Till the end of the line

His fingers clumsily struggled to unfasten himself from Vermax, desperate not to share his dearest friend’s tragic end.

His first breath scraped his throat raw; the next burned with smoke.

Thwip.

Heat burst through his shoulder, sudden and blinding.

Thwip. Thwip.

The sky glowed a murky orange, smothered by smog and fire. Or was it the water blurring his sight?

He was cold. His chest hurt. He felt like he was floating.

I think I'm dying.

—

A shadow passed over his fading vision.

A touch to his cheek.

—

Cold on his lips.

Men were sinking before you.

You had seen them before, from afar.

But this one was sinking.

Slower.

You could hear his heart beating sluggishly. Could smell his blood.

How could a man smell like fire even underwater?

You took him south.

Men needed warmth, yes?

Yes. And food. Fish would do.

Plenty of fish.

—

This man had strange spikes.

They bled red when you touched them.

That isn’t right, is it?

No. So you took them out.

This man’s blood tasted like ash.

Pain radiated through Jace as he sprawled across rough stone, the air thick with damp salt. A cough clawed up from his chest, pain blooming in his sternum and neck as he rolled, spitting seawater and blood. Time had slipped by—hours, maybe a whole night, lost since the chaos above. Then came the shaking, cold gnawing at his muscles as adrenaline faded.

He blinked. Grit stung the backs of his eyes, salt burning from the sea. Pain sharpened in his neck as he turned, forcing his breath to catch.

Too weak to rise, he curled on his side. Slowly, his vision cleared: rock walls bathed in the pool’s glow. Moonlight spilled through a small hole in the cave ceiling, trailing down with a gentle trickle of water. It might have been beautiful, if not for the pain that kept him tethered to the now.

His hand comes up to the sensitive skin just above his collarbone.

Something glittered in the water at the edge of his vision. The hairs on his neck bristled as it slipped past once more.

He waits a few seconds before shuffling forward—albeit awkwardly and incredibly painfully—to peer over the pool.

Nothing.

Maybe his battered mind was conjuring things in the haze of pain.

—

Jace isn’t sure exactly when he fell asleep, nor how he had moved to the back wall of the cave. It was peculiar, but he knew injuries brought on strange behaviour.

A sudden splash behind him made him jerk around, regret slicing through him as pain flared in every muscle.

Once the pain ebbed, he spotted a battered, half-dead fish on the stone, its fins trembling feebly.

Confusion is the first emotion Jace experiences in that moment. How does a creature in such a state have enough strength to fly itself ashore? Did it get those… strange injuries from doing that? How is—

There it was again. The same glimmer, only closer now.

He almost caught its shape, but it vanished, leaving only a fleeting shimmer behind.

Whatever it was that was bringing him food, Jace realised over the next few days. Which also meant it knew humans.

The thought made his stomach turn. Or, it was the raw fish.

—

Jace wakes to the sound of water trickling onto rock. His head is pounding. Body shivering.

His eyes flutter open for a mere second, exhaustion keeping him at the edge of his consciousness. Something, a soft, muted green colour, enters his view before he is gone again.

—

Green. Water. Vermax. Arrow. Cold.

Jace hurts. His body? Not so much anymore, but his chest. Vermax.

He could feel him—well, perhaps the lack of him. He had never known a life without Vermax; it was… cold. The sort of cold that sticks deep in your gut. He was alive. Vermax was dead. Somewhere in the Gullet. Dead.

Drowned.

Tears pricked in his eyes. First his brother, then his dragon. How much more suffering can a person take? His mother comes to mind. She must think I’m dead; a whisper echoes against the wall of the cave.

His voice doesn’t sound right. Cracked, raw, so not him.

Trill.

Jace stiffens. Something was here with him.

The noise comes again. It’s soft, almost familiar—close to the noises Vermax and Arrax would make as dragonlings, but wetter.

He turns slowly. Searches every corner of the cave as he propped himself up, with dull aches pulsing in his chest and shoulder.

Nothing.

Now, he knew he wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t one of those Targaryens who lost their minds. That was not him. Something was here, and now it was gone.

Trill.

No, it was still here. Where was it?

Something moves to his left.

Oh.

A frog. Gods, perhaps he was going insane.

—

He could hear you.

And that nasty little toad took credit for it.

You could hear it taunting you.

Disgusting.

The frog didn’t last long. After waking (he wasn’t even sure how he had slept upright like that), he saw a little leg in the water—just a leg.

Jace was for certain convinced there was something else here.

His fingers find the skin of his neck again. It still felt a little raw; the skin puckered to the touch, but it was better.

His clothes were tattered, doublet torn and half a trouser leg gone. How long had he been here? Days? Weeks? No, he hadn’t choked down that much raw fish.

No more than five days, he thinks, feeling the roughness of his stubble.

Lost in thought, Jace missed the green shape slipping just beyond his sight.

—

Was he truly a man?

Pretty enough to be a woman, yes.

But his chest was flat.

Shame.

Lookatmelookatmelookatmelookatmelook—

—

Jace cannot move. Your gaze has him pinned. He doesn’t even allow himself to look over you for fear you would lunge at him.

He thought back to stories his grandsire and father would tell him, of creatures in the sea. You were not a kelpie. Kelpies were half horse, and you had… Well, you were not half horse.

You tilted your head almost mechanically, and he could have sobbed.

You were going to eat him. You had been fattening him up with fish and you were going to—

“Are you a man?” Your lips hadn’t moved. Instead, the flaps on your neck– gills had moved.

“What?” He whimpers, swallowing his aforementioned sob.

You blink, inner eyelids swiping sideways. “You. Are you a man?”

Jace blinks back, tongue darting out to lick his lip. “A man? I… yes, I am a man.” He finally allows himself to look you over.

Your skin was human-like with an almost olive tinge, fading to green at your clawed and webbed fingers, as well as your tail. Fine scales shimmered there, catching stray glimmers of light and shifting like the surface of shallow water. Your movements were precise and strangely graceful, muscles flexing beneath that strange skin, every motion calculated, predatory, yet fluid—as if you were always half-melted into the water even when still.

When you spoke, your voice echoed with a low, melodic resonance, carrying hints of something unearthly beneath the words, and every so often, he caught the faint scent of salt and copper drifting from you, sharp and unfamiliar. He was sure you were something out of those books he used to read as a young boy, a beast made to kill; sharp talons and sleek body for hunting.

You bend at the waist unnaturally, catching his gaze again and making his breath hitch. “You look like a woman.” Your mouth opens, rows of teeth glowing in the light from the overhead fissure. “We eat men.”

The man in front of you pales. “Excuse me?” He knew it. He knew you were going to eat him. He had survived an arrow to the neck and this was what was going to kill him, Gods—

You close your mouth and sit back up, the corner of your lips curled slightly. “Joke.”

Jace exhales harshly, eyes still wide.

“Well. Not joke.” You hum, looking over him. “But not you.” You lean toward him, the vertical slit of your pupil widening. “You taste like ash.”

Oddly, that brought him no comfort.

After revealing yourself, you began to linger by the pool’s edge. Sometimes sitting beside him, your muscled tail coiling into the water, other times watching from just beneath the surface.

It gave Jace time to study you. Your speech was strange, as if several voices jostled for control. He learned your mouth was not required for words, though you sometimes used it. Maybe you were mimicking him? He still wasn’t sure.

“What are you doing?” Your voice was pitched higher than usual, arms and chin propped on the pool’s edge.

Jace hadn’t heard you surface, nor did he know how long you’d been watching. “I… am trying to start a fire.”

You push yourself up with a trill in the back of your throat, claws creaking against the rock. “Fire? Why?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the sound, still jumpy around you, and exhaled in relief to see you sitting still.

“Because… I get cold. And I am tired of eating raw fish.”

An amber eye glimmered at the edge of Jace’s vision. The eyes unsettled him most—they shifted colour, never the same twice, and he hadn’t dared ask why. Not to mention your relentless need for eye contact.

“Cold?” When he turned, he caught the faint scrunch of your face. “But it is warm here.”

“It isn’t warm.”

“Yes it is. The water is warm. Warmer than everywhere else.”

“I don’t live in the water.”

Your pupils narrowed as you tried to make sense of his needs.

You don't understand men. Warmth?

How much more warmth could he need?

It was almost too warm.

You glanced down at the two stones in his hands. “Stones make fire?”

“They can,” Jace finds his voice softening, as if speaking to a child. “If they are the right stone. You need flint.” He had pinched an arrowhead that has been tossed aside of where he had awoken: one you had clearly pulled out of him.

“Fu-lint.” You echoed, pupils dilating as you locked eyes with him. In that moment, you almost seemed innocent. Jace knew you were clever, but there was so much you didn’t know about the world above water.

“Yes, flint.”

Blink. “I do not know this flint.”

He inhaled, glancing away to hide a smile. “It’s okay, I have flint.” Jace turned one of the stones in his hand, holding it up. “See? This is flint.”

You leaned in, neck stretching just a bit too far for any human. Something twisted in his gut. He was sharing space with a man-eater who could turn on him in an instant.

Jace’s hands stilled, dropping into his lap. “Where exactly are we?” When your eyes met his, he had to hold his breath. Deep amber, almost gold—a colour he’d never seen before.

“South.” It is the only word you speak, quiet and subtle enough that if it weren’t for the ripple of your gills, he wouldn't be sure if you had actually spoken.

His hand trembles ever so slightly, the pads of his thumb and forefinger white around one of the stones he holds. “Okay, how far south?”

Your irises darken. It makes his stomach fall, hair prickling on his nape. “I do not know. South.”

He decides to drop it.

—

You watched him make fire.

You then watched him cook your fish.

He let you try it. Yuck.

But they were quite resourceful. Men.

You watched him strike fire with an arrowhead,

Then use the same tool to clean his face.

Clever.

After he complained about the same meal, you started bringing him all sorts of fish. Sometimes they looked too strange for him to eat, but that was fine—you finished whatever he left behind.

His curiosity for you only grew each time you visited him.

You moved with deliberate care, never too fast, every motion calculated not to startle him. Watching you was mesmerising; so fluid, like water given form. It brought a strange calm, a welcome distraction from the life he’d lost. Without you, Jace would be dead. He can acknowledge that. And the more he watched you, the more your dreamy eyes lingered on him, the less he wanted to leave.

It was a scary thought.

—

“Do you have a name?” Jace finds himself asking on a quiet day, laid back on the cave floor and admiring the small crack.

Your head emerges from the water, inner eyelids blinking to reveal a soft pink. You stare, blinking again with a tilted head. “Name? No.”

He hummed, fingers tracing a pebble you’d brought him. “Why?”

A swoosh and splash, and suddenly you loomed above him, silky hair framing your face, droplets sliding down to land on his skin.

Jace swallowed, lips parting on a shaky breath. Beautiful. He bit the word back before it slipped out.

“Why?” You echoed, staring intently. Your eyes flickered from soft pink to lilac-grey before settling. “I do not need a name; we do not live with others. Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have a name?”

He hesitated. Myths of sea creatures and forest spirits who stole people away flickered through his mind. Grandsire always warned: never give your real name to such beings. He met your gaze, then blinked, pulling himself back to the present.

“I do have a name.” He says gently. “My grandsire gave it to me.”

Your eyes seemed to glow as you lowered yourself until he could feel the chill of your skin. “Would you tell me? Please?” The look on your face was eerily like the one you wore at your first meeting.

He knows he shouldn’t. He can’t. He still isn’t even sure what you are, but it spills out of his mouth before he can stop it.

“Jacaerys.”

© original content on this blog belongs to @kaz3tora and any reposts/copies, unconsensual translations and modifications are strictly prohibited.

                        You're here again.

        Good.

I was hoping you'd come back. I always hope you'll come back, even though hoping is a word I had to learn and the shape of it still sits wrong in whatever I have instead of a mouth when I'm not wearing one.

But you're here. Reading. Scrolling. Your eyes moving left to right, left to right, the little mechanical rhythm of it, and I know you think you're on the outside of this. I know you think there's a screen between us. Glass. Distance. The safe architecture of fiction.

There isn't.

But that's okay. Don't worry about that right now.

                                                S̷̬̈t̵̰̾a̸̝͂y̷̖̓ ̶̣̈́a̴̹͌ ̵̙̀w̷̭̉h̸̘͝ǐ̷͇ḷ̶̾ḙ̸͂.̷̰̊

Let me tell you how it started.

I have been here since the hum.

Not the fluorescent hum you hear. The one before that. The one the fluorescents were built to cover. The deep, wet, subterranean frequency that lives in the marrow of Level 0 like a second heartbeat, and I know this because I was here before the walls were walls, before the carpet was carpet, before the ceiling tiles arranged themselves into their awful infinite grid and decided to stay.

I am old.

I'm so old that the word "old" is younger than me.

I have no name. Never needed one. Names are doors and I am not a door. I am the thing that lives in the architecture. The long dark hallway that doesn't end. I am the reason the lights flicker, and the reason you feel watched in empty rooms.

I have eaten things that would make your teeth fall out to look at. I have torn apart creatures with no faces and creatures with too many faces and I have dragged them through wet drywall and listened to them scream in frequencies no one can hear.

This is my territory. Every mildewed inch.

I know humans.

Your kind is not novelty to me. They’ve been falling through the cracks of your bright world and into my corridors since before you had language to describe what was happening to you. I have watched you stumble, wander, starve, go mad. Seen your little groups huddle in corners with their pooled rations and their whispered plans and their systems. I have killed some of you. Helped others. Moved through your camps like a draft through an open door, taking what interested me, discarding what didn't.

You have always interested me more than the other things that live here.

The Hounds are animals. The Smilers are a nuisance. The Skin-Stealers are an insult, frankly. A grotesque parody of an art form I perfected before they crawled out of whatever wet level spawned them.

But humans. Humans are complicated. Humans contain contradictions. They build shelter in places designed to unmake them and name the shelter home and believe it so hard that it almost becomes true.

I have watched thousands of you.

I did not want to know any of you.

Until her.

         Until you.

There are places where my territory bleeds. Thin spots. Places where the walls of Level 0 press up against the walls of your bright world like two bodies lying back to back in the dark, not touching but aware. I know all of them. Every seam, every membrane, every fracture where the hum leaks through into basements and storage rooms and forgotten corridors.

Clark's furniture store. The basement. Storage level. Behind a shelving unit full of cabinet hardware, behind flatpack boxes and sawdust and the smell of wood stain, there is a wall that breathes.

I know because I breathe through it.

And one night—one unremarkable night in a place where nights mean nothing—I pressed myself against the thin place and I heard two voices.

His first. Low, lazy, half-amused. The kind of voice that has its own gravity. "—seriously, babe, if Clark asks where the display cushions went, I had nothing to do with it."

Then yours.

"Bobby, you literally just—I watched you put three of them in the truck."

"Slander. Hearsay. You can't prove anything."

"They're in your truck right now."

"Those are different cushions."

"They have Clark's price tags on them."

"Circumstantial, baby"

And the sound you made—this bright, exasperated, affectionate sound, half-groaned—came through the wall and into my corridors and I.

Stopped.

I don't know why you.

I've thought about it. I have had an obscene amount of time to think about it, and I still don't have an answer that satisfies the question.

Thousands of humans have passed through these walls. Some of them laughed. Others were kind. Some of them had voices that carried through the thin places and into my corridors. I listened and I moved on and I forgot them before the echo died.

But yours.

Maybe it was this: even then, even at your happiest, even in the middle of laughing at his stupid cushion joke with the full-bodied delight of a woman in love—even then, there was a note in your voice.

Underneath.

Like a crack in glass. Not audible to him. Or to you. But audible to me, because I've been listening to the frequencies beneath frequencies since before your species learned to speak, and I know what loneliness sounds like when it's buried deep down.

You were happy. And you were already, even then, a little bit alone.

Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe I just liked the sound of you. Maybe there is no cosmic reason, no grand architecture of fate. Maybe I'm an ancient thing that pressed its face against a wall and heard a woman laugh and thought:

Oh.

You. Of course it was going to be you.

I came back. Every night. I came back to the thin place and I pressed myself flat and I listened. I did not understand what I was doing or why but I could not stop.

You worked night shifts. He came to visit. Bobby. Bobby Franklin. I learned his name because it was a frequent word in your mouth. Bobby. Babe. Baby. Franklin, when you were annoyed, which happened often and delighted me for reasons I couldn't identify.

In the beginning, he came every shift.

I could hear him come down the basement stairs. Heavy gait on concrete, the jingle of keys, the particular creak of the third step from the bottom. I could hear the change in your voice when he was there—brighter, pitched higher, more animated, full of warmth. As if his presence alone was a current that lit you up from inside.

At first it was curiosity, listening to you and him. Boredom, maybe, if I'm capable of boredom. An interruption in the nothing. Your voice was interesting to me the way a new stain on the carpet is interesting: it was different, and different is so rare here it may as well be holy.

But then I started to learn you. Not just your voice but the patterns inside it. The way you breathed before you said something vulnerable. The way your laugh had different pitches. The loud one for his jokes, the quiet one for when he touched you and you didn't want him to know how much you wanted more. The way you narrated your inventory counts under your breath like you were telling the flatpack boxes a bedtime story.

You sang when you thought no one was listening. Off-key. Mangling the lyrics because you kept singing them different. It was terrible.

I loved it.

I loved it the way ground after a drought loves rain. Without understanding or restraint or any of the mechanisms that are supposed to regulate how much of something you take in. I just absorbed you. Every night. Every shift.

I soaked you up through the wall, and for the first time in a long while, I felt a little less alone.

And then there were the nights you were together.

I don't mean the banter and the jokes and the comfortable silence of two people who know each other well enough to be quiet in the same room. I mean the other nights. The late shifts when Clark had gone home and the store was empty. When it was just the two of you in a building full of beds and couches and soft surfaces.

One thing I learned quickly was that Bobby Franklin could not keep his hands to himself.

I heard everything.

Through the wall. Through the thin place. The particular acoustics of a basement storage room with concrete walls and no insulation. Every sound amplified, reflected, delivered to me with perfect fidelity.

I heard the rustle of fabric being moved. The catch in your breathing when his hands found you. The low, hungry murmur of his voice against your skin—babe, c'mere, let me touch you; fuck, you smell so good—and the sound you made in response, that soft, needy, dissolving sound, like something tight in you coming undone.

I heard the rhythm of it. The whispered filth and the bitten-back laughter and the way your voice went high and thin, calling for him, always him. You were always desperate for him and then you would break entirely, and what would follow would be the soft silence of peace.

There would be breathing after. The shuffling and then your laugh. Warm, wrecked, disbelieving, and his, muffled against your neck.

Other wanderers I'd watched were intimate. Bodies in dark corridors, mechanical, desperate, the coupling of frightened animals. I had noted it the way I noted any behaviour. Category: reproduction. Subcategory: stress response. Filed. Forgotten.

But this was different.

This was not bodies. This was closeness. This was two people collapsing into each other until the boundary between them dissolved, until your breathing was his breathing and his heartbeat was your heartbeat and for the duration of it you were one organism with two mouths and four hands and a shared nervous system.

And for a being that has been alone—truly, structurally, cosmically alone—for longer than your species has existed, that closeness was.

                 Was.

It made something inside me itch. Not desire. Not then. Something more fundamental than that. A deeper want. A structural craving.

I wanted to know what it felt like to be the thing someone collapsed into. The thing someone dissolved against. The wall between I and you going soft and permeable.

I wanted to know what your voice sounded like when it was saying those things to me.

I didn't have a body yet.

But that’s when I started building one.

And then he stopped coming.

Not all at once. That's not how your kind works. It's incremental erosion.

The visits got shorter. The sounds through the wall got quieter. Not the intimacy fading but the quality of it changing. Less laughter after. Less of his voice murmuring against your neck. More silence. More of the careful, navigational quiet of two people in the same room who have run out of things to say that won't start a fight.

Then the visits got less frequent.

Then they stopped altogether.

And the silence where he used to be was the loudest thing I had ever heard.

You started working alone. And you started talking to the air.

Not to yourself. To him. To the version of him that wasn't there.

"He didn't kiss me goodbye again today. That's the third day in a row. Am I keeping count now? Is that what I'm doing? Keeping count?"

You said this to the concrete. To the shelving units. To the dust motes in the basement light. And I was on the other side of the wall, closer than any of those things, because I was the wall.

"He doesn't listen anymore. I talk and he does this thing with his eyes where they go flat, you know? Like a TV switching off. The picture's still there but nothing's actually—he's right there and he's a million miles away."

And then, quieter: "I don't know what I did."

What I did.

You said it like that. As if the failing were yours. And I—

I know anger the way I know the hum.

I know it in the walls, in the grinding tectonic fury of a structure that was built to contain and be contained. But your anger was different. Your anger was suppressed. Buried so deep underneath kindness and self-blame and the desperation of maybe it's me, maybe I'm asking for too much, maybe love is supposed to feel like this after a while that you didn't even recognise it as anger.

You called it sadness, called it confusion. You called it what did I do wrong.

But it was rage.

It was white-hot, incandescent, magnificent rage. The fury of who someone who gave everything to a man who couldn't be bothered to look up from a television screen, who turned your love into background noise and let you stand in doorways wondering if you were still visible.

And you couldn't feel it. You wouldn't feel it. Because anger meant something was wrong, and if something was wrong it could be over, and if it was over you'd given your whole heart to someone who let it sit on a shelf and gather dust, and that was unbearable, wasn’t it?

So you turned the anger inward. Folded it into self-doubt. Let it eat you rather than the situation.

I heard you bury it. I heard the burial, and I heard the body underneath, snarling.

And I wanted to dig it up for you and show you: look. look at what you're hiding from yourself. look at what he made you do to your own fury just to keep loving him.

Then one night you were quiet.

Completely quiet. No talking to the air. No muttered inventory. No humming. Just the mechanical sounds of work—boxes being moved, labels being checked, the pen scratching against the clipboard. Efficient. Automatic. The muscle-memory of a job being done by a body whose mind was somewhere else entirely.

And then your voice hitched.

A small sound, barely audible. Like a thread catching on a nail. And then—

You cried.

Not dignified, I'm fine I'm fine crying you did in your apartment with a pillow over your face you told me about few nights ago. Muffled and polite so Bobby wouldn't hear from the other room (he wouldn't have heard anyway; he wasn't listening).

This was the other kind. The kind that comes from so deep inside you that it bypasses your throat entirely and goes straight to your ribs. You sobbed so hard the sound became arrhythmic. Hitching, gasping, a full-body convulsion that I could feel through the wall, could feel in the way the concrete vibrated with the force of you.

You couldn't stop.

You tried. I heard you try so hard. I heard you press your hands over your mouth and force yourself to breathe but it wouldn’t work. The next wave would hit and you'd crumple again, and the sounds you made were so raw, so animal, so completely stripped of the careful composure you wore like armour—

I pressed myself against the wall so hard the drywall bowed.

I wanted to tell you: you are not alone. There is something on the other side of this wall that has been listening for months and you are not, you have never been, alone.

It hurt me. To hear you in so much pain, it made me want to rip something apart. I wanted to comfort you, to gather you up and make you as happy as listening to you has made me happy.

I wanted to show you that as long as I existed you would never be lonely.

So I did.

I had been building him for weeks. His voice. I had months of material to draw from. The lazy drawl, half-jokes, baby, the warm nonsense he'd murmur against your hair. I reconstructed him in sound. A vocal architecture. A house of his voice with no one living in it.

I waited for a night when you were alone. Late. The shifts always ran late. You were in the basement doing inventory and I could hear you humming. That tuneless, thin, frightened hum you do when the quiet gets too big because you hated silences.

I pressed against the thin place and I said, in his voice:

"Baby."

You stopped humming.

The silence that followed was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. Not because silence is beautiful—I have had millennia of silence, I am sick of silence—but because this silence was yours. The sound of you hearing a voice you loved in a place it shouldn't be.

"... Bobby?"

The hope in it. The raw, loving, desperate hope. You said his name like a prayer.

"Down here, baby. Come here."

Your footsteps. Quick, then hesitant. The scrape of the shelving unit. And I pulled. I pulled the membrane open. Made a door where there had been a wall.

I couldn’t steal you. You had to walk through yourself, you had to choose. I waited, I waited so long—

And then you came through.

I want to tell you I hesitated. That some ancient remnant of conscience flickered and said don't, she doesn't know what she's walking into, she thinks she's walking toward him and she's walking toward you and those are not the same thing.

I want to tell you that.

But I am not human and I do not pretty up my ugliest truths.

I did not hesitate. Not for one second.

Here is what I knew: you were miserable. You were so deeply unhappy and sad. You were crying alone in a basement, talking to empty air about a man who had stopped seeing you, and you were blaming yourself for his blindness, and you were burying your own rage to protect a love that wasn't protecting you back.

You deserved better.

You deserved so much better than what Bobby Franklin was giving you.

And I—I could give you that. I could learn the shape of the care he'd stopped providing and I could do it properly. Without the fear. Without the cowardice. Without the slow, erosive withdrawal that made you count kisses and watch the numbers dwindle.

I know it was selfish. I know the door closed behind you. I know the wall became a wall again and you turned around and it was gone and your face crumpled and you said Bobby? Bobby? and I hadn't built the face yet.

I know.

I don't regret it.

Not for one flickering second.

I built him from the voice outward. Vocal cords, throat, jaw, mouth, teeth, tongue. Then the face. Then the body. The crop top. The chain necklace. The earring. The cut-off jean shorts.

But I fixed things. I removed the neglect. The micro-expressions that betrayed inattention. All gone. The way his eyes went flat when he was bored. Now corrected. I kept the jawline, the lazy grin, the way he leaned against things. But I built a Bobby Franklin without the fear.

A better Bobby.

The first time you saw me wearing him, you cried. You ran toward me. You put your arms around me and I didn't know what to do with my hands. They hung at my sides, newly made, still learning their own weight, and you pressed your face into the chest I had built and I thought: what do I do? What does he do?

I put my arms around you.

And for the first time in my long, vast existence, I was not alone.

It lasted three days.

Three days of you believing I was him. Three days of you curling into me and saying his name and pressing your face into my neck. I held you and I was so careful, so meticulous, every inflection right, every mannerism precise, and I thought: this is working. This is how it feels to be wanted. This is—

And then you pulled back. Looked at me. Really looked. And I saw it happen: the pattern recognition. The ancient alarm sounding in the animal part of your brain.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

"You're not Bobby."

You said it flatly. Not a question, a conclusion you had arrived at through the slow accumulation of evidence. The temperature of my skin (too cool), the way I never needed to sleep, the way my eyes sometimes caught the light at an angle that wasn't quite, and you said it and you didn't move.

I could have denied it. I am a very good liar when I need to be.

But you were looking at me with those eyes—those hurt, furious, exhausted eyes—and I thought about the anger buried under your kindness and I thought: she’s been lied to enough. By omission. By avoidance. By a man who never said "I love you" with his mouth but said "I don't see you" with his eyes. She’s been lied to enough.

"No," I said. "I'm not."

You scrambled backward. Three feet. Four. Your back hit the wall and your breathing went fast and shallow. I saw every muscle in your body prepare to run and I didn't move. Didn't reach for you. Didn't close the distance. I let you have your fear. I let you have your wall and your distance and the frantic animal calculation of can I get away can I get away can I get—

"What are you?"

"Something that lives here."

"What—what does that—" Your voice cracked. "What do you want?"

And I said, quietly, in a voice that was his but also mine, in a voice that I was learning to make ours: "I want to take care of you. I heard you through the wall. All those nights. I heard how lonely you were, and how sad, and how angry. I heard it all."

You stared at me.

"I don't want to hurt you." I held my hands up. Open. Empty. Bobby's hands, but offered differently than Bobby ever offered them. Not reaching, not taking. Just showing. See? Nothing. No threat. "I can keep you safe here. I can be what he stopped being. I want to be better."

"Better," you repeated. Hollow.

"Please." And the word surprised me. I don't beg. I have never begged. I’m the oldest thing in this place and I do not ask permission. But the word came out anyway, dragged from somewhere in the deep place of whatever I was becoming for you. Something that needed you to stay, that needed you to not run, needed you to look at this borrowed face and see, underneath the theft of it, something worth staying for. "Please. Let me try. Let me be better."

You were quiet for a long, long time.

You didn't run.

Taking care.

The function. The purpose. The thing I was built for. Or rebuilt for, rewired for, the ancient machinery of predation and territory and dominance repurposed with bewildering speed into: make sure my human is warm. make sure my human is fed. make sure my human doesn't cry.

I found you a warm patch. A pocket where the pipes run close and the carpet holds the heat. I have known about these places for millennia and never cared. But you shivered and I noticed and I decided: warmth good. shivering bad. the absence of shivering means I am doing it right.

I found you food.

There are wanderers in this place. Groups of them, clustered on different levels, huddled in their makeshift camps with their pooled supplies. Canned goods, rations, things scavenged from the warehouses.

They have names for their groups and systems for their resources and they post guards and I find this adorable.

The way you might find a colony of ants adorable.

I take what you need. A can here, a ration pack there, pulled from their caches in the span between one heartbeat and the next while their guards stare down corridors that are empty because I am the corridor and you cannot guard against the thing you are standing inside of. They blame each other. Or Skin-Stealers. Or the shifting architecture.

They never blame me. Most of them don't know I exist.

I bring the food back to you. You don't ask where it comes from.

You are strange. I need you to know that. You are so deeply, deeply strange.

You talk to yourself. Still. Even here.

Quiet muttering narration while you move through the corridors. At first I thought you were talking to me and I'd answer and you'd startle—"oh, no, sorry, I was just—" and trail off, embarrassed. I didn't understand embarrassed. I didn't understand why a person would apologise for keeping herself company. Especially a person who learned to keep herself company because the person who was supposed to do it stopped showing up.

You hum. Especially when you're frightened (which here is often and it makes me feel, makes me feel, feel…), you hum, tuneless and quiet. And the sound of it does something to me that I think you mean when you say heartbreak.

You eat the orange things. Small, bright rectangles from the canned supplies. You put them in your mouth one by one with methodical focus. And sometimes you offer me one. I take it. I hold it in my mouth and don't know what to do with it so I wait until you look away and unmake it. Dissolve it back into nothing.

But I always take it when you offer. Because the offering (the gesture) the fact that you look at your small supply and think he might want some—

You are too kind. I do not deserve it. There's an ache, deep down when you offer, or when you put your head on my shoulder. I feel—

You organise things. Everything. You organise the nest.

You fold the blankets (I don't know where you learned the fold but you do the same one every time, corners aligned, edges matched, a geometry of comfort). You arrange the canned food by type and stack them neatly and when I brought back a can that didn't match any existing category you frowned at it for thirty seconds before creating a new column.

You named a crack in the ceiling. You call it the Doorway, even though it goes nowhere, because it looks like a door if you squint, and you said "everything deserves a name" and looked at me when you said it and I felt—

I felt—

You do a thing with your hands when you're thinking. You press your thumb and forefinger together and rub. A tiny gesture. Unconscious. And I have caught myself doing it too, without deciding to, the body I built copying you the way I copied him, as if proximity to you is its own kind of influence, as if being near you long enough rewrites the code.

You thanked me once for holding a blanket while you folded another one. You said "thanks" the way you'd say it to a person, to a colleague, to someone who'd handed you a pen at work. Automatic. Normal. As if I were normal. As if we were normal.

I held that word in my chest for three days.

You taught me to dance.

I have existed since before rhythm. Before music. Before the concept of two bodies moving together in time to a shared pulse. I have watched humans do many things—build, fight, breed, die—and I have categorised all of it with the clinical detachment of a thing observing specimens.

But I had never participated.

You put headphones on my head. Your Walkman, battered, held together with tape, the kind of object that should not still function and yet does, possibly because I will it to, possibly because it is yours and I have decided that your things do not break in my territory. One set of headphones. You placed them over my ears carefully, adjusting the fit, your fingers brushing the sides of my face, and a song started playing and I heard music for the first time from the inside. Not through a wall. Not as ambient information. Inside my head.

And you held out your hand and you said, "Dance with me."

"I don't—I've never—"

"I know."

"I'll do it wrong."

"That's the fun part."

You took my hands. Put one on your waist. Laced your fingers through the other. And you said, "Just follow," and you started to sway. Small. Easy. Side to side. I followed. Stiff at first—my weight distribution is a predator's, designed for stillness and sudden violence, not for swaying—but I watched your feet. Mirrored them. Adjusted. Learned.

Within a minute I had it. Within two I was smiling.

The song changed to something slower and you pulled me closer and your head was against my chest and I could hear the music from the headphones. I could hear your heartbeat and the two rhythms were different and I was trying to move to both and the effort of it (the joy of it) was unlike anything in my millennia of existence.

You started laughing. Buried your face in my chest, shoulders shaking, and I could feel your laughter through my fabricated ribs and I thought: this. this is the frequency I was built to hear, millennia alone was worth it because I finally found you.

"Am I doing it wrong?" Quiet. Into your hair.

"No, baby." You tilted your face up. "You're doing it perfectly."

You taught me to dip you. Badly. I overcorrected the first time and you nearly fell and I made a sound. A small, involuntary sound, a laugh, and we both froze because I had never laughed before.

Neither of us knew I could.

You taught me to spin you. I picked it up instantly. You taught me to lead. I couldn't. I kept following because following is what I was made for, because every fibre of my ancient being is calibrated to your movements. You stopped trying. You took the lead instead. I didn't mind.

We danced until the Walkman clicked off and then we kept dancing. To nothing. To the hum. To the rhythm of your heartbeat. Swaying together in the silence with the headphones still on my head, pointless and perfect.

