signal a forced yield. valarr’s hands fall slack behind your head and he walks forward in a daze, desperately following the way baelor limps in pursuit of the hedge knight. you grab at his hand, finding that you’d rather follow into this horror than be left onlooking.

it truly is a horror. an unimaginable one.

in the little channel, egg overtakes you both in a run, desperate to see his victorious knight. baelor strikes his sword down into the dirt and staggers a little in exertion. the air smells of metal and smoke and fresh blood. the man you’d seen in the gaol is but a shadow of himself - wounded and blood soaked and bruised - but he’s still strong enough to catch baelor when he collapses forward, blood pouring from the back of his helm.

valarr remains entirely frozen, watching on as his wife runs forward and frantically folds her shawl against the wound. he watches this cohort of battered men held together only by goodman pate and his tear-stricken lady.

it’s such a hopeless scene.

ser raymund fossoway, limping, sets off for a maester. it’s that moment which suddenly valarr seems to wake; he pats ser raymund on the chest and breaks out into long strides. he’s running desperately and all you can do is set your sire’s head in your lap to unburden ser duncan in his agony.

it is not long at all when a sprinting valarr returns with a maester.

you’re desperately keeping the pressure on the wound while goodman pate and ser raymund strip baelor of his armour. no, not his armour. his armour is in king’s landing gathering dust.

the maester and his apprentice join in the fray, only delicately moving your hand aside to catch a glimpse of the flowing wound.

they mutter words like cautery and aneurysm as they work around you. the hedge knight in his agony still babbles apologies for the prince. silent in your grief you think, this is baelor. not the heir, not the prince or breakspear, but baelor. the man who had danced with you at your wedding, comforted you on your lost child and kept your secrets from his son.

you cannot but think of jena when you sit on the floor, blood soaking heavy and warm into your skirts.

take him gently now while he is asleep, or let him live to see his grandchild, you plead to the universe. this man should not be made to suffer.

•

the following days of shock and mourning are atrocious. the tourney is all but ruined and more than one baggage train departs in the tentative aftermath. the royal procession is held back by breakspear’s fragile state.

days draw out in uncertain tedium, powerless to do anything but wait for him to rise from this fugue. you spend nights alone in the unfamiliar bed, days trying to find your husband under his grief. saddened silence seems much worse than if valarr had sunk into his anger. it would be easier if he’d throw things or upturn a piece of furniture. if he would shout and rage and cry.

all valarr does is silently bear it. he brings his walls up and shuts you out, barred behind his secure portcullis. each polite thank you and quietly muttered order to a maester comes with beaten-down gentleness. he admits no visitors to baelor’s sick room, not even yourself or maekar.

the two of you collide harshly in the corridor one day. it seemed with maekar’s admission already thwarted, he’d taken to lingering at the door like a spectre, wanting to be as close as possible to his brother.

“your mace is a fierce thing.” you hiss at maekar, trying to shoo him from the doorway.

“I had to defend my boy. it was a matter of pride.” maekar takes a step forward and stiffens sharply in pain. “that is something you cannot begin to understand.”

you know he is wounded, hurting as much as your husband is by the laying-out of baelor. but to use your dead son as a vicious win over you? that is low. it is shameful and underhanded. a dirty play that you suddenly wish to match in its ferocity.

you want to bare your teeth and snap at him, mayhaps you’d catch his cut cheek with your palm before he could flinch. but instead the mortal blow comes from your tongue.

“does your royal pride soothe your guilt?” you bite, cold and flat. “maekar targaryen, the only prince alive to let his son kill his own brother.”

you turn and abandon the corridor, taking sick pleasure in knowing maekar’s limp prevents him from making chase.

late that same evening, you convince valarr for two minutes of a walk. it’s the first time he’s stretched his legs in hours and he hangs quiet and remorseful on your elbow.

upon your returning loop to baelor’s chambers, the way is blocked by the hunched knight egg had found favour with. he hangs on a long crutch nearly as tall you are. in the gaol he had been sat down and not near as intimidating.

“I do not think it wise you came here, ser.” valarr says flatly, factually. his arm unwinds from your elbow, withdrawing.

“I, no - your grace. I wanted to, ah apologise, my prince. your father is a great man, an honourable man.”

“I know my sire’s noble character, ser.” valarr intercedes calmly. it’s not cold - not to you - but ser duncan knows not the many faces of the prince. valarr opens the door a crack and steps closer, retreating into himself.

“of course, your grace. yes. I ah,” the tall knight clears his throat, shaking off the boy he was before the trial. he limps forward even further forward and sinks into a hulking kneel.

a sharp clatter and his crutch is on the floor.

still ser duncan kneels. his head is cast towards the floor and he shakes in gentle agony, but he kneels.

“your grace, I want to swear my life to your father. he said-” duncan twitches in pain and gains breath. such words fill you with dread. valarr’s head is turning to the side, miserably listening.

do not remind him of his father now, you foolish knight. your hands tighten as you watch on. it will break his last bit of softness.

“he told me the realm needed good men. I want to swear to him, give my life in service.”

“I cannot take vows on a man’s behalf. begone from here … ser duncan.” valarr is halfway in the closing door with no intent to tarry. “save your apologies and make prayer. perhaps if he wakes you may swear to him.”

the hallway hangs cold and quiet. duncan, even wounded and kneeling, fills out the space. feeling like you cannot ignore this wounded thing, you retrieve the lost crutch and hold it steady for ser duncan.

“the fault is all mine,” he groans, rising unsteadily. “I should not have bothered your husband.”

“he is deep in his grief.” you sigh, twirling a ring.

“the prince is rightly angered.” ser duncan nods.

“not by you.” you say, cryptically. with a sigh you turn away from the door.

duncan hums flatly, brows furrowed at you.

“are you a good knight, ser?” you ask, voice guarded against a tremble.

“… I couldn’t say, m’lady. not at the moment, uh no.”

“are you going to leave?” you look him up and down, appraising how long it will take him to he fit to ride again.

as you watch, he turns pink and flinches in pain on the retreat. “oh, yes. sorry. of course, princess.”

“no, ser.” you call him back. “are you going to leave ashford, some day?”

“uh. perhaps.” the young knight hesitates, bracing his crutch. “I … have a lot to think on.”

“when you leave, take the boy with you, ser.”