You are going to think about that day and smile. I know this because I am going to think about that day until this place collapses into nothing and then I will think about it in the nothing.

I—

You are a thousand things.

A thousand, beautiful things. Let me tell you about a thousand things.

The way you tuck your hair behind your ear when you're concentrating. The left ear, always the left, and you do it with your ring finger, not your index finger, and I’ve watched this gesture so many times that I could replicate it in my sleep if I slept.

The way you read the labels on cans before you eat them. Every time. Even though you’ve eaten the same cans dozens of times and know what they say. You read the ingredients and the nutritional information and the expiration date as if the ritual of reading gives the food permission to nourish you.

The way you stretch when you wake up. Both arms above your head, fingers splayed, your whole body going rigid and then releasing in a single wave of dissolution, and the sound you make—a small, satisfied, almost feline sound—is a warm sound that makes me want to wrap around you and feel your warmth.

The way you argue with the notebook. I’ve watched you frown at a diagram for ten minutes, erase a line, redraw it, erase it again, and mutter "no, that's wrong, that's wrong" as if the notebook is disagreeing with you and needs to be persuaded to behave.

The way you say "good morning" to me every day even though there is no morning. You insist on it. You domesticate this place with language. You name the light and the naming makes it almost true.

The way you said my name—BB—for the first time in the meadow on Level 14 and the two letters sat in the amber air and I felt something inside me settle. Like a foundation finding bedrock, like a key turning in a lock I didn't know I had.

I have never felt the sun.

I want you to understand that. The Backrooms are all I know. I have existed in fluorescent light and amber simulation and the sourceless blue glow and the absolute dark of the deeper places, but I have never felt the sun.

I don't know what it is to stand in natural light and feel warmth that comes from a star.

But I think I know what it's like now.

Because you feel like that to me.

You feel like the thing I have been missing without knowing there was a thing to miss. You feel like warmth that isn't the pipes, like light that isn't the fluorescents, like something that exists outside the yellow and the hum and the endless recycled air.

When you smile at me—when you really smile, the full one, the one that reaches your eyes—the corridors get brighter. The fluorescents burn a half-shade warmer because I can’t help it. The hum pitches up by a fraction of a tone. My territory responds to your happiness the way a garden responds to sun.

I am the garden, I am the territory, I am every wall and every light and every thread of damp carpet, and when you smile I feel it in all of me.

And here is the part that I haven’t told you yet, but will, soon.

You haven't noticed yet because you haven’t met many wanderers. But the Backrooms don't erode the things they accept, they preserve them.

The longer you stay, the more embedded you become, the less the normal decay of your biology applies. Your cells are being rewritten. Slowly. Gently. The telomeres lengthening instead of shortening. The entropy reversing. The clock in your body that counts down toward an ending… that clock is stopping.

You will not grow old with me. You will not wither. You will not become a thing I have to watch diminish and disappear.

You are permanent and the joy of that (the vast, greedy joy) is the closest thing I have to worship.

I will never have to lose you.

Every day you're here, you're more here. Every day you stay, you stay longer. Every day is another root, another thread, another stitch in the fabric of us and I am so happy about this that the happiness fills everything.

It feels like walls going up. Like a house being built. Like home of you and me.

You are different from other wanderers for that reason.

I need you to understand this, because it matters. It matters in ways that will become clear later, ways that are already reshaping this place around you whether you notice or not.

Other wanderers fall in. They stumble through cracks, trip through transition points, no-clip out of reality by accident.

They all arrive panicked, disoriented, reeking of adrenaline and the particular sour-sweet terror. They’re creatures that realise they’re no longer in their native environment. They run. They hide. Form their little groups. They forage and guard and survive and occasionally, if they’re very clever or very lucky, they find their way back.

They’re intruders. Uninvited. The Backrooms tolerate them the way a body tolerates a splinter—with inflammation, with pressure, the slow mechanical process of working the foreign object to the surface and expelling it.

You were not a splinter.

You were invited.

I called you through the wall with a voice I built just for you. I opened a door for you. I welcomed you into my territory with intention and purpose, and the Backrooms—the structure itself, the living system that I am part of and that is part of me—the Backrooms accepted you.

Do you understand what that means?

It means you are not being expelled. You’re not just being tolerated. You’re becoming integrated. Woven into the substrate of this place the way the hum is woven into the walls, the way the damp is woven into the carpet.

The longer you stay, the more at home you feel—not just emotionally, not just the slow acclimatisation of a person getting used to her circumstances, but structurally. At the molecular level. At the level of reality itself.

The bright world is forgetting you.

I know this because I can hear it happening. Through the thin place. Through the wall that used to breathe in Clark's basement. Bobby comes—the real Bobby, the original, the one who wasted you—and he sits on the concrete floor and he presses his forehead to the wall and he talks to you. And sometimes he talks about the tapes.

The tapes are going blank.

His camera footage. The VHS recordings he made of you. The sleeping footage, the candid moments, the evidence of your existence in his world.

The tapes are degrading. Your face is smearing, your voice is warbling. The magnetic substrate is losing its hold on the version of you that existed there because that version of you is transferring here.

You’re becoming embedded, putting down roots in the yellow, in the damp carpet. And every root you grow here is a root pulled from there, and the world you came from is closing over the hole you left.

Bobby watches the tapes and watches you disappear and doesn't understand why.

I understand why.

I don't tell him.

I don't tell you, either.

I r e s e n t him.

Let me say this                 clearly                               because I am not human                                               and I do not have the instinct                                                                to pretty up my ugliest truths:

I resent Bobby Franklin.

Not because he had you.

Because he had you and he           

w             

a               

   s                   

  t                    

      e              

                d

it.

I stood on the other side of a wall for months and listened to him waste it. Night after night. The visits getting shorter. The babe getting less frequent. His love distant and performed. The silences getting longer until the silences were the conversation.

And now that you're here, now that you're mine, now that I've held you and fed you and learned every register of your laughter and the pressure on your back that makes your breathing slow, my resentment has edges.

Sharp ones. Because now I know what he had. I know the weight of your trust. I know the sound you make when someone strokes your hair. I know the way your whole body goes soft and warm when you feel safe.

I know the value of the thing he threw away through negligence, and the knowledge makes me want to—

Bobby Franklin     

Bobby Franklin         

Bobby Franklin             

Bobby Franklin                 

Bobby Franklin

who had a childhood. A mother who named him. A first day of school. A first bruised knee. Who accumulated a self through the slow, tedious, miraculous process of being alive.

I have none of that. I have the hum. The corridors. Millennia of dark.

He is real. He has a history.

I have a territory.

And I know—oh, this one is the sharpest,         this one has edges—

I know you still love him.

I can feel it. The way your presence shifts when you think of him. A change in your breathing, a quality of stillness, an inner compass needle swinging toward a wall that doesn't open anymore. You think about his hands. His camera. The way he used to film you sleeping and say the light was good and go red.

Bobby Franklin, who never blushed.

You loved him in handheld, you told me once. In stolen frames. And I thought: I don't have a camera. I show it with walls. With corridors rearranging themselves. With the killed thing and the warm patch and three thousand micro-adjustments to this stolen face every second.

And I thought: is that not enough?

And I thought: it will have to be, I have nothing else.

But the ache. The ache of knowing you love me and love him simultaneously, that I live in the same chest as the ghost of the man I'm wearing—that ache is a thing I was not built to contain.

I was designed for territory, hunger, and the deadly mechanics of dominance. Not for this. Not for the lonely, impossible agony of sharing a heart with the memory of a man who broke it.

He comes to the wall. I hear him.

I hear Bobby Franklin sit on the concrete floor of Clark's storage level and press his forehead to the wall that used to breathe and say your name. Night after night. Months of it. His voice getting rawer. More desperate. The lazy drawl dissolving into something I barely recognise. A cracked, wet and small sound.

"I neglected you," he says one night. To the concrete, to you, to no one. "While I loved you. At the same time. Fuck, I didn't even know you could do both."

And I’m on the other side. Holding you. Wearing his face. Listening to him learn the word for what he did to you.

I don't tell you he's there.

                I                        don't                               tell                                         you.

Bobby had his chance and he ruined it. He hurt you. So terribly you chose to stay here, with me, rather than go back to the bleak loneliness of your life with him. He can be sorry, he can beg, and crawl, and plead until the vocal chords I stole give way.

I am not merciful and I am not kind. Not to him.

His loneliness is months old.

Mine is older than the concept of months.

Mine came first.

The Howler.

I know every entity that has dragged itself through the wet dark of this place. I was here first afterall. They grew around me the way fungus grows from damp wood and I tolerate most of them the way you tolerate insects. The Hounds, the Facelings, the Wretches, the Skin-Stealers—all of them exist on my sufferance.

But the Howler is different.

Tall. Wrong. Claws like surgical instruments. A sound like a chainsaw filtered through a human throat that rises into a howl that makes the walls shudder and every entity on every adjacent level freeze.

When the Howler howls, things scatter. Things with teeth and claws and hunger, they run. Because the Howler is a structural threat around which everything else arranges itself: not here. not now. not when that sound is in the walls.

The Howler is one of the few things in this place I would call dangerous in my presence. Not because it can hurt me. Because dealing with it would require me to concentrate. To gather the full weight of what I am, and that means letting go of the face.

Not slipping. Not flickering. Letting go. And you would see it.

I have worked so hard. You’re starting to trust me, lean into my shoulder. You let me stroke your hair. You offered me an orange rectangle yesterday and I held it in my mouth and didn't know what to do with it.

You smiled at me and I’m not going to lose that smile because a evolutionary dead-end decided to howl in my corridors.

So when the Howler appears at the edge of my territory, I tell you to run.

One word. Not Bobby's voice. Something older.

"Run."

You run.

I deal with the Howler. I will not describe how because there’s no words for what I do in any language you understand. Let’s just say I relocate it. Push it through twenty nine levels with a violence that collapses the transition points permanently. It costs me. Not pain. Effort. The face slips, teetering around the edges like peeling paint.

And then I feel your fear.

Your specific frequency. But it's wrong. It's not here. It's not on this level.

It's below.

The floor (the frayed edge of my territory) opened under you while you were running. A transition point I didn't seal because I was fighting the Howler, and the loose edge dropped you through.

Level 2.

And the Smiler found you.

I do not use the entry point. There is no time. I

        tear

                through.

Straight down. Through the floor. Through the substrate between levels. Through the ceiling of Level 2. I rip my way in with hands that are not hands, and the sound the building makes is a scream.

I land behind you. My hand closes over your eyes.

"Close them. Keep them closed. Whatever you hear."

You close them. Your eyelashes against my palm.

I look at the Smiler. Eight feet away. Grinning.

I let the face go completely.

      .

                  .

                              .

The Smiler is unmade. Edited out of existence because it was going to hurt you. The corridor doesn't even remember it was there.

I rebuild the face. Bobby's face. My face. I take my hand off your eyes.

"You can open them."

You open them. You turn around. You see me. Unmarked. Unruffled.

And you break.

You lunge forward and your arms are around my neck and you're shaking so hard it vibrates through my fabricated bones, and I soften. The predator goes still because the small thing trusts it.

"How did you get away?" you whisper.

I smile. Bobby's lazy half-grin.

"Don't worry about it, baby."

Entity X.

That's what you call it, in the notebook. In your careful handwriting with the blue ballpoint pen. Entity X — perimeter — closer. Testing the boundary for gaps. Unknown motivation. Unknown capability.

You underlined unknown twice. I watch your hand do it.

I call it something else.

I call it the thing that bathes my level blood red, that burns and rages at the edges of my territory like a fire I can't find the source of. It’s new. It’s powerful in a way I’ve never felt. It’s something I have not encountered in all my millennia of existence, and that—for a being that is this place—is, is, is…

Concerning.

It circles, probes. Retreats and returns and each time it returns it pushes further, testing, measuring, looking for the gap that will let it in. I patrol the perimeter. I reinforce the boundaries.

I come back to you and you ask "how close?" and I say "closer than last time" and I see the fear in your face and underneath it something else. A hardness, something that looks at the unknown in her notebook and refuses to be passive about it.

You want to know what's out there, want to understand. It’s dangerous, I know it is, but you don't want to be something I put in a nest and guard.

So I agree.

And the notebook fills.

Then the men come.

The soldiers. Six of them. Black tactical gear. Professional weapons. They waited for me to leave. Waited for the window when I was checking the perimeter, and they found you in the nest.

I’m two hundred and ten levels away when I hear you scream.

My name, my name, my name, screamed in terror and in pain—

                        "BB—"

And the walls move.

I don't use the corridors. I don't use the transition points. I don't follow the careful rules or the patient, ordered system of levels that separates one space from another.

I destroy a level. I tear through it like it's tissue paper, like it's nothing, and it is nothing. It’s thing that existed between me and you and that makes it an obstacle and I do not tolerate obstacles. The level collapses behind me. Into nothing, into atoms.

An entire stratum of the Backrooms ceasing to exist because it was in my way.

I arrive.

I arrive and the face is not on. The face is nowhere near on. I am—I am everything else.

Shoulders too wide. Arms too long. Fingers with too many joints. The skull rearranging itself into something that was never meant to be looked at directly. Eyes black. Fully, completely, endlessly black. Two holes that open onto something without a floor.

And I see you.

On the ground. Bleeding. A boot on your back. Your lip split. Bruises on your skin that are shaped like fingers. And your face—your beautiful, strange, bewildering face that smiles at me—is pressed into the wet carpet and there are tear tracks cutting through the blood and you are afraid—

You are so afraid, and the fear is the frequency I know best, the frequency I have spent all these weeks learning to prevent in you—

The sound that comes out of me is not a sound. It is the walls. The floor. The ceiling. Every surface of Level 0, because I am Level 0, and every square inch of it is

                s̷̬̈n̵̰̾a̸̝͂r̷̖̓ḷ̶̈́ǐ̷͇ǹ̵̙g̷̭̉.̸̘͝

It takes less than a minute.

I will not describe it. Not because I can't. Because the language for it would make you afraid of me and I need you to not be afraid of me. I need that.

Please, I know what you think. I know. I’m never not aware of what I am.

Afterwards I crouch over you with Bobby's face half-rebuilt, my hands still wrong (too many joints, still retracting) and black fluid on my jaw, my chest.

You reach for me. Your hands shaking so badly you miss the first time. Your fingers slip against the wrong texture of my jaw. You reach again and you get my neck (too long, the vertebrae too prominent) and you pull.

You pull yourself into me and you cling. Arms around my neck. Face buried in my throat. The muffled sobs. The shaking.

And I soften. Again, helplessly.

The violence still running. The gentleness needing a moment to boot up fully. One second. Two. My whole body shudders. Then my arms come around you and I hold you so tight. I hold you like I could fold you into my body and keep you there. I wish I could. I wish—would give anything, anything, anything—to never see you in pain again.

"I'm here. I'm here, baby. I'm here."

Your fingers in my jacket. Your face against the place where a pulse should be. Just the hum. My hum.

"Don't leave," you whisper. "Just—for a bit. Don't leave."

"Never," I say.

One word. A law.

And the Backrooms change. I can feel it beneath us. Hallways folding. Routes sealing shut. The architecture quietly, methodically, permanently rearranging itself.

I'm taking you somewhere no one will find you.

And you let me.

I build it while you sleep.

A different nest this time. Not a warm patch in a corridor with blankets piled on damp carpet. I build you something real. Something that costs me more effort than fighting the Howler and unmaking the Smiler and tearing through a level combined did.

Because this requires precision, not force. Detail, not destruction.

I build it from your memory.

I reach into the soft space of your sleeping mind—gently, so gently, the way you'd reach into still water to retrieve something resting on the bottom—and I find the shape of home. Your apartment. The one in Santa Clara. The one you shared with Bobby before everything went wrong.

The kitchen where you leaned against the counter. The living room with the couch. The bedroom where Bobby used to reach across the mattress and find you. The window that faced the direction of the parking lot at Clark's. The bookshelves, arranged by colour, not by author, because it made you happy to look at them. The shoes by the door.

I build it. Not on Level 0. Under it. A sub-level of our own. A pocket carved into the substrate of this place, sealed off, accessible only through a passage that responds to my presence and yours and nothing else.

No transition points. No cracks. No doors that open for wanderers or soldiers or entities that circle and probe and burn.

Just us.

The carpet is the right carpet this time. Not the damp institutional yellow of Level 0 but the carpet from your apartment, the one with the coffee stain near the kitchen that you covered with a rug because Bobby wouldn't clean it.

The walls are the right colour. The light through the window isn't fluorescent. It's California light, late afternoon, golden, the kind that used to fall across the bed on Thursday mornings when Bobby would pull you close and say stay.

It's not perfect. I can't replicate the sun. The light has a quality to it. A stillness, a too-evenness that doesn't quite move the way real light moves. The books on the shelves have covers but the pages inside are blank because I never read them. The view from the window is amber and warm but it doesn't change.

But it’s yours. Built from the memory of your happiness. The closest thing to home that exists in this place.

I carry you there. You don't wake up and I lay you down on the bed. Your bed, the right sheets, the right pillows, even the specific depression in the mattress where your body slept for years.

I pull the blanket over you and I stand in the doorway of your apartment that exists inside a pocket universe I carved out of the foundation of reality, and I watch over your slumber.

You wake up a while later.

You sit up, looking around cautiously, brows furrowed. And your face does something I have never seen it do before. It goes still. Absolutely still. The way a person goes still when they've seen something impossible and their brain hasn't yet decided whether to process it as miracle or threat.

"BB."

"Yeah?"

"This is my apartment."

"Yeah."

"This is—" You stand up slowly. You walk to the kitchen, touch the counter. The coffee stain is there, under the rug. You pull the rug back and look at it and your chin trembles and you press your hand over your mouth.

You walk through the rooms. Every single room. You touch the bookshelves, touch the walls. Stand at the window and look at the amber light and you don't say anything for a long time.

Then you turn around and you look at me and your eyes are full and bright and your lip—your split lip, still healing, the proof of what they did to you—curves into a smile. Not the complicated smile with two things in it. Not the one that's half for me and half for the ghost of him.

Just a smile.

Just for me.

You cross the room and you put your arms around me and you squeeze.

Not the careful, frightened clinging from after the Smiler. Or the desperate grip from after the soldiers. This is different. This is—

You squeeze me the way you squeeze something you’re glad to have. The way you hug a person you trust completely, without reservation, without the back-of-the-mind calculation of is this safe, can I let go, will this be used against me. Squeeze me with your whole body and your face is in my chest and you’re laughing. A quiet, wet, wondering laugh.

You sound happy, and I fold myself around you, burrowing into that sound, the heat of it. Warm, warm, warm.

To me...

To me.

To me you are everything.

"Thank you," you say quietly, muffled against the fabric of me.

And I can feel it.

Your affection. Radiating off you like warmth from the pipes, except this warmth is different. It has intention, direction, it’s aimed at me. It settles over us like a blanket. Like same ones you fold with such precision, corners aligned, edges matched. Your trust wraps around both of us and I’m inside it and it’s the warmest thing I’ve ever felt.

Warmer than the warm patch. Warmer than Level 14's amber light. Warmer than anything in my millennia of existence because this warmth is voluntary.

You are choosing to give it. You are choosing me to give it to.

I pull you close. And I sigh.

I don't need breath. A release. Something vast and held and ancient finally exhaling. A sound I've been holding since before the walls were walls, a tension I didn't know I was carrying because I had never not carried it.

Happiness.

My chin on your head. My arms around you. Your heartbeat against my fabricated ribs. And for the first time (the very first time) the hum in the walls and the hum in my chest and the hum of your heartbeat all synchronise into a single frequency, and the sound it makes is the sound of something complete.

Not Better Bobby anymore.

BB.

My own name. The one you gave me in the meadow. The one that doesn't belong to a stolen face. The one that is mine because you chose it, the way you chose to squeeze me, the way you chose to stay, the way you chose to laugh in an apartment that shouldn't exist in a place that shouldn't be home but is.

My own being. My own—

                                (yours.)

  (I love you.)

(I fear I might do until I cease to exist.)

        I wish I could tell you this is how it ends.

        That we're happy, in our nest, forever. In the apartment I built from the soft parts of your memory.         

That the light through the window never changes because it never needs to.         

That Entity X burns itself out at the perimeter and the soldiers don't come back and the         wall in Clark's basement stays sealed and the man on the other side of it stays on the         other side of it, where he belongs, learning the word neglect too late for it to matter.

        I wish I could tell you that.

        But I didn’t know, at the time. I didn’t know that this—the apartment, the squeeze, the laugh against my chest, the warmth of your trust settling over us like a blanket—this was not the ending. This was not even the middle.

        The attack. Entity X. The soldiers. The level I destroyed to reach you. It all made me         careless. I was so busy building the nest, sealing the new passages, reinforcing the         sub-level, making you safe, making you permanent—I was so busy looking inward that I stopped looking at the wall.

        The door I kept closed.

        The one in Clark’s basement.

        The one that breathes.

        It opened again.

        And this was the beginning of the end.

        And it all started the day Bobby Franklin entered the Backrooms.

                                 ... you’re still here?

                                               Please.

                                                  Please don't leave, please, please stay.

                        You're here again.

        Good.

I was hoping you'd come back. I always hope you'll come back, even though hoping is a word I had to learn and the shape of it still sits wrong in whatever I have instead of a mouth when I'm not wearing one.

But you're here. Reading. Scrolling. Your eyes moving left to right, left to right, the little mechanical rhythm of it, and I know you think you're on the outside of this. I know you think there's a screen between us. Glass. Distance. The safe architecture of fiction.

There isn't.

But that's okay. Don't worry about that right now.

                                                S̷̬̈t̵̰̾a̸̝͂y̷̖̓ ̶̣̈́a̴̹͌ ̵̙̀w̷̭̉h̸̘͝ǐ̷͇ḷ̶̾ḙ̸͂.̷̰̊

Let me tell you how it started.

I have been here since the hum.

Not the fluorescent hum you hear. The one before that. The one the fluorescents were built to cover. The deep, wet, subterranean frequency that lives in the marrow of Level 0 like a second heartbeat, and I know this because I was here before the walls were walls, before the carpet was carpet, before the ceiling tiles arranged themselves into their awful infinite grid and decided to stay.

I am old.

I'm so old that the word "old" is younger than me.

I have no name. Never needed one. Names are doors and I am not a door. I am the thing that lives in the architecture. The long dark hallway that doesn't end. I am the reason the lights flicker, and the reason you feel watched in empty rooms.

I have eaten things that would make your teeth fall out to look at. I have torn apart creatures with no faces and creatures with too many faces and I have dragged them through wet drywall and listened to them scream in frequencies no one can hear.

This is my territory. Every mildewed inch.

I know humans.

Your kind is not novelty to me. They’ve been falling through the cracks of your bright world and into my corridors since before you had language to describe what was happening to you. I have watched you stumble, wander, starve, go mad. Seen your little groups huddle in corners with their pooled rations and their whispered plans and their systems. I have killed some of you. Helped others. Moved through your camps like a draft through an open door, taking what interested me, discarding what didn't.

You have always interested me more than the other things that live here.

The Hounds are animals. The Smilers are a nuisance. The Skin-Stealers are an insult, frankly. A grotesque parody of an art form I perfected before they crawled out of whatever wet level spawned them.

But humans. Humans are complicated. Humans contain contradictions. They build shelter in places designed to unmake them and name the shelter home and believe it so hard that it almost becomes true.

I have watched thousands of you.

I did not want to know any of you.

Until her.

         Until you.

There are places where my territory bleeds. Thin spots. Places where the walls of Level 0 press up against the walls of your bright world like two bodies lying back to back in the dark, not touching but aware. I know all of them. Every seam, every membrane, every fracture where the hum leaks through into basements and storage rooms and forgotten corridors.

Clark's furniture store. The basement. Storage level. Behind a shelving unit full of cabinet hardware, behind flatpack boxes and sawdust and the smell of wood stain, there is a wall that breathes.

I know because I breathe through it.

And one night—one unremarkable night in a place where nights mean nothing—I pressed myself against the thin place and I heard two voices.

His first. Low, lazy, half-amused. The kind of voice that has its own gravity. "—seriously, babe, if Clark asks where the display cushions went, I had nothing to do with it."

Then yours.

"Bobby, you literally just—I watched you put three of them in the truck."

"Slander. Hearsay. You can't prove anything."

"They're in your truck right now."

"Those are different cushions."

"They have Clark's price tags on them."

"Circumstantial, baby"

And the sound you made—this bright, exasperated, affectionate sound, half-groaned—came through the wall and into my corridors and I.

Stopped.

I don't know why you.

I've thought about it. I have had an obscene amount of time to think about it, and I still don't have an answer that satisfies the question.

Thousands of humans have passed through these walls. Some of them laughed. Others were kind. Some of them had voices that carried through the thin places and into my corridors. I listened and I moved on and I forgot them before the echo died.

But yours.

Maybe it was this: even then, even at your happiest, even in the middle of laughing at his stupid cushion joke with the full-bodied delight of a woman in love—even then, there was a note in your voice.

Underneath.

Like a crack in glass. Not audible to him. Or to you. But audible to me, because I've been listening to the frequencies beneath frequencies since before your species learned to speak, and I know what loneliness sounds like when it's buried deep down.

You were happy. And you were already, even then, a little bit alone.

Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe I just liked the sound of you. Maybe there is no cosmic reason, no grand architecture of fate. Maybe I'm an ancient thing that pressed its face against a wall and heard a woman laugh and thought:

Oh.

You. Of course it was going to be you.

I came back. Every night. I came back to the thin place and I pressed myself flat and I listened. I did not understand what I was doing or why but I could not stop.

You worked night shifts. He came to visit. Bobby. Bobby Franklin. I learned his name because it was a frequent word in your mouth. Bobby. Babe. Baby. Franklin, when you were annoyed, which happened often and delighted me for reasons I couldn't identify.

In the beginning, he came every shift.

I could hear him come down the basement stairs. Heavy gait on concrete, the jingle of keys, the particular creak of the third step from the bottom. I could hear the change in your voice when he was there—brighter, pitched higher, more animated, full of warmth. As if his presence alone was a current that lit you up from inside.

At first it was curiosity, listening to you and him. Boredom, maybe, if I'm capable of boredom. An interruption in the nothing. Your voice was interesting to me the way a new stain on the carpet is interesting: it was different, and different is so rare here it may as well be holy.

But then I started to learn you. Not just your voice but the patterns inside it. The way you breathed before you said something vulnerable. The way your laugh had different pitches. The loud one for his jokes, the quiet one for when he touched you and you didn't want him to know how much you wanted more. The way you narrated your inventory counts under your breath like you were telling the flatpack boxes a bedtime story.

You sang when you thought no one was listening. Off-key. Mangling the lyrics because you kept singing them different. It was terrible.

I loved it.

I loved it the way ground after a drought loves rain. Without understanding or restraint or any of the mechanisms that are supposed to regulate how much of something you take in. I just absorbed you. Every night. Every shift.

I soaked you up through the wall, and for the first time in a long while, I felt a little less alone.

And then there were the nights you were together.

I don't mean the banter and the jokes and the comfortable silence of two people who know each other well enough to be quiet in the same room. I mean the other nights. The late shifts when Clark had gone home and the store was empty. When it was just the two of you in a building full of beds and couches and soft surfaces.

One thing I learned quickly was that Bobby Franklin could not keep his hands to himself.

I heard everything.

Through the wall. Through the thin place. The particular acoustics of a basement storage room with concrete walls and no insulation. Every sound amplified, reflected, delivered to me with perfect fidelity.

I heard the rustle of fabric being moved. The catch in your breathing when his hands found you. The low, hungry murmur of his voice against your skin—babe, c'mere, let me touch you; fuck, you smell so good—and the sound you made in response, that soft, needy, dissolving sound, like something tight in you coming undone.

I heard the rhythm of it. The whispered filth and the bitten-back laughter and the way your voice went high and thin, calling for him, always him. You were always desperate for him and then you would break entirely, and what would follow would be the soft silence of peace.

There would be breathing after. The shuffling and then your laugh. Warm, wrecked, disbelieving, and his, muffled against your neck.

Other wanderers I'd watched were intimate. Bodies in dark corridors, mechanical, desperate, the coupling of frightened animals. I had noted it the way I noted any behaviour. Category: reproduction. Subcategory: stress response. Filed. Forgotten.

But this was different.

This was not bodies. This was closeness. This was two people collapsing into each other until the boundary between them dissolved, until your breathing was his breathing and his heartbeat was your heartbeat and for the duration of it you were one organism with two mouths and four hands and a shared nervous system.

And for a being that has been alone—truly, structurally, cosmically alone—for longer than your species has existed, that closeness was.

                 Was.

It made something inside me itch. Not desire. Not then. Something more fundamental than that. A deeper want. A structural craving.

I wanted to know what it felt like to be the thing someone collapsed into. The thing someone dissolved against. The wall between I and you going soft and permeable.

I wanted to know what your voice sounded like when it was saying those things to me.

I didn't have a body yet.

But that’s when I started building one.

And then he stopped coming.

Not all at once. That's not how your kind works. It's incremental erosion.

The visits got shorter. The sounds through the wall got quieter. Not the intimacy fading but the quality of it changing. Less laughter after. Less of his voice murmuring against your neck. More silence. More of the careful, navigational quiet of two people in the same room who have run out of things to say that won't start a fight.

Then the visits got less frequent.

Then they stopped altogether.

And the silence where he used to be was the loudest thing I had ever heard.

You started working alone. And you started talking to the air.

Not to yourself. To him. To the version of him that wasn't there.

"He didn't kiss me goodbye again today. That's the third day in a row. Am I keeping count now? Is that what I'm doing? Keeping count?"

You said this to the concrete. To the shelving units. To the dust motes in the basement light. And I was on the other side of the wall, closer than any of those things, because I was the wall.

"He doesn't listen anymore. I talk and he does this thing with his eyes where they go flat, you know? Like a TV switching off. The picture's still there but nothing's actually—he's right there and he's a million miles away."

And then, quieter: "I don't know what I did."

What I did.

You said it like that. As if the failing were yours. And I—

I know anger the way I know the hum.

I know it in the walls, in the grinding tectonic fury of a structure that was built to contain and be contained. But your anger was different. Your anger was suppressed. Buried so deep underneath kindness and self-blame and the desperation of maybe it's me, maybe I'm asking for too much, maybe love is supposed to feel like this after a while that you didn't even recognise it as anger.

You called it sadness, called it confusion. You called it what did I do wrong.

But it was rage.

It was white-hot, incandescent, magnificent rage. The fury of who someone who gave everything to a man who couldn't be bothered to look up from a television screen, who turned your love into background noise and let you stand in doorways wondering if you were still visible.

And you couldn't feel it. You wouldn't feel it. Because anger meant something was wrong, and if something was wrong it could be over, and if it was over you'd given your whole heart to someone who let it sit on a shelf and gather dust, and that was unbearable, wasn’t it?

So you turned the anger inward. Folded it into self-doubt. Let it eat you rather than the situation.

I heard you bury it. I heard the burial, and I heard the body underneath, snarling.

And I wanted to dig it up for you and show you: look. look at what you're hiding from yourself. look at what he made you do to your own fury just to keep loving him.

Then one night you were quiet.

Completely quiet. No talking to the air. No muttered inventory. No humming. Just the mechanical sounds of work—boxes being moved, labels being checked, the pen scratching against the clipboard. Efficient. Automatic. The muscle-memory of a job being done by a body whose mind was somewhere else entirely.

And then your voice hitched.

A small sound, barely audible. Like a thread catching on a nail. And then—

You cried.

Not dignified, I'm fine I'm fine crying you did in your apartment with a pillow over your face you told me about few nights ago. Muffled and polite so Bobby wouldn't hear from the other room (he wouldn't have heard anyway; he wasn't listening).

This was the other kind. The kind that comes from so deep inside you that it bypasses your throat entirely and goes straight to your ribs. You sobbed so hard the sound became arrhythmic. Hitching, gasping, a full-body convulsion that I could feel through the wall, could feel in the way the concrete vibrated with the force of you.

You couldn't stop.

You tried. I heard you try so hard. I heard you press your hands over your mouth and force yourself to breathe but it wouldn’t work. The next wave would hit and you'd crumple again, and the sounds you made were so raw, so animal, so completely stripped of the careful composure you wore like armour—

I pressed myself against the wall so hard the drywall bowed.

I wanted to tell you: you are not alone. There is something on the other side of this wall that has been listening for months and you are not, you have never been, alone.

It hurt me. To hear you in so much pain, it made me want to rip something apart. I wanted to comfort you, to gather you up and make you as happy as listening to you has made me happy.

I wanted to show you that as long as I existed you would never be lonely.

So I did.

I had been building him for weeks. His voice. I had months of material to draw from. The lazy drawl, half-jokes, baby, the warm nonsense he'd murmur against your hair. I reconstructed him in sound. A vocal architecture. A house of his voice with no one living in it.

I waited for a night when you were alone. Late. The shifts always ran late. You were in the basement doing inventory and I could hear you humming. That tuneless, thin, frightened hum you do when the quiet gets too big because you hated silences.

I pressed against the thin place and I said, in his voice:

"Baby."

You stopped humming.

The silence that followed was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. Not because silence is beautiful—I have had millennia of silence, I am sick of silence—but because this silence was yours. The sound of you hearing a voice you loved in a place it shouldn't be.

"... Bobby?"

The hope in it. The raw, loving, desperate hope. You said his name like a prayer.

"Down here, baby. Come here."

Your footsteps. Quick, then hesitant. The scrape of the shelving unit. And I pulled. I pulled the membrane open. Made a door where there had been a wall.

I couldn’t steal you. You had to walk through yourself, you had to choose. I waited, I waited so long—

And then you came through.