“I can’t. I told prince daeron-“

“I care not. listen to me, ser, I command it.” you say, tearfully. “leave and take that boy for I cannot protect him. oh, the cat. the little-” you take a breath and centre yourself. “squire aegon, make him a man and knight him. I order it.”

“my lady I don’t …”

“your grace.” you correct firmly. “swear to it, ser, on your honour as a knight.”

“I have no honour as a knight, your grace.”

“then begone, ser duncan.” you curtly reply, echoing your husband and making your leave. “for you have no business here.”

•

it may be prayer, it may be maesters, it may be a pure act of luck, but soon baelor wakes. he’s fragile and confused, but by gods is he awake. in the quiet days, he eventually gathers enough strength to be taken home by wagon.

valarr seems fairly useless at the organisation of the baggage train, instead hopelessly chained to his father’s beside. it falls upon yourself and maekar to order the servants and septons into an organised column. under your anger, you are weak at the thought of your husband’s suffering.

if ever there was a time to save him from worrying, it is now. more than ever before, you are forced into a pained secrecy. you grow proficient at keeping things hidden. on the morning of your departure to the capital, little egg comes to tearfully see you.

and so you spend three agonising weeks riding in a wooden prison towards a stone one, all the while carrying the secrets you’ve been burdened with. you look to maekar and guiltily think of how you’d aided his little boy in shaving his head and escaping with the hedge knight.

you look at baelor in his sickbed and then to your husband, holding onto an unwanted secret that is now yours alone. with the early months of your pregnancy, while dogged by a persistent malaise but manage to keep much of it from your husband. it is not hard when he does not sleep in your bed or share your chambers on a morning. he does not see you undressing and concealing. to stymie gossip, you never let a handmaiden help you and never seek advice from a maester, too guilty to take their time from baelor’s severe condition.

valarr spends many a long day in his father’s chambers, ignoring duty and council to act the bednurse. you do not begrudge him this, it would be nothing but unfair. many days you simply relieve his vigil, sitting by the bedside while you insist your husband finally bathes and eats and takes some fresh air.

maekar, riddled by the guilt of his brother’s state, makes a rather drastic act. an act that should have come years ago. finally the day comes to banish his monstrous offspring - not just to a summer estate in the dorish marches, but across the narrow sea.

you’d asked ser donnel to escort you to the harbour that day, just to make sure you saw aerion leave the city with your own eyes. and if you silently prayed quietly for an act of nature to take him, few would blame you.

you’d slept a little better that night, but still never as soundly as when you had company.

it takes an agonising month before baelor begins talking properly again. long conversations burn him out rather swiftly, putting so much of his strength into fighting confusion. his hand sometimes struggles to grip the ornate cane you’d made a gift of. baelor is very forgetful and uncoordinated and so incredibly lively, but none of it seems to soothe your husband, even when he finally returns to your bed.

in your fourth month, your child is still manageable to hide around court, but with the return of your husband he can see the undeniable evidence beneath each shed layer.

he stands across the bedchamber, almost nailed to the ground in a furious silence.

“how long have you known?” valarr asks firmly.

there’s no wiggle room or backing out. he has you trapped at the back of the room, looming expectantly from afar.

“… when we reached summerhall.” you admit quietly. “I was suspicious but I could not say for sure.”

“sweet wife, why have you hidden this?” valarr looks at you, tearful and weak. he sinks with weighted devastation to sit on his edge of the bed, looking at the floor.

“I did not know what to do! all I could think of, waking and sleeping, was the little boy I carried.” you brush away the confused tears on your face. “and you said it was not a good time for children, that you wished to wait instead.”

“… you hid this from everyone.” valarr says with a touch of cold, detached acceptance. it’s a hard thing to welcome into your heart. “I am to be a father but you did not wish to tell me?”

“my love, promise you will not anger.” you speak softly, moving for his side of the bed. with careful movements you sink before him, hands resting atop his fearfully bouncing knee.

“I told your sire at ashford. when your cousin fouled ser hardyng … I was so distraught I let it slip without thought …”

“you told my father but not I?” valarr asks, pained with shock.

“I asked for guidance and truly … I was meaning to talk to you when we returned to the keep … but then, then the trial. my love, I simply couldn’t.” your head rests against valarr’s knee as you admit to all this guilt, the subterfuge.

“I cannot understand why you would not speak with me.” valarr whispers. he doesn’t look at you, instead staring past and seeming to sink into himself a little.

“I saw what you were mourning… it did not seem right to burden you with. I thought bearing it alone would be a sacrifice I could make if it kept your worries lighter.”

“did not seem right to tell your own husband?” valarr scoffs with a deep sense of wounded hurt. he drops his head into his hands and breathes out slowly. “what do you know of sacrifice? you could want for nothing here.”

his words make you blink in vulnerable, painful shock. of sacrifice … what do I know … such an accusation silences you and stills your hands flat on valarr’s knee. a gilded cage is still a cage, no matter how many fineries one fills it with.

“you said you had known before that foul business at ashford. weeks we spent riding south and yet you never spoke a word of it. why?” valarr suddenly demands. he snaps his head up as he sits on the edge of the mattress, tearful and enraged.

“were you ashamed to tell me? how long would you have let this… this deceit carry on? until the day you placed some squalling babe in my hands and declared it to be mine?”

“… what do you imply?” you ask, suddenly hurt and cold. you’re already stepping away from him and forming plans to sleep in another chamber, even if the bed is unmade.

“I just … if I cannot have healthy children,” valarr folds his fingers and unfolds them swiftly. “how has this come to be?”

“you say I take other men to bed?”

valarr looks silently up at you, watching your angered retreat from his side. with a heated sentence in the depth of his hurt, he’s lost his wife’s comfort and now he will lose her company.

there is a long, heavy pause.

valarr sits, silent and mouth slightly agape in shock, gazing over the room at you. he is not so swift to say anything, instead carefully shaking his head.