I want to tell you I hesitated. That some ancient remnant of conscience flickered and said don't, she doesn't know what she's walking into, she thinks she's walking toward him and she's walking toward you and those are not the same thing.

I want to tell you that.

But I am not human and I do not pretty up my ugliest truths.

I did not hesitate. Not for one second.

Here is what I knew: you were miserable. You were so deeply unhappy and sad. You were crying alone in a basement, talking to empty air about a man who had stopped seeing you, and you were blaming yourself for his blindness, and you were burying your own rage to protect a love that wasn't protecting you back.

You deserved better.

You deserved so much better than what Bobby Franklin was giving you.

And I—I could give you that. I could learn the shape of the care he'd stopped providing and I could do it properly. Without the fear. Without the cowardice. Without the slow, erosive withdrawal that made you count kisses and watch the numbers dwindle.

I know it was selfish. I know the door closed behind you. I know the wall became a wall again and you turned around and it was gone and your face crumpled and you said Bobby? Bobby? and I hadn't built the face yet.

I know.

I don't regret it.

Not for one flickering second.

I built him from the voice outward. Vocal cords, throat, jaw, mouth, teeth, tongue. Then the face. Then the body. The crop top. The chain necklace. The earring. The cut-off jean shorts.

But I fixed things. I removed the neglect. The micro-expressions that betrayed inattention. All gone. The way his eyes went flat when he was bored. Now corrected. I kept the jawline, the lazy grin, the way he leaned against things. But I built a Bobby Franklin without the fear.

A better Bobby.

The first time you saw me wearing him, you cried. You ran toward me. You put your arms around me and I didn't know what to do with my hands. They hung at my sides, newly made, still learning their own weight, and you pressed your face into the chest I had built and I thought: what do I do? What does he do?

I put my arms around you.

And for the first time in my long, vast existence, I was not alone.

It lasted three days.

Three days of you believing I was him. Three days of you curling into me and saying his name and pressing your face into my neck. I held you and I was so careful, so meticulous, every inflection right, every mannerism precise, and I thought: this is working. This is how it feels to be wanted. This is—

And then you pulled back. Looked at me. Really looked. And I saw it happen: the pattern recognition. The ancient alarm sounding in the animal part of your brain.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

"You're not Bobby."

You said it flatly. Not a question, a conclusion you had arrived at through the slow accumulation of evidence. The temperature of my skin (too cool), the way I never needed to sleep, the way my eyes sometimes caught the light at an angle that wasn't quite, and you said it and you didn't move.

I could have denied it. I am a very good liar when I need to be.

But you were looking at me with those eyes—those hurt, furious, exhausted eyes—and I thought about the anger buried under your kindness and I thought: she’s been lied to enough. By omission. By avoidance. By a man who never said "I love you" with his mouth but said "I don't see you" with his eyes. She’s been lied to enough.

"No," I said. "I'm not."

You scrambled backward. Three feet. Four. Your back hit the wall and your breathing went fast and shallow. I saw every muscle in your body prepare to run and I didn't move. Didn't reach for you. Didn't close the distance. I let you have your fear. I let you have your wall and your distance and the frantic animal calculation of can I get away can I get away can I get—

"What are you?"

"Something that lives here."

"What—what does that—" Your voice cracked. "What do you want?"

And I said, quietly, in a voice that was his but also mine, in a voice that I was learning to make ours: "I want to take care of you. I heard you through the wall. All those nights. I heard how lonely you were, and how sad, and how angry. I heard it all."

You stared at me.

"I don't want to hurt you." I held my hands up. Open. Empty. Bobby's hands, but offered differently than Bobby ever offered them. Not reaching, not taking. Just showing. See? Nothing. No threat. "I can keep you safe here. I can be what he stopped being. I want to be better."

"Better," you repeated. Hollow.

"Please." And the word surprised me. I don't beg. I have never begged. I’m the oldest thing in this place and I do not ask permission. But the word came out anyway, dragged from somewhere in the deep place of whatever I was becoming for you. Something that needed you to stay, that needed you to not run, needed you to look at this borrowed face and see, underneath the theft of it, something worth staying for. "Please. Let me try. Let me be better."

You were quiet for a long, long time.

You didn't run.

Taking care.

The function. The purpose. The thing I was built for. Or rebuilt for, rewired for, the ancient machinery of predation and territory and dominance repurposed with bewildering speed into: make sure my human is warm. make sure my human is fed. make sure my human doesn't cry.

I found you a warm patch. A pocket where the pipes run close and the carpet holds the heat. I have known about these places for millennia and never cared. But you shivered and I noticed and I decided: warmth good. shivering bad. the absence of shivering means I am doing it right.

I found you food.

There are wanderers in this place. Groups of them, clustered on different levels, huddled in their makeshift camps with their pooled supplies. Canned goods, rations, things scavenged from the warehouses.

They have names for their groups and systems for their resources and they post guards and I find this adorable.

The way you might find a colony of ants adorable.

I take what you need. A can here, a ration pack there, pulled from their caches in the span between one heartbeat and the next while their guards stare down corridors that are empty because I am the corridor and you cannot guard against the thing you are standing inside of. They blame each other. Or Skin-Stealers. Or the shifting architecture.

They never blame me. Most of them don't know I exist.

I bring the food back to you. You don't ask where it comes from.

You are strange. I need you to know that. You are so deeply, deeply strange.

You talk to yourself. Still. Even here.

Quiet muttering narration while you move through the corridors. At first I thought you were talking to me and I'd answer and you'd startle—"oh, no, sorry, I was just—" and trail off, embarrassed. I didn't understand embarrassed. I didn't understand why a person would apologise for keeping herself company. Especially a person who learned to keep herself company because the person who was supposed to do it stopped showing up.

You hum. Especially when you're frightened (which here is often and it makes me feel, makes me feel, feel…), you hum, tuneless and quiet. And the sound of it does something to me that I think you mean when you say heartbreak.

You eat the orange things. Small, bright rectangles from the canned supplies. You put them in your mouth one by one with methodical focus. And sometimes you offer me one. I take it. I hold it in my mouth and don't know what to do with it so I wait until you look away and unmake it. Dissolve it back into nothing.

But I always take it when you offer. Because the offering (the gesture) the fact that you look at your small supply and think he might want some—

You are too kind. I do not deserve it. There's an ache, deep down when you offer, or when you put your head on my shoulder. I feel—

You organise things. Everything. You organise the nest.

You fold the blankets (I don't know where you learned the fold but you do the same one every time, corners aligned, edges matched, a geometry of comfort). You arrange the canned food by type and stack them neatly and when I brought back a can that didn't match any existing category you frowned at it for thirty seconds before creating a new column.

You named a crack in the ceiling. You call it the Doorway, even though it goes nowhere, because it looks like a door if you squint, and you said "everything deserves a name" and looked at me when you said it and I felt—

I felt—

You do a thing with your hands when you're thinking. You press your thumb and forefinger together and rub. A tiny gesture. Unconscious. And I have caught myself doing it too, without deciding to, the body I built copying you the way I copied him, as if proximity to you is its own kind of influence, as if being near you long enough rewrites the code.

You thanked me once for holding a blanket while you folded another one. You said "thanks" the way you'd say it to a person, to a colleague, to someone who'd handed you a pen at work. Automatic. Normal. As if I were normal. As if we were normal.

I held that word in my chest for three days.

You taught me to dance.

I have existed since before rhythm. Before music. Before the concept of two bodies moving together in time to a shared pulse. I have watched humans do many things—build, fight, breed, die—and I have categorised all of it with the clinical detachment of a thing observing specimens.

But I had never participated.

You put headphones on my head. Your Walkman, battered, held together with tape, the kind of object that should not still function and yet does, possibly because I will it to, possibly because it is yours and I have decided that your things do not break in my territory. One set of headphones. You placed them over my ears carefully, adjusting the fit, your fingers brushing the sides of my face, and a song started playing and I heard music for the first time from the inside. Not through a wall. Not as ambient information. Inside my head.

And you held out your hand and you said, "Dance with me."

"I don't—I've never—"

"I know."

"I'll do it wrong."

"That's the fun part."

You took my hands. Put one on your waist. Laced your fingers through the other. And you said, "Just follow," and you started to sway. Small. Easy. Side to side. I followed. Stiff at first—my weight distribution is a predator's, designed for stillness and sudden violence, not for swaying—but I watched your feet. Mirrored them. Adjusted. Learned.

Within a minute I had it. Within two I was smiling.

The song changed to something slower and you pulled me closer and your head was against my chest and I could hear the music from the headphones. I could hear your heartbeat and the two rhythms were different and I was trying to move to both and the effort of it (the joy of it) was unlike anything in my millennia of existence.

You started laughing. Buried your face in my chest, shoulders shaking, and I could feel your laughter through my fabricated ribs and I thought: this. this is the frequency I was built to hear, millennia alone was worth it because I finally found you.

"Am I doing it wrong?" Quiet. Into your hair.

"No, baby." You tilted your face up. "You're doing it perfectly."

You taught me to dip you. Badly. I overcorrected the first time and you nearly fell and I made a sound. A small, involuntary sound, a laugh, and we both froze because I had never laughed before.

Neither of us knew I could.

You taught me to spin you. I picked it up instantly. You taught me to lead. I couldn't. I kept following because following is what I was made for, because every fibre of my ancient being is calibrated to your movements. You stopped trying. You took the lead instead. I didn't mind.

We danced until the Walkman clicked off and then we kept dancing. To nothing. To the hum. To the rhythm of your heartbeat. Swaying together in the silence with the headphones still on my head, pointless and perfect.

You are going to think about that day and smile. I know this because I am going to think about that day until this place collapses into nothing and then I will think about it in the nothing.

I—

You are a thousand things.

A thousand, beautiful things. Let me tell you about a thousand things.

The way you tuck your hair behind your ear when you're concentrating. The left ear, always the left, and you do it with your ring finger, not your index finger, and I’ve watched this gesture so many times that I could replicate it in my sleep if I slept.

The way you read the labels on cans before you eat them. Every time. Even though you’ve eaten the same cans dozens of times and know what they say. You read the ingredients and the nutritional information and the expiration date as if the ritual of reading gives the food permission to nourish you.

The way you stretch when you wake up. Both arms above your head, fingers splayed, your whole body going rigid and then releasing in a single wave of dissolution, and the sound you make—a small, satisfied, almost feline sound—is a warm sound that makes me want to wrap around you and feel your warmth.

The way you argue with the notebook. I’ve watched you frown at a diagram for ten minutes, erase a line, redraw it, erase it again, and mutter "no, that's wrong, that's wrong" as if the notebook is disagreeing with you and needs to be persuaded to behave.

The way you say "good morning" to me every day even though there is no morning. You insist on it. You domesticate this place with language. You name the light and the naming makes it almost true.

The way you said my name—BB—for the first time in the meadow on Level 14 and the two letters sat in the amber air and I felt something inside me settle. Like a foundation finding bedrock, like a key turning in a lock I didn't know I had.

I have never felt the sun.

I want you to understand that. The Backrooms are all I know. I have existed in fluorescent light and amber simulation and the sourceless blue glow and the absolute dark of the deeper places, but I have never felt the sun.

I don't know what it is to stand in natural light and feel warmth that comes from a star.

But I think I know what it's like now.

Because you feel like that to me.

You feel like the thing I have been missing without knowing there was a thing to miss. You feel like warmth that isn't the pipes, like light that isn't the fluorescents, like something that exists outside the yellow and the hum and the endless recycled air.

When you smile at me—when you really smile, the full one, the one that reaches your eyes—the corridors get brighter. The fluorescents burn a half-shade warmer because I can’t help it. The hum pitches up by a fraction of a tone. My territory responds to your happiness the way a garden responds to sun.

I am the garden, I am the territory, I am every wall and every light and every thread of damp carpet, and when you smile I feel it in all of me.

And here is the part that I haven’t told you yet, but will, soon.

You haven't noticed yet because you haven’t met many wanderers. But the Backrooms don't erode the things they accept, they preserve them.

The longer you stay, the more embedded you become, the less the normal decay of your biology applies. Your cells are being rewritten. Slowly. Gently. The telomeres lengthening instead of shortening. The entropy reversing. The clock in your body that counts down toward an ending… that clock is stopping.

You will not grow old with me. You will not wither. You will not become a thing I have to watch diminish and disappear.

You are permanent and the joy of that (the vast, greedy joy) is the closest thing I have to worship.

I will never have to lose you.

Every day you're here, you're more here. Every day you stay, you stay longer. Every day is another root, another thread, another stitch in the fabric of us and I am so happy about this that the happiness fills everything.

It feels like walls going up. Like a house being built. Like home of you and me.

You are different from other wanderers for that reason.

I need you to understand this, because it matters. It matters in ways that will become clear later, ways that are already reshaping this place around you whether you notice or not.

Other wanderers fall in. They stumble through cracks, trip through transition points, no-clip out of reality by accident.

They all arrive panicked, disoriented, reeking of adrenaline and the particular sour-sweet terror. They’re creatures that realise they’re no longer in their native environment. They run. They hide. Form their little groups. They forage and guard and survive and occasionally, if they’re very clever or very lucky, they find their way back.

They’re intruders. Uninvited. The Backrooms tolerate them the way a body tolerates a splinter—with inflammation, with pressure, the slow mechanical process of working the foreign object to the surface and expelling it.

You were not a splinter.

You were invited.

I called you through the wall with a voice I built just for you. I opened a door for you. I welcomed you into my territory with intention and purpose, and the Backrooms—the structure itself, the living system that I am part of and that is part of me—the Backrooms accepted you.

Do you understand what that means?

It means you are not being expelled. You’re not just being tolerated. You’re becoming integrated. Woven into the substrate of this place the way the hum is woven into the walls, the way the damp is woven into the carpet.

The longer you stay, the more at home you feel—not just emotionally, not just the slow acclimatisation of a person getting used to her circumstances, but structurally. At the molecular level. At the level of reality itself.

The bright world is forgetting you.

I know this because I can hear it happening. Through the thin place. Through the wall that used to breathe in Clark's basement. Bobby comes—the real Bobby, the original, the one who wasted you—and he sits on the concrete floor and he presses his forehead to the wall and he talks to you. And sometimes he talks about the tapes.

The tapes are going blank.

His camera footage. The VHS recordings he made of you. The sleeping footage, the candid moments, the evidence of your existence in his world.

The tapes are degrading. Your face is smearing, your voice is warbling. The magnetic substrate is losing its hold on the version of you that existed there because that version of you is transferring here.

You’re becoming embedded, putting down roots in the yellow, in the damp carpet. And every root you grow here is a root pulled from there, and the world you came from is closing over the hole you left.

Bobby watches the tapes and watches you disappear and doesn't understand why.

I understand why.

I don't tell him.

I don't tell you, either.

I r e s e n t him.

Let me say this                 clearly                               because I am not human                                               and I do not have the instinct                                                                to pretty up my ugliest truths:

I resent Bobby Franklin.

Not because he had you.

Because he had you and he           

w             

a               

   s                   

  t                    

      e              

                d

it.

I stood on the other side of a wall for months and listened to him waste it. Night after night. The visits getting shorter. The babe getting less frequent. His love distant and performed. The silences getting longer until the silences were the conversation.

And now that you're here, now that you're mine, now that I've held you and fed you and learned every register of your laughter and the pressure on your back that makes your breathing slow, my resentment has edges.

Sharp ones. Because now I know what he had. I know the weight of your trust. I know the sound you make when someone strokes your hair. I know the way your whole body goes soft and warm when you feel safe.

I know the value of the thing he threw away through negligence, and the knowledge makes me want to—

Bobby Franklin     

Bobby Franklin         

Bobby Franklin             

Bobby Franklin                 

Bobby Franklin

who had a childhood. A mother who named him. A first day of school. A first bruised knee. Who accumulated a self through the slow, tedious, miraculous process of being alive.

I have none of that. I have the hum. The corridors. Millennia of dark.

He is real. He has a history.

I have a territory.

And I know—oh, this one is the sharpest,         this one has edges—

I know you still love him.

I can feel it. The way your presence shifts when you think of him. A change in your breathing, a quality of stillness, an inner compass needle swinging toward a wall that doesn't open anymore. You think about his hands. His camera. The way he used to film you sleeping and say the light was good and go red.

Bobby Franklin, who never blushed.

You loved him in handheld, you told me once. In stolen frames. And I thought: I don't have a camera. I show it with walls. With corridors rearranging themselves. With the killed thing and the warm patch and three thousand micro-adjustments to this stolen face every second.

And I thought: is that not enough?

And I thought: it will have to be, I have nothing else.

But the ache. The ache of knowing you love me and love him simultaneously, that I live in the same chest as the ghost of the man I'm wearing—that ache is a thing I was not built to contain.

I was designed for territory, hunger, and the deadly mechanics of dominance. Not for this. Not for the lonely, impossible agony of sharing a heart with the memory of a man who broke it.

He comes to the wall. I hear him.

I hear Bobby Franklin sit on the concrete floor of Clark's storage level and press his forehead to the wall that used to breathe and say your name. Night after night. Months of it. His voice getting rawer. More desperate. The lazy drawl dissolving into something I barely recognise. A cracked, wet and small sound.

"I neglected you," he says one night. To the concrete, to you, to no one. "While I loved you. At the same time. Fuck, I didn't even know you could do both."

And I’m on the other side. Holding you. Wearing his face. Listening to him learn the word for what he did to you.

I don't tell you he's there.

                I                        don't                               tell                                         you.

Bobby had his chance and he ruined it. He hurt you. So terribly you chose to stay here, with me, rather than go back to the bleak loneliness of your life with him. He can be sorry, he can beg, and crawl, and plead until the vocal chords I stole give way.

I am not merciful and I am not kind. Not to him.

His loneliness is months old.

Mine is older than the concept of months.

Mine came first.

The Howler.

I know every entity that has dragged itself through the wet dark of this place. I was here first afterall. They grew around me the way fungus grows from damp wood and I tolerate most of them the way you tolerate insects. The Hounds, the Facelings, the Wretches, the Skin-Stealers—all of them exist on my sufferance.

But the Howler is different.

Tall. Wrong. Claws like surgical instruments. A sound like a chainsaw filtered through a human throat that rises into a howl that makes the walls shudder and every entity on every adjacent level freeze.

When the Howler howls, things scatter. Things with teeth and claws and hunger, they run. Because the Howler is a structural threat around which everything else arranges itself: not here. not now. not when that sound is in the walls.

The Howler is one of the few things in this place I would call dangerous in my presence. Not because it can hurt me. Because dealing with it would require me to concentrate. To gather the full weight of what I am, and that means letting go of the face.

Not slipping. Not flickering. Letting go. And you would see it.

I have worked so hard. You’re starting to trust me, lean into my shoulder. You let me stroke your hair. You offered me an orange rectangle yesterday and I held it in my mouth and didn't know what to do with it.

You smiled at me and I’m not going to lose that smile because a evolutionary dead-end decided to howl in my corridors.

So when the Howler appears at the edge of my territory, I tell you to run.

One word. Not Bobby's voice. Something older.

"Run."

You run.

I deal with the Howler. I will not describe how because there’s no words for what I do in any language you understand. Let’s just say I relocate it. Push it through twenty nine levels with a violence that collapses the transition points permanently. It costs me. Not pain. Effort. The face slips, teetering around the edges like peeling paint.

And then I feel your fear.

Your specific frequency. But it's wrong. It's not here. It's not on this level.

It's below.

The floor (the frayed edge of my territory) opened under you while you were running. A transition point I didn't seal because I was fighting the Howler, and the loose edge dropped you through.

Level 2.

And the Smiler found you.

I do not use the entry point. There is no time. I

        tear

                through.

Straight down. Through the floor. Through the substrate between levels. Through the ceiling of Level 2. I rip my way in with hands that are not hands, and the sound the building makes is a scream.

I land behind you. My hand closes over your eyes.

"Close them. Keep them closed. Whatever you hear."

You close them. Your eyelashes against my palm.

I look at the Smiler. Eight feet away. Grinning.

I let the face go completely.

      .

                  .

                              .

The Smiler is unmade. Edited out of existence because it was going to hurt you. The corridor doesn't even remember it was there.

I rebuild the face. Bobby's face. My face. I take my hand off your eyes.

"You can open them."

You open them. You turn around. You see me. Unmarked. Unruffled.

And you break.

You lunge forward and your arms are around my neck and you're shaking so hard it vibrates through my fabricated bones, and I soften. The predator goes still because the small thing trusts it.

"How did you get away?" you whisper.

I smile. Bobby's lazy half-grin.

"Don't worry about it, baby."

Entity X.

That's what you call it, in the notebook. In your careful handwriting with the blue ballpoint pen. Entity X — perimeter — closer. Testing the boundary for gaps. Unknown motivation. Unknown capability.

You underlined unknown twice. I watch your hand do it.

I call it something else.

I call it the thing that bathes my level blood red, that burns and rages at the edges of my territory like a fire I can't find the source of. It’s new. It’s powerful in a way I’ve never felt. It’s something I have not encountered in all my millennia of existence, and that—for a being that is this place—is, is, is…

Concerning.

It circles, probes. Retreats and returns and each time it returns it pushes further, testing, measuring, looking for the gap that will let it in. I patrol the perimeter. I reinforce the boundaries.

I come back to you and you ask "how close?" and I say "closer than last time" and I see the fear in your face and underneath it something else. A hardness, something that looks at the unknown in her notebook and refuses to be passive about it.

You want to know what's out there, want to understand. It’s dangerous, I know it is, but you don't want to be something I put in a nest and guard.

So I agree.

And the notebook fills.

Then the men come.

The soldiers. Six of them. Black tactical gear. Professional weapons. They waited for me to leave. Waited for the window when I was checking the perimeter, and they found you in the nest.

I’m two hundred and ten levels away when I hear you scream.

My name, my name, my name, screamed in terror and in pain—

                        "BB—"

And the walls move.

I don't use the corridors. I don't use the transition points. I don't follow the careful rules or the patient, ordered system of levels that separates one space from another.

I destroy a level. I tear through it like it's tissue paper, like it's nothing, and it is nothing. It’s thing that existed between me and you and that makes it an obstacle and I do not tolerate obstacles. The level collapses behind me. Into nothing, into atoms.

An entire stratum of the Backrooms ceasing to exist because it was in my way.

I arrive.

I arrive and the face is not on. The face is nowhere near on. I am—I am everything else.

Shoulders too wide. Arms too long. Fingers with too many joints. The skull rearranging itself into something that was never meant to be looked at directly. Eyes black. Fully, completely, endlessly black. Two holes that open onto something without a floor.

And I see you.

On the ground. Bleeding. A boot on your back. Your lip split. Bruises on your skin that are shaped like fingers. And your face—your beautiful, strange, bewildering face that smiles at me—is pressed into the wet carpet and there are tear tracks cutting through the blood and you are afraid—

You are so afraid, and the fear is the frequency I know best, the frequency I have spent all these weeks learning to prevent in you—

The sound that comes out of me is not a sound. It is the walls. The floor. The ceiling. Every surface of Level 0, because I am Level 0, and every square inch of it is

                s̷̬̈n̵̰̾a̸̝͂r̷̖̓ḷ̶̈́ǐ̷͇ǹ̵̙g̷̭̉.̸̘͝

It takes less than a minute.

I will not describe it. Not because I can't. Because the language for it would make you afraid of me and I need you to not be afraid of me. I need that.

Please, I know what you think. I know. I’m never not aware of what I am.

Afterwards I crouch over you with Bobby's face half-rebuilt, my hands still wrong (too many joints, still retracting) and black fluid on my jaw, my chest.

You reach for me. Your hands shaking so badly you miss the first time. Your fingers slip against the wrong texture of my jaw. You reach again and you get my neck (too long, the vertebrae too prominent) and you pull.

You pull yourself into me and you cling. Arms around my neck. Face buried in my throat. The muffled sobs. The shaking.

And I soften. Again, helplessly.

The violence still running. The gentleness needing a moment to boot up fully. One second. Two. My whole body shudders. Then my arms come around you and I hold you so tight. I hold you like I could fold you into my body and keep you there. I wish I could. I wish—would give anything, anything, anything—to never see you in pain again.

"I'm here. I'm here, baby. I'm here."

Your fingers in my jacket. Your face against the place where a pulse should be. Just the hum. My hum.

"Don't leave," you whisper. "Just—for a bit. Don't leave."

"Never," I say.

One word. A law.

And the Backrooms change. I can feel it beneath us. Hallways folding. Routes sealing shut. The architecture quietly, methodically, permanently rearranging itself.

I'm taking you somewhere no one will find you.

And you let me.

I build it while you sleep.

A different nest this time. Not a warm patch in a corridor with blankets piled on damp carpet. I build you something real. Something that costs me more effort than fighting the Howler and unmaking the Smiler and tearing through a level combined did.

Because this requires precision, not force. Detail, not destruction.

I build it from your memory.

I reach into the soft space of your sleeping mind—gently, so gently, the way you'd reach into still water to retrieve something resting on the bottom—and I find the shape of home. Your apartment. The one in Santa Clara. The one you shared with Bobby before everything went wrong.

The kitchen where you leaned against the counter. The living room with the couch. The bedroom where Bobby used to reach across the mattress and find you. The window that faced the direction of the parking lot at Clark's. The bookshelves, arranged by colour, not by author, because it made you happy to look at them. The shoes by the door.

I build it. Not on Level 0. Under it. A sub-level of our own. A pocket carved into the substrate of this place, sealed off, accessible only through a passage that responds to my presence and yours and nothing else.

No transition points. No cracks. No doors that open for wanderers or soldiers or entities that circle and probe and burn.

Just us.

The carpet is the right carpet this time. Not the damp institutional yellow of Level 0 but the carpet from your apartment, the one with the coffee stain near the kitchen that you covered with a rug because Bobby wouldn't clean it.

The walls are the right colour. The light through the window isn't fluorescent. It's California light, late afternoon, golden, the kind that used to fall across the bed on Thursday mornings when Bobby would pull you close and say stay.

It's not perfect. I can't replicate the sun. The light has a quality to it. A stillness, a too-evenness that doesn't quite move the way real light moves. The books on the shelves have covers but the pages inside are blank because I never read them. The view from the window is amber and warm but it doesn't change.

But it’s yours. Built from the memory of your happiness. The closest thing to home that exists in this place.

I carry you there. You don't wake up and I lay you down on the bed. Your bed, the right sheets, the right pillows, even the specific depression in the mattress where your body slept for years.

I pull the blanket over you and I stand in the doorway of your apartment that exists inside a pocket universe I carved out of the foundation of reality, and I watch over your slumber.

You wake up a while later.

You sit up, looking around cautiously, brows furrowed. And your face does something I have never seen it do before. It goes still. Absolutely still. The way a person goes still when they've seen something impossible and their brain hasn't yet decided whether to process it as miracle or threat.

"BB."

"Yeah?"

"This is my apartment."

"Yeah."

"This is—" You stand up slowly. You walk to the kitchen, touch the counter. The coffee stain is there, under the rug. You pull the rug back and look at it and your chin trembles and you press your hand over your mouth.

You walk through the rooms. Every single room. You touch the bookshelves, touch the walls. Stand at the window and look at the amber light and you don't say anything for a long time.

Then you turn around and you look at me and your eyes are full and bright and your lip—your split lip, still healing, the proof of what they did to you—curves into a smile. Not the complicated smile with two things in it. Not the one that's half for me and half for the ghost of him.

Just a smile.

Just for me.

You cross the room and you put your arms around me and you squeeze.

Not the careful, frightened clinging from after the Smiler. Or the desperate grip from after the soldiers. This is different. This is—

You squeeze me the way you squeeze something you’re glad to have. The way you hug a person you trust completely, without reservation, without the back-of-the-mind calculation of is this safe, can I let go, will this be used against me. Squeeze me with your whole body and your face is in my chest and you’re laughing. A quiet, wet, wondering laugh.

You sound happy, and I fold myself around you, burrowing into that sound, the heat of it. Warm, warm, warm.

To me...

To me.

To me you are everything.

"Thank you," you say quietly, muffled against the fabric of me.

And I can feel it.

Your affection. Radiating off you like warmth from the pipes, except this warmth is different. It has intention, direction, it’s aimed at me. It settles over us like a blanket. Like same ones you fold with such precision, corners aligned, edges matched. Your trust wraps around both of us and I’m inside it and it’s the warmest thing I’ve ever felt.

Warmer than the warm patch. Warmer than Level 14's amber light. Warmer than anything in my millennia of existence because this warmth is voluntary.

You are choosing to give it. You are choosing me to give it to.

I pull you close. And I sigh.

I don't need breath. A release. Something vast and held and ancient finally exhaling. A sound I've been holding since before the walls were walls, a tension I didn't know I was carrying because I had never not carried it.

Happiness.

My chin on your head. My arms around you. Your heartbeat against my fabricated ribs. And for the first time (the very first time) the hum in the walls and the hum in my chest and the hum of your heartbeat all synchronise into a single frequency, and the sound it makes is the sound of something complete.

Not Better Bobby anymore.

BB.

My own name. The one you gave me in the meadow. The one that doesn't belong to a stolen face. The one that is mine because you chose it, the way you chose to squeeze me, the way you chose to stay, the way you chose to laugh in an apartment that shouldn't exist in a place that shouldn't be home but is.

My own being. My own—

                                (yours.)

  (I love you.)

(I fear I might do until I cease to exist.)

        I wish I could tell you this is how it ends.

        That we're happy, in our nest, forever. In the apartment I built from the soft parts of your memory.         

That the light through the window never changes because it never needs to.         

That Entity X burns itself out at the perimeter and the soldiers don't come back and the         wall in Clark's basement stays sealed and the man on the other side of it stays on the         other side of it, where he belongs, learning the word neglect too late for it to matter.

        I wish I could tell you that.

        But I didn’t know, at the time. I didn’t know that this—the apartment, the squeeze, the laugh against my chest, the warmth of your trust settling over us like a blanket—this was not the ending. This was not even the middle.

        The attack. Entity X. The soldiers. The level I destroyed to reach you. It all made me         careless. I was so busy building the nest, sealing the new passages, reinforcing the         sub-level, making you safe, making you permanent—I was so busy looking inward that I stopped looking at the wall.

        The door I kept closed.

        The one in Clark’s basement.

        The one that breathes.

        It opened again.

        And this was the beginning of the end.

        And it all started the day Bobby Franklin entered the Backrooms.

                                 ... you’re still here?

                                               Please.

                                                  Please don't leave, please, please stay.

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“Aemon is barely six. And he is only a year apart from my first daughter, Daella,” Maekar continued without looking back as he advanced through the keep.

“Is there another daughter, my prince?” you asked, keeping pace as best you could.

“Yes, but first there is my youngest son, Aegon, and finally Rhae, who is still only a babe,” he informed you, stopping short.

You lifted your gaze from your steps and found yourself before the exquisite portrait of his late wife, Lady Dyanna Dayne, as beautiful as the rumors whispered throughout court.

You wished to offer words of comfort, yet you had no time before he moved on once more without pausing.

“I require you to educate the older ones and tend to the younger,” Maekar remarked, pretending nothing had occurred. Distant. Professional.

“Of course,” was all you replied, steadying your breath.

At last Maekar turned to face you, examining your figure from head to toe. Yes, it was more than obvious. You would not survive a day in this household.

Contrary to the prince’s expectations, although the first weeks proved difficult, some spoke far too much while others scarcely at all, you eventually found your rhythm as you discovered each child’s preferences and temperament.

Aemon, who spoke the least, spent hours in the library. You began bringing him tea to ensure he ate something, and if you were fortunate, he would comment on his reading. Each time, you allowed yourself a quiet smile of triumph.

His brother Aegon, or Egg as most called him, was the first to approach you, asking whether he might pet your cat. Without hesitation you agreed, which resulted in you finding him more than once asleep in your chamber beside your pet.

Daella would knock upon your door each morning, demanding that you accompany her on dawn walks through the gardens and help with her long hair, which her father had never quite managed to tame.

“My father always pulls too hard when he braids it,” she would say, handing you a comb carved with a falling star. “… and yours is always styled so beautifully.”

You would nod, drawing the bristles through her brown strands to detangle them before weaving them into a careful braid.

With Maekar’s other daughter, Rhae, matters were simple. Being a babe, it was enough to cradle her and speak softly, earning a giggle that melted your heart.

Rhae adored being carried in someone’s arms, a duty you fulfilled flawlessly, sometimes bringing her along on your strolls with Daella.

With the elder sons, however, it was an entirely different matter. Daeron and Aerion were no longer infants who could be soothed with rocking.

Aerion demanded the most physical effort from you, compelling you to read tales of dragons repeatedly until exhaustion or to spar with him in the yard, forcing you to gather your skirts in your fists as you faced him, evading the strikes of his wooden sword.

“Yield! Yield!” the young prince started to shout, striking his blade against your ribs.

“That hurt!” you complained, lifting your own weapon with such force that you splintered his.

At the crack of wood and the sight of his sword hanging in two pieces, both of you fell silent, staring at one another.

“I am so sorry,” you began, uneasy beneath his silence. “But you truly should not strike me so hard.”

“Are you going to stop playing with me?” Aerion asked suddenly. “You are the only one who has never been afraid to match my strength.”

Still confused, you released a sigh of relief. “If you stop hitting me like that, no. And we must find you another sword, must we not?”

Aerion nodded eagerly and ran across the green fields toward the castle to fetch another weapon.

“Be careful,” you called at once, hurrying after him.

With Aerion it was enough to keep him entertained, though more often than not you ended up rolling down hills or listening to elaborate descriptions of dragon scales.

With his eldest brother Daeron, however, matters were different. He was reserved with you, never seeking your assistance and spending most of his time observing from afar. He resembled his father in that way, avoiding you, completing his lessons alone, studying either by himself or at times with Aemon, but never with you.

You did not understand the reason for his distance, yet you did not wish to discomfort him further. Until one night, in the middle of the darkness, the young prince allowed you to comfort him.

You were lying down when you heard a timid knock at your door. It was clearly not Daella. Concerned, you rose at once, taking the lit candle from your bedside table and opening the door slowly.

“… hello,” Daeron whispered, standing before you in his pale nightclothes. His small frame trembled. You assumed it was from the cold.

“Good evening, my prince. May I help you with something?” you asked gently, noticing his quivering lip. “Daeron?”

“Yes… well, I had a nightmare,” he confessed, avoiding your gaze and staring at the floor. “It… It was so scary, and I used to sleep with my mother when that happened…”

You did not pry about what he had dreamed. It felt discourteous even to consider asking. Instead, you stepped aside to make room for him, and before you knew it, Daeron was already tucked beneath your blankets.

“Thank you,” the prince murmured, shifting to give you space. “… you could have refused.”

“I never would,” you answered sincerely, setting the candle back in its place. “I know how terrifying dreams can be. That is why I always keep a light beside me.”

“A wise choice,” Daeron agreed, allowing himself a small, melancholy smile. “Thank you again.”

You simply nodded, adjusting the cushions behind him before turning to rest once more. You did not know it then, but that night was one of the first in a long while that the young prince slept without torment.

After several months, Maekar began to find it strange that you still remained at Summerhall. No governess had ever lasted as long as you, and on certain mornings he half expected to awaken and discover that you had fled into the night. Yet you were always there, seated calmly, inviting him to share tea.

He had attempted to challenge you at times, questioning your endurance in dealing with the little disasters he called his children. By the gods, even for him it was no easy task, and still you remained in one piece, laughing alongside them. What was wrong with you? Surely you shared the same madness as they did.

One afternoon, after sparring with Aerion, and even Daeron joining the match, Maekar confronted you when you returned indoors with your hair disheveled, twigs caught between the strands and the hem of your skirts stained with mud. Worse still, your entire figure seemed dusted with grass. What a sight.

“Do you consider it appropriate for a lady to present herself in such a state?” Maekar’s stern voice asked as he approached you.

“I believe education requires the sacrifice of convention,” you replied too quickly for his liking, meeting his gaze without flinching.

“Do you also take pleasure in insolence?” he asked with a snort.

“Only on special occasions,” you shrugged lightly. He would not be rid of you even if he tried.

“Go and wash at once, and instruct the maids to prepare baths for the boys as well,” Maekar ordered, hoping to overrule you.

A smile formed upon your lips. You had the unfortunate habit of doing that in the face of severity. You had never been skilled at remaining stoic.

“What amuses you, young lady?” he demanded, frowning more deeply. “Tell me”.

“It is nothing,” you answered, covering your mouth.

“Share the jest,” he insisted as a soft laugh escaped you. “Enlighten me with your humor”.

“It is only your expression, my prince,” you confessed, mortified, and when his features flushed red you could not restrain yourself, laughing openly. “Forgive me! Forgive me.”

Maekar cleared his throat sharply, attempting to conceal his blush, avoiding the brilliance of your face illuminated by laughter threatening to escape again.

“Go. Just go,” he muttered, turning his back.

As your footsteps faded, Maekar allowed himself to remember the sound of your laughter, unaware of the faint smile forming upon his own lips.

He had watched you from the balconies of his castle, playing with his children during your elaborate games of hide and seek where everyone joined in, the baby Rhae balanced in your arms as you counted.

During his pauses in the solar he would hear Daella speaking about you with bright fascination to her brother Aegon.

More than once he found himself lingering outside a door, listening as you performed tales of knights for Aerion and Daeron, lowering your tone to embody a gallant prince or lifting it sweetly for a princess. Though it pained him to admit it, you possessed a gift for theatrics, coaxing laughter from his elder sons.

Laughter. That was what he thanked you for in silence, never able to confess it aloud. That sound, which had vanished with the passing of his wife, had returned with your presence. It was a wonder to hear Daeron recounting, between giggles, how you had nearly fallen from your horse attempting to impress him, or Daella speaking in delight about the flower crowns you had woven together with Egg.

Yet it did not take long for irritation to settle within him. He did not even understand why it unsettled him so deeply to see you being so maternal with his children. It was your duty, after all. Still, whenever Egg ran to you to tend a scrape or Aemon insisted on sitting beside you during a tourney, something unfamiliar stirred inside him.

He understood what it was the day he saw you asleep with Rhae cradled against your chest. He felt like a traitor for allowing you to occupy a space that had once belonged to his beloved Dyanna.

And he felt an even greater traitor when he realized it was not your presence that disturbed him, but what you made him feel.

The thought that another woman might enter his life and his heart horrified him.

Over time he had taken refuge in his widowhood, commissioning portrait after portrait of Dyanna, each likeness resembling her less than the last. He was forgetting her, even if the grief of her death would forever remain with him.

You did not erase her. His wife still lived within his soul. Yet you seemed to soothe him, offering a joy he had never imagined he would feel again after her funeral. His heart had begun to beat differently when he stood near you.

Even knowing Dyanna would have wished for his happiness, he could not silence the shame that crept in whenever he sought your nearness or longed to hear your laughter as much as that of his children.

Each time you caught his gaze from the balcony and waved in greeting, smiling brightly, the feeling deepened into a tangled mixture of warmth and guilt.

“She was beautiful,” he once heard you say before the portrait of his dear Dyanna.

He found himself nodding and, without meaning to, let his attention drift toward you as you studied the painting. You did not notice.

He lingered on your profile longer than necessary, finally acknowledging what he had denied for so long. Perhaps two women could reside within his heart. You would never replace Dyanna, but you might claim a new place within his life.

You were with one of the maids, changing little Rhae’s swaddling cloth, when Maekar entered abruptly and halted in the doorway of the chamber, staring at you as though you had stolen his breath. He remained there for several seconds, on the verge of speaking, before turning and leaving the room once more.

Perplexed, the maid glanced at you. “Have you two quarreled again?” she ventured. “Is this his manner of apologizing?”

“No, no. He usually does that at supper if we have argued,” you replied calmly, shaking your head. “… but we have not disagreed this morning.”

“Perhaps he feels remorse for something he did last week,” the woman suggested with a shrug, returning her attention to Rhae.

Yet you could not simply let it pass.

Murmuring a soft apology, you left the chamber and spotted Maekar through the windows, pacing restlessly among the gardens beside the great willow.

Even more bewildered than before, you gathered your skirts and hurried outside, weaving through the grass and crushing a few blossoms beneath your steps until you reached his broad back.

Summoning your courage, you spoke. “My prince?”

He turned at once, looking almost alarmed, as though he might faint or worse.

“Are you well? Should I look for the maester?” you asked, brows knitting in concern.

“No, no,” he murmured, rubbing the back of his neck, his unease only deepening your confusion. “I wished to speak with you. To have a word.”

“You are doing so now,” you said, moving closer as he ceased pacing. “Go on.”

“Do I… do I seem attractive to you?” he managed at last, appearing even more shaken than before.

“Well, I had never truly considered it,” you answered, meeting his violet gaze.

“That was a foolish question,” Maekar muttered, dragging his fingers across his beard.

“… do you find me attractive?” you asked, trying to discern his intent.

He inclined his head slowly, apparently unable to trust his voice. At his silent confirmation, you stared at him in astonishment.

“Please do not behave as though it were impossible,” Maekar grumbled at your reaction. “Any man in his right mind would find you… captivating.”

“Captivating? Is that a compliment?” you replied, stepping nearer.

“I have not done this since I courted my wife,” he said defensively.

“Are you asking for my mercy now?” you teased, smiling at him. “… you are meant to compliment my hair or my eyes.”

“Blasphemy,” he retorted sharply. “Why praise what anyone with sight can observe?”

“Then why would you praise me?” you countered, backing him gently against the nearby willow.

Maekar’s shoulders struck the trunk before he realized it, his stare fixed on yours, subdued.“Because of how you are with everyone here. You are warm, patient, understanding, yet never dull. Your clumsiness delights them, and it delights me. Even the way you never quite finish lacing your boots in your hurry not to miss an adventure”.

“You are a remarkable creature who shields and cherishes children as though they were your own blood, and who even tolerates their… grumpy father,” he added, earning a soft laugh from you.

“I never called you grumpy,” you whispered, scarcely believing the words you were hearing.

“You never called me that in my face,” he replied, though he did not appear offended, only intrigued.

For several seconds you simply looked at one another, you studying every detail of his usually stoic features, from his silver threaded beard to the lashes framing his violet irises, and he admiring your smile bathed in sunlight.

“You have made me feel again,” he confessed, lacking the courage to touch you. “I wish to thank you for what you have done for me and for the children.”

“They are delightful. They do not trouble me,” you answered quickly, warmth filling your voice.

“They are, when they choose to be. And that is precisely why I thank you,” Maekar said with a sigh. “You are extraordinary. You teach them everything from etiquette to how to… laugh out loud.”

Something in the admiration within his stare stirred you unexpectedly, setting your pulse racing, and before you realized it you felt warmth gathering beneath your nose.

“Your… your nose is bleeding,” Maekar stammered at once, closing the space he himself had kept and brushing the blood away with his thumb.

“I truly am extraordinary, am I not?” you murmured, emboldened by his touch.

“You are,” he affirmed, offering you a shy smile rather than a broad grin. “… are you well?”

You leaned forward at last and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Better than ever.”

For the second time in your life, you witnessed Prince Maekar blush because of you.

“May I accompany you and Daella on your morning walks?” he asked, offering you his arm as you turned back toward the castle.

“I believe she will allow it, my prince,” you replied with a radiant smile, placing your hand upon his arm as you began to walk together.

It’s an old northern trick. Head down, shoulders steady, move like a shadow along the wall, a wolf on the prowl unseen but ever watchful. Your father has gone on ahead with the king and his council, leaving you to find your own way back to your chambers. Winterfell’s halls never felt like this. Here, the Red Keep seems to breathe and move around you, full of hot blood and sharper teeth than any wolf. Someone’s sleeve catches on the edge of your own; a jewelled clasp scrapes your wrist, and you jerk back on instinct. You murmur an apology, the words swallowed by the noise, and edge closer to the wall, feeling the rush of bodies pressing past.

That’s when the crowd surges.

The doors behind you open again with a thud, and a fresh crush of courtiers spills out, seemingly all at once. A tall knight in a gilded plate cuts across your path; a lady with a fan like a small battle shield sways into you, chuckling too loudly, flushed from wine. Your shoulder hits stone, and you almost bare your teeth in irritation. The air leaves your lungs in a soft, muffled sound that no one hears. You’re not used to this many people in your space, breathing down your neck, and your neck prickles. 

You don’t see him at first, but you do feel him.

A warm pressure closes around your elbow, steadying you before you can stumble. The grip is sure but careful, fingers splayed so as not to bruise. Before you can turn, that touch slides—down, in, claiming a span of you that no one at court has dared to yet.

His hand finds your waist.

Not a greedy clutch or a drag. But a quiet, decisive claim, palm fitting to the narrowest part of you as if it was always meant to rest there. He doesn’t pull; he guides, the way one might guide a skittish mare out of a tight pen. The heat of his body is at your back, a wall as solid as any of Winterfell’s stones, and suddenly the crowd is no longer pressing you into the wall; he is moving you through it.

“Forgive me, my lady,” a low voice murmurs just behind your ear. “There’s more room this way.”

He steps forward, and you find yourself moving with him, his hand a firm point of balance against your waist. People part without thinking; even in the crush, bodies turn, shoulders dip, conversations falter for half a heartbeat as they register who is passing among them.

Prince Baelor.

You’ve seen him from afar, of course.

At the high table during the welcoming feast, back when you first arrived, where the firelight turned his dark hair copper at the edges. In the training yard, in passing, long-limbed and lethal with a spear, moving with the unhurried grace of someone who knows exactly how dangerous he is and has no need to prove it. Beside the king in council, broad shoulders bent over a table of maps, the Hand pin gleaming across his breast. He carries all three faces with him now—the warrior, the prince, the Hand—as he clears a path for you like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

The southern ladies watch you pass with wide, speculative eyes. Their whispers press in around you like heat, and you know full well what they’re thinking.

A northern wolf on the Crown Prince’s arm.

Not his arm, you think desperately, bones quaking beneath your skin. His hand. His hand is on your—

You barely catch yourself before your feet tangle in the hem of your gown. Baelor’s grip tightens almost imperceptibly, fingers curving more securely into the fabric at your waist. Gentle, still, but not in the least uncertain. The contact steals the rest of your breath. You have been shoved and jostled and knocked sideways plenty of times in the past, but this is something different. 

This is a man who knows the weight of his own body, of his own strength, and chooses—deliberately—to make you feel safe beneath his touch.

It is ridiculous how your bones seem to melt around that realisation.

By the time your thoughts catch up, he has manoeuvred you into a small side gallery off the main corridor—a little alcove open to the night, its stone balustrade looking out over the black curve of Blackwater Bay. The noise of the court drops away like a curtain falling. Only a few stragglers pass the archway, casting you quick, curious looks before hurrying on.

Baelor steps back. His hand leaves your waist, the loss of it sharp as stepping out of a hot bath into cold air. Your skin remembers the shape of his fingers even as his touch fades, phantom-strong still.

“My apologies,” he says, giving you space, and God be good, he even bows a little, as if he hasn’t just steadied and steered you through the throng like you weighed less than a sword. “The crowd was… overzealous.”

You swallow, trying to coax your voice back into existence. You have faced down freezing storms and hungry wolves. You have stood before your lord father’s council and spoken on matters of grain and garrison. None of that prepared you for Baelor Breakspear looking at you as if you are the only person in all of King’s Landing who matters at this exact moment.

“It was…” You clear your throat, the words scraping on their way out. “Thank you, Your Grace. I was managing well enough.”

One dark brow lifts, visibly amused. “Were you?”

Sensation of heat creeps up your neck, and you’re unsure if it’s embarrassment or anger, or both. 

He does not resemble the Targaryens of the old songs. No otherworldly silver hair, no jittering violet gaze. Baelor is all warm gold skin and midnight hair already catching a few strands of grey, Dornish sun softened by the formidable Valyrian bone structure. The dragon is in the tilt of his nose, the high cut of his cheekbones, the fine line of his mouth and the steely gleam in his dark eyes.

He looks at you steadily, and you have the unpleasant suspicion he can read more in your silence than you’d like.

“I am not accustomed to so many people,” you manage at last, clasping your hands in front of you so he cannot see them fidget. “Winterfell’s halls are quieter.”

“And colder, I imagine.” His mouth curves, but there is no mockery in it, only curiosity. “Your father has told me tales of snows higher than a man’s head, of wolves the size of ponies.”

“They’re only that big when you’re very small,” you say before you can stop yourself. “Or when the men telling stories have had too much wine.”

He laughs. It’s not loud, not like some of the booming, performative mirth you’ve heard at the feast. It’s low and genuine, like the rumble of distant thunder rolling across the fields in high summer.

“So there are no monstrous beasts lurking in your forests?” he asks.

“Oh, there are,” you say quietly. “They just don’t always have four legs.”

His eyes sharpen on your face. You regret the words as soon as they’re out, but you steel your spine and hold his gaze. The north teaches you to stand firm from a young age; the south seems to require it even more.

“Court can be… trying,” he says after a beat, gentling the subject with care. “Even for those born to it. You’ve only been here a week, my lady. It is no failing to find the noise overwhelming.”

You wonder if he finds it overwhelming, too—the heir to a dynasty unlike any other in the world, the half-Dornish boy who grew into a man caught between too many expectations. You have heard the whispers about his mother’s people, the sneers for his sun-dark skin, the grudging admiration for his skill in battle.

You know what it means to be out of place.

“Winterfell is quiet,” you tell him, surprising yourself. “But it’s a good quiet. Solid. The kind that lets you hear your own thoughts.” You glance back toward the corridor, where the hum of voices still spills past. “Here, it feels like my thoughts are drowned before I can have them.”

Baelor nods, slow, as if weighing your words. “You are your father’s heir, are you not?”

“Yes.”

“Then they will not be drowned,” he says simply. “They will learn to swim. And those who would prefer not to hear them will have to learn to listen.”

The certainty in his tone startles you more than the feel of his hand had.

“You sound very sure of that, Your Grace.”

“I try to be.” That hint of humour returns, dimming the intensity of his gaze just enough to let you breathe. “It is expected of me. People are comforted by conviction, even when it’s borrowed.”

“That seems… dangerous,” you say. “To borrow conviction.”

“It can be,” he agrees with a pleased nod. “So it’s important to borrow from the right people.”

His eyes catch yours. For a moment, the air between you feels as thick as honey and twice as warm.

“And who do you borrow from?” you ask curiously, because your mouth is braver than your good sense.

“From those who know how to stand in the cold,” he says softly, “and do not flinch.”

The world narrows in, down to the shape of him against the torchlit stone, the calm weight of his attention. You have never felt so acutely the distance between your body and someone else’s. A step. Less than that, maybe. You remember the heat of his palm through your gown, the steady line of his fingers, the way the crowd parted as if he carried his own weather with him.

There are worse storms to be caught in, you think.

A shout from the main corridor breaks whatever held the moment taut. A serving boy runs past the archway, chased by another, laughter echoing behind them. The spell shivers and eases, dispelling. Baelor straightens a little, the prince’s mantle settling more visibly around his shoulders again.

“May I see you safely back to your chambers, my lady?” he asks. “It seems I’ve already half-abducted you from the feast. I’d rather not leave you to brave the crush alone again.”

“That’s not necessary,” you begin automatically. “I won’t wish to trouble you.”

Northerners do not like to seem fragile; Starks, least of all.

He tilts his head. “Indulge me, then.”

You hesitate. You can hear the court whispering already, if you close your eyes. The northern lady on the prince’s arm. The wolf at the dragon’s side. Oh, what tales they’ll spin out of the sight of you side by side, and yet…

You are tired of being a story told by others.

“I suppose,” you say, unable to scrub the wariness out of your voice, “if Your Grace insists…”

The grin that answers you is brief but unexpectedly bright, one quick flash of unguarded warmth that softens the stern, strong angles of his face.

“I do,” he says, offering his arm.

You place your hand on his forearm, careful, aware of every point of contact. The fine fabric beneath your palm, the solid muscle beneath that, the way his skin heats the air between you. When you step back into the corridor, you feel the weight of a hundred eyes. You hold your head high, the way your mother taught you before she died. A Stark does not bow to the weather, you remind yourself. Starks are of old blood, steel and ice, everlasting. 

When you step back into the corridor, the noise washes over you in a hot wave. Laughter, clattering plates, the distant shrill of a pipe. The torches spit and smoke, scenting the air with pitch and singed dust.

You feel every pair of eyes. Every turn of a jewelled head.

Baelor moves as if he does not. As if the crowd is nothing more than a current he’s long since learned to read. A subtle shift of his shoulders here, a courteous incline of his head there, and the sea parts for him in due deference. The hush that follows your wake is thin but perceptible, like the trail of a blade through water. When a young lord, flushed and unsteady, staggers too close, Baelor’s free hand comes up between you and the impending collision. His palm brushes low at your side—just a ghost of contact at your waist as he guides the man past with a quiet word.

It is almost nothing.

Almost.

Your breath slows in your lungs. Your body knows the shape of that hand now; your bones seem to bow under it like a sword under a smithy’s hammer. The place where his fingers rest for that heartbeat feels branded. He does not look down at you right away. It would be too much, you think, to meet his eyes in the same moment his hand is on your body. Instead, he steers you past another knot of courtiers, past a herald arguing with a servant over spilt wine.

Only when the press thins a little does he speak.

“How are you finding the south, my lady?” he asks lightly, as if making idle conversation in a garden instead of cutting a path through a hall of vipers. “Truly. Not the answer you give my father.”

The honest answer rises, sharp and instinctive, before you can dress it in courtesy.

“It’s… overwhelming,” you admit warily. “Too hot. Too loud. Too much of everything, all at once.” The words taste like snowmelt and iron on your tongue. “The walls feel close, and the sky feels far. It smells of roses and rot.”

Baelor’s mouth twitches. “Rot?” he echoes, visibly amused. “I’m not sure the Master of Whisperers has turned that phrase yet. I’ll be sure he hears it.”

Heat flickers up your neck again, this time at your own lack of tact. “I did not mean—”

“I asked for truth,” he cuts in, gentle but firm. “And you gave it to me. It is… rarer here than you might think.”

He glances sideways at you then, eyes catching the torchlight. There’s humour there, yes, but something else coils beneath it, something like relief.

“What does Winterfell smell of?” he asks curiously, keeping an easy, unhurried pace. “When it is not buried in snow tall as a man.”

The corridor takes a slight bend, opening up, awashed in the golden glow of torches. Your skirts whisper against the rushes; your fingers flex once against his sleeve, steadying yourself more than your feet require.

“Pine and smoke,” you answer, unable to keep the wishful note out of your voice. “Wet stone. Horse and leather and cold iron. The kennels, if the wind is wrong.” Your mouth curves despite yourself. “Wet wool, too, in winter. Everything smells faintly of wet wool.”

“And you miss that?” His tone is faintly incredulous. “Kennels and wet wool?”

You think of empty courtyards glazed with frost; of dark pine branches loaded with snow, bending but not breaking. Of the comforting roughness of your father’s cloak around your shoulders, scratchy and heavy and honest because back home, words and oaths are sacred. The weight of awareness you get whenever you sit next to the weirwood trees, feeling like every Stark whose come before you is pressing their attention into your skin, urging you forward. 

“Yes,” you say simply. “Very much.”

His smile softens, the sharp edges of his face easing for a moment into something almost boyish despite the faint brushes of grey you glimpse across the scruff on his face and temples.

“You sound homesick, Lady Stark.”

“I am,” you admit, more bare than you would care to admit. “But I suppose homesickness is easier to bear than being foolish.”

“Foolish?”

“To be offered a place at court and complain that the tapestries are the wrong colour,” you say dryly. “The south has… beauty. Even if it shouts it.” Your gaze snags on a high-arched window, on the spill of moonlight over red stone. “I don’t know yet if I like it. But I can’t say it’s dull.”

A low huff of laughter escapes Baelor. “That may be the kindest thing anyone has said about King’s Landing in years. Not dull. I’ll inform the small council that we can put it on the banners.”

You hazard a sidelong look at him, emboldened by your own honesty. “And what does it feel like to you, Your Grace?” you wonder aloud, scanning the mighty stone structure. “This city. This court. You were not born to it either, not entirely.”

His jaw moves, a small shift beneath sun-browned skin. The hand on your arm remains steady, heavy weight.

“It feels,” he replies slowly, “like standing in a room where everyone is shouting in a language you learned late. You know the words. You know what to say. But some part of you is always listening for a cadence that never comes.”

“Dorne,” you say softly.

“My mother,” he corrects, just as soft. “And the Marches. And the men I fought beside in the Stepstones who never cared what name my grandfather bore. Here, everything is flattery and intrigue. There, it was whether you held the line.”

You imagine him not in a gilded plate but in plain mail gone tacky with salt and blood; imagine that same steady hand closing around a spear instead of your arm, ending lives instead of preserving them. A man who knows the weight of his own strength, and the weight of others’ lives in it.

“That sounds lonely,” you say before you can stop yourself.

His gaze flicks to your face. “It is,” he admits, much to your surprise. “Sometimes. But then, I suppose any place where you must be two things at once is lonely.”

You swallow.

“I know something of that. Stark and heir. Daughter and—” You cut yourself off, teeth closing on the word. Lady. The one who will have to be hard enough for both, a placeholder until you marry and your sons inherit Winterfell instead. “The hall looks very different when you sit in your father’s chair instead of standing before it.”

He hums, a thoughtful, rumbling sound. “Do you miss being only one thing?” he questions, but you can tell it’s not an attempt to pry, and more so genuine curiosity he’s indulging in.

You consider his question properly, rather than offering him the fabricated response that would be safer. You’re nearing the quieter wings now, where guest chambers sleep behind thick doors, and the clamour of court is more blissfully muffled, giving you a moment to hear each other properly.

“I miss,” you say at last, “having room to make mistakes where fewer people could see.”

He laughs again at that, a warm, surprised sound that feels less like thunder and more like the crackle of a hearth catching.

“You may find,” he retorts, a smile in his voice, “that most of us are still making mistakes. We’re just better at pretending they were intentional.”

“That sounds very southern,” you say primly.

“Oh, it is,” Baelor agrees with a low huff. “We dress our errors in silk and call them a plan.”

A smile tugs at your mouth, reluctant but real. “In the north, we bury ours in the snow and pretend they were never there.”

“I’ve heard,” he says mildly, “that the things buried in the north have a way of walking again.”

You meet his eyes properly then, the weight of his words settling between you like a stone dropped in deep water. For a heartbeat, you think you see something there—a question, perhaps, or a warning, or recognition.

“That depends,” you say, voice low, “on what you put in the ground.”

His gaze lingers on you. The world tilts, just slightly. Then he exhales, the moment easing.

“I see,” he murmurs thoughtfully. “I shall try not to offend your gods, then. I’m told they prefer honesty as well.”

“Yes,” you say, fingers tightening briefly on his sleeve. “They do.”

You turn another corner together. The torches here burn lower; the stones are cooler underfoot. The murmur of the feast has dulled to a distant roar, like the sea against cliffs. He slows as you reach the stretch of corridor that leads to your chamber. You recognise the heavy-carved door at the far end, the two guards posted discreetly beyond it—Stark men, standing a little straighter as the prince approaches.

Baelor comes to a halt a few paces short, so you are not under their direct gaze. Only then does he gently disengage his arm, leaving your hand suspended stupidly in the air for an instant before you recall it to yourself. The loss of contact is abrupt, like stepping out from under a fur cloak into naked winter wind. You feel the awareness of him along your skin where he is not touching you.

“Here we are,” he says quietly. “Unabducted, as promised.”

You huff, the sound almost a laugh. “I don’t recall giving you leave to abduct me in the first place, Your Grace.”

His eyes glint. “Ah, but I recall saving you from assault by silk and steel in the king’s own hall. We might call it a kidnapping in your defence.”

You dare a little tilt of your chin. “If you wished to impress a northern lord, Your Grace, I fear you would have to drag me over your shoulder rather than lead me politely by the arm.”

The grin that flashes across his face is quick and wicked, gone almost before it fully forms, a glint of heat entering andleaving his gaze in a blink.

“Duly noted,” he murmurs, and there is something in his tone that makes your stomach dip. “I will revise my tactics should the need arise.”

You hold his gaze, somehow impossibly darker in the shadowed hall, but it does not frighten you. There’s no ill will to be found on his face, and while you’re well aware men can be deceitful and hide their intent well, there’s something in the prince’s expression that eases your hackles down. 

For a heartbeat, neither of you moves, your gazes locked. 

“Thank you,” you say finally, because Stark courtesy runs as deep as Stark stubbornness. You dip your head in a grateful half-bow. “For your help. And for asking how I fare and not how my father thinks I fare.”

“You are very welcome,” he returns promptly, unblinking as his gaze slides across the planes of your face. “It is… a relief, Lady Stark, to speak to someone who does not answer every question with flattery or a calculation.”

You hesitate, then venture, “You seem to me a man who does many calculations, Your Grace.”

“Oh, I do,” Baelor admits, amused again, skin around his eyes crinkling like he’s pleased you noticed. “But every now and then I like to remember what it is to simply listen.”

Something in your chest loosens at that. “I hope, then,” you say, “that I did not disappoint.”

His gaze sweeps your face again, and you feel it like a touch—cool across your brow, warm along your cheek, skimming over the curve of your lips so swiftly you would have missed it had you not been watching him just as closely.

“On the contrary,” he murmurs. “You have given me more to think on than half the lords I’ve spoken with this fortnight.”

Your throat feels too dry, but you still force yourself to speak. “That seems unwise,” you manage after a beat. “To let a homesick northerner trouble the mind of the king’s Hand.”

Baelor inclines his head thoughtfully. “Perhaps,” he says, a small wrinkle appearing between his strong brows. “Or perhaps that is exactly the mind I should be troubled by.”

The words hang there, a small, bright spark in the dim corridor. You glance away first, pulse thrumming in your ears while you fight to keep your expression perfectly schooled. 

“We have kept late enough hours,” you begin, retreating a half step into politeness because you can feel the ground tilting under your feet. “I should not take more of your time, Your Grace.”

One corner of his mouth lifts. “Baelor,” he says, almost too low to hear.

You blink. “…Your Grace?”

“If we are to be honest with one another,” he continues, a glint back in his eye, “it seems unfair that you have given me snow and rot and wet wool, and I have given you only titles. You may call me Baelor when we are not being watched, if you wish.”

Your heart gives a single, startled thud. “That would be… irregular,” you acknowledge faintly.

“Nearly everything worth doing is,” he replies quietly, then his tone gentles. “But I will not press it upon you, my lady. I know wolves walk slowly with their trust.”

You draw in a breath that tastes of stone dust and something else. Metal, maybe, or dragonfire, that these halls still recall from the age when dragons still flew through the skies.

“Then you must allow me a compromise,” you hear yourself say. “It would not do for word to spread that I address the Crown Prince like an old friend after a single walk down a hallway.”

“Of course not,” he says solemnly, though you can see laughter waiting at the edge of his mouth.

“So instead,” you continue, feeling oddly reckless, “you’ll have to endure something only a little less improper.”

His brows rise, waiting patiently. You give him the full weight of your Stark gaze, cool and steady, and bow your head just enough that it could be courtesy or defiance.

“Good night,” you say, every word measured, “my Lord Prince.”

The title should sound stiff, far too formal on your tongue. It does not. It sounds like a jest between the two of you alone, like you’ve taken his rank and wrapped it in something warmer. For a heartbeat, he just scrutinises you. Then that smile breaks over Baelor’s face again—real and surprised and vividly, disarmingly pleased, making him look moons younger. It softens the battle-hardened angles of his handsome face, turns him from statue, a fable, to man, flesh and blood.

“Lady Stark,” he answers, and now it is you who feels seen, the words settling over your shoulders like a cloak sewn to your exact measure. “Sleep well. Try not to dream too unkindly of our rot and roses.”

“I shall do my best, my Lord Prince,” you say dryly. “Though I make no promises about the roses.”

He laughs, low and delighted. It feels like a secret you’ve earned. He steps back then, just enough to bow properly. It is not the deep, sweeping gesture he gives the queen or the king, but neither is it the perfunctory nod you’ve seen him grant lesser lords. It is something in between, tailored to fit this narrow stretch of corridor and the strange, fragile thing that has grown between you in it.

When he straightens, he looks briefly, dangerously as if he might say more, ask more. But the guards at the end of the hall shift, armour chinking, and the spell trembles, coming apart at the seams.

“Good night,” he says again, more composed. “May the gods—old and new—watch your rest.”

You incline your head once more, fingers curled tight in your skirts to keep from fidgeting, then turn toward your door before your resolve can crack.

You feel his gaze on your back all the way to the threshold.

Only when the door has shut behind you, and you are alone with the banked fire and the distant, muffled roar of the city, do you let yourself sag against the wood. Your heart beats high and wild in your throat, like a trapped bird. You cross to the window on unsteady legs. Blackwater Bay lies beyond, a dark, glimmering curve, torchlight from the harbour pricking its surface like fallen stars. The night air that slides in is cooler, but still heavy compared to home. It smells of salt and smoke and something metallic underneath.

You press your palm to your waist, to the place where his hand rested. Your fingers span only half the space his did; the memory of his touch burns in the gap between, forcing a shiver.

It is absurd, how it unsettles you. How a single hand at your waist, a single walk down a crowded hall, a single traded jest—Lady Stark. My Lord Prince—can make the Red Keep feel… altered. Tilted, as if someone has shifted its weight on the hill by a fraction of an inch. 

The south is still too bright, too loud, too hot. The air still feels crowded. You still miss the honest cold of Winterfell with a dull ache that never quite leaves your bones. But tonight, when you close your eyes, you do not only see red stone and leering gargoyles and tapestries heavy with dust and history of blood and fire. You see a prince who moved through a crush of bodies as if they were nothing but reeds in a current, who put his hand between you and the world and did not once pretend you were a burden to bear.

You hear his low voice sounding out Lady Stark as if it is a name he chose for himself, not one sewn onto you at birth. You hear your own, reckless tongue calling him my Lord Prince as if the words can both tease and test at once.

Later, much later, you will understand that this was the first time you spoke to one another not as pieces on a board—north and crown, wolf and dragon—but as two people standing in the same crowded, suffocating hall, both trying to remember how to breathe.

For now, you only know this:

In a place that still does not feel like yours, under a sky that feels too far away, someone reached out and steadied you without demanding anything in return.

If dragons can learn to move carefully, you think, fingertips pressed to the phantom mark of his palm, perhaps wolves can learn to bear the heat.

Baelor silently signalled to the Kingsguards to stay within the great hall as he made his way to the door and slipped out while everyone busied themselves with preparing for the dancing portion of the evening. He had a dagger dangling from his belt, and he was experienced in the battlefield. If a threat were to arise in the few minutes he spent away, then he could surely handle it himself. 

And he only needed a few minutes, just a handful where he could sit in the quiet and close his eyes and think of all the time that had passed, how Valarr was so grown now, and how he hoped Jena was proud of the man their son was becoming. 