“no...” he mumbles weakly.

to you, it matters not that he denies it.

that fraction of hesitation was all you needed to witness.

an oppressive and miserable week of complete and utter distance passes. low level murmurs grow in the inner staff as you do not return to your shared chambers. it had been understandable in the aftermath that the prince would stay so close to his sire’s side… but for the princess to abandon her quarters when her husband returns could be nothing but an unfortunate sign.

resiliently, you continue to perform as you’re expected because love is more than one rough outburst. deep down - beneath the anger and bitterly stinging rejection - you choose to believe valarr is still fond of you, or at least duty bound to you. each day you field the petitioners who want to speak with your husband, in spite of your current animosity. that united front remains for outsiders to see because as angry as you are, you’d never shame him. you’d never do that to him in the face of people who want to know his weaknesses. you made vows and carried secrets. there’s servitude in your blood and it runs heavy.

baelor is always accompanied when valarr is busy - you make sure of it. even if those fleeting crossovers in your sire’s chamber feel cold and distant. valarr steadily calls you princess in greeting. you match him with a stiff your grace. in his confusion and pain, baelor has no inclination of the rift forming right in front of him.

each night you sleeplessly weep in an empty bed and yet all you can feel are overlapping waves of relief and sheer dread. at least aerion’s ship has sailed. baelor might never walk again. egg has escaped this fate. my husband thinks me unfaithful.

you sit in the library one night, tearful and tired. your slumbers have been choppy as sea storms at best, non-existent at worse. but you are a stubborn, prideful old griffin who bites down on the lack of rest rather than weaken and admit to your husband that his presence helps you rest easier, if he would only take you back.

a steady, slow set of feet climb the stairs outside the door. fleetingly you wonder if it is matarys at such an hour, but if he was reclusive before, now he is invisible. worse than his brother and twice as unreachable. barely eats in his chambers and cares not for his books anymore. cares not much for anything, actually.

the footsteps pass in quietly, drawing slower and slower as they wind the aisles. your heartbeat builds and trembles but then a cold, sad, anger sits in you. standing before you, hands behind his back and voice roughened by sadness, is your distant partner.

“princess. may I have a word?”

you stare at valarr for a moment, taking in his tired shoulders and eyes dark with sadness. some part of your angry pride chips away and you invite him closer with your hand - not trusting your voice to say anything without breaking into tears.

valarr remains at a fair distance, hands clasped behind his back. his eyes cast unseeing over the candle-lit table; glancing over the books, chairs and darkened window.

“I feel there are no words which fix my mistakes.” valarr says, stepping closer as he clears his throat. looking at the floor he breathes in and finally holds his hand out to you.

atop his palm sits his wedding ring.

there’s a terrible dreadful moment where you feel as if the tower might be collapsing. he’s going to cast you out. he’s done with you, at long last. you grasp the arms of your chair because soon the floor will tip vertical as each brick crumbles to the earth.

“… I do not believe I have earned this.” valarr speaks quietly. his voice barely registers because you have convinced yourself that you’re about to be abandoned by the only man who’s ever wished to speak softly to you. “my words were hurtful and untrue. my lady … I suppose it does not matter how pained I was. I should not have said the things I said. you would never do such a thing…” he trails off, blinking at the bookshelf as if it will stop the tears coming.

“wrongful words said in anger that I can never take back. I know that is my child.” valarr nods, looking at the floor. he cries so soft and silently and it makes you want to stand and embrace him. with a shaky breath, he offers his wedding ring out to you once more. “return this to me when I am deserving of it. when I have truly won the honour.”

you take it from him with unsteady hands and thread it onto your necklace, unable to trust yourself to speak. in the hanging, tearful silence valarr looks as if he’s going to leave.

“… take me to dragonstone.” you whisper, stopping him in the doorway. “and I shall consider it.”

•

in the following nights, you return to the bedchamber but still there is a degree of distance. valarr doesn’t touch you or disturb your sleep, nor does he wake when you rouse to endure a sharp pain. there are occasional kisses to the back of your hand around dinner, comforting touches to the shoulder, but none of the old closeness … and you sense it is out of fear.

valarr looks at you the same as he always did, yet he’s holding you with the restrained politeness from before you wed.

that intimate closeness returns one early morning as your husband stands by the bedside, quietly dressing. disturbed not by closing cabinets or the shuffling boots, you turn onto your back instead occupied with an acute pain. you reach out for something grounding, the discomfort intense enough for you to forget the unspoken rules so recently set in place.

your fingers catch sleeve as you try curl onto your side, feeling the sudden stab begin to fade into a long, dull throbbing.

“what’s the matter?” valarr quickly sits down, folding his hand over yours as it claws into his elbow. it’s likely rather painful for him, but you can’t think for a few moments, only able to make unintelligible sighs.

it passes after a long, low groan. a breathless inhale that you struggle to take.

“it’s … I don’t know. many times it comes, but always swiftly passes.”

“many times?” valarr asks, sounding a little guilty.

“in the early mornings.” you explain. “… and often it wakes me at night.”

“we are leaving,” he vows, head curling forward to rest on your shoulder. “not just us - matarys, my sire...”

“I made promises I intend to keep,” he says quietly, hand moving from your shoulder up to your face. “even if I there are days I have fallen short.”

you sigh in discomfort and rest back, feeling the wave of pain subside somewhat, only to be replaced with an urge to head for the bathroom.

as you take a day to yourself in fatigued defeat - choosing to sit in matarys’ chambers simply for a change of silent scenery - valarr petitions the council for a stay of absence.

the first argument comes on grounds of his father’s health. valarr speaks in the presence of both king and prince daeron, maekar and silent lord brynden. the grand maester and two other maesters - both sent from oldtown after word of breakspear’s condition was received - sit in state. they listen on as valarr lays out his hope that baelor will recover himself time.

the high septon is also there to bear witness as valarr admits you’re well with child and he has no wish for you to remain in the keep. it’s a shock to a few of the gathered advisors and most of them turn to the maesters to confirm. all shake their heads in denial, saying they’d never been asked to see the princess.

“my word should be proof enough,” valarr argues, staring down the table to the most important man there.

for good measure, he finishes his rather lengthy demands with orders that matarys be excused on the grounds it will do him some bloody good.

each of valarr’s petitions come fielded with years of schooling. there’s fierce logic and demanding knowledge. the circumstances which it took to bring it out of him were dire, but in many decades the historians will whisper it was all necessary. the young prince could only develop such power through strife - without a battlefield to mettle himself, it comes through his courtly battles.

it is not always war or disloyalty that breaks a ruler. often it is kin and legacy which are the greatest tests.

for men trip on stones, not mountains.

the council hears it all - some members with more enthusiasm than others - and very few objections are raised.

good king daeron seems relieved to see life in his grandson again and still clings to the hope that baelor will recover some of himself. the maesters, in their enlightened reasoning, come to admit it may help baelor’s memory to be somewhere familiar. to feel the healing quality of a bracing sea air.

listening through his guilt, maekar silently mutters: “it can hardly be made worse.”