As the doors shut behind him, Baelor let out a long sigh and felt his body relax as he began strolling down the halls of the Keep. The sconces were lit, casting warm orange light over the halls, and a gentle breeze blew through the space. He had not walked far when he reached a balcony overlooking the gardens and the sea beyond. 

Baelor paused when he noticed a shadow standing at the very edges of the firelight, turned out to the view. When he stepped closer, he caught the folds of a dress, elegant sleeves and a silky fabric, and he recognised the shadow as a woman. He walked onto the balcony, clearing his throat. 

“Might I help you, my lady?” He asked quietly as he made his way closer to you, brow furrowing. Why were you here all alone, far from the great hall and the action? 

You did not jump at the sudden intrusion, just turned to face him a little before your body went rigid and a look of dumbfounded surprise crossed your face. You straightened up a little, wiped at the soft skin under your eyes, and clasped your hands tightly together in front of you as a hot flush spread under your skin. 

“I… your grace,” and you began curtseying but Baelor simply held his hand up to stop you, waiting patiently for your response as you readjusted in your place. “I do not require aid,” you told him quietly then let out a long sigh and turned your head back up to the sky. You let out a sad little chuckle as Baelor stepped closer, the furrow of his brow deepening as he looked at you. “I wanted to see what the night sky looked like in King’s Landing,” you whispered, “if it was different to the sky we have at home.” 

The smile on your face was intensely wistful, and when you glanced back at Baelor, it only grew a little. “I know it is presumptuous of me to think about such things, we have only all just arrived in King’s Landing and the prince may never even look at me, let alone choose me to be his bride, but I thought in preparation… it may be nice to know what the sky looked like at least.” You shrugged, a pathetic little movement. “And even if it is not the prince, if it is some other nobleman who takes an interest and is satisfied with my dowry, I shall need to get used to a new sky.” 

Baelor was standing at your side now, and he felt incapable of tearing his eyes from you. You wore your hair pulled back, and your face was clean and youthful, Valarr’s age or perhaps a little younger. You wore a velvet dress in the dark blue of a night sky just before dawn, gold trimmings on the hems and gold slippers just peeking out at the bottom. It fell at the tops of your arms, exposing sloping shoulders and a cut of your chest. But it was your eyes that truly brought him in. The eyes of a young woman who thought too much, who carried a soul too heavy for anyone to bear. 

When Baelor still did not respond and the silence felt too stretched, you sucked in a deep breath and laughed a little bashfully, blinking and looking around as if you had only just returned to the earth. You continued to chuckle as you pressed your fingers to your cheeks for a moment, checking for any escaped tears before looking back at him. 

“My apologies, your grace,” you sighed as if exasperated with yourself, rolling your eyes exaggeratedly, “you have caught me in a moment when I am not only wistful but unbearably talkative.” You smiled brightly at him, and though it did not seem insincere, it hid a great deal. “Perhaps some music and cheer will fix me,” you added, bowing low and quickly dismissing yourself before you made any more a fool of yourself in front of the heir to the throne. Once you had passed him, you made a face at yourself, berating and angry and resisting the urge to slap a hand over your eyes. 

Baelor turned to watch you walk away feeling as if he had just been blown over by a strong wind and was still sitting on the ground trying to catch his breath. He could still see you standing next to him, bathed in the silvery light of the moon and tinged at the very edges by the distant lit sconce. He could see your lashes flutter against your cheeks as you blinked quickly and the puffy quality to your eyelids, the shine of recently dried tears. 

He felt as if he had intruded on something, and it was not a feeling he often experienced. You had been having a moment to yourself, an introspective scene which you had most likely hoped no one would come across. And he had only been looking for the same, a breath of fresh air outside of the buzzing hall full of people clammering and clawing for one purpose. Though he had not expected the maidens to wish to escape, why shouldn’t you? 

But there was something about you, perhaps your beautiful dress or your pretty smile, that seemed to have lodged itself beneath his ribs… 

Baelor’s eyes drifted away from the Lord as they walked through the gardens, hands clasped behind their backs as a Kingsguard followed close behind. The meeting was necessary, a discussion on grain production and stores, but both men had been sequestered within the Keep all morning and had decided that a taste of fresh air was a necessity. 

The Lord was explaining… something. His hands were moving as he spoke in a low voice, but from the moment they had entered the gardens and Baelor had heard the distant voices, his focus had drifted. He looked up and spotted the different little clusters of people dotted all over the grounds. 

A group of elderly women, most likely grandmothers and aged aunts, were seated around a table under a gazebo, pots of tea and cups deposited in front of them as they chattered, occasionally laughing a little too loud or hacking a cough. There were other gatherings, fathers and brothers of the potential brides mingling amongst each other, waited on by maids and servantboys. The young ones had made their own cluster though. 

Baelor found Valarr at a table near the edge of the gardens, just in front of a patch empty of bushes that allowed a view out to the sea. Usually Valarr would be inside with him, sitting through every meeting and counsel and hearing that Baelor had to sit through in preparation to become the heir to the Iron Throne. Or perhaps he would be in the training ground, practicing his skills with the idle Kingsguard, or even just expelling his rage at a straw practice dummy. But Valarr had the week to choose a bride, which meant he was relieved of political duties and would not find peace if he chose to train. 

The table was populated with both ladies and lordlings of a similar age to Valarr, all speaking amongst themselves with small smiles on their faces or loud boisterous laughter. Baelor could not fault them, this was one of the few times the men and women were allowed to mingle, though he was sure there was a Septa fuming at the sight. He allowed himself a small smile, feeling soothed at the thought of his son at least enjoying himself a little despite how much the prospect had daunted him before. It was only then that Baelor caught sight of you. 

You were sat across from Valarr, bordered on either side by other young ladies. Though your chair faced toward the table, to the other people surrounding you, your head was turned toward the sea. You blinked slowly, as if a part of you was in tune with the calm of the water, but the moment was over in a flash, and one of the young women said something in your direction that made you laugh, your head leaning back and eyes squinting prettily. 

You were wearing a dress in a dark emerald green, a shiny fabric embossed with a darker pattern he could not make out from the distance. There was gold embroidery on the sleeves at your forearms, and like the dress from the evening before, it was draped precariously at your upper arms, leaving your shoulders bare to the sunlight. You wore simple jewellery, and your hair was pulled back from your face and into an intricate set of braids. You looked elegant, lovely. 

Baelor watched you listen to the conversation being passed around the table, your eyes flitting to Valarr as he spoke, and his son’s eyes flitting to yours as you responded. Someone at the table scoffed, the boy beginning to speak over you. You simply pursed your lips, leaning back in your seat and guiding your hardened eyes to the tabletop. Baelor knew Valarr would rectify the slight, would politely bring you back into the fold, but you seemed to forget the insult quickly as the woman to your right gently pressed her hand to your forearm and shot you a look that plainly told you that she had noticed, that this was not a new occurrence. Baelor swallowed both his laugh and his smirk. 

You let loose a long sigh, leaning back in your seat and placing your hands in your lap as you began looking around. It did not take long for your eyes to land on Baelor, standing still now on the path that wound around the gardens and back to the Keep, his eyes on you over the Lord’s shoulder. You went rigid when you noticed his attention, though you attempted to act as if no change had occurred in you. You turned your hands over and pressed your palms to your lap, and your lips parted as you tore your eyes away from him. You cautiously crept your gaze back in his direction, but your eyes flitted away when you noted that he was still watching you. 

Your chin lifted a little, and you adjusted yourself in your seat to be higher, your spine straighter, and Baelor smirked, finally tearing his eyes from you to allow you a second of respite. You were sweet, attempting to look more respectable as the Crown Prince watched on. When Baelor looked back, Valarr too had noted his presence and stood from his chair, lifting a hand to wave in his direction. 

“Excuse me for a moment,” Baelor told the lord, walking off before the man could utter a word in response, offering Valarr a pursed-lip smile as he neared. 

“Father,” Valarr greeted, bowing his head a little. The men and women at the table all stood to greet the Crown Prince, a chorus of “your grace” echoing around him. He could not pick out your voice. He smiled at them all, his gentle princely smile that made him a favourite of any who met him. 

Your head stayed a little bowed as Prince Baelor stood with his son, and you only looked up in quick snatches. Your entire body was hot with a blush as you remembered the way you had spoken to him, the way he had looked at you as if he could not quite make out if you were real. The more you thought about the way you had behaved in front of him, the more mortified you became. 

Baelor gently clapped Valarr on the back, asking how his son fared and then directing the question at everyone around him. They were all bright-faced and starry-eyed, beaming at the chance to speak to the Crown Prince and happily responding. Your response was whispered, hidden again in the humdrum, but Baelor’s eyes were already on you, watching your lips move as you bashfully glanced between him and the table. He offered you a kind smile, and refrained from directing any more of his attention toward you. 

You took to watching the Crown Prince instead as he focused on Valarr again and spoke in quiet tones with him. He had immensely straight posture, and an easy elegance to his every move. His hair was short, shorter than most men, but he kept a dignified beard over his cheeks and chin, sprinkled with white like snow on distant hilltops. His eyes were beautifully mismatched like his sons, but darker, more hidden and mysterious - perhaps a sign of age and experience. He wore black all over, but his doublet was thick and soft-looking, just begging to be touched… you bit your lip and looked down as a heat began pulsing under your skin. But your eyes caught sight of the rings adorning his thick fingers, his thumb absentmindedly twisting the one on the middle finger of the same hand, and you felt too tight in your stomach and chest. 

You glanced out at the water again, hoping beyond hope that a servant would come by with wine or ale and you could quench the sudden thirst in your throat. You rubbed your palms along your dress and when you gathered the courage to look back, Prince Baelor was facing the table again, nodding in farewell. 

“Goodbye,” you said quietly, and you were sure he would not hear over the other voices, but he seemed to look right at you and nod one more time, small and private, just for you, and suddenly you felt a pathetic lightness all over you… 

As the evening descended on King’s Landing, the Keep was full of noise as everyone readied for another night of feasting and dancing. The festivities were to go on for a full week until the announcement of Prince Valarr’s betrothal, and all parties could not contain their excitement. 

People filed into the great hall slowly, fathers daughters, mothers and brothers, and the tables began to fill up. The royals themselves only entered after a hefty crowd had gathered, walking up to their table on the raised dais and offering nods to the nobles who caught their eyes. 

Baelor sat at the centre of the table, at the centre of attention. To his right was his brother, dour-faced and constantly annoyed by something or other, not even waiting until he had fully sat down to grab his cup of wine and begin gulping from it. On Baelor’s left were his two sons, his pride in human form. Sometimes he could not quite believe how much time had passed and how quickly they had grown. 

Baelor watched as the platters of food were brought out and passed around, first to their table, then all down the hall, serving boys and girls running up and down with jugs of wine and ale, filling cups as loud and boisterous chatter and laughter echoed up to the ceiling. He sipped from his wine as he leaned on the arm closest to his brother, listening to the man grumble about some mischief his youngest had been up to. But Baelor’s attention was not on him. 

It was not easy to pick you out of the crowd, with the constant bobbing of heads and moving pieces, but once he found you, he could not stop seeing you. You were sitting somewhere in the middle, neither highborn nor lowborn, bordered on either side by brothers and sisters, facing your parents. He was sure he had met your father or brother at some point, perhaps at a tourney or some council or other. They looked familiar, but not familiar enough to elicit a clear memory. It frustrated him more than he would ever admit. 

You wore a beautiful dress coloured the orange of a sunset, layered with thin and shiny material. Drops of amber hung from your ears and though your hair was simply pulled back off your face, thin gold threads ran through and shined in the light. A small orange lily was tucked behind your ear and you were smiling and laughing as one of your younger family members attempted to clamber onto you and snatch it from your hair. He could not hear your laugh but a pang of longing hit him. 

As the evening carried on, Baelor’s focus did not shift from you. Valarr did not notice his father’s silence, Baelor had always been more quiet and thoughtful than most men. Maekar noticed his brother’s silence, his distant gaze, but chose not to question it. 

You were fascinating to him for reasons unknown to himself. Yes, of course you were pretty, but there was an endless train of pretty women in his life, and he had not batted an eye for a long time. Perhaps it was how much of a contradiction you appeared to be. You were thoughtful and intriguing, then cut yourself down as if whatever you said was of no value. You were willing to speak and not shy when you did, but then you held yourself back and allowed yourself to be spoken over. How could a person be both? 

When the tables were pushed back to create space for dancing, and the band began playing from their place in the corner, everything became muddled. He could no longer see you, and his interest in the event dwindled. When Valarr stood to ask a maiden to dance, Baelor quietly excused himself and made his way to the door. Just as he pushed it open and slipped through, he noticed the orange fabric of a dress peeking just slightly from around a corner. His heart thudded in his chest and he followed the path to find you, back pressed to the wall, head leaned back and eyes closed. You were humming quietly to yourself, but paused and became tense when you heard his footsteps. 

Baelor cleared his throat, hoping not to jolt you, and watched your eyes slowly peel open and your body go a little rigid again. But this time he smiled softly, walking a little closer with knowing eyes that made your skin feel hot and your chest rise and fall a little quicker than before. 

“My apologies,” you quickly breathed out, as if you needed to jump and say the right thing first. Then you winced, bowing your head as you realised how utterly stupid you sounded. 

“Whatever for?” Baelor asked, eyes a little wide in surprise as he stopped a few feet in front of you. You looked up at him through your lashes from where your head was still bowed, and smiled apologetically. 

“I do not know,” you sighed, and when Baelor chuckled, your hands tingled and you felt something clench inside you. You straightened up a little and pressed yourself harder into the wall behind you, hoping the sensation would ground you. 

“I would advise not to apologise when it is not needed,” he told you sagely, and you nodded, smiling softly. 

Silence fell over the two of you, and felt it like a pinch all over your body. You glanced around, twiddling your fingers behind your back, before looking at Baelor again. 

“At least I am not crying this time,” you told him out of the blue, a wry smile on your lips. But when his brows only furrowed and his head tilted in confusion, you felt the hot flush of embarrassment strike you. “Uhm,” you cleared your throat, “unlike last time, when you found me,” your voice quietening as you spoke. 

“Ah,” Baelor nodded, a polite smile on his lips, and you felt like slapping yourself for ruining the moment again. “I too am glad of the fact,” he finally said, “it is not pleasant to see a pretty young woman crying.” 

Maybe you had actually slapped yourself and not realised. Why did you feel like you had just been struck and you could not comprehend it? Your eyes were wide, lips parted just a little, and you were looking right at his face unabashedly for the first time. A soft breath whooshed past your lips and your hands clasped together in front of you. 

Baelor’s smile widened a little at that. How were you so obvious in your reactions? Maybe it was with age and experience that he was able to read people so well, but it was as if he could see your thoughts play across your face, plain as day. You smiled at him, but your lips pulsed as if you were unable to hold the expression. 

“Why were you so tearful?” He asked, clasping his hands behind his back as he leaned a little to be closer to you in height. You pursed your lips and looked away from him, trying to think quickly of something better than the truth, but then you sighed, dropped your head a little and shook it before looking back up at him with that same sad smile of before. 

“The same sentiments I expressed that evening,” you shrugged, moving your lips against each other a little. “It is not that the thought of marriage upsets me, or that I am against the idea of moving to a far off place to live with my husband. Every woman of course has a healthy fear of either of those things, but it is not something that haunts me. It is…” you paused as you felt the tears burn behind your eyes again and a lump began to thicken inside your throat. “It is rather stupid,” you shook your head, but Baelor took a step closer, his face contorted in a small frown. 

He reached up and gently pressed under your chin with the side of his index finger until your head was lifted once more and you were forced to look him in the eye. He did not say anything, just allowed you the space to continue, and you felt the first tear trickle down your cheek. 

“I am afraid that I cannot be loved,” you whispered, your face contorting a little as the pain in your heart unfurled and spread through your limbs. “A husband is meant to be the person who loves you for who you are, faults and all, whether that love is built before or during the marriage. I fear that I will be married, or I will be courted, and I will fall in love, but I will not be loved, and it will all be my own fault because I am not good enough to be loved.” 

The tears streamed down your face, your eyes squinted shut, your voice going small and watery, and Baelor felt your pain within his own skin. He felt it in his chest, in his gut, filling his head. He cupped your face and wiped your tears away with his thumb as you looked up at him, your chest and lips shaking as you sucked in breaths. You were not sobbing, but you would start soon. He just continued the soothing motion and after a moment, you leaned forward and practically fell against his chest, hiding your face there. You wrapped your arms around his torso, splaying your hands over his broad back and clinging to him the way the drowning cling to air. 

At first, Baelor could not move. He looked down at you, at your trembling shoulders, and allowed himself to wrap his arms loosely around you. He stared at the wall in front of him as you breathed slowly against his chest, and his eyes drifted closed, absorbing your warmth as you relaxed in his grip. 

How long since he had comforted in such a way? How long since he had held someone, since someone had held him? His breaths came out as slow and shaky as yours. 

The two of you stood there for a long few minutes more, and when you pulled away, you had a small pursed-lip smile on your face. Baelor unfurled his arms from you, keeping them diplomatically at his sides, and you clutched your hands tightly together in front of you. 

“Heh,” you let out a small, awkward laugh, and rubbed at your cheek nervously. “That is twice now you have been witness to my tears. Far more than necessary.” He could practically see you begin to shrink in on yourself, and something wild and desperate inside him wanted it to stop at once. “Uhm,” you cleared your throat, “I apologise again, my prince,” you said quietly, “I should not have… I should not… I just should not.” 

Even the embarrassed smile had dropped from your face now and you looked small and sad, like a child shamed for something done with good intentions.  

“Did I not just advise you to refrain from apology when unnecessary?” He asked you quietly, one of his eyebrows raising as you pursed your lips and nodded bashfully. 

“Yes, your grace,” you whispered, continuing to wring your hands. Baelor reached down and gently gripped them, stopping the movement. He could feel you tremble in his hold, but he kept on, softly rubbing his thumb over the backs of your hands until they relaxed. 

“You do not find me insolent?” You asked him innocently, looking up at him through your lashes again as brightness began to return to your eyes. 

“Not one bit,” he smiled, the soft and caring smile he reserved for those closest to his heart. 

“Truly?” You asked, and your own smile was returned, a cheeky lilt to your words. He could see the sparks dancing in your eyes and the smooth movement returned to your body. Though he still held your hands, you gripped them back a little now, and your spine straightened just that bit further. 

“Truly,” and his smile widened too, matching yours. 

You felt at peace now, something that had slowly gathered within you from the moment your tears had ceased and he had continued to hold you. The inside of your skull felt smooth and soft again, without the constant pulsing tension that had been unknowingly plaguing you. 

He had watched you cry, had heard your deepest fear and a truth you scarcely liked admitting to yourself, and he had stayed… Not only had he stayed, he had listened and comforted, wiped your tears and simply given you the space to be. That meant far more than anything he could say. 

And now you felt light, like the weight was lifted and the good parts of you that others always appreciated were allowed to be appreciated by you as well. You felt like the girl who laughed freely at family dinners and giggled with her friends, who spoke her thoughts with care and wanted them to be expressed precisely the way she wanted. You felt whole, and all because of something so simple… 

You smiled up at the prince and then unfurled your hands from his grip, feeling a little shy at the way he continuously watched you. You reached up and plucked the lily that had managed to keep its place at your ear. It had been a little squished and wilted when you had pressed your face to his chest, but you carefully placed it in his palm and curled his fingers around it. You lifted his hand until it rested over his heart, then at the last moment, leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to the back of his hand. 

“Thank you, your grace,” you whispered, then you slipped out from between him and the wall and swiftly went around the corner and back into the Great Hall. 

“Father,” Valarr nodded, closing the door behind him as he ventured into Baelor’s study at the top of the Hand’s tower. Baelor had been sequestered all morning, reading through petitions and letters and something that was both a petition and a congratulatory letter. Though he had managed to focus on occasion, there were moments where his eyes stayed on one word far too long simply because his mind had gone back to the previous evening to recreate the feeling of you kissing the back of his hand. Baelor smiled at the sight of his son, watching Valarr fall into the seat across from the desk with a long sigh. 

“How do you fare?” He asked, and Valarr blew a breath upward to force the hair from his eyes. He shrugged, looking again like the child he had once been, before straightening up and nodding. 

“As well as can be,” he told Baelor, “spoilt for choice yet without passion.” He clasped his hands together between his knees then leaned forward, his back curling, before looking up at his father. “I fear I have met a hundred women, but do not know any well enough to propose marriage.” 

Baelor smiled sympathetically at his son and nodded in understanding. It had once been that way for him too, but he had been lucky to find Jena. He was sure Valarr would find someone too, and he did not mind if it took him some time. 

They conversed a little on some of the maidens, a Lannister lady with pretty golden hair and a Hightower girl with a quick wit, but nothing further than that. It was then that a name hit Baelor, completely out of the blue from the recesses of his mind. He continued looking at the papers in front of him, though he did not read a word, and casually asked Valarr, “what do you know of Lord Blanetree’s daughter?” Valar’s brow furrowed as he racked his brain, tilting his head a little. 

“Uh,” he dragged out in thought, ignoring the raised eyebrow look his father shot at him as he did. It was undignified. “I believe he has many children, with four daughters at least, but with a large gap between. The eldest is twenty and something but her first younger sister is only just ten and three. I believe you met the Lady Y/n at my table a day past,” his eyes lit up then as the memory cleared. “Yes, she sat across from me in the emerald dress. She is rather well spoken, if a little reserved.” 

Baelor lifted his eyes to Valarr, your name running in his head again and again. So that was who you were, the eldest daughter of a minor house, reached marriageable age yet unmarried, burdened by your position and your mind. Your name sounded soft and sweet in his head. 

“Do you wish me to focus my attentions on her?” Valarr asked, looking quizzically at his father, but Baelor almost jumped in his seat. 

“No, my son,” he answered soothingly, “I will not influence your decision in any way. It is your right to choose, and you shall have it.” And Valarr smiled gratefully, nodding in thanks. He soon stood and made his way back to the door, citing the possibility of finally being able to train in peace, and left. 

Baelor leaned back in his seat, parchment forgotten on his desk. He spun his ring around his finger, over and over and over. He knew your name… 

You were wearing a yellow dress. The beautiful soft yellow of sunshine and daffodils, a simpler dress than any other he had seen you in, with minimal embroidery and embellishment, cut off just at the ankles to expose your matching silk slippers. 

Baelor could see you in the distance as he walked down the hall, keeping a leisurely pace as he prolonged his return to the tower after a meeting with the King. You leaned on the stone railing and looked down over the inner courtyard, draped not in sunlight but the pale indirect shine from the sky. 

The dress you wore was thinner than others, made for summers, and he could see the outline of your body where you bent to lean, where your curves naturally pushed out and created your silhouette. He averted his eyes to your face. 

As he came closer, you turned your head in his direction, chin resting in your hand. You straightened up when you noticed him, but you were no longer rigid. Something softer had taken you over, the energy he had seen in you when you had interacted with your younger siblings at the feast. You were smiling, and he could not help himself but to offer it back to you. 

“Your grace,” you greeted, curtseying and then lifting your chin to ensure you met his eye. 

“Lady Y/n,” and you felt your skin heat. You had never heard him say your name before, and his silky voice wrapping around the letters made your spine tingle. Your smile widened unabashedly before you could contain it once more, and it only made his eyes dance. 

“Will you accompany me on my journey back to the Hand’s tower?” He asked, gesturing ahead of himself with a flat palm. You nodded enthusiastically, twirling to face forward and falling into step beside him. 

“Have you had a busy morning?” You asked him, clasping your hands behind your back as you walked at his side, matching his leisurely pace. You could tell that he slowed his stride to ensure your shorter legs would not disadvantage you, and your chest filled with warmth. 

“Nothing more than the usual,” he answered simply, and you nodded, letting out a little ‘ah’. “How has your morning fared?”

“As well as could be,” you said, mimicking his tone of simplicity, but when he raised an eyebrow and smirked at you a little, you giggled and bumped his shoulder with yours. You went rigid, realising what you had done, your face falling and your steps faltering, but when Baelor continued smiling at you, you simply laughed breathily and regained the straightness to your shoulders. “One of my gowns gained a tear while my sister played dress-up with my things, so I spent the morning teaching her how to sew it up.” 

Baelor’s eyes softened as he gazed upon you, and he could not tear himself away. Some of your hair fell forward onto your face, and his hand flexed with the need to push it back for you. He was sure you would make a wonderful mother some day, if the way you handled your younger siblings was anything to go by. He could imagine you with a babe in your arms, a child that was your spitting image, but perhaps inherited his own hair or his eyes. He could see a toddler running between you two, clutching to your skirts then toddling to his father… Baelor looked away and cleared his throat a little. 

“I do not wish to bore you with talk of dresses though,” you added, sighing a little. 

“You do not bore me,” he told you quietly, “you could not.” 

You felt the heat building in your chest, burning in your cheeks and at the tips of your ears. You looked up at him, lips parting a little, but it was too late for anything else as you had arrived at the door to the tower of the hand. 

Baelor stopped just outside, turning to face you fully. He reached up and tucked the strand of hair behind your ear, nodding in satisfaction, then bid you a quiet goodbye and left you standing there on uneven footing. 

The Crown Prince did not attend the dinner that evening. You felt the disappointment in your core. You waited and waited for the seat to be occupied, for the moment you could look up and watch him walk through, his long steps measured and his broad shoulders passing easily. But Valarr and his younger brother, and even Prince Maekar and his sons appeared, and the feasting and revelry began, but there was no sign of your Crown Prince. 

Your family could tell there was something that had subdued you. You poked at your food and barely smiled at anyone, huffing sadly every few moments, but not telling anyone why. You felt a little stupid being so upset over something like this. He did not owe you his presence, and he was a prince of the realm, hand of the king, he was far busier than you could ever comprehend being. But… you still wanted to see him, still wanted him to look at you the way he did… 

When the revelry began, you slipped away like clockwork. You did not want to stay in that room when you knew he was not there. An agitation you had never felt before seemed to be awakening in your skin, slowly and without naming itself. You walked slowly through the halls, savouring the cool air, on your hot skin. The lit fires shivered a little, casting long shadows on the walls, and after a few turns, you could not quite recognise where you had ended up. 

The smallest spark of fear was lit in your heart at the unfamiliar tapestries and the doors that all looked the same. You had never ventured too far from the Great Hall, and now that you had somehow taken leave of your senses, you could not quite remember what path you had taken to end up here. 

You rounded another corner, and instantly your heart lifted again at the sight of two Kingsguard posted outside a large door at the end of the hallway. You let out a sigh of relief, beginning to walk in their direction, but just as you reached the halfway point of the hallway, a voice stopped you. 

“My Lady?” A low question from your left, and you turned your head to look out onto a large balcony. The Crown Prince sat at a small table, his body facing out to the view but his head turned to look at you. He must have heard you coming. A jug of wine sat on the table in front of him and he clutched a cup in his right hand. 

Your lips parted, your body stopping short in surprise, and a little choked sound left you. You turned between him and the distant Kingsguard, and then took quick steps to reach the balcony. You paused just in front of him, not realising that your gown brushed his hand on the armrest. 

Baelor was mesmerised by you, there was no other way to put it. You seemed to appear out of thin air, but it was only the colour of your gown hiding you until you hit the light. He had first thought you were dressed in black, something thick that almost absorbed light, like his own clothes. But when you had stepped closer, he realised it was indigo, a dark indigo like that of a midnight sky during a thunderstorm, the lightning flashing. It lacked embellishment, relying on its colour shining in the lights of the fires. 

“Your grace,” you greeted breathily, your eyes still wide, and before he could ask what you were doing near the private Targaryen chambers, you continued on quickly. “I lost myself in thought, then I lost my way, I-” you dropped your head, your chin hitting your chest. “I did not mean to intrude on you.” 

Your relief was palpable, but Baelor could also see the apprehension, the worry that you had made your way to somewhere you were not supposed to be, intruded on something that you were not supposed to intrude upon. 

You were happy to see him, there was no doubt of that fact, but he had clearly avoided the feast and stayed himself here because he wanted to be alone. You would never forgive yourself if you had forced yourself in his company when you were not wanted, even if inadvertently. 

“It is alright,” he responded, smiling softly at you, and your shoulders loosened a little. He gestured to the seat next to him, the one that stood to your other side, and you hesitated for a moment, before ultimately deciding to sit down anyway. “You lost your way?” He prompted, and you nodded. 

Though Baelor did not mind company, and he did not mind solitude, he had required it that evening. It had been a long time since his mind had felt so jumbled about something, and it had nothing to do with the grain production of the realm, nor the new bridge being requested for a river just outside of King’s Landing. It was you.

He had known that if attended the feast, he would have spent his night watching after you, would not have thought a single thought that was not about you. But he could not allow that, not when so many other things began to crowd his mind and he found no peace in his bed at night. 

He had taken his jug of wine, his single cup, ordered the kingsguard to stay at his door, made his way to this quiet haven overlooking the gardens and the sea beyond, and simply allowed himself to think freely. 

Baelor thought about the way he had disregarded his own cautions and touched your hair anyway, had allowed himself to be swayed by the unexplainable desires of his that seemed to appear out of thin air when you were around. But then… then his thoughts had darkened. 

You were young, far too young still, and you had no business spending your time with a widowed old man like himself. You should have been dancing with the boys in the hall like you had done the other night. You should have been sitting with Valarr and flirting and smiling bashfully, all the things young people did and believed they were the first to do. It was Baelor’s own fault for encouraging you, for allowing you to behave in such a way with him. He should have been stopping you, not falling to his own weaknesses. 

And he felt rather selfish too, a sickening feeling that he had no business feeling as hand of the king. But he did. You were here for Valarr, or at the very least, to be betrothed to some young man who still had his own life ahead of him to live with you. It was selfish of him to be taking up so much of your time, to be enjoying it so and wishing that you spent all of your moments, waking or in sleep, with him. 

There was something else there too, a kind of betrayal of Jena. Though it was true, they had not been married for love, and perhaps he had never fallen for her the way they spoke of in tales, but he had loved her in a way. They had shared a life together, shared children together, would it be a disservice to her to feel so for you? Because now when he looked upon you, when he saw you smile softly and look out at the distant night sky, as your hair draped tantalisingly over your neck and the sleeve of your dress dipped a little low over your shoulder, he understood what the old bards said of falling in love inexplicably. 

“...rather hot, is it not?” You asked, turning your head to look at him, big eyes blinking. The pause was too long, and when he focused back on your face, he cleared his throat a little. 

“I drifted, my lady, and for that I apologise. What was it you asked, dearest?” And you flushed hot then, your insides clenching and your mind suddenly running far too fast for your liking. 

“I… um…” your mouth opened and closed, “uh, I simply said that the Great Hall gets far too hot once the dancing begins.” 

“Indeed, it does,” he responded, smiling kindly, though there was still that preoccupied quality to his eyes. “Would you like some wine?” He asked then, glancing between you and the jug. “There is only one cup, I fear, but there is no harm in sharing.” He poured more wine into it then placed it on the table in front of you. You gulped, nodding in thanks and picking up the cup. You placed it to your lips and took a long slow sip. The wine was sweet and without any tang, smooth like nothing else you had tasted. You were sure this was the kind of wine that made drunkards of men, the kind that you would only have the opportunity to taste in a place like the Red Keep. 

Baelor watched you sip from the place where his mouth had been only moments before, and he turned away, closing his eyes tight. It was a form of torture this, he was sure of it. 

When you placed the mug down again, you looked at him, at the way he was gazing out at the water again, and you frowned a little. You were not sure if it was appropriate to ask, but you could bite your tongue no longer. 

“My Prince,” you said quietly, and he turned to look at you, his eyes soft, as they always were when he looked upon you. It made you feel warm inside. “Do you wish me to leave you be? I do not pretend to know what weighs on your mind, but I am aware something does. I would not want you to hate me because I could not tell I was unwanted somewhere.” 

Your voice was earnest, not the small and self-depricating thing he had once heard. You were sincere, saying such things out of care for him rather than woe for yourself. He felt his heart clench and loosen in his chest. He truly looked at you, allowed himself to get lost in the moment. 

Baelor reached up and gently pressed his thumb up where your lower lip pouted. The droplet of wine that had dangled there splayed onto this thumb, and he slowly rubbed it along your bottom lip until it had disappeared. 

Your breath stuttered over his hand, a soft fluttering thing like a bird’s wings. You stared at him with wide eyes, frozen, mesmerised, incapable of anything but breathing. You felt the liquid heat in your veins. The urge to press your lips to his thumb, to perhaps even bite it a little, flashed through you, and you blinked slowly, as if truly contemplating it. Baelor brought his hand back down and gently tapped your cup as if to tell you to drink more, returning his eyes to the dark patch where the sea called out. You sipped eagerly, your breath heavy. 

“I could not hate you, even if you tried,” he finally said, smiling at you again as if he had said something simple, something of no consequence. “You are right, something does weigh on my mind, but it is good for a mind to remain heavy. Sometimes it is good to simply hold what weighs the mind down, but do it in the company of someone else.” 

You almost felt tears prick at your eyes at the way he spoke, so soft and wistful, as if he had learned this from experience, as if there had been a time where he had been forced to carry burdens alone. You wished to take the weight from him, even if for a moment, but his words had touched something in your soul, had called to mind the moments where he had found you and made the weight bearable. So you nodded, smiled a watery smile, and poured more wine into the cup before passing it back to him. 

Something had shifted after that evening. A new part of you had been woken up and refused to be quieted. You felt antsy before the feast. All day you had spent sequestered in your room, pacing back and forth until your feet hurt and your only choice was to throw yourself on your bed and scream into your pillow. You had felt a nagging sense of guilt since the evening before, something deep in your gut that battled the light and fluttery feeling in your heart. 

You could not stop thinking about Prince Baelor. From the moment you had first encountered him, from the moment he had allowed you to hug him and had wiped your tears with such care… he would not leave your head. If you closed your eyes, you could picture him perfectly. His dignified expression and the warmth of his eyes… oh you were lost. 

When there was even the merest mention of his name in your vicinity, your heart began to thud and your palms became covered in a light sweat. You felt lightheaded and desperate. You felt pathetic. 

Though you only had smiles to offer when you thought of him, only had warm feelings in your heart at the idea of him, there was also this toxic mix of guilt and anger. A nagging guilt that you were betraying someone by loving him, whether that be his son or his dead wife. He was not the reason for your stay at the Keep, and yet he was the only reason you cared about. 

But you were angry too, the irrational kind of anger that you knew was unjustified but you clung to because it was easier to feel. You were angry at him. You were angry at him for being so kind and gentle, for being so handsome and honourable, for making you fall in love with him… 

You stood in front of the mirror as a maid laced the back of your dress. You waited for the pull, the tightening, and then leaned forward and said “tighter”. If you were to look your best in any dress, it was to be this one. The gown was made of dark red velvet, with long bell sleeves that draped down to your thighs when you stood straight. The hem was rather long too, covering your feet, and you bedecked yourself in gold to match it. You looked dipped in blood. You looked almost Targaryen… 

You walked into the Great Hall surrounded by your family, but your eyes first went to the raised dais. The royals had already arrived, sitting in their various positions, sipping from goblets of wine. You could see Valarr smiling and joking with his younger brother, saying something in his ear that made the younger boy almost spit his drink. Though it was not likely, if Valarr were to choose you, you thought you could be happy with him. 

When your eyes landed on Baelor, purposefully taking your time to reach him, to savour the moment you would finally lay your gaze on him, you felt your breath hitch in your chest. He was already looking at you, as if he had been waiting for the moment you walked through the door. His eyes dragged down your body, and it felt as if with each inch he covered, another part of your body left your control. It took everything in you just to keep walking to your seat. His face did not betray much, and you hated that he was so good at remaining stoic, but for a singular moment, you could see the fire burn in his eyes, and it made you hot under the collar. 

You tore your eyes away as you reached your seat, and made a promise to yourself that you would avoid looking his way. He already haunted your dreams, you need not let him haunt your waking moments too. 

You kept your eyes on the table, or on your plate, and happily on your siblings when they bothered you for attention. Though it was slow, eventually it did become easier not to keep taking peeks at the royal table, at the man who had not torn his eyes from you for even a moment. 

When the dancing began, you allowed yourself to stay for a little while. You stood to the side and clapped to the beat, and even danced one song with the elder brother of one of the ladies from the Reach. But after the twirling and stepping, your feet hurt and the music was far too loud, and the heat in the Great Hall had settled too much. 

You carefully picked your way through the crowd, discretely making your way to the door. Just before you reached it, you turned over your shoulder and looked back through the room and up to the Royal dais. You saw Baelor, met his eyes for a long moment, then turned and slipped through the door. You were not sure if you were posing an invitation, but you hoped he would come anyway. 

The cold air outside was fresh, and you made quick work of finding your way to the balcony where you had spent the first night of the festivities pondering all the great sadnesses of life. How far removed that seemed from the person you were now. You resumed your position at the railing, and closed your eyes to listen to the water. You could hear the distant whoosh of the waves and it instantly set you right once more. 

It was not long before footsteps echoed behind you, and though your body tensed, it was not unpleasant. When you turned around, it was as you had hoped, Prince Baelor making his way to you, his eyes gleaming even in the darkness, the barest upturn to his lips. You pursed your own to hide the smile that constantly threatened you in his presence. 

“Your grace,” you curtseyed. Your eyes were bright and something in him felt sharp and hot when you looked up at him from under your lashes. 

“My Lady,” he responded, but you felt like you were hearing his voice for the first time again, that silky softness that wrapped around your mind and made you feel like closing your eyes and shivering unabashedly. If only he would whisper in your ear like that all the time… 

“You have found me again,” you said quietly, hands behind your back, clenching tight together as if that might keep your sanity, might keep your thoughts poor and your decisions good. 

“So it seems,” and his voice was low too, slow and drawling, almost taunting. 

He had walked closer to you, standing so the toes of his shoes touched the toes of yours. Though there were hints of the food and wine from the hall still clinging to his clothes, you could also smell the deep scent of a cool perfume on him, an interesting mix to the tinge of smoke that always seemed to cling to a Targaryen. You tried to inhale long and discreetly. 

His incessant gaze was unsettling to you. How could he not tire of looking at you? How did he manage to interest himself enough with you, that not only did he look for so long, but his focus never wavered, and neither did his intensity? 

“Why do you gaze upon me in such a way?” You asked quietly, biting your lip a little and bringing your hands around to fiddle with them just in front of you, in the small space that was left between your bodies. 

“In what way is that, my lady?” But his tone suggested he knew the answer, that his confusion was feigned and he did it only to provoke you. 

“In that way,” you answered a little petulantly, nudging your head in his direction as if to indicate his own face to him. A small smile made its way onto his face, and you felt your chest and stomach clench with it. 

“You will have to be more specific my lady,” he responded teasingly, and your entire body flushed with heat. You had not realised that your feet had shuffled you closer, that your head was tilted even further back to meet his eyes and your hands were hovering just over his chest, waiting to be placed there. 

“You tease me,” you breathed out as he leant his head down close to yours, his eyes filling your vision, his nose grazing yours. “But you know well what I say.” You felt the hairs of his beard tickle your chin, felt the lightest graze of his cupids bow against your own. His breaths fanned warmly over your mouth. 

“I do,” he agreed, and then you were not sure how, but his mouth was on yours. Did he bend or did you lift? It did not matter, because his lips were warm and soft and he tasted of the sweet wine from Dorne, like bright red summer fruits. You felt hungry for him. 

You steadied yourself against his body, your hands splayed over his ribs, pressed into the plush fabric there. One of his hands gripped your waist, tight over the line of your corset, and the other cupped your cheek, pulling you tight into him. You could feel the line of his body, and you were sure he felt yours in return, your breasts pressing into his chest. You were pushed up onto your toes, and though you trembled a little, he kept you tight against him. His neck was craned a little awkwardly, but he was sure he would endure a lifetime of pain far worse if it meant you kept kissing him like that. 

Every thought he had carried in his brain before slipping out of his seat and making his way to you, was muddled and tossed about, some forgotten and some incoherent. He remembered your red dress, dark and provocative, begging him to follow you as you slipped through the door, but he could not remember the nagging feeling that had eaten at the back of his brain when he had seen you first. 

It was only when breath became a necessity that you pulled your mouths away. You did not stray far. Your lips brushed together, breaths heaving against each other. His beard still rubbed at your cheeks a little. Your chest filled. Your eyes were closed, and you swallowed, the inside of your skull still feeling like it was full of bees. You exhaled just over his chin. You tilted your head up a little, brushing against his mouth again, but when you leant in to kiss him once more, he spoke. 

“Stop.” 

You paused, eyes flashing open. Baelor’s were still closed, and though he still held you, it felt like his grip was loosening, as if reality itself was loosening its hold on you with it. 

“What?” You breathed out, and when Baelor finally opened his eyes, he could see yours, looking up at him, an incredulous sort of panic colouring you. Your hands trembled at his sides, and he clenched his eyes shut again for a moment as a flash of pain ran through him. 

He wanted to shake his head, to tell you that it was nothing, that he had only had a moment of weakness but everything was alright, and you should simply kiss him again. But… this was wrong. This should not have been done. And that was the truth of it: this had been wrong from the beginning. He should not have intruded on you, he should not have watched you, should not have seeked you out. You were not meant for him, and there were a million reasons for it. He was the elder in this situation, he was supposed to know better, to guide you. And he could not be responsible for guiding you into a life that you may one day resent. He would not survive it. 

He had not meant to get so caught up. When he had followed you, he had vowed to himself that it would be like before, without the touching, without the incessant desire. He had not meant to lose control. 

“Enough,” he whispered, and when he opened his eyes, they were hard like stone. You felt something cold curl deep in your stomach. You had never seen his eyes like that before, the eyes he used in council, on the battlefield, but never with you. 

Baelor pulled back, uncurling his arms from around you and pressing them at his sides. The air around him was far too chilly now. He took a deep breath in and shook his head. 

“Return to the Great Hall at once,” he told you, and your body went rigid. 

“My-” 

“Return to the Great Hall, at once,” and it was an order. 

You stepped back, hands pressing tight to your stomach. Your eyes filled with tears as you looked up at him, your lower lip trembling and your face contorted with anguish. Why was he doing this? Why did he kiss you then order you away? You opened your mouth, readying to ask him, but Baelor simply turned his back to you. You gulped, pressing your lips tight together to hold the sobs back. How had everything turned so quickly? 

Tears slipped down your cheeks and you nodded though he could not see you. Your steps were hurried, slightly unsteady as you practically ran away, and Baelor clenched his eyes shut. He could not watch you leave. 

Your dress was far brighter than you felt. Of course it was not the maid’s fault, how should she know your heart had been broken beyond repair and you felt like staying in your bed wearing mourning clothes? But you had been forced up and out of bed, told to leave behind whatever so saddened you and make merry with the other maidens, or perhaps find a moment in Prince Valarr’s company to endear him to you. You felt like doing neither, but you did put on the dress. 

It was late after lunch when you dared to venture out into the gardens for a walk and some fresh air. It was just before evening, a time when everyone had sickened of the sun and wanted rest before the revelry so retired to their rooms and shut their eyes. You chose it on purpose, hoping to avoid interacting with anyone. 

You still felt that sickening feeling of having the carpet ripped out from under you. When Baelor had kissed you, it was everything you had ever wanted, only for him to rip it away before you could get your fill. Your night had been spent sobbing, your entire body shaking as you curled up in bed and thought about the way he had dismissed you. He had not spoken otherwise, had not given you a single reason, simply expected you to leave. 

You wiped at your eyes as you looked out at the gardens, your feet carrying you slowly, happy there was no one around to witness your weakness. You reached a secluded spot, a bench between bushes with a view out to sea. You allowed yourself to stand there, staring out at the water and feeling the pain in your heart stretch though each limb. 

There were footsteps approaching, and you hoped they would bypass you entirely. If the person came your way, maybe you would be lucky enough that they would not ask any questions, would not realise you were standing there. It seemed luck was never on your side. 

Baelor had taken to the gardens for the same reason you had. He should not have been surprised to find you there. But when he strolled along the path and spotted you standing just in front of the bench, his breath had left him, and he was forced to come to a stop near you. 

You wore a beautiful pale violet dress, like lavenders or bell flowers. Your hair was loose down your back, the front strands simply pinned back to keep your face clear and nothing else. And your face… your beautiful face, with puffy red-rimmed eyes and a shine to your nose that made him ache. You should not have to look like that, full of such agony, and all because of him. 

Baelor stepped closer to you, and you clenched your eyes shut, as if you could blink him away, but when you reopened them, he remained there. He looked tired, suddenly more wrinkled around the eyes than the night before. You could tell he had not slept well. 

Your hands shook and sharp, shooting, pains wracked through you, reminding you constantly of what you had faced the evening before. You wanted to speak, to ask him why he had abandoned you so, but you could not bare to look at him. You began turning away, eyes clenched shut and mouth quivering with barely restrained whimpers and sobs, but he stepped closer again, gently reaching out and gripping your elbows to bring you to him. 

You shook your head, pressing your lips together, keeping your eyes shut, hoping he would leave you be the way he did before, ceasing to cause you pain. But Baelor’s own eyes were wet with tears seeing the state of you, and he could not leave again. He dragged a hand up your arm, over your shoulder, caressing your neck then cupping your face softly. 

“My lady,” he whispered, and his voice was hoarse, clogged, and you hiccupped a little, the sob staying caught in your throat. You wanted to pull away, and even moved back to do so, but he simply followed you. 

“What do you want from me?” You asked quietly, your voice a torn thing, as you finally opened your eyes and looked up into his piercing blue ones. “Why do you keep me here?” 

Baelor rolled his lips, blinking and looking away for a second as his thumb caressed the bone of your cheek. You could not decide whether you wanted him to continue or you wanted to thrash away. 

“I told you my fears,” you whispered, “and it felt as if they had come true last night.” Baelor clenched his eyes shut and nodded, pulling his lower lip back and biting it. He knew what he had done, knew how he had made you feel, and he hated himself for it. “Why?”

He was quiet for a few moments, listening to you breathe shakily, feeling it over his chin and neck, savouring the feeling of holding you again, something he had tossed away the evening before without thinking about how he would long for it every moment after. His fingers threaded through your hair behind your ear. 

“You are beautiful,” he began, and the smile on his face was sweet, genuine, pained. “You are young and beautiful and so full of life. Though I may not be on my deathbed, I am old, widowed, a father of two sons, and weighed down by what is expected of me from the realm. How could I justify to myself that a beautiful girl such as yourself could ever be happy being forced into such a situation? You may kiss me and have your fun, I will allow it for I am weak, but it cannot go further than that.” 

Baelor’s face was as sad as you had ever seen it. His eyes shined, the hand cupping your face trembling a little, and he seemed to become even more tired in your presence. You listened to his words with a frown, your lips parted, tears staining your cheeks, and your hands limp at your sides. 

“Did you think to ask me?” You responded, your body beginning to tremble as a white hot anger filled you. Your hands clenched into fists and you brought them up, resting them harshly against his chest.

“What?” He asked, voice a little breathy as his frown turned form anguished to confused. 

“Did you think to ask me how I felt? If I simply wanted to play with a prince’s feelings or if I- if I loved you?” You stuttered a little as the truth fell from your mouth, your body tightening. Baelor stared down at you, eyes unreadable. 

A moment passed and your face crumpled again, the tears anew and your mouth turning down at the corners. Your hands splayed over his chest then clenched into his doublet again. 

“I do not think you old or weighed down. I find you… I find you handsome,” you reached up and rubbed a hand over his beard as his eyes shined down at you. “Unbearably so. And kind, a man with a heart too good for this realm. You have comforted me like no other, have soothed me and made me happy, and all without trying.You are the first person who has truly listened to what I have had to say, and not tossed it asied. You make me feel… you make me feel real. You may be widowed, you may be a father, but those are not links on a chain. Those are things that make you the man you are, that endear you to me beyond what words can express. I could think nothing better than spending the rest of my life in your company. You would not be chaining me but freeing me.” 

Baelor cupped your face with both hands as you looked up at him, breathing heavily. It was the most honest you had ever been in your entire life. Your body thrummed with the truth of it, and you felt a little better simply for having said it. You dropped your head onto his chest, and allowed him to wrap his arms around you and hug you close. The two of you stood there for a long few moments, trembling in each others arms, eyes closed, absorbing what the other person had said. Finally, Baelor leaned back, cupping your face again and tilting your head up just so. 

“My love,” he whispered, pressing his lips to your forehead and leaving a long kiss. You felt light and airy, like a caterpillar turned butterfly, and you hoped he would lean down and kiss you on the mouth, rectify what he had done the evening before. But Baelor just pulled away, tightening his grip on your face a little, nodding at you, and then walking off down the path. You were too stunned to even call out. 

You had been left confused the rest of the day. After your moment with the prince, you had returned to your room, laying flat on your back on the bed and staring at the ceiling. You could not comprehend him, could not possibly gauge what went on in his mind. How could he possibly think himself burdening you by loving you? Perhaps he was mad. It would not be out of the ordinary for a Targaryen. 

When the evening had rolled around, and you were laced into your dress, you were still dazed. You floated through everything, not realising that you had been guided into the Great Hall, that you were sat at a table and there was food in front of you. You had not even bothered to check if the Crown Prince had made an appearance. The only time even a modicum of consciousness had found you was when you excused yourself and slipped from the room. 

It was purely on instinct, your feet finding their way to the fateful balcony. This would likely be one of your final nights here. It had become obvious that Prince Valarr had no interest in you, and you had done nothing to curry his favour either. But you would miss this balcony, this view, this softness that the world had in this particular place. 

You sighed long and low as you leaned over the railing, just managing to catch the shine of moonlight on the sea in the distance. Sometimes you wondered what it would be like to fly off the balcony and simply fall into the sea, never to be seen again. 

There were footsteps behind you, not loud but not someone trying to remain hidden. You had a suspicion of who it was, because who else would be in this place at this time other than Baelor? You could not quite decide if you wanted to see him. 

When Baelor stepped onto the balcony, he almost felt as if he had been transported back in time to the night he had first met you. You were standing almost as you had been before, looking out. You wore a dark blue velvet dress, a similar style to the one of before, with off the shoulder straps and bell sleeves. But where that one was embellished with gold, this one was stitched with silver, almost like the moon over the sea just behind you. 

You turned to look at him, and your face did not betray anything. He could not tell if you were happy to see him or upset. He did feel some guilt at the way he had left you, so quick and fluid, but he had needed to get away, to think for a long moment about the action that had entered his brain, and to speak with his son about the possibility. It had felt far too right. 

You opened your mouth, readying to speak, but Baelor just stepped closer until he was right in front of you, then got down onto one knee. He braced his forearms on his thigh, looking up at you with determined eyes and a small smile. Your breath left you, your hands coming up to press against your mouth as you stared at him. Your eyes blinked rapidly, your heart ran faster than a prize horse, but you were frozen to your spot, unable to comprehend what was happening. 

“My Lady,” he began quietly, the way almost all your conversations had gone since the day you had met. “Forgive me for causing you the distress I have done, it was not meant. Though I have known love, and marriage, I have never felt for someone the way I have felt for you. You are beautiful, and kind, and soulful. You do not love yourself the way you should, but allow me to do it for you.” Baelor twisted a ring off of his finger, the one he always fiddled with when in thought, and proferred it up to you. “I love you,” he finally said, and his voice lightened, like a bird flying from the ground and disappearing into the sky. “I love you with all the heart I possess. And if you love me the way you have expressed. If even a modicum of that affection stille exists in you, then all I ask of you is that you marry me.” 

Your entire torso shook as you sobbed into your hands, your eyes never leaving Baelor, not for one moment. You could not believe it. You could not. But there he was, the most powerful man in the seven kingdoms, kneeling for you. You nodded. You hoped you did. 

“I will never allow you to doubt my love again, not even for a moment. I will speak with your father on the morrow, announce the wedding as soon after if you wish it.” And then all you could do was nod, your vision blurring and neck aching. You laughed, loud and ecstatic and a little manic. Your tears, though hot and wet on your cheeks, for the first time carried only pure joy. You offered Baelor your hand, allowed him to slip the ring onto your finger, the band far too big, and then fell to your knees in front of him. He gripped you around the waist, hauling you into his arms as you trembled and giggled. 

“My prince,” you whispered, cupping his face in your hands as he beamed down at you. He pressed his forehead to yours, and you nuzzled your nose to his. You ran your thumbs over his cheeks, over his beard and let your hands rest against the sides of his neck. He clutched you tightly, keeping handfuls of the thick velvet of your dress. 

Baelor silently signalled to the Kingsguards to stay within the great hall as he made his way to the door and slipped out while everyone busied themselves with preparing for the dancing portion of the evening. He had a dagger dangling from his belt, and he was experienced in the battlefield. If a threat were to arise in the few minutes he spent away, then he could surely handle it himself. 

And he only needed a few minutes, just a handful where he could sit in the quiet and close his eyes and think of all the time that had passed, how Valarr was so grown now, and how he hoped Jena was proud of the man their son was becoming. 

As the doors shut behind him, Baelor let out a long sigh and felt his body relax as he began strolling down the halls of the Keep. The sconces were lit, casting warm orange light over the halls, and a gentle breeze blew through the space. He had not walked far when he reached a balcony overlooking the gardens and the sea beyond. 

Baelor paused when he noticed a shadow standing at the very edges of the firelight, turned out to the view. When he stepped closer, he caught the folds of a dress, elegant sleeves and a silky fabric, and he recognised the shadow as a woman. He walked onto the balcony, clearing his throat. 

“Might I help you, my lady?” He asked quietly as he made his way closer to you, brow furrowing. Why were you here all alone, far from the great hall and the action? 

You did not jump at the sudden intrusion, just turned to face him a little before your body went rigid and a look of dumbfounded surprise crossed your face. You straightened up a little, wiped at the soft skin under your eyes, and clasped your hands tightly together in front of you as a hot flush spread under your skin. 

“I… your grace,” and you began curtseying but Baelor simply held his hand up to stop you, waiting patiently for your response as you readjusted in your place. “I do not require aid,” you told him quietly then let out a long sigh and turned your head back up to the sky. You let out a sad little chuckle as Baelor stepped closer, the furrow of his brow deepening as he looked at you. “I wanted to see what the night sky looked like in King’s Landing,” you whispered, “if it was different to the sky we have at home.” 

The smile on your face was intensely wistful, and when you glanced back at Baelor, it only grew a little. “I know it is presumptuous of me to think about such things, we have only all just arrived in King’s Landing and the prince may never even look at me, let alone choose me to be his bride, but I thought in preparation… it may be nice to know what the sky looked like at least.” You shrugged, a pathetic little movement. “And even if it is not the prince, if it is some other nobleman who takes an interest and is satisfied with my dowry, I shall need to get used to a new sky.” 

Baelor was standing at your side now, and he felt incapable of tearing his eyes from you. You wore your hair pulled back, and your face was clean and youthful, Valarr’s age or perhaps a little younger. You wore a velvet dress in the dark blue of a night sky just before dawn, gold trimmings on the hems and gold slippers just peeking out at the bottom. It fell at the tops of your arms, exposing sloping shoulders and a cut of your chest. But it was your eyes that truly brought him in. The eyes of a young woman who thought too much, who carried a soul too heavy for anyone to bear. 

When Baelor still did not respond and the silence felt too stretched, you sucked in a deep breath and laughed a little bashfully, blinking and looking around as if you had only just returned to the earth. You continued to chuckle as you pressed your fingers to your cheeks for a moment, checking for any escaped tears before looking back at him. 

“My apologies, your grace,” you sighed as if exasperated with yourself, rolling your eyes exaggeratedly, “you have caught me in a moment when I am not only wistful but unbearably talkative.” You smiled brightly at him, and though it did not seem insincere, it hid a great deal. “Perhaps some music and cheer will fix me,” you added, bowing low and quickly dismissing yourself before you made any more a fool of yourself in front of the heir to the throne. Once you had passed him, you made a face at yourself, berating and angry and resisting the urge to slap a hand over your eyes. 

Baelor turned to watch you walk away feeling as if he had just been blown over by a strong wind and was still sitting on the ground trying to catch his breath. He could still see you standing next to him, bathed in the silvery light of the moon and tinged at the very edges by the distant lit sconce. He could see your lashes flutter against your cheeks as you blinked quickly and the puffy quality to your eyelids, the shine of recently dried tears. 

He felt as if he had intruded on something, and it was not a feeling he often experienced. You had been having a moment to yourself, an introspective scene which you had most likely hoped no one would come across. And he had only been looking for the same, a breath of fresh air outside of the buzzing hall full of people clammering and clawing for one purpose. Though he had not expected the maidens to wish to escape, why shouldn’t you? 

But there was something about you, perhaps your beautiful dress or your pretty smile, that seemed to have lodged itself beneath his ribs… 

Baelor’s eyes drifted away from the Lord as they walked through the gardens, hands clasped behind their backs as a Kingsguard followed close behind. The meeting was necessary, a discussion on grain production and stores, but both men had been sequestered within the Keep all morning and had decided that a taste of fresh air was a necessity. 

The Lord was explaining… something. His hands were moving as he spoke in a low voice, but from the moment they had entered the gardens and Baelor had heard the distant voices, his focus had drifted. He looked up and spotted the different little clusters of people dotted all over the grounds. 

A group of elderly women, most likely grandmothers and aged aunts, were seated around a table under a gazebo, pots of tea and cups deposited in front of them as they chattered, occasionally laughing a little too loud or hacking a cough. There were other gatherings, fathers and brothers of the potential brides mingling amongst each other, waited on by maids and servantboys. The young ones had made their own cluster though. 

Baelor found Valarr at a table near the edge of the gardens, just in front of a patch empty of bushes that allowed a view out to the sea. Usually Valarr would be inside with him, sitting through every meeting and counsel and hearing that Baelor had to sit through in preparation to become the heir to the Iron Throne. Or perhaps he would be in the training ground, practicing his skills with the idle Kingsguard, or even just expelling his rage at a straw practice dummy. But Valarr had the week to choose a bride, which meant he was relieved of political duties and would not find peace if he chose to train. 

The table was populated with both ladies and lordlings of a similar age to Valarr, all speaking amongst themselves with small smiles on their faces or loud boisterous laughter. Baelor could not fault them, this was one of the few times the men and women were allowed to mingle, though he was sure there was a Septa fuming at the sight. He allowed himself a small smile, feeling soothed at the thought of his son at least enjoying himself a little despite how much the prospect had daunted him before. It was only then that Baelor caught sight of you. 

You were sat across from Valarr, bordered on either side by other young ladies. Though your chair faced toward the table, to the other people surrounding you, your head was turned toward the sea. You blinked slowly, as if a part of you was in tune with the calm of the water, but the moment was over in a flash, and one of the young women said something in your direction that made you laugh, your head leaning back and eyes squinting prettily. 

You were wearing a dress in a dark emerald green, a shiny fabric embossed with a darker pattern he could not make out from the distance. There was gold embroidery on the sleeves at your forearms, and like the dress from the evening before, it was draped precariously at your upper arms, leaving your shoulders bare to the sunlight. You wore simple jewellery, and your hair was pulled back from your face and into an intricate set of braids. You looked elegant, lovely. 

Baelor watched you listen to the conversation being passed around the table, your eyes flitting to Valarr as he spoke, and his son’s eyes flitting to yours as you responded. Someone at the table scoffed, the boy beginning to speak over you. You simply pursed your lips, leaning back in your seat and guiding your hardened eyes to the tabletop. Baelor knew Valarr would rectify the slight, would politely bring you back into the fold, but you seemed to forget the insult quickly as the woman to your right gently pressed her hand to your forearm and shot you a look that plainly told you that she had noticed, that this was not a new occurrence. Baelor swallowed both his laugh and his smirk. 

You let loose a long sigh, leaning back in your seat and placing your hands in your lap as you began looking around. It did not take long for your eyes to land on Baelor, standing still now on the path that wound around the gardens and back to the Keep, his eyes on you over the Lord’s shoulder. You went rigid when you noticed his attention, though you attempted to act as if no change had occurred in you. You turned your hands over and pressed your palms to your lap, and your lips parted as you tore your eyes away from him. You cautiously crept your gaze back in his direction, but your eyes flitted away when you noted that he was still watching you. 

Your chin lifted a little, and you adjusted yourself in your seat to be higher, your spine straighter, and Baelor smirked, finally tearing his eyes from you to allow you a second of respite. You were sweet, attempting to look more respectable as the Crown Prince watched on. When Baelor looked back, Valarr too had noted his presence and stood from his chair, lifting a hand to wave in his direction. 

“Excuse me for a moment,” Baelor told the lord, walking off before the man could utter a word in response, offering Valarr a pursed-lip smile as he neared. 

“Father,” Valarr greeted, bowing his head a little. The men and women at the table all stood to greet the Crown Prince, a chorus of “your grace” echoing around him. He could not pick out your voice. He smiled at them all, his gentle princely smile that made him a favourite of any who met him. 

Your head stayed a little bowed as Prince Baelor stood with his son, and you only looked up in quick snatches. Your entire body was hot with a blush as you remembered the way you had spoken to him, the way he had looked at you as if he could not quite make out if you were real. The more you thought about the way you had behaved in front of him, the more mortified you became. 

Baelor gently clapped Valarr on the back, asking how his son fared and then directing the question at everyone around him. They were all bright-faced and starry-eyed, beaming at the chance to speak to the Crown Prince and happily responding. Your response was whispered, hidden again in the humdrum, but Baelor’s eyes were already on you, watching your lips move as you bashfully glanced between him and the table. He offered you a kind smile, and refrained from directing any more of his attention toward you. 

You took to watching the Crown Prince instead as he focused on Valarr again and spoke in quiet tones with him. He had immensely straight posture, and an easy elegance to his every move. His hair was short, shorter than most men, but he kept a dignified beard over his cheeks and chin, sprinkled with white like snow on distant hilltops. His eyes were beautifully mismatched like his sons, but darker, more hidden and mysterious - perhaps a sign of age and experience. He wore black all over, but his doublet was thick and soft-looking, just begging to be touched… you bit your lip and looked down as a heat began pulsing under your skin. But your eyes caught sight of the rings adorning his thick fingers, his thumb absentmindedly twisting the one on the middle finger of the same hand, and you felt too tight in your stomach and chest. 

You glanced out at the water again, hoping beyond hope that a servant would come by with wine or ale and you could quench the sudden thirst in your throat. You rubbed your palms along your dress and when you gathered the courage to look back, Prince Baelor was facing the table again, nodding in farewell. 

“Goodbye,” you said quietly, and you were sure he would not hear over the other voices, but he seemed to look right at you and nod one more time, small and private, just for you, and suddenly you felt a pathetic lightness all over you… 

As the evening descended on King’s Landing, the Keep was full of noise as everyone readied for another night of feasting and dancing. The festivities were to go on for a full week until the announcement of Prince Valarr’s betrothal, and all parties could not contain their excitement. 

People filed into the great hall slowly, fathers daughters, mothers and brothers, and the tables began to fill up. The royals themselves only entered after a hefty crowd had gathered, walking up to their table on the raised dais and offering nods to the nobles who caught their eyes. 

Baelor sat at the centre of the table, at the centre of attention. To his right was his brother, dour-faced and constantly annoyed by something or other, not even waiting until he had fully sat down to grab his cup of wine and begin gulping from it. On Baelor’s left were his two sons, his pride in human form. Sometimes he could not quite believe how much time had passed and how quickly they had grown. 

Baelor watched as the platters of food were brought out and passed around, first to their table, then all down the hall, serving boys and girls running up and down with jugs of wine and ale, filling cups as loud and boisterous chatter and laughter echoed up to the ceiling. He sipped from his wine as he leaned on the arm closest to his brother, listening to the man grumble about some mischief his youngest had been up to. But Baelor’s attention was not on him. 

It was not easy to pick you out of the crowd, with the constant bobbing of heads and moving pieces, but once he found you, he could not stop seeing you. You were sitting somewhere in the middle, neither highborn nor lowborn, bordered on either side by brothers and sisters, facing your parents. He was sure he had met your father or brother at some point, perhaps at a tourney or some council or other. They looked familiar, but not familiar enough to elicit a clear memory. It frustrated him more than he would ever admit. 

You wore a beautiful dress coloured the orange of a sunset, layered with thin and shiny material. Drops of amber hung from your ears and though your hair was simply pulled back off your face, thin gold threads ran through and shined in the light. A small orange lily was tucked behind your ear and you were smiling and laughing as one of your younger family members attempted to clamber onto you and snatch it from your hair. He could not hear your laugh but a pang of longing hit him. 

As the evening carried on, Baelor’s focus did not shift from you. Valarr did not notice his father’s silence, Baelor had always been more quiet and thoughtful than most men. Maekar noticed his brother’s silence, his distant gaze, but chose not to question it. 

You were fascinating to him for reasons unknown to himself. Yes, of course you were pretty, but there was an endless train of pretty women in his life, and he had not batted an eye for a long time. Perhaps it was how much of a contradiction you appeared to be. You were thoughtful and intriguing, then cut yourself down as if whatever you said was of no value. You were willing to speak and not shy when you did, but then you held yourself back and allowed yourself to be spoken over. How could a person be both? 

When the tables were pushed back to create space for dancing, and the band began playing from their place in the corner, everything became muddled. He could no longer see you, and his interest in the event dwindled. When Valarr stood to ask a maiden to dance, Baelor quietly excused himself and made his way to the door. Just as he pushed it open and slipped through, he noticed the orange fabric of a dress peeking just slightly from around a corner. His heart thudded in his chest and he followed the path to find you, back pressed to the wall, head leaned back and eyes closed. You were humming quietly to yourself, but paused and became tense when you heard his footsteps. 

Baelor cleared his throat, hoping not to jolt you, and watched your eyes slowly peel open and your body go a little rigid again. But this time he smiled softly, walking a little closer with knowing eyes that made your skin feel hot and your chest rise and fall a little quicker than before. 

“My apologies,” you quickly breathed out, as if you needed to jump and say the right thing first. Then you winced, bowing your head as you realised how utterly stupid you sounded. 

“Whatever for?” Baelor asked, eyes a little wide in surprise as he stopped a few feet in front of you. You looked up at him through your lashes from where your head was still bowed, and smiled apologetically. 

“I do not know,” you sighed, and when Baelor chuckled, your hands tingled and you felt something clench inside you. You straightened up a little and pressed yourself harder into the wall behind you, hoping the sensation would ground you. 

“I would advise not to apologise when it is not needed,” he told you sagely, and you nodded, smiling softly. 

Silence fell over the two of you, and felt it like a pinch all over your body. You glanced around, twiddling your fingers behind your back, before looking at Baelor again. 

“At least I am not crying this time,” you told him out of the blue, a wry smile on your lips. But when his brows only furrowed and his head tilted in confusion, you felt the hot flush of embarrassment strike you. “Uhm,” you cleared your throat, “unlike last time, when you found me,” your voice quietening as you spoke. 

“Ah,” Baelor nodded, a polite smile on his lips, and you felt like slapping yourself for ruining the moment again. “I too am glad of the fact,” he finally said, “it is not pleasant to see a pretty young woman crying.” 