•

sea travel to you would always be better than dreary wagon riding. even if others complained of the rising swell and dips, the stomach-flipping gyroscope day and night, it hadn’t been a bother bother. you had become more than used to these bouts of stomach-turning unsteadiness in the last few months. oddly, the choppy waters seemed to settle things for you.

matarys, meanwhile, complained each hour of the journey, but you took solace in the fact he was finally talking again. baelor never roused from bed in the two days at sea, but when he departed at the harbour he seemed a much stronger man.

the first night upon the rocky outcrop of dragonstone, you had so desperately tried give valarr his wedding ring back. with an unreadable smile he simply closed your fist around it and smiled, saying you should keep it safe for him. each successive day, you keep trying to return it in the garden, at dinner, in the bath. each time valarr kisses you and says ‘I have not earned it yet,’ and puts the topic to bed. you slip it on his finger while he sleeps and you wake to it back on your necklace.

it is an enduring, stubborn dance for many weeks.

things are suspiciously calm for a long while. in the fresh, cold wind you walk the cliffs as long as you can still take exercise and when you cannot, you walk the upper walls with the black stones rising over roaring seas.

with the help of two maesters and four months of fresh sea air, baelor manages to stand and take steps unassisted. it is early for his recovery and he still tires so very easily, though it may be argued, not so easily as you begin to tire. more of your time is spent confined - it’s suddenly rather a lot of effort to do even simple things. fear and hope builds as the months pass and you finally get to think: I have carried this much quieter than last, perhaps this one is healthy.

stuck to your room, you sit and let valarr learn to braid your hair and even teach him how to sew in your bed-bound boredom. he’s a patient student, but more than that he’s present. perhaps the court had seen the true weight of his burdens or perhaps valarr had stopped reading the raven scrolls, but he is never dragged away on business unless it’s a servant calling about his father down the hall.

matarys begins to emerge from himself again - declaring the dragonstone library utterly and despicably dour. he visits the harbour side to hassle trading ships for books but most come bearing silks and fish and eastern jewels. in his excursions, matarys takes a strange but sweet liking to fishing. it’s only odd insomuch as he’d never before showed interest in riding or hunting or hawking. he has no affinity to sailing and instead calmly fishes harbourside and the rushing clifftop rivers - streams from rains that wash the mountains that tumble through the valleys that return into the sea.

beautiful, harsh land. rocky and sea-swept; battered by the occasional storm, yet still vibrant with tiny flowers that peek out of piled ash and mossy crevices.

near the end of the year as one rainy morning rises, you face another uncomfortable day in bed. all the while your husband sleeps leisurely at your back, his left arm under your head. as you lay tucked up and staring at his empty ring finger, your heart aches.

it’s been months and to you, his words were an angry outburst and nothing more. he’s always been more than a good husband - better than any other woman could have prayed for - and you cannot help but think he is too harsh on himself. truly, the fault is yours for hiding things so long.

you rise a little clumsily on your elbow and unclasp your necklace, trying not to wake him.

valarr closes his fingers into a loose fist when he feels you trying to drop the band down unnoticed.

“my love, please, keep it for me.” valarr mutters, voice heavy with sleep.

“I wish for you to have it back.” you order angrily, turning over quickly so the necklace hangs near his bare chest, the ring right above his throat. “you deserve it! do you feel too ashamed for folk to know I am-”

“no. not at all.” valarr interrupts. a hand at your shoulder and another at your temple, trying to draw you back down into bed.

“then why would you not take it back?” you plead, sinking into his embrace. “it makes me think you are still angry at me. that you distrust me.”

“on the contrary, my love. I realise I have not been upholding my vows,” valarr says. his words spark such a pained confusion in you. “I did not speak to you with dignity and made cruel accusations in the face of my grief.”

“I forgive you for it,” you cry, unable to fight it. there’s a terrible ache low in your belly and you really want to go for the bathroom, but first you have to get this from your mind. “we have all said harsh words from pain. part of the blame is mine for lying.”

“you did not lie,” he mumbles. “though you did not give the whole truth. that ring is like a crown, my love. just because one wears it does not mean one lives up to it. you have given up body and home to me and…” valarr sighs, shifting a little and clearing his throat. he glances over at the window and then closes his eyes. “what have I conceded?”

“you’ve been so kind-”

valarr scoffs guiltily and interrupts you. “that is a minor duty. kindness and politeness something we expect of children, my love. I speak of true sacrifices - of which I have made none.”

you pull forward, gasping as that low-lying ache turns to a sudden, deep stab in your navel.

“see? for every pleasurable moment, I have caused you a hundred of pain.” valarr sighs, trying to make you comfortable in the pillows.

your hand clasps his, holding loosely at the necklace.

“darling, please would you-”

“I will love you until the stranger comes for me,” valarr smiles as he strokes your pained back. “but do not ask me to take that ring until I have worked for it.”

“no,” you correct weakly, brows screwing with a confusing, unusual kind of pain. “… please would you fetch a maester.”

there’s no lingering hesitation - the second valarr sees you curl inwards he’s up and searching barefoot about the corridors. he doesn’t think to pick up a discarded shirt as he leaves, all he can think of is tracking down the closest maester. swearing and cursing under his breath, he jogs the rain-chilled corridors.

the scuttling grey lump has no sense of urgency when valarr all but runs back to your quarters. he paces next to the old man rather impatiently as the clinking chain makes its way down the corridor. valarr wants to lean down and shout at the old man: ‘did you not hear? my wife is in pain,’ but he’s never in his life disrespected a servant and doesn’t intend to start now. even if his wife is crying and this old man will not fucking walk swift enough.

the journey is for naught, as the old man takes one glance at you and decides it is beyond his learning.

“I am not versed to handle matters of the childbed,” the old man shakes his head ruefully. “a link I do not possess in this chain.”

valarr bites down on the urge to unleash his outburst, thinking so much the better of it. you’re curled up in bed, weeping and all he has to do is find a solution for it. someone that can help. you do not need to see him panicked and strained, worrying selfishly when you’re in a much more perilous position.

“in the scullery... find me a mother. I care not her position, find me a woman with daughters.” valarr orders the page boy who carries breakfast, watching frantic as you try stand from the bed.

thinking bitterly of the slow moving maester, valarr tails the boy with renewed purpose, this time pausing to snatch up a shirt and shoes. much swifter than the maester, she arrives in valarr’s shadow - a stout fishwife that runs the kitchens - and immediately calls you your grace.

“none of that. I am scared.” you whisper, reaching for her callused hand when she goes to assess you.

she seems to understand and relaxes, calling you ‘dear,’ and ‘sweetpea’ and ‘brave girl,’ each time she pushes your knees apart to check where the babe is sitting. in her new-found power as midwife, she even tries to usher valarr out.

“come on, you. out.” she shoos, waving a blanket at valarr. “up! up!”

“mind your hand,” valarr flinches, dodging the cracking whip of the blanket. he looks like a boy being told off by his mother for sitting in a guest’s chair.

“you’re just another useless husband right now, my prince,” she argues, hands on hips and blanket raised for another quick snap.

“please don’t make him go,” you ask, bordering on tearful. “I do not wish to be alone.”

she makes you pace up and down, proudly saying she walked all of her own children. her daughter delivered of a child not even a year back and paced lengths until she passed the boy. there was no agonised tearing and blood rather minimal. frankly, though, you’re beyond saving by any soothing words.

fuck your calmness, you wish to shout. you don’t, but none would blame you for it.

more than once you tearfully hold your stomach and say: ‘I am too scared. I don’t want to do this,’ only to be met with good-natured laughter from your impromptu midwife as she keeps you walking.

“well, brave girl, nobody can do this for you.”

long, painful hours pass where you swing between angry and irritable - wanting no damn hands upon you - only to then sink into weeping vulnerability - desperately needing valarr to set a hand on your head or shoulder so you can still feel wanted in such a terrible time.

your husband watches the morning and afternoon pass with a mountain of guilt atop his shoulders. more than once he apologises for doing this to you and silently he vows to himself there won’t be another time. never again.

he has a brother and enough cousins. he doesn’t need a son if this is the asking price - valarr cannot manage to imagine how his father faced such a dilemma twice.

valarr ruminates silently, his hand on your lower back as you crouch with your head on the edge of the bed, crying. all he can think is that last time you did this alone. he’d caught sight of the blood running down your calf and gone running so swiftly for the maester that once he’d left the bedroom, he’d never been allowed to return.

not until the words monstrous and dead were being uttered and everything hung under a severe, haunting quiet.

the hours draw out and night arrives with no signs. just your cursing, swearing, wailing discomfort as you pace on exhausted feet. when you wish to sit down, you’re supported by your husband - though you feel more like a wayward corpse lurching side to side than a living, breathing woman.

so rarely do you speak - conserving your strength for the horrifying job about to be asked of you - that valarr spends most of his hours quietly watching you and thinking. always thinking.

first he considers how grateful he is to have escaped the red keep. he’ll take a scullery maid for a midwife if it means there aren’t disturbances and nosy courtiers hawking about in the corridors. he’s not sure if he could have handled the gossiping right outside the door as his wife suffered.

valarr also has a few shaky and weeping moments where he wishes so earnestly for his mother back, or even his father returned to health. just someone who might guide him here - an adult to steer this wayward ship from the rocks.

when you take a winded pause to lay down beside him, he returns to his guilty apologies.

“I blame myself for doing this to you,” he mutters, holding your hand and rubbing your shoulder. “this is just cruel. how can I say I love you when this is how I treat you?”

“our bodies are made to do this,” you argue quietly, almost in a trance state between pain and sweating relief. “the pain is not so bad now.”

“it is too much.” valarr shakes his head. “you will only have to do this once, I swear it.”

“then this had better be a boy.” you find it in you to teasingly smile in the face of your persistent discomfort.

“that … is not at all amusing,” valarr says flatly, laying his palm over your heated forehead.

when the babe finally threatens to arrive - long into dusk before any labours fully begin - valarr is beyond consoling and has sunk into silent penance. unbeknownst to you, he’s concocted vows of celibacy and every form of pleading imaginable so the mother might watch over you and bring this child forth with gentle hands.

only twice had he left the room that day. once to shakily assure a curious matarys that you are fine, and a second time to walk down the hall for his father’s chambers, seeking comfort. just a brief few moments where valarr might forget he is his own man and may weepingly be embraced by his father.

“I am so afraid,” valarr mumbles, ducked low so he can wrap his arms around baelor in return. “I want my wife to be safe.”

“that is not something you can control, dear boy,” baelor says as he softly withdraws.

“I have never felt so powerless, there is nothing I can do,” valarr whispers hopelessly.

baelor sighs and steps back, seeing how valarr has surely not eaten all day. he offers over the remnants of his evening meal which valarr finds he has little stomach for.

“but you can hold her hand, I am sure.”

the night his daughter is born, valarr is sleepless despite long hours. he sits in bed beside you, staring sleeplessly down at the cradle.

“what a powerful gift you have given me.” he mumbles. “thank you for a girl.”

“I don’t believe I had a say in that matter.” you laugh, turning your head tiredly.

“… is it wrong, darling, to think of our son in this moment?” valarr asks tentatively.

“what are you thinking?” you mutter, body drained and half slumbering.

“that perhaps it were my fault.” valarr whispers.

“how in seven hells could it be your fault?” you ask, groaning in quiet discomfort as you try find a better position to rest.

“I cannot help but wonder if I had just listened, if we had stayed here like you asked, perhaps he would have lived.”

it’s a terrible admission. one he can’t even look you in the eyes for. he stares instead into the bassinet and his folded hands tremble.

“… I would be lying if I had not thought the same, but madness that way lies,” you reply softly.

“you know, I also think of my mother. I miss that wonderful woman each day,” valarr admits, a hand tapping at his chest bone. his voice shakes a little. “so often I ask her for advice and this is the time I truly need it… she was possessed of such a goodness this world could not appreciate. when matarys was young the septons said that is why the seven took her.”

“why is it always the sweet mothers taken early?” you ask quietly.

valarr sits up and leans towards you, still always poised to watch his child like a fearful dog. “you so rarely talk of your own mother.”

“I think of her all the time. when I brush knots from my hair, when I sew. each time I smell spiced apple.” you admit, hand reaching across the gap. “but I don’t like sharing her.”

“what do you mean?”

“father went first, which made it worse.” you say, looking over at valarr. he still has one foot set on the floor but he laces his fingers with yours.