Maybe you had actually slapped yourself and not realised. Why did you feel like you had just been struck and you could not comprehend it? Your eyes were wide, lips parted just a little, and you were looking right at his face unabashedly for the first time. A soft breath whooshed past your lips and your hands clasped together in front of you. 

Baelor’s smile widened a little at that. How were you so obvious in your reactions? Maybe it was with age and experience that he was able to read people so well, but it was as if he could see your thoughts play across your face, plain as day. You smiled at him, but your lips pulsed as if you were unable to hold the expression. 

“Why were you so tearful?” He asked, clasping his hands behind his back as he leaned a little to be closer to you in height. You pursed your lips and looked away from him, trying to think quickly of something better than the truth, but then you sighed, dropped your head a little and shook it before looking back up at him with that same sad smile of before. 

“The same sentiments I expressed that evening,” you shrugged, moving your lips against each other a little. “It is not that the thought of marriage upsets me, or that I am against the idea of moving to a far off place to live with my husband. Every woman of course has a healthy fear of either of those things, but it is not something that haunts me. It is…” you paused as you felt the tears burn behind your eyes again and a lump began to thicken inside your throat. “It is rather stupid,” you shook your head, but Baelor took a step closer, his face contorted in a small frown. 

He reached up and gently pressed under your chin with the side of his index finger until your head was lifted once more and you were forced to look him in the eye. He did not say anything, just allowed you the space to continue, and you felt the first tear trickle down your cheek. 

“I am afraid that I cannot be loved,” you whispered, your face contorting a little as the pain in your heart unfurled and spread through your limbs. “A husband is meant to be the person who loves you for who you are, faults and all, whether that love is built before or during the marriage. I fear that I will be married, or I will be courted, and I will fall in love, but I will not be loved, and it will all be my own fault because I am not good enough to be loved.” 

The tears streamed down your face, your eyes squinted shut, your voice going small and watery, and Baelor felt your pain within his own skin. He felt it in his chest, in his gut, filling his head. He cupped your face and wiped your tears away with his thumb as you looked up at him, your chest and lips shaking as you sucked in breaths. You were not sobbing, but you would start soon. He just continued the soothing motion and after a moment, you leaned forward and practically fell against his chest, hiding your face there. You wrapped your arms around his torso, splaying your hands over his broad back and clinging to him the way the drowning cling to air. 

At first, Baelor could not move. He looked down at you, at your trembling shoulders, and allowed himself to wrap his arms loosely around you. He stared at the wall in front of him as you breathed slowly against his chest, and his eyes drifted closed, absorbing your warmth as you relaxed in his grip. 

How long since he had comforted in such a way? How long since he had held someone, since someone had held him? His breaths came out as slow and shaky as yours. 

The two of you stood there for a long few minutes more, and when you pulled away, you had a small pursed-lip smile on your face. Baelor unfurled his arms from you, keeping them diplomatically at his sides, and you clutched your hands tightly together in front of you. 

“Heh,” you let out a small, awkward laugh, and rubbed at your cheek nervously. “That is twice now you have been witness to my tears. Far more than necessary.” He could practically see you begin to shrink in on yourself, and something wild and desperate inside him wanted it to stop at once. “Uhm,” you cleared your throat, “I apologise again, my prince,” you said quietly, “I should not have… I should not… I just should not.” 

Even the embarrassed smile had dropped from your face now and you looked small and sad, like a child shamed for something done with good intentions.  

“Did I not just advise you to refrain from apology when unnecessary?” He asked you quietly, one of his eyebrows raising as you pursed your lips and nodded bashfully. 

“Yes, your grace,” you whispered, continuing to wring your hands. Baelor reached down and gently gripped them, stopping the movement. He could feel you tremble in his hold, but he kept on, softly rubbing his thumb over the backs of your hands until they relaxed. 

“You do not find me insolent?” You asked him innocently, looking up at him through your lashes again as brightness began to return to your eyes. 

“Not one bit,” he smiled, the soft and caring smile he reserved for those closest to his heart. 

“Truly?” You asked, and your own smile was returned, a cheeky lilt to your words. He could see the sparks dancing in your eyes and the smooth movement returned to your body. Though he still held your hands, you gripped them back a little now, and your spine straightened just that bit further. 

“Truly,” and his smile widened too, matching yours. 

You felt at peace now, something that had slowly gathered within you from the moment your tears had ceased and he had continued to hold you. The inside of your skull felt smooth and soft again, without the constant pulsing tension that had been unknowingly plaguing you. 

He had watched you cry, had heard your deepest fear and a truth you scarcely liked admitting to yourself, and he had stayed… Not only had he stayed, he had listened and comforted, wiped your tears and simply given you the space to be. That meant far more than anything he could say. 

And now you felt light, like the weight was lifted and the good parts of you that others always appreciated were allowed to be appreciated by you as well. You felt like the girl who laughed freely at family dinners and giggled with her friends, who spoke her thoughts with care and wanted them to be expressed precisely the way she wanted. You felt whole, and all because of something so simple… 

You smiled up at the prince and then unfurled your hands from his grip, feeling a little shy at the way he continuously watched you. You reached up and plucked the lily that had managed to keep its place at your ear. It had been a little squished and wilted when you had pressed your face to his chest, but you carefully placed it in his palm and curled his fingers around it. You lifted his hand until it rested over his heart, then at the last moment, leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to the back of his hand. 

“Thank you, your grace,” you whispered, then you slipped out from between him and the wall and swiftly went around the corner and back into the Great Hall. 

“Father,” Valarr nodded, closing the door behind him as he ventured into Baelor’s study at the top of the Hand’s tower. Baelor had been sequestered all morning, reading through petitions and letters and something that was both a petition and a congratulatory letter. Though he had managed to focus on occasion, there were moments where his eyes stayed on one word far too long simply because his mind had gone back to the previous evening to recreate the feeling of you kissing the back of his hand. Baelor smiled at the sight of his son, watching Valarr fall into the seat across from the desk with a long sigh. 

“How do you fare?” He asked, and Valarr blew a breath upward to force the hair from his eyes. He shrugged, looking again like the child he had once been, before straightening up and nodding. 

“As well as can be,” he told Baelor, “spoilt for choice yet without passion.” He clasped his hands together between his knees then leaned forward, his back curling, before looking up at his father. “I fear I have met a hundred women, but do not know any well enough to propose marriage.” 

Baelor smiled sympathetically at his son and nodded in understanding. It had once been that way for him too, but he had been lucky to find Jena. He was sure Valarr would find someone too, and he did not mind if it took him some time. 

They conversed a little on some of the maidens, a Lannister lady with pretty golden hair and a Hightower girl with a quick wit, but nothing further than that. It was then that a name hit Baelor, completely out of the blue from the recesses of his mind. He continued looking at the papers in front of him, though he did not read a word, and casually asked Valarr, “what do you know of Lord Blanetree’s daughter?” Valar’s brow furrowed as he racked his brain, tilting his head a little. 

“Uh,” he dragged out in thought, ignoring the raised eyebrow look his father shot at him as he did. It was undignified. “I believe he has many children, with four daughters at least, but with a large gap between. The eldest is twenty and something but her first younger sister is only just ten and three. I believe you met the Lady Y/n at my table a day past,” his eyes lit up then as the memory cleared. “Yes, she sat across from me in the emerald dress. She is rather well spoken, if a little reserved.” 

Baelor lifted his eyes to Valarr, your name running in his head again and again. So that was who you were, the eldest daughter of a minor house, reached marriageable age yet unmarried, burdened by your position and your mind. Your name sounded soft and sweet in his head. 

“Do you wish me to focus my attentions on her?” Valarr asked, looking quizzically at his father, but Baelor almost jumped in his seat. 

“No, my son,” he answered soothingly, “I will not influence your decision in any way. It is your right to choose, and you shall have it.” And Valarr smiled gratefully, nodding in thanks. He soon stood and made his way back to the door, citing the possibility of finally being able to train in peace, and left. 

Baelor leaned back in his seat, parchment forgotten on his desk. He spun his ring around his finger, over and over and over. He knew your name… 

You were wearing a yellow dress. The beautiful soft yellow of sunshine and daffodils, a simpler dress than any other he had seen you in, with minimal embroidery and embellishment, cut off just at the ankles to expose your matching silk slippers. 

Baelor could see you in the distance as he walked down the hall, keeping a leisurely pace as he prolonged his return to the tower after a meeting with the King. You leaned on the stone railing and looked down over the inner courtyard, draped not in sunlight but the pale indirect shine from the sky. 

The dress you wore was thinner than others, made for summers, and he could see the outline of your body where you bent to lean, where your curves naturally pushed out and created your silhouette. He averted his eyes to your face. 

As he came closer, you turned your head in his direction, chin resting in your hand. You straightened up when you noticed him, but you were no longer rigid. Something softer had taken you over, the energy he had seen in you when you had interacted with your younger siblings at the feast. You were smiling, and he could not help himself but to offer it back to you. 

“Your grace,” you greeted, curtseying and then lifting your chin to ensure you met his eye. 

“Lady Y/n,” and you felt your skin heat. You had never heard him say your name before, and his silky voice wrapping around the letters made your spine tingle. Your smile widened unabashedly before you could contain it once more, and it only made his eyes dance. 

“Will you accompany me on my journey back to the Hand’s tower?” He asked, gesturing ahead of himself with a flat palm. You nodded enthusiastically, twirling to face forward and falling into step beside him. 

“Have you had a busy morning?” You asked him, clasping your hands behind your back as you walked at his side, matching his leisurely pace. You could tell that he slowed his stride to ensure your shorter legs would not disadvantage you, and your chest filled with warmth. 

“Nothing more than the usual,” he answered simply, and you nodded, letting out a little ‘ah’. “How has your morning fared?”

“As well as could be,” you said, mimicking his tone of simplicity, but when he raised an eyebrow and smirked at you a little, you giggled and bumped his shoulder with yours. You went rigid, realising what you had done, your face falling and your steps faltering, but when Baelor continued smiling at you, you simply laughed breathily and regained the straightness to your shoulders. “One of my gowns gained a tear while my sister played dress-up with my things, so I spent the morning teaching her how to sew it up.” 

Baelor’s eyes softened as he gazed upon you, and he could not tear himself away. Some of your hair fell forward onto your face, and his hand flexed with the need to push it back for you. He was sure you would make a wonderful mother some day, if the way you handled your younger siblings was anything to go by. He could imagine you with a babe in your arms, a child that was your spitting image, but perhaps inherited his own hair or his eyes. He could see a toddler running between you two, clutching to your skirts then toddling to his father… Baelor looked away and cleared his throat a little. 

“I do not wish to bore you with talk of dresses though,” you added, sighing a little. 

“You do not bore me,” he told you quietly, “you could not.” 

You felt the heat building in your chest, burning in your cheeks and at the tips of your ears. You looked up at him, lips parting a little, but it was too late for anything else as you had arrived at the door to the tower of the hand. 

Baelor stopped just outside, turning to face you fully. He reached up and tucked the strand of hair behind your ear, nodding in satisfaction, then bid you a quiet goodbye and left you standing there on uneven footing. 

The Crown Prince did not attend the dinner that evening. You felt the disappointment in your core. You waited and waited for the seat to be occupied, for the moment you could look up and watch him walk through, his long steps measured and his broad shoulders passing easily. But Valarr and his younger brother, and even Prince Maekar and his sons appeared, and the feasting and revelry began, but there was no sign of your Crown Prince. 

Your family could tell there was something that had subdued you. You poked at your food and barely smiled at anyone, huffing sadly every few moments, but not telling anyone why. You felt a little stupid being so upset over something like this. He did not owe you his presence, and he was a prince of the realm, hand of the king, he was far busier than you could ever comprehend being. But… you still wanted to see him, still wanted him to look at you the way he did… 

When the revelry began, you slipped away like clockwork. You did not want to stay in that room when you knew he was not there. An agitation you had never felt before seemed to be awakening in your skin, slowly and without naming itself. You walked slowly through the halls, savouring the cool air, on your hot skin. The lit fires shivered a little, casting long shadows on the walls, and after a few turns, you could not quite recognise where you had ended up. 

The smallest spark of fear was lit in your heart at the unfamiliar tapestries and the doors that all looked the same. You had never ventured too far from the Great Hall, and now that you had somehow taken leave of your senses, you could not quite remember what path you had taken to end up here. 

You rounded another corner, and instantly your heart lifted again at the sight of two Kingsguard posted outside a large door at the end of the hallway. You let out a sigh of relief, beginning to walk in their direction, but just as you reached the halfway point of the hallway, a voice stopped you. 

“My Lady?” A low question from your left, and you turned your head to look out onto a large balcony. The Crown Prince sat at a small table, his body facing out to the view but his head turned to look at you. He must have heard you coming. A jug of wine sat on the table in front of him and he clutched a cup in his right hand. 

Your lips parted, your body stopping short in surprise, and a little choked sound left you. You turned between him and the distant Kingsguard, and then took quick steps to reach the balcony. You paused just in front of him, not realising that your gown brushed his hand on the armrest. 

Baelor was mesmerised by you, there was no other way to put it. You seemed to appear out of thin air, but it was only the colour of your gown hiding you until you hit the light. He had first thought you were dressed in black, something thick that almost absorbed light, like his own clothes. But when you had stepped closer, he realised it was indigo, a dark indigo like that of a midnight sky during a thunderstorm, the lightning flashing. It lacked embellishment, relying on its colour shining in the lights of the fires. 

“Your grace,” you greeted breathily, your eyes still wide, and before he could ask what you were doing near the private Targaryen chambers, you continued on quickly. “I lost myself in thought, then I lost my way, I-” you dropped your head, your chin hitting your chest. “I did not mean to intrude on you.” 

Your relief was palpable, but Baelor could also see the apprehension, the worry that you had made your way to somewhere you were not supposed to be, intruded on something that you were not supposed to intrude upon. 

You were happy to see him, there was no doubt of that fact, but he had clearly avoided the feast and stayed himself here because he wanted to be alone. You would never forgive yourself if you had forced yourself in his company when you were not wanted, even if inadvertently. 

“It is alright,” he responded, smiling softly at you, and your shoulders loosened a little. He gestured to the seat next to him, the one that stood to your other side, and you hesitated for a moment, before ultimately deciding to sit down anyway. “You lost your way?” He prompted, and you nodded. 

Though Baelor did not mind company, and he did not mind solitude, he had required it that evening. It had been a long time since his mind had felt so jumbled about something, and it had nothing to do with the grain production of the realm, nor the new bridge being requested for a river just outside of King’s Landing. It was you.

He had known that if attended the feast, he would have spent his night watching after you, would not have thought a single thought that was not about you. But he could not allow that, not when so many other things began to crowd his mind and he found no peace in his bed at night. 

He had taken his jug of wine, his single cup, ordered the kingsguard to stay at his door, made his way to this quiet haven overlooking the gardens and the sea beyond, and simply allowed himself to think freely. 

Baelor thought about the way he had disregarded his own cautions and touched your hair anyway, had allowed himself to be swayed by the unexplainable desires of his that seemed to appear out of thin air when you were around. But then… then his thoughts had darkened. 

You were young, far too young still, and you had no business spending your time with a widowed old man like himself. You should have been dancing with the boys in the hall like you had done the other night. You should have been sitting with Valarr and flirting and smiling bashfully, all the things young people did and believed they were the first to do. It was Baelor’s own fault for encouraging you, for allowing you to behave in such a way with him. He should have been stopping you, not falling to his own weaknesses. 

And he felt rather selfish too, a sickening feeling that he had no business feeling as hand of the king. But he did. You were here for Valarr, or at the very least, to be betrothed to some young man who still had his own life ahead of him to live with you. It was selfish of him to be taking up so much of your time, to be enjoying it so and wishing that you spent all of your moments, waking or in sleep, with him. 

There was something else there too, a kind of betrayal of Jena. Though it was true, they had not been married for love, and perhaps he had never fallen for her the way they spoke of in tales, but he had loved her in a way. They had shared a life together, shared children together, would it be a disservice to her to feel so for you? Because now when he looked upon you, when he saw you smile softly and look out at the distant night sky, as your hair draped tantalisingly over your neck and the sleeve of your dress dipped a little low over your shoulder, he understood what the old bards said of falling in love inexplicably. 

“...rather hot, is it not?” You asked, turning your head to look at him, big eyes blinking. The pause was too long, and when he focused back on your face, he cleared his throat a little. 

“I drifted, my lady, and for that I apologise. What was it you asked, dearest?” And you flushed hot then, your insides clenching and your mind suddenly running far too fast for your liking. 

“I… um…” your mouth opened and closed, “uh, I simply said that the Great Hall gets far too hot once the dancing begins.” 

“Indeed, it does,” he responded, smiling kindly, though there was still that preoccupied quality to his eyes. “Would you like some wine?” He asked then, glancing between you and the jug. “There is only one cup, I fear, but there is no harm in sharing.” He poured more wine into it then placed it on the table in front of you. You gulped, nodding in thanks and picking up the cup. You placed it to your lips and took a long slow sip. The wine was sweet and without any tang, smooth like nothing else you had tasted. You were sure this was the kind of wine that made drunkards of men, the kind that you would only have the opportunity to taste in a place like the Red Keep. 

Baelor watched you sip from the place where his mouth had been only moments before, and he turned away, closing his eyes tight. It was a form of torture this, he was sure of it. 

When you placed the mug down again, you looked at him, at the way he was gazing out at the water again, and you frowned a little. You were not sure if it was appropriate to ask, but you could bite your tongue no longer. 

“My Prince,” you said quietly, and he turned to look at you, his eyes soft, as they always were when he looked upon you. It made you feel warm inside. “Do you wish me to leave you be? I do not pretend to know what weighs on your mind, but I am aware something does. I would not want you to hate me because I could not tell I was unwanted somewhere.” 

Your voice was earnest, not the small and self-depricating thing he had once heard. You were sincere, saying such things out of care for him rather than woe for yourself. He felt his heart clench and loosen in his chest. He truly looked at you, allowed himself to get lost in the moment. 

Baelor reached up and gently pressed his thumb up where your lower lip pouted. The droplet of wine that had dangled there splayed onto this thumb, and he slowly rubbed it along your bottom lip until it had disappeared. 

Your breath stuttered over his hand, a soft fluttering thing like a bird’s wings. You stared at him with wide eyes, frozen, mesmerised, incapable of anything but breathing. You felt the liquid heat in your veins. The urge to press your lips to his thumb, to perhaps even bite it a little, flashed through you, and you blinked slowly, as if truly contemplating it. Baelor brought his hand back down and gently tapped your cup as if to tell you to drink more, returning his eyes to the dark patch where the sea called out. You sipped eagerly, your breath heavy. 

“I could not hate you, even if you tried,” he finally said, smiling at you again as if he had said something simple, something of no consequence. “You are right, something does weigh on my mind, but it is good for a mind to remain heavy. Sometimes it is good to simply hold what weighs the mind down, but do it in the company of someone else.” 

You almost felt tears prick at your eyes at the way he spoke, so soft and wistful, as if he had learned this from experience, as if there had been a time where he had been forced to carry burdens alone. You wished to take the weight from him, even if for a moment, but his words had touched something in your soul, had called to mind the moments where he had found you and made the weight bearable. So you nodded, smiled a watery smile, and poured more wine into the cup before passing it back to him. 

Something had shifted after that evening. A new part of you had been woken up and refused to be quieted. You felt antsy before the feast. All day you had spent sequestered in your room, pacing back and forth until your feet hurt and your only choice was to throw yourself on your bed and scream into your pillow. You had felt a nagging sense of guilt since the evening before, something deep in your gut that battled the light and fluttery feeling in your heart. 

You could not stop thinking about Prince Baelor. From the moment you had first encountered him, from the moment he had allowed you to hug him and had wiped your tears with such care… he would not leave your head. If you closed your eyes, you could picture him perfectly. His dignified expression and the warmth of his eyes… oh you were lost. 

When there was even the merest mention of his name in your vicinity, your heart began to thud and your palms became covered in a light sweat. You felt lightheaded and desperate. You felt pathetic. 

Though you only had smiles to offer when you thought of him, only had warm feelings in your heart at the idea of him, there was also this toxic mix of guilt and anger. A nagging guilt that you were betraying someone by loving him, whether that be his son or his dead wife. He was not the reason for your stay at the Keep, and yet he was the only reason you cared about. 

But you were angry too, the irrational kind of anger that you knew was unjustified but you clung to because it was easier to feel. You were angry at him. You were angry at him for being so kind and gentle, for being so handsome and honourable, for making you fall in love with him… 

You stood in front of the mirror as a maid laced the back of your dress. You waited for the pull, the tightening, and then leaned forward and said “tighter”. If you were to look your best in any dress, it was to be this one. The gown was made of dark red velvet, with long bell sleeves that draped down to your thighs when you stood straight. The hem was rather long too, covering your feet, and you bedecked yourself in gold to match it. You looked dipped in blood. You looked almost Targaryen… 

You walked into the Great Hall surrounded by your family, but your eyes first went to the raised dais. The royals had already arrived, sitting in their various positions, sipping from goblets of wine. You could see Valarr smiling and joking with his younger brother, saying something in his ear that made the younger boy almost spit his drink. Though it was not likely, if Valarr were to choose you, you thought you could be happy with him. 

When your eyes landed on Baelor, purposefully taking your time to reach him, to savour the moment you would finally lay your gaze on him, you felt your breath hitch in your chest. He was already looking at you, as if he had been waiting for the moment you walked through the door. His eyes dragged down your body, and it felt as if with each inch he covered, another part of your body left your control. It took everything in you just to keep walking to your seat. His face did not betray much, and you hated that he was so good at remaining stoic, but for a singular moment, you could see the fire burn in his eyes, and it made you hot under the collar. 

You tore your eyes away as you reached your seat, and made a promise to yourself that you would avoid looking his way. He already haunted your dreams, you need not let him haunt your waking moments too. 

You kept your eyes on the table, or on your plate, and happily on your siblings when they bothered you for attention. Though it was slow, eventually it did become easier not to keep taking peeks at the royal table, at the man who had not torn his eyes from you for even a moment. 

When the dancing began, you allowed yourself to stay for a little while. You stood to the side and clapped to the beat, and even danced one song with the elder brother of one of the ladies from the Reach. But after the twirling and stepping, your feet hurt and the music was far too loud, and the heat in the Great Hall had settled too much. 

You carefully picked your way through the crowd, discretely making your way to the door. Just before you reached it, you turned over your shoulder and looked back through the room and up to the Royal dais. You saw Baelor, met his eyes for a long moment, then turned and slipped through the door. You were not sure if you were posing an invitation, but you hoped he would come anyway. 

The cold air outside was fresh, and you made quick work of finding your way to the balcony where you had spent the first night of the festivities pondering all the great sadnesses of life. How far removed that seemed from the person you were now. You resumed your position at the railing, and closed your eyes to listen to the water. You could hear the distant whoosh of the waves and it instantly set you right once more. 

It was not long before footsteps echoed behind you, and though your body tensed, it was not unpleasant. When you turned around, it was as you had hoped, Prince Baelor making his way to you, his eyes gleaming even in the darkness, the barest upturn to his lips. You pursed your own to hide the smile that constantly threatened you in his presence. 

“Your grace,” you curtseyed. Your eyes were bright and something in him felt sharp and hot when you looked up at him from under your lashes. 

“My Lady,” he responded, but you felt like you were hearing his voice for the first time again, that silky softness that wrapped around your mind and made you feel like closing your eyes and shivering unabashedly. If only he would whisper in your ear like that all the time… 

“You have found me again,” you said quietly, hands behind your back, clenching tight together as if that might keep your sanity, might keep your thoughts poor and your decisions good. 

“So it seems,” and his voice was low too, slow and drawling, almost taunting. 

He had walked closer to you, standing so the toes of his shoes touched the toes of yours. Though there were hints of the food and wine from the hall still clinging to his clothes, you could also smell the deep scent of a cool perfume on him, an interesting mix to the tinge of smoke that always seemed to cling to a Targaryen. You tried to inhale long and discreetly. 

His incessant gaze was unsettling to you. How could he not tire of looking at you? How did he manage to interest himself enough with you, that not only did he look for so long, but his focus never wavered, and neither did his intensity? 

“Why do you gaze upon me in such a way?” You asked quietly, biting your lip a little and bringing your hands around to fiddle with them just in front of you, in the small space that was left between your bodies. 

“In what way is that, my lady?” But his tone suggested he knew the answer, that his confusion was feigned and he did it only to provoke you. 

“In that way,” you answered a little petulantly, nudging your head in his direction as if to indicate his own face to him. A small smile made its way onto his face, and you felt your chest and stomach clench with it. 

“You will have to be more specific my lady,” he responded teasingly, and your entire body flushed with heat. You had not realised that your feet had shuffled you closer, that your head was tilted even further back to meet his eyes and your hands were hovering just over his chest, waiting to be placed there. 

“You tease me,” you breathed out as he leant his head down close to yours, his eyes filling your vision, his nose grazing yours. “But you know well what I say.” You felt the hairs of his beard tickle your chin, felt the lightest graze of his cupids bow against your own. His breaths fanned warmly over your mouth. 

“I do,” he agreed, and then you were not sure how, but his mouth was on yours. Did he bend or did you lift? It did not matter, because his lips were warm and soft and he tasted of the sweet wine from Dorne, like bright red summer fruits. You felt hungry for him. 

You steadied yourself against his body, your hands splayed over his ribs, pressed into the plush fabric there. One of his hands gripped your waist, tight over the line of your corset, and the other cupped your cheek, pulling you tight into him. You could feel the line of his body, and you were sure he felt yours in return, your breasts pressing into his chest. You were pushed up onto your toes, and though you trembled a little, he kept you tight against him. His neck was craned a little awkwardly, but he was sure he would endure a lifetime of pain far worse if it meant you kept kissing him like that. 

Every thought he had carried in his brain before slipping out of his seat and making his way to you, was muddled and tossed about, some forgotten and some incoherent. He remembered your red dress, dark and provocative, begging him to follow you as you slipped through the door, but he could not remember the nagging feeling that had eaten at the back of his brain when he had seen you first. 

It was only when breath became a necessity that you pulled your mouths away. You did not stray far. Your lips brushed together, breaths heaving against each other. His beard still rubbed at your cheeks a little. Your chest filled. Your eyes were closed, and you swallowed, the inside of your skull still feeling like it was full of bees. You exhaled just over his chin. You tilted your head up a little, brushing against his mouth again, but when you leant in to kiss him once more, he spoke. 

“Stop.” 

You paused, eyes flashing open. Baelor’s were still closed, and though he still held you, it felt like his grip was loosening, as if reality itself was loosening its hold on you with it. 

“What?” You breathed out, and when Baelor finally opened his eyes, he could see yours, looking up at him, an incredulous sort of panic colouring you. Your hands trembled at his sides, and he clenched his eyes shut again for a moment as a flash of pain ran through him. 

He wanted to shake his head, to tell you that it was nothing, that he had only had a moment of weakness but everything was alright, and you should simply kiss him again. But… this was wrong. This should not have been done. And that was the truth of it: this had been wrong from the beginning. He should not have intruded on you, he should not have watched you, should not have seeked you out. You were not meant for him, and there were a million reasons for it. He was the elder in this situation, he was supposed to know better, to guide you. And he could not be responsible for guiding you into a life that you may one day resent. He would not survive it. 

He had not meant to get so caught up. When he had followed you, he had vowed to himself that it would be like before, without the touching, without the incessant desire. He had not meant to lose control. 

“Enough,” he whispered, and when he opened his eyes, they were hard like stone. You felt something cold curl deep in your stomach. You had never seen his eyes like that before, the eyes he used in council, on the battlefield, but never with you. 

Baelor pulled back, uncurling his arms from around you and pressing them at his sides. The air around him was far too chilly now. He took a deep breath in and shook his head. 

“Return to the Great Hall at once,” he told you, and your body went rigid. 

“My-” 

“Return to the Great Hall, at once,” and it was an order. 

You stepped back, hands pressing tight to your stomach. Your eyes filled with tears as you looked up at him, your lower lip trembling and your face contorted with anguish. Why was he doing this? Why did he kiss you then order you away? You opened your mouth, readying to ask him, but Baelor simply turned his back to you. You gulped, pressing your lips tight together to hold the sobs back. How had everything turned so quickly? 

Tears slipped down your cheeks and you nodded though he could not see you. Your steps were hurried, slightly unsteady as you practically ran away, and Baelor clenched his eyes shut. He could not watch you leave. 

Your dress was far brighter than you felt. Of course it was not the maid’s fault, how should she know your heart had been broken beyond repair and you felt like staying in your bed wearing mourning clothes? But you had been forced up and out of bed, told to leave behind whatever so saddened you and make merry with the other maidens, or perhaps find a moment in Prince Valarr’s company to endear him to you. You felt like doing neither, but you did put on the dress. 

It was late after lunch when you dared to venture out into the gardens for a walk and some fresh air. It was just before evening, a time when everyone had sickened of the sun and wanted rest before the revelry so retired to their rooms and shut their eyes. You chose it on purpose, hoping to avoid interacting with anyone. 

You still felt that sickening feeling of having the carpet ripped out from under you. When Baelor had kissed you, it was everything you had ever wanted, only for him to rip it away before you could get your fill. Your night had been spent sobbing, your entire body shaking as you curled up in bed and thought about the way he had dismissed you. He had not spoken otherwise, had not given you a single reason, simply expected you to leave. 

You wiped at your eyes as you looked out at the gardens, your feet carrying you slowly, happy there was no one around to witness your weakness. You reached a secluded spot, a bench between bushes with a view out to sea. You allowed yourself to stand there, staring out at the water and feeling the pain in your heart stretch though each limb. 

There were footsteps approaching, and you hoped they would bypass you entirely. If the person came your way, maybe you would be lucky enough that they would not ask any questions, would not realise you were standing there. It seemed luck was never on your side. 

Baelor had taken to the gardens for the same reason you had. He should not have been surprised to find you there. But when he strolled along the path and spotted you standing just in front of the bench, his breath had left him, and he was forced to come to a stop near you. 

You wore a beautiful pale violet dress, like lavenders or bell flowers. Your hair was loose down your back, the front strands simply pinned back to keep your face clear and nothing else. And your face… your beautiful face, with puffy red-rimmed eyes and a shine to your nose that made him ache. You should not have to look like that, full of such agony, and all because of him. 

Baelor stepped closer to you, and you clenched your eyes shut, as if you could blink him away, but when you reopened them, he remained there. He looked tired, suddenly more wrinkled around the eyes than the night before. You could tell he had not slept well. 

Your hands shook and sharp, shooting, pains wracked through you, reminding you constantly of what you had faced the evening before. You wanted to speak, to ask him why he had abandoned you so, but you could not bare to look at him. You began turning away, eyes clenched shut and mouth quivering with barely restrained whimpers and sobs, but he stepped closer again, gently reaching out and gripping your elbows to bring you to him. 

You shook your head, pressing your lips together, keeping your eyes shut, hoping he would leave you be the way he did before, ceasing to cause you pain. But Baelor’s own eyes were wet with tears seeing the state of you, and he could not leave again. He dragged a hand up your arm, over your shoulder, caressing your neck then cupping your face softly. 

“My lady,” he whispered, and his voice was hoarse, clogged, and you hiccupped a little, the sob staying caught in your throat. You wanted to pull away, and even moved back to do so, but he simply followed you. 

“What do you want from me?” You asked quietly, your voice a torn thing, as you finally opened your eyes and looked up into his piercing blue ones. “Why do you keep me here?” 

Baelor rolled his lips, blinking and looking away for a second as his thumb caressed the bone of your cheek. You could not decide whether you wanted him to continue or you wanted to thrash away. 

“I told you my fears,” you whispered, “and it felt as if they had come true last night.” Baelor clenched his eyes shut and nodded, pulling his lower lip back and biting it. He knew what he had done, knew how he had made you feel, and he hated himself for it. “Why?”

He was quiet for a few moments, listening to you breathe shakily, feeling it over his chin and neck, savouring the feeling of holding you again, something he had tossed away the evening before without thinking about how he would long for it every moment after. His fingers threaded through your hair behind your ear. 

“You are beautiful,” he began, and the smile on his face was sweet, genuine, pained. “You are young and beautiful and so full of life. Though I may not be on my deathbed, I am old, widowed, a father of two sons, and weighed down by what is expected of me from the realm. How could I justify to myself that a beautiful girl such as yourself could ever be happy being forced into such a situation? You may kiss me and have your fun, I will allow it for I am weak, but it cannot go further than that.” 

Baelor’s face was as sad as you had ever seen it. His eyes shined, the hand cupping your face trembling a little, and he seemed to become even more tired in your presence. You listened to his words with a frown, your lips parted, tears staining your cheeks, and your hands limp at your sides. 

“Did you think to ask me?” You responded, your body beginning to tremble as a white hot anger filled you. Your hands clenched into fists and you brought them up, resting them harshly against his chest.

“What?” He asked, voice a little breathy as his frown turned form anguished to confused. 

“Did you think to ask me how I felt? If I simply wanted to play with a prince’s feelings or if I- if I loved you?” You stuttered a little as the truth fell from your mouth, your body tightening. Baelor stared down at you, eyes unreadable. 

A moment passed and your face crumpled again, the tears anew and your mouth turning down at the corners. Your hands splayed over his chest then clenched into his doublet again. 