“we had all the changes of our uncle taking over to contend … so when mother died things were so busy that no-one seemed to notice. I felt like the only person that remembered her.” you sigh and squeeze his hand as he tearfully looks down at alayne. “so I don’t like sharing her. nobody else seemed deserving of the memory.”

•

it takes a fortnight before your husband can be convinced that your daughter is not made of glass and will survive being carried - gently and slowly - down the corridor.

you have to laugh at it, the sudden timidness in valarr. for a man named the bold young prince, the arrival of a daughter makes him softer. he trades in the long, measured strides for gentle tread - barely wanting to make a sound in the room. he becomes light-footed around the bedchamber and never slams a door.

alayne survives the terribly treacherous journey along the hall and down one whole flight of stairs in her father’s arms. you follow along laughing, tired and stiff but more than excited to finally be out and moving. baelor has made himself quite comfortable in the last few months - spreading out into adjacent apartments as he regains the strength to walk.

valarr carefully pushes through a door shoulder first, keeping his most valued treasure in the crook of his elbow.

“father?” he calls out, pausing with his back against the door as it stands half open. “may I come in for a moment?”

you can hear the distinctive strike and shuffle of a cane and boot hitting the stones. they approach slightly swifter each day, but still never a shadow upon the powerful stride baelor once commanded.

“why tarry at the door?” baelor laughs, bracing his ornate cane and swinging it the rest of the way. his shock is palpable when he sees your family gathered. he exclaims with tears at the edges of his eyes, nearly dropping his cane when he hugs you.

valarr paces past, guarding his elbow as he waits in the centre of the carpet.

“my gods, I did not think I would see the day,” baelor mumbles. on unsteady feet you must hold his elbow as he rights himself and it makes you laugh. the two infirm propping each other up.

“whose company do I have the pleasure of?” baelor asks, standing in front of his son.

with a shy, almost blushing smile, valarr raises his daughter slightly higher. his voice is full of gentle pride when he heralds: “alayne targaryen, first of her name. princess of the realm.”

alayne’s dark hair sticks out from the blanket in a soft red-brown fuzz with a strand of silver so fine at first glance it appears to be a bald patch.

“put her down, I wish to congratulate my son.” baelor smiles with tears in his eyes.

you’re gifted your little girl back so you might sit in a chair by the fire and watch the two share a moment that comes but once in a lifetime. baelor abandons his cane and plus two fearsomely strong arms around his son.

“there was a day you were that small and I brought you to a king. never blink, my boy, for one day that girl will present you her children and you will wonder where the days have gone.”

valarr laughs and sobs and ducks his head so baelor can squeeze the life out of him.

“now, I wish to hold my grandchild.” he softly mutters, never grown out of the habit of kissing his son on the top of the head.

when he sits in his heavy armchair, baelor cradles alayne steadily. he seems focused and sharp, like he’s back to himself. alert. aware. fully present.

“she’s rather quiet,” you comment, watching your little girl kick and wiggle in the heavy purple blanket. it’s the only swaddle you could find in the upper apartments before departing. you had passed her up to valarr and could not help a soft moment wondering if this blanket had held him, once.

“valarr was terribly quiet.” baelor supplies. he rubs a finger across alayne’s small forehead and leans his head back. he glances over at valarr, blinking twice.

“was I?” valarr asks, reclining lazily in his own chair. “I don’t seem to recall it.”

baelor laughs at valarr’s implied joke and it’s as if the last six months never happened. as if baelor is simply on dragonstone for an extended visit. a holiday. a respite from his expected duties.

“I don’t think you spoke for a year.” baelor seems to adjust the babe so naturally as she fusses slightly. laughing to himself, baelor seems to compose a little tale. “you were so quiet I worried you would never talk at all. then one day you said ‘papa’ and I have since been unable to silence you. there has never lived a more talkative little boy. gods, you would not think it to see you now. forever you had something to say. you were such a sweet child. I cannot remember when you finally went quiet.”

valarr looks a little distant and upset at those words, eyes clouding slightly. he smiles after a moment, standing from his chair and finally reaching for his daughter returning. “… nor can I. but one must grow up sooner or later.”

valarr takes the wrapped bundle back and holds her as he stands in the middle of the room. he makes a soothing pacing near the fireplace, smiling down at you. alayne sleeps soundly, making not a fuss.

“oh, your mother will be so delighted. she always wanted a girl.” baelor smiles so widely. “has jena met the babe yet?”

baelor has his clearer moments, but every so often come the reminders. valarr fields them with an aching patience. there’s always the sharp, stinging reminder of what he’s lost, but afterwards comes the appreciation. it all could have been lost in one mace swing. his father might never have met his granddaughter.

truly, even the muddy moments are better than having none at all.

“father?” valarr speaks softly. he clears his throat gently and puts a hand on baelor’s shoulder. “mother has been gone for … rather a long time.”

baelor seems to clear up, blinking twice before seeming forlorn. “yes … yes of course.” he says airily.

“forgive me,” baelor looks to you, then back up at the babe cradled in valarr’s elbow. “I don’t recall things as sharply, my dear.”

the fire is warm and the blanket soft. it’s not long before you’re almost succumbing to it. gradually sinking under like an upturned shipwreck, yawning into deep slumber.

you may rest easy knowing that after alayne is laid down, valarr will come back and put you to bed. he passes servants who wordlessly hold the doors open as you sleep, cradled under knee and shoulder and pinned against his chest. valarr knows as he nods wordlessly at the servants that these are the few people he’s actually earned the respect of.

the prince must regard everyone in the red keep with suspicious distance, even the most trusted of pages and longstanding of stewards. but on dragonstone, all the servants see is their ser putting his sleeping wife to bed.

they don’t care for what occurs across the blackwater, the quibbling graces and lords.

•

the hectic months loosen things between the two of you, even under pressure of a demanding new infant. without any council to attend, your husband has all the time in the world to spend enchanted with this new gift.

if alayne is awake valarr will carry her around, talking through complex matters of state with a being that has yet to be weaned. when she is asleep, he will reluctantly read important scrolls with one foot steadily rocking the bottom of the cradle.

such a sight warms you through, knowing that he is not a man of half-words. he’d told you the first time you carried that a daughter to treasure would be all he ever wanted - clearly he was not lying. under the fear and the hesitation, the anger at his advisors and the shame at his body failing him, valarr is a man of love. a man who has such sweetness to give to his children should the world be kind enough to spare them.

valarr adapts with frightening ease to the late night routines. he will manage to work in the quiet, candlelit hours while his wife rests and his daughter gurgles away in the bassinet. he only ever wakes you when alayne is hungry and there is no alternative, for dragonstone has no wetnurses. not that valarr would choose to seek one - he’s far too protective of such a fragile little thing.

no servant is allowed to touch his darling girl. not to dress her and not to feed her, and certainly never without his express permission.

he’s always so terribly apologetic when he gently wakes you, trying to let you rise without shock. even if you’re utterly exhausted, valarr helps sit you up, letting you rest tiredly against his chest. he’ll run fingers through your hair and rub circles at your temples while alayne nests in your elbow, finally falling quiet as she drinks deep. and if you happen to fall asleep before alayne is fed, if the hand by her head drops slack and your head tilts back… well, valarr can hold you against him.

as he moves in the dark, valarr cannot help but wonder what man cannot put his daughter down and tuck his wife into bed. it’s hardly a challenge, he will think, weighing up the option of working against crawling straight into the warmth of your bed.

you know with each month that passes the day where he will have to carry this girl through the gates of the red keep approaches. the prince will finally have to accept each noble fussing over her, but you are comforted in knowing when that day comes her father will hold her tight to his chest.

in the seafront sunset, valarr lays peaceably in bed with his six month sprawled atop him as you walk around the chamber, carefully undressing. you pace up and down the foot of the bed, undoing knots and lacing.

“I was reading a history today,” you recount, telling of your rare day of solitude. “some curiosities have arisen.”

“oh?” your husband asks. he rests back into the bed, one arm tucked behind his head and the other on alayne’s back.

you have to bite your cheek seeing him laid so. it takes fair effort to stamp down on a strangely primal urge to mutter ‘stay like that and I’ll give you that son you wanted’ as you crawl over him like a wildcat.

“what’s that look?” valarr asks lowly, shuffling his hips up slightly and bracing a knee on the bed. “are you falling distracted?”

put alayne in her bassinet and take off those trousers, you want to order. with a burning face you flick the edge of the blanket at him, striding back towards the dresser.

“I was reading and I thought … well, darling, first I must declare your ancestors left much to be desired.”

“I am keenly aware.” valarr dryly bounces back. “what were you to ask?”

“I was curious which traditions you held dear.”

“well, which in particular concerns you?”

“it is many years off,” you begin, hands going to untie your hair. “but I was worried one day the issue of alayne marrying her sibling would arise.”

valarr fixes you with a flat and disapproving look for a few moments. “my ancestors have much to answer for, ruining our peace like this.”

“yes, well, all meat is flesh to the dragon, so the books say,” you counter jokingly. “I have heard the many things your family practised.”

“what in seven hells have you been reading?” valarr laughs, shuffling upwards slightly while keeping a hand by alayne’s head.

“slim pickings within the library.” you reply, slipping into a sleeping gown. “a history of dragonstone seemed entertaining.”

“that is where you settled?” valarr teases.

“it is no wonder matarys has taken to fishing,” you joke.

he sighs and there’s a tint of humour in it. “no, dear. that will not be expected - or enforced - in my earshot.”

“that is good to hear.” you smile, letting your hair down.

valarr frowns at your words, pausing to stare thoughtfully at the bedpost. “but… I remember the library being rather splendid. is the collection truly that dull?”

“so rarely were we reading up there,” you reply with a smile. “I remember we had a wedding to celebrate.”

valarr laughs, finding himself on the back foot. he at least has the good grace to blush slightly over the memory.

“I believe you became rather sharp at valyrian,” he counters.

“I am an atrocious linguist, you’re just a generous tutor.”

the sunlight slants through the room soaking up into the furs across the bed and alayne’s deep brown hair. the short strands looks almost amber with the sun behind, so gorgeous and sweet that you cannot help imagining how it will look in years to come.

it’s a hidden gift from her dondarrion grandmother and connington mother. something quiet that only few would know about. all the rest will see is that lopsided chunk of white spiderwebbing from her parting. it can’t be brushed down, it won’t part nicely and obey. already the silver spreads thicker with each month she grows. you have half an idea it will be unruly to style in the coming years.

“look at that sweet chestnut hair,” you mumble, so taken in by it.

“she will never marry a tully,” valarr jokes softly, leaning forward to kiss alayne’s small hand. “I simply cannot allow it.”

you laugh, carefully removing your jewellery by the ornate dresser. neatly stacking away everything but your ring and necklace.

“what if she loves a tully?” you ask with a teasing grin. “what if she grows besotted by some rough, redheaded riverman?”

“duty would have me outlaw it. have you seen her?” your husband laughs, running a finger down the little sunburst of white. “we cannot run from those eyes. gods, she’s worse than I.”

valarr sits up a little to make space in the bed as you approach. carefully his arms tighten around alayne. “my beautiful mongrel daughter.”

“darling!” you stutter with laughing surprise. “you cannot call her that.”

valarr smiles again, hands soft as they make sure his daughter sleeps comfortably. he appraises the child again, turning his head sideways slightly in evaluation. “why ever not? she’s just like me, look at her. the marcher fights the dragon and the storm lord fights them both… seven knows where the dornish went. let us see how tall she grows.”

“still, you cannot call your own daughter a mongrel. that is a princess of the realm you are disparaging.”

valarr smiles quietly, looking out at the dusk through the open windows. dark water reflects the waning sun and bounces it back into the castle.

“aerion used to call me a mongrel, you know,” valarr says. “when we were children.”

“that does not surprise me.” you reply without amusement.

“it was mother that told me it was not an insult.” valarr mumbles, leaning forward to kiss his daughter’s head. “it was good, she said. the king must be of his kingdom and his kingdom of the king.”

with a groan that sounds almost anguished, yet a loving grin upon his face, valarr tips his head back. “this girl will be the death of me. every foolish squire will be tripping over his feet to speak with her.”

“you will not become one of those nightmarish fathers, will you?” you sigh amusedly, reclining tiredly into the bed. “the ones who are never satisfied with their daughter’s suitor.”

“not if she chooses wisely,” valarr astutely shoots back.

it sets you laughing again, a swift hand shooting out to catch your husband in the ribcage.

“and what if, one day, she comes to you and says: ‘father, I have made my choice,’ and he’s some blacksmith or hedge knight?”

“… then so be it.” valarr mumbles. “though if she grows to be anything her mother I will be fending off every brave idiot and wayward lordling in the realm.”

“she cannot even walk,” you laugh. “and already you are wrapped around her finger.”

“she’s … so good,” valarr smiles, looking up at you. “mother above what did I do to deserve a child so sweet?”

“you’re so soft, my love.” you laugh, sinking to rest your head against valarr’s warm shoulder. “is it not my place to be fussing at the babe?”

“I cannot help it. she is my sweet girl,” valarr sighs with heart-softening devotion as alayne yawns and stretches on his chest.

you gasp with offence, leaning up to leave a playful bite at his earlobe. “your girl? I have been deposed by an infant.”

valarr laughs, choking back on a quiet moan. “perhaps back when we wed.” he mutters, carefully turning his head to kiss your temple. “I think by now you’re my woman.”

•

daylight spills into the painted room from the open storm windows, grey and heavy with rain. the sharp rhythmic clicking of boots pace measured lengths. from the doorway, you can see valarr’s long legs precisely matching the length of each flagstone with one hand behind his back. it’s just him in there, walking sombre down the carved coastline.

“you have surely walked each kingdom by now,” you call out softly, leaning against the open door. “shall I summon a cobbler?” you joke.

your husband’s head looks up from the granite and he startles slightly.

“how long have you been there?” he asks softly, unguarded but clearly worrying. you’d known something was off earlier that morning because he’d managed to seem withdrawn even as he sat on the floor watching alayne practice her fierce crawling.

over the months she has become such a fiery little child with more energy than a tiny body can handle - so full of laughter yet terribly fearful of the dark. she hates when the candles burn low.

“long enough to see you wear both soles down, darling.” you say, letting the door close. on steady feet you come to stand near lannisport, staring out across the open reach. valarr looks up from near the tip of dorne, halfway through a heel turn.

“… pardon, love. I was only …” valarr mumbles, head dipping back down. he begins pacing again, heading north towards the vale of arryn.

you watch with your arms folded, letting him work it all out.

“I was just thinking of… the raven, and my father too, really.” valarr reluctantly admits, coming to another stop near dorne. “strong as he is, I know no council would support his rule now.”

oh, the raven. the summons. the bird that had almost taken your husband’s freshly restored spirit.

you sigh, letting your arms drop as you head south past oldtown and around the arbour. it’s only when you come to skirt the southeast edge of dorne that valarr truly looks up at you.

“what do we do?” you ask. it’s not demanding or hurt - you think by this point you’re rather used to standing beside valarr no matter what he must undertake. all you ask is that he tells you of it, doesn’t keep you aside.

“it makes no matter.” valarr sighs, one hand resting his weight over sunspear. “I would have to stay the crown long enough for someone good. if matarys has a son, perhaps. but maekar is the prime heir at such a time. tested by war and still in possession of a son, disappointing as he may be.”

“in the andal law, a daughter comes before uncle.” you supply. “some men may speak for you.”

“my love, the lords of westeros care not for the full extent of the andal rule. only when they may cower behind the martial aspects.” valarr returns. the detail and the calmness in him belie many a sleepless night. hours spent keeping the candles lit so alayne does not weep, all the while turning these thoughts about.

“the great lords do not yet know I have a daughter … no man is swearing allegiance to a girl he’s never seen, under a law he does not understand. if my ancestors truly believed a daughter before an uncle, rhaenys would have been crowned a century past and I would not be here.”

you twirl your ring about your finger. a twisted thing worn soft by your hands each day since your wedding. a gift from your little brother.

“well it may not come to that.” you interject. both of you stand half a flagstone apart, valarr leaning one handed at the heart of dorne.

“might it not?” he tilts an eyebrow.

“in time … when alayne is a little older. perhaps we might…” you gently suggest, stepping forward.

“we will not.” valarr corrects. “you wish to do that again? pray, go find your sanity.”

“I think given enough time I would want to.” you admit, staring at the greying clouds gathering in the windows. “I don’t wish for alayne to be lonely in the coming years.”

“… nor do I,” valarr says, standing his ground as you slink closer. “but I see it practically. a child is a wager on your life, each and every time. a child is another weakness to be turned against me.”

“a child is a child,” you plead. “a thing to love and to guide. be not the prince, please, valarr. see your family without the crown.”

“there may be many years in my grandsire yet.” he mutters.

it’s a good sign, you suppose, that still he tries to hope.

“there may,” you agree softly, arms coming up to encircle his shoulders.

“… one day it will have to be me.” valarr mumbles, tilting his head down and stepping forward to let you hold him. if his bannermen could see his vulnerability, he’d be done - reputation utter shreds. but nobody sees and so you give him those stolen moments.

to the same purpose, valarr had given you the dragonmount and kingswood. for that you’ll be his mooring point on a rocky voyage.

“just promise your ship will not sail until the storm is clear,” you mumble into his hair, all the while eyeing the black gathering at the base of each cloud.

it’s a very messy succession, especially as most of the heirs apparent are all alive. king daeron treads a knife thin line of approval and reason. he must be the first king to pass over three of his living sons.

two that would be ineffective rulers. rhaegel with his gentle madness and aerys with his reclusive strangeness. one that would be so perfect that still the smallfolk cry for baelor, incapacitated as he is.

to prevent the lords of the realm protesting at rule being handed to a young man on the cusp of uprising, unseasoned by combat and untried by rebellion, maekar is named heir in breakspear’s stead.

whispers of maekar’s ambition driving his fateful mace blow spread through the keep and commonfolk alike. they reach dragonstone via the small harbour but baelor hears none of it inside the keep. not that he would believe if it did pass his earshot. breakspear instead spends his days collecting heather, talking to people long gone and watching his granddaughter. together, the two of them learn to walk - baelor growing confident with his cane and numb leg, alayne picking it up for the first time.

after a long, tired deliberation: the maesters, sept of oldtown and king come to reasonably agree to retain baelor’s line. in the cryptic style of andal law it may be read many ways.

the heir apparent, the first eldest son.

a king’s son comes before a king’s grandson, but a first eldest son comes before a second eldest. through the delicate intricacies of law and to quell murmurings, valarr is named as maekar’s heir and manages to retain his standing.

the succession is honoured, if somewhat muddy; baelor will have his kin ascend.

that was a mean one! hopefully nobody is going to throw rotten fruit at me for this one. comments are all directed to the monkey at the typewriter.

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