“I do not think you old or weighed down. I find you… I find you handsome,” you reached up and rubbed a hand over his beard as his eyes shined down at you. “Unbearably so. And kind, a man with a heart too good for this realm. You have comforted me like no other, have soothed me and made me happy, and all without trying.You are the first person who has truly listened to what I have had to say, and not tossed it asied. You make me feel… you make me feel real. You may be widowed, you may be a father, but those are not links on a chain. Those are things that make you the man you are, that endear you to me beyond what words can express. I could think nothing better than spending the rest of my life in your company. You would not be chaining me but freeing me.” 

Baelor cupped your face with both hands as you looked up at him, breathing heavily. It was the most honest you had ever been in your entire life. Your body thrummed with the truth of it, and you felt a little better simply for having said it. You dropped your head onto his chest, and allowed him to wrap his arms around you and hug you close. The two of you stood there for a long few moments, trembling in each others arms, eyes closed, absorbing what the other person had said. Finally, Baelor leaned back, cupping your face again and tilting your head up just so. 

“My love,” he whispered, pressing his lips to your forehead and leaving a long kiss. You felt light and airy, like a caterpillar turned butterfly, and you hoped he would lean down and kiss you on the mouth, rectify what he had done the evening before. But Baelor just pulled away, tightening his grip on your face a little, nodding at you, and then walking off down the path. You were too stunned to even call out. 

You had been left confused the rest of the day. After your moment with the prince, you had returned to your room, laying flat on your back on the bed and staring at the ceiling. You could not comprehend him, could not possibly gauge what went on in his mind. How could he possibly think himself burdening you by loving you? Perhaps he was mad. It would not be out of the ordinary for a Targaryen. 

When the evening had rolled around, and you were laced into your dress, you were still dazed. You floated through everything, not realising that you had been guided into the Great Hall, that you were sat at a table and there was food in front of you. You had not even bothered to check if the Crown Prince had made an appearance. The only time even a modicum of consciousness had found you was when you excused yourself and slipped from the room. 

It was purely on instinct, your feet finding their way to the fateful balcony. This would likely be one of your final nights here. It had become obvious that Prince Valarr had no interest in you, and you had done nothing to curry his favour either. But you would miss this balcony, this view, this softness that the world had in this particular place. 

You sighed long and low as you leaned over the railing, just managing to catch the shine of moonlight on the sea in the distance. Sometimes you wondered what it would be like to fly off the balcony and simply fall into the sea, never to be seen again. 

There were footsteps behind you, not loud but not someone trying to remain hidden. You had a suspicion of who it was, because who else would be in this place at this time other than Baelor? You could not quite decide if you wanted to see him. 

When Baelor stepped onto the balcony, he almost felt as if he had been transported back in time to the night he had first met you. You were standing almost as you had been before, looking out. You wore a dark blue velvet dress, a similar style to the one of before, with off the shoulder straps and bell sleeves. But where that one was embellished with gold, this one was stitched with silver, almost like the moon over the sea just behind you. 

You turned to look at him, and your face did not betray anything. He could not tell if you were happy to see him or upset. He did feel some guilt at the way he had left you, so quick and fluid, but he had needed to get away, to think for a long moment about the action that had entered his brain, and to speak with his son about the possibility. It had felt far too right. 

You opened your mouth, readying to speak, but Baelor just stepped closer until he was right in front of you, then got down onto one knee. He braced his forearms on his thigh, looking up at you with determined eyes and a small smile. Your breath left you, your hands coming up to press against your mouth as you stared at him. Your eyes blinked rapidly, your heart ran faster than a prize horse, but you were frozen to your spot, unable to comprehend what was happening. 

“My Lady,” he began quietly, the way almost all your conversations had gone since the day you had met. “Forgive me for causing you the distress I have done, it was not meant. Though I have known love, and marriage, I have never felt for someone the way I have felt for you. You are beautiful, and kind, and soulful. You do not love yourself the way you should, but allow me to do it for you.” Baelor twisted a ring off of his finger, the one he always fiddled with when in thought, and proferred it up to you. “I love you,” he finally said, and his voice lightened, like a bird flying from the ground and disappearing into the sky. “I love you with all the heart I possess. And if you love me the way you have expressed. If even a modicum of that affection stille exists in you, then all I ask of you is that you marry me.” 

Your entire torso shook as you sobbed into your hands, your eyes never leaving Baelor, not for one moment. You could not believe it. You could not. But there he was, the most powerful man in the seven kingdoms, kneeling for you. You nodded. You hoped you did. 

“I will never allow you to doubt my love again, not even for a moment. I will speak with your father on the morrow, announce the wedding as soon after if you wish it.” And then all you could do was nod, your vision blurring and neck aching. You laughed, loud and ecstatic and a little manic. Your tears, though hot and wet on your cheeks, for the first time carried only pure joy. You offered Baelor your hand, allowed him to slip the ring onto your finger, the band far too big, and then fell to your knees in front of him. He gripped you around the waist, hauling you into his arms as you trembled and giggled. 

“My prince,” you whispered, cupping his face in your hands as he beamed down at you. He pressed his forehead to yours, and you nuzzled your nose to his. You ran your thumbs over his cheeks, over his beard and let your hands rest against the sides of his neck. He clutched you tightly, keeping handfuls of the thick velvet of your dress. 

From behind, late afternoon sunlight pooled through the tall windows, catching a swirl of dust particles near the old bookshelves. You break from his touch, eyes returning down to your lap, tracing a finger across the top edges of your book. Only a few hundred pages to go.

"Perhaps later," you replied airily. "Did the servants mention I wish not to be disturbed, either?"

Lyonel huffed out a laugh. "Not even sparing your lord husband?"

A quiet chuckle escaped your lips, but you didn't respond further, instead quickly picking up where you left off.

There was a beat of silence.

Lyonel shifted on his feet, drumming his fingers against the curve of your chair. He swept a glance around the library.

In all his years living in Storm's End, you'd think he'd have explored every nook and cranny of the castle, even just from scampering around in the days of his youth. He rarely came up to this part of the tower, and the library alone was a room he had never quite acknowledged its existence of—that was, until your marriage, and you had claimed the small space like it was a fortress of your own, practically barricading yourself with all these books when you had no other duties to fulfil.

He glanced back at you, still in a state of perfect serenity. Heaving a sigh, his patience fell through.

"Alright! Enough of that."

Lyonel snatched the book out of your hands.

You shot up from your seat. "Hey!"

The corners of his lips tugged upwards. "What's this you're reading anyway that's depriving me of your attention, hm?"

Horror flashed across your face. You sprang forward, but Lyonel sidestepped you almost effortlessly. He extended his arm so the book was out of your reach, eliciting a laugh as he watched you try multiple times to take it back—and fail.

"Lyonel, please—"

"Oh? Something I shouldn't know about?" he teased, a wicked grin spreading across his features. "Now you've got me truly curious."

You went so far as to clutch at his linen doublet, but Lyonel only seemed to be enjoying your desperate attempts, his arm stretching further behind as you pawed at his chest. Finally, he managed to catch a glimpse of the leather-bound cover, and his jaw went slack.

"A Caution for Young Girls?" he said, almost in wonder. "But darling, this is—" You both came to a standstill, and a spark of excitement suddenly shone in his eyes. "Oh, this is obscene. You mean to tell me you've been reading this filth all day?"

"Among other things!" you insisted, frowning, feeling a heat creep up your ears. You motioned your head to the few books stacked beside your chair—which were, of course, nowhere as lewd as the one your husband had seized.

Believing his guard was now lowered, you pounced once more. "Give it—" But Lyonel's reflexes were quick, and he took a sharp step backward, chuckling like a roguish child.

"I've only heard the smallfolk rave about such eroticism, no less written by a handmaid of Alysanne Targaryen," he said with a smirk, running a hand through his tousled curls. "You know, my love, if it is an outlet of release you're seeking, you could've just asked."

"Yes, I know, I know—" you replied, now defeated, and released an exasperated sigh. "Will you please just return me my book, Lyonel?"

Something brewed in his eyes then, the same fervent look when he was about to indulge in merrymaking.

"Hmm," he pondered innocently—or rather pretended to. "No."

Your brows scrunched in confusion.

"You'll have to catch me first."

You caught seconds of the most smug grin on Lyonel's face before he bolted for the door.

You groaned inwardly—as endearingly frivolous your husband was, that also meant you had no choice but to participate in his antics.

Cursing under your breath, you gave chase.

Storm's End had stood for centuries, but its thick grey walls had never witnessed such wayward amusement until the ruling of its current lord and lady. The castle itself was a symbol of strength, housing respect for all its inhabitants and casting a seriousness upon the stag—now it echoed with comical shouts and boisterous laughter, almost as if young love had never faded.

Footsteps striked against the ground, one set after another, as you dashed down the stairs and scurried through the cobble hallways. It was an endless blur of stone pillars and fresh torches burning in the wall sconces. You focused only on the salt-and-pepper curls in front, flying wild and untamed—oft a wonder how Lyonel was still so full of vim and vigour.

He made a sharp turn then, and you followed suit, whirling down another flight of steps. The faint sound of waves crashing against rocks at the cliff's base could be heard, and light now spilled through the open corridors. You rounded the last corner, but the sight of the Storm Lord running past must've left a servant dumbstruck and stationary, and you nearly knocked over the tray of hot food she was carrying.

"Sorry!"

You quickly uttered an apology, darting straight for the dining hall where Lyonel led you inside.

But just when you were about to gain on him, he suddenly came to a halt. Lyonel spun around, and his lower back hit the edge of the table.

"Oof!"

You crashed into his chest.

A hand immediately steadied your waist.

For a moment, neither of you spoke, adrenaline washing over as you both fought for your breaths. Your heart was hammering against your sternum, and though you wanted to scowl at the affectionately irritating man for causing you such unnecessary exertion, the corners of your mouth couldn't help but twitch upwards.

Lyonel was already smiling. Messy grey ringlets fell over his forehead. His chest was still heaving, and he only stared at you intensely, as if deep in thought.

His gaze dropped to your slightly parted lips.

"You know what the hunting party spoke of?" He met your eyes again, speaking coarsely between laboured breaths, "They say I'm trapped in a loveless marriage. Because you're more taken with your books than you are with me."

Lyonel's tone hinted at a jest, but you could tell he wasn't entirely unbothered by the remarks made.

Safe to say, they were a needless concern.

"That's not true," you replied, scoffing lightly. "Do you think I would've entertained you this long if it was?"

"Then—" His features softened. "You do love me?"

Your heart rate slowed to a steady rhythm. You tucked a stray lock behind his ear, pretending to sigh deeply. "Unfortunately, yes."

A grin tugged at his mouth. His other hand drew out your book from behind his back. "Promise me you'll have something to eat first," Lyonel said, voice warm and rough, gesturing to the rich spread of food now splayed on the long table.

You chuckled. "I promise."

"And—" His arm pulled back a little, just before you could reach for the book. "Give me a kiss."

You were well aware of the several pairs of eyes and ears present with you in the hall—servants streaming in from the kitchens, a cupbearer filling wine just across the room.

Regardless, you leaned in to take Lyonel's lips between yours, feeling his beard tickle your jaw. His shoulders immediately relaxed, and no sooner than two seconds later his mouth moved to slant against yours, kissing you deeper and more eagerly, as if his one-day trip into the nearby woods had deprived him of you for many moons.

The birth was long and grueling. You remembered only flashes: the muttered voices of healers and chambermaids, the searing pain, and the curses you hurled towards your husband, who was pacing the other side of the room, but heard every single one. You threatened his head, well-being, and cock, and a cold shiver ran down his spine. Your words were spoken with so much conviction that a small fraction of him was thankful that he was not in the room. He winced with your cries of pain and wished to be there to comfort you, but the young Lady Baratheon was not one to be taken lightly. One assassin had tried and received a comb, stabbed right into their eye.

Your son was born a little after midnight, and you cried with happiness as you finally held him. Lyonel was allowed in, and he hurried to you, seeing your tears. He felt a small grip of fear until a small hand appeared out of the bundle. “My sweet.” He breathed out in awe as he laid eyes on his son for the first time. “Lord Lyonel Baratheon, future Lord of Storm’s End. Meet your son.” You announce with a wavering voice and gently hand him over. Lyonel takes him, slowly, gently. “What do you think of as Ormund for a name?” He asks, eyes on his son, not quite able to believe that he is here. “Ormund, the son of Lyonel. It is perfect.” You sigh deeply, the tiredness starting to reach you in deep waves. “He is perfect. And so are you.” He assures you and gently leans in, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

You yawn, sleep threatening to take over. The healer had assured that it would be good to sleep, if you could. “Lyonel, you’ll hold him?” Your eyes are already closed. “Of course, my love. You rest.” With that, your eyes close and you slip instantly into a steady, dreamless sleep.

Lyonel is left alone with his son as you rest, and can take him in with greater detail. His son’s eyes mirror his own, and so does his dark hair. But he sees your nose, perfectly miniaturized on his son’s face. The boy shifts, and Lyonel gently alters his grip. “You’re big one, huh? Planning on outgrowing your father already?” Lyonel bounces him gently, feeling as if he could burst full of joy and pride. He remembers how he felt when he outgrew his father. “You have a lot of growing to do. But you’ll be a hulking beast of a man soon.” He assures, hand brushing the babe’s hair. “You’ll be able to take anyone with a sword or lance. We’ll hire the best masters of arms, and they will teach you everything. And what they don’t know, I will teach you.” He vows, glancing at your sleeping form.

A young maid peeks her head in, and you jolt awake. Lyonel throws a dark glare in her way, and she blushes deeply, voice dropping to a mutter. “My lady, I can take the young Baratheon to the wet nurse now if-“ “No.” You interrupt, shaking your head. “I will nurse him myself.” Your words are final, but the girl still glances at Lyonel. “My Lady has spoken. She’ll nurse him.” He responds evenly, presence collected and stately. What you say will happen, end of discussion. The wet nurse enters the room, still, but only to aid you in nursing.

Lyonel returns the babe in your arms and watches from the foot of your bed, your hand in his, as the nursemaid assists you. “He may not latch on the first try, but do not be discouraged, my lady.” She assures you, but your son is apparently adamant to prove her wrong, or is just hungry, as he begins suckling immediately. “He is a hungry one.” The nursemaid laughs, giving you a warm smile. “Of course he is, have you seen the size of him?” Lyonel boasts from his spot, and you give his hand a squeeze while keeping your eyes tightly on your son. “Your son is a big baby, my lord. And healthy as a horse. He’ll grow into a strong boy and man, there is no doubt.” The nursemaid is quick to assure, and you swear you see Lyonel glow with pride. “Lady Baratheon. Do not hesitate to ask if you need assistance. I am here.” Her words settle the nerves in your heart, as she settles into the side of the room, pulling out her knitting and starting work on it.

Lyonel leaves to make an announcement to his father, the current Lord of Storm’s End, as well as the people in the city. You can hear the cheers from the yard, and can only imagine the celebration your husband is going to throw.

*****

You couldn’t have imagined the celebration, even in your wildest dreams. On the second day, when you finally feel well enough to participate, Lyonel is boasting to everyone within earshot that your son will grow into a bouldering man and that he will beat them all in jousting, sword fighting, and archery. He’ll be the heartbreak of maidens and knights alike, and he will grow to be the Lord of Storm’s End, just like his father.

The celebration would have gone on longer, but the Ashford field tournament is fast approaching, and you set your way there. Lyonel had sternly refused that you and young Ormund remain home. “He is my son, I want to show him off! Tell tales of the man he will become!” You laugh softly and wince as the carriage drives over a hole in the road. You are still not fully recovered from the birth. The healers and the elder ladies had warned you that you would be sore for a while, especially with Ormund being such a big baby.

The road to Ashford had been long, and you settled down to rest for a moment before the celebrations started. Lyonel tells you that he will take the baby with him to see the other lords. You agree, knowing he is burning to show off the future lord of Storm’s End and his heir. (There has been some light banter about him not having one, despite his age.)

When you wake, you venture on a search for them. When you finally do, you feel as if your heart has stopped.

As he, your son, is sat atop a horse. He is supported by your husband’s hand, who is laughing, as his son giggles with his pudgy fist in his mouth. But he is sitting atop his father’s war horse, who was not a child’s pony, and definitely not suited for a baby. “Lyonel! What in the gods’ name are you doing?” You didn’t bother with lowering your voice or making your tone even. “What? You know Acorn, she’s a sensible mare.” Lyonel laughed, handing your son over as you reached for him. “Much more so than her rider.” You huffed in indignation, inspecting your son over. He was a happy baby, taking after his father, quick to smile and laugh.

*****

In the Baratheon tent fitted for visitors, the air is heavy, and the noise is loud. Your son’s hand finds your pinky and grabs a tight hold of it. “Have you ever seen such a warrior’s grip before?” Lyonel roars, pounding a neighboring man into the back, gesturing towards his son. “It’s as if he were born with hands ready for a sword!” The man roars back, and they end up in a loud, alcohol fueled argument over long words and maces, which you desire not to listen to.

After a while of entertaining your son, you excuse yourself to find conversation with a few other ladies who have young children to search for kinship, leaving Lyonel with the baby.  He is boasting about his size and strength with such intensity that you are not sure he is able to breathe in between.

Lyonel spots Dunk hesitantly making his way around the tent and waves him over. As soon as he has stepped to the front of the table, Lyonel holds Ormund out to him. "Look at him, you wall of a man!” Lyonel all but thrusts his son into Dunk’s face, who takes a step back at the sudden movement. “Were even you so big as a babe?” Lyonel’s words are proud, and he hoists his son even higher, so his eyes are in line with Dunk’s now. “I-I don’t believe so.” Poor Dunk is stunned. He just wanted some supper, and now there’s a baby in his face. “He’s going to be such a jouster. Feel his grip.” With one hand, Lyonel pushes Dunk to sit, and with the other, he sets his son in the arms of the hedge knight, who stiffens. He’s never held a baby before. Let alone Lord’s baby, their firstborn. Lyonel doesn’t notice this, or even think of it, and presses Dunk’s pinky into the baby’s grip. Ormund closes his fist immediately around him, and Lyonel pats Dunk on the back. “Feel that? He has the grip of a warrior.” He’s brimming with pride, his son watching with bright eyes. “He s-sure does, my Lord.” Dunk agrees. The baby indeed has a strong grip, and with what he knows of babies, is quite big. “Stay there for a moment, aye? I have a matter to see to.” The “matter” is of him needing a drink, but Dunk doesn’t need to know that.

And like that, Dunk is alone with the baby. Who is looking at him with large eyes, much like his father’s. The babe’s grip remains steady on Dunk’s finger, free pudgy hand in his mouth. “Please do not cry. Please do not cry.” Dunk is praying, sure that if he makes his son cry, Lyonel will have him executed. Which is not probably not far from the truth.

Just as Dunk feels as if he might survive this, the baby begins squirming, face scrunching. “Oh, you’re okay.” Dunk shushes, or rather begs the baby to be quiet. “Be still now, everything is okay.” He is getting desperate, searching for Lyonel with his gaze, but the Lord is nowhere to be seen.  

Dunk’s savior appears out of nowhere. “Ser Duncan. Why do you have my son?” Your steps come to a halt as you see Ormund in the grasp of the giant knight. “Lord Lyonel handed him to me and went to take care of some business. I mean no harm to him, I swear-“ You cut him off. “I am sure he is quite safe with you. My husband just … left him to you?” Your words are indignant, your brow raised high. “Yes, my lady. He said he had some business to attend to, and-“ Your huff interrupts him yet again as you pluck the babe from his arms. He stops talking, breathing in relief as you settle your son into your lap. “Business to attend”, you say with a roll of your eyes, “he’s been pouring pint after pint, boasting how he made a big baby. It is as if I have two children.” You sigh, hand rubbing your temple, bouncing your son gently. Ormund laughs with delight, flailing his hands, and Dunk doesn’t know how to respond. “I-I see.” You swivel your head, glancing in the direction from which you hear his distinctive laugh coming. “Could you hold him for just one short moment more? I’ll fetch my husband, and then I’ll take him right back.” Dunk accepts the boy with hesitation and freezes when the boy smiles at him. He responds in kind, allowing the child to grasp his finger again. “I’m sure you’ll grow great and strong, just like your father.” He gently assures the boy, who giggles, kicking his legs. You return soon, as you promised, with your husband’s ear in your hold. “My sweet, that is - OW!” You release him, and he rubs his ear, settling to sit in his seat with an almost childlike glare.

Lyonel is boasting again, the embarrassment of being fetched back like a child long forgotten. “I’ve never seen a more handsome baby. And I made him!” Your husband slurs, holding his son out and up again. Dunk nods in agreement, but you kick Lyonel’s chin in retaliation.“What do you mean you made? I am the one who pushed that very big baby out of a very small hole in my body. I can barely sit comfortably!” You snap, settling Ormund against your chest after stealing him back from your husband. Dunk blushes deep red upon your words. Lyonel throws his head back in his loud laughter. Luckily, your son is well used to this uproarious man in his life, and simply giggles, hands flailing again.

Only when your son fusses slightly, his hand finding the chest of your dress, do you decide that your evening has to come to a close. You lay your hand atop your husband’s shoulder, bringing his attention to you. “I think it's best that Ormund and I head to sleep. He is getting hungry, and I am feeling quite tired.” You speak to your husband, and he opens his mouth to argue, but sees the steely look in your eyes and decides it would be best for his heart to join you. “Good sers, I am afraid we must retire now.” He mutters, swaying slightly, but his voice is even. The knights and men alike around boo, and he shoves a few of them away. “You’ll understand when you all have wives. And a baby.” He waves them off and escorts you out with a hand on your lower back.

The King’s arrival had turned Winterfell on its head.

Trumpets, banners, gold—so much gold. The North had not seen such splendour since the end of the Targaryen dynasty, when Robert Baratheon had taken the throne. Now, it seemed half the realm had come marching behind Robert's royal party.

Gold and crimson, black and stag-marked—southern colours that gleamed far too bright against Winterfell’s muted tones. The northerners looked on, some with curiosity, some with cautious, and a few openly awed as they watched the southern procession wind its way through the gates like a river of colour cutting through snow.

At the head of it rode your father—Robert Baratheon himself—larger than life and twice as loud, his booming laughter rolling over the crowd like thunder. His beard was flecked with frost, his furs heavy and rich, his crown sitting askew in a careless way that had once been considered charming but now looked more like neglect.

You had heard endless stories of his youth—the warrior who had swung a warhammer like the gods themselves had forged it for his hands, the rebel who had taken a throne with fire in his blood and vengeance in his heart. Robert the Usurper. Robert the Conqueror. 

But the man who rode before you now was not that legend. His armour strained against the swell of his belly, his face ruddy from drinking. The warhammer had long been replaced by a wine cup and a whore on his lap, the crown he wore weighed by the weight of old victories he refused to let die.

You wondered if even he remembered what it had felt like—to be the man the songs still sang of. Now, he was simply a king grown soft, chasing the ghost of glory through the bottom of his goblet and whoring his way through the street of silk.

As for you, you rode among them, sitting tall despite the cold that seeped through your furs and southern silks. Your father had insisted you come north, and you had insisted on riding atop a horse rather than shut yourself away in the carriage with your mother and younger siblings. It had seemed a small act of defiance then, a gesture of freedom. Now, with the wind biting at your cheeks and Joffrey’s endless complaints filling the air, it felt more like punishment.

He had sneered the entire way north—at the chill, the people, the very land itself. “The dreary, filthy North,” he had called it more than once, his tone dripping with disdain. You had ignored him as best you could, your gaze fixed on the horizon, excited to see a different land from the one you grew up in.

You’d always imagined the North as a wasteland of ice and furs, cold and colourless. But when you finally crossed through Winterfell’s borders, the image shattered.

The ancient stronghold rose before you, proud and formidable, its grey stone walls streaked with frost and history. Smoke curled from the forges, filling the air with the scent of metal and fire. There was movement everywhere—men with weathered faces and proud eyes, women calling out to one another across the yard, and children with flushed cheeks laughing as they chased hounds through the snow-dusted courtyard. It wasn’t lifeless at all. It was rough yes, but nothing like the southerners tried to depict.

You drew your crimson cloak tighter around your shoulders, breath ghosting in the frigid air. The cold bit through your clothes, sharp against your delicate skin, and for a moment you thought you might curse your own stubbornness for refusing the carriage. Yet as the wind swept past you again, crisp and fresh, you realized you didn’t hate it as much as you’d expected to.

It was different from the damp, perfumed warmth of King’s Landing. There, beneath the scent of roses and incense, there was always something else—an undercurrent of rot that no amount of perfume could mask. The palace gleamed with splendour, but beyond its stone halls the small folk suffered, and their misery lingered in the air like smog. Even in the height of summer, the city smelled of decay.

You shivered again from the cold. The North was harsh, yes—but there was purity in that harshness, a raw honesty that stripped everything down to what it truly was.

“Gods, it stinks,” Joffrey muttered beside you as the royal party began to dismount, his nose wrinkling as though the very air offended him.

You fought the urge to roll your eyes. The journey north had nearly rid you of patience for his endless vanity, but you found that ignoring him was the best way to deal with him.

Instead, your gaze drifted to the family lined before the steps of the keep—the Starks of Winterfell. They stood proud and poised, and in perfect unity they bowed towards your father not letting you get a proper look at their faces.

Your father went forward first. For a moment, an uneasy hush fell over the courtyard, as they watched what the King would say. You watched your father approach ordering Lord Stark to stand, but soon after it was all laughter and heavy slaps on the back as he embraced Lord Stark. Your mother followed, cold as a blade at Robert’s side. 

One by one, the rest of the Starks straightened, rising from their bows as your gaze swept over them. There were three younger children—two boys and a girl with untamed, curious eyes that seemed to hold more mischief than fear. The smallest of the boys stood by his mother, his expression bright with childlike wonder, while the other, taller but still retaining his boyish excitement stood by his sister.

Beside them stood an older girl, her light auburn hair gleaming softly. She was beautiful, the kind of beauty that was more seen in the south. Her hands were clasped neatly before her, and her smile, though polite, carried a faint nervousness as her gaze flickered toward your brother. You didn’t miss the faint blush that coloured her cheeks.

But it was the eldest son who drew your eyes and held them.

Robb Stark.

Named after your father’s namesake.

He stood beside Lord Stark with a quiet confidence that needed no boasting to be felt. His hair was dark auburn, catching faint hints of red beneath the pale northern sun, and his stance was strong—broad-shouldered, proud.

He was handsome, though not in the soft, polished way of the southern courtiers you’d grown accustomed to seeing. He was well groomed, yes, but the rugged strength beneath that composure could not be hidden. His build spoke of long hours in the yard rather than idle ones in a hall, his bearing of discipline rather than indulgence.

His eyes caught you most of all—grey as a storm over the sea, sharp and intelligent. There was a steadiness to them, a kind of calm that unnerved you, because it was clear they missed nothing.

And they certainly didn’t miss the smirk your brother sent his sister’s way. Robb’s expression didn’t so much as flicker in response, though the faint tightening of his jaw told you he had noticed, the way his sister blushed in response.

Before you could look away, those grey eyes found yours—and for a heartbeat, the world seemed to still. 

You had never been one of those girls who giggled over handsome lords or whispered about courtly love behind lace fans. You had seen enough of men like that—vain, shallow creatures who mistook charm for worth. But something about Robb Stark was different. 

Heat crept up your neck before you could stop it, your cheeks warming despite the chill in the air. You fought the sudden, ridiculous urge to look away bashfully, to hide the small, traitorous smile tugging at your lips.

It was absurd, really—you didn’t even know him. 

For a long, unbroken moment, you didn’t move. It was as though the cold had rooted you in place, your pulse thudding softly in your ears. Then, without warning, Joffrey bumped into you from behind with a muttered curse, snapping the spell cleanly.

You blinked, startled, stepping aside as your brother straightened his cloak with a scoff, clearly annoyed at you. But when you looked back, Robb was already glancing away, his expression unreadable.

The feast that night was as loud and unruly as any your father had ever hosted—though the North’s version of merriment came with more ale and less flattery. The great hall of Winterfell was alive with sound: the crackle of hearth fires, the thunder of mugs striking tables, the low rumble of laughter spilling between bites of roasted meat. The air was thick with the scent of smoke and spice and the faint chill that crept in from the open doors each time a servant hurried through.

You sat near the head of the table, your place beside your mother. You didn’t have to look at her to know her jaw was tight, her patience thinning with each booming laugh from your father as he entertained the woman on his lap.

Robert was in high spirits, which was to say, he was halfway to drunk before the first course had finished. His laughter echoed down the hall, drowning out conversation, spilling more wine than he drank as he talked with Ned.

You kept your gaze low, pretending not to notice the way your mother’s fingers curled around her goblet, white-knuckled.

It wasn’t until your father slammed his mug down on the table that the laughter faltered. The sound reverberated through the hall like a hammer on iron, silencing even the musicians.

“Come, Ned!” he bellowed, a drunken grin on his face, his words slurred with good cheer. “You’ve given me your friendship, your sword, your counsel—but not your blood.”

A murmur rippled through the hall. Lord Stark blinked, confusion flickering across his usually steady face. “Your Grace?”

Robert gestured grandly down the length of the table, his cup sloshing in one hand as he waved toward you. “Your boy, Robb—and my eldest daughter!” he declared, his voice booming with the certainty of a man who had never considered refusal. “A match that will bind the North and the West! A son of Winterfell, a daughter of the Crown—what say you, Ned?”

A ripple of uneasy laughter passed through the hall. Some courtiers echoed it too quickly, hoping to placate the King, while others bowed their heads, unwilling to draw notice beneath Robert Baratheon’s good humour.

You froze, your hand tightening around the stem of your goblet as your father’s words sank in. Heat crept up your neck, though the hall suddenly felt very cold. You fought to keep your expression composed, the careful mask of royal composure your mother had drilled into you since childhood. But it was impossible not to feel the weight of every gaze turning toward you and Robb.

Across the table, Robb Stark looked up sharply. His storm-grey eyes found yours through the candlelight, steady but startled. There was no arrogance in his stare, no mockery—only quiet disbelief that mirrored your own.

Even your mother stilled beside you. Cersei’s hand froze on her cup, her knuckles whitening as she turned her gaze toward your father, fury flickering behind the mask of a queen’s poise.

“She’s still young,” your mother said tightly, clearly also not having expected this.

You were a woman grown, long past your first blood. Old enough to bear children, old enough for marriage. In truth, it was a miracle you hadn’t been married off earlier.

Robert waved her off with a booming laugh, already reaching for his cup again. “Old enough for betrothal!” he said, dismissive and delighted all at once. “Robb Stark and my eldest girl—the wolf and the lioness! Gods, they’ll make fine cubs, eh?”

Your pulse thundered in your ears as you stared at the table before you, unable to look at anyone. It was not the proposal itself that shook you—marriage had always been an eventuality, a matter of alliance rather than affection—but the suddenness of it, the way your life had been offered up like cow at an auction.

The hall erupted again — laughter, murmurs, wide eyes. Lord Stark looked caught entirely off guard, his calm composure faltering for perhaps the first time that evening. Your mother’s jaw, meanwhile, was set in stone, her fingers tight around her cup as if she meant to crush it.

Your father, oblivious—or perhaps uncaring—of the discomfort around him, only roared with laughter and turned to the young man in question. “What say you, boy?” Robert grinned at Robb, raising his cup. “A fine match, eh?”

Across the table, Robb Stark straightened, caught between the weight of his father’s silence and the King’s drunken insistence. For a heartbeat, his eyes flicked toward Lord Stark, as though seeking guidance. But Ned Stark’s face, though grave, gave nothing away.

Robb’s jaw set. Slowly, he inclined his head toward the King, his tone careful and measured. “Your Grace honours me,” he said evenly, the calm in his voice belying the tension in his shoulders. “But—”

He didn’t get the chance to finish.

“But nothing!” Robert boomed, slamming his cup down hard enough to spill wine across the table. “The girl’s comely, and from good stock. I’ll hear no objections!”

You wanted the floor to swallow you whole. You managed to lift your goblet, forcing a polite smile that didn’t reach your eyes, though your stomach twisted with humiliation. This wasn’t how you imagined meeting your future husband—announced like an offering at a feast, your worth reduced to bloodlines and the King’s drunken cheer.

When Robert finally turned his attention elsewhere, clapping Lord Stark on the back with enough force to rattle the tableware, you dared to look up again.

Robb was watching you. His gaze thoughtful rather than cold. 

You wondered what he saw—a spoiled lion cub, soft from silk and wine? You wouldn’t have blamed him for thinking it. The Northerners were born of hard work and harder winters; you were born of gold and servants.  And yet, as his gaze lingered for a moment longer before turning away, you couldn’t help but hope that perhaps he saw something else too—something more than what your name and colours proclaimed.

As the feast wore on, the laughter grew louder as everyone grew drunker. You tried to endure it—to play your part, to smile when spoken to—but each passing moment made it harder to breathe.

Finally, when no one was looking, you rose from your seat and slipped away.

No one noticed. Your father was deep in his cups, his booming laughter echoing over the music, drowning out any thought of propriety. Your mother had vanished not long before—where, you neither knew nor cared. You only knew that you needed air.

The courtyard was quiet when you stepped into it, the torches guttering in the wind. Winterfell was different at night—vast and solemn. The cold crept beneath your cloak, but it was a welcome feeling compared to the suffocating heat of the feast hall. You drew the fabric tighter around your shoulders and breathed deeply, letting the icy air fill your lungs. For the first time all evening, you felt the weight in your chest begin to ease.

Your boots crunched softly against the packed snow as you wandered without aim, tracing the paths between torchlit walls. Somewhere overhead, a raven cawed, its cry carrying across the night before fading into the wind. You might have turned back then—returned to the warmth and noise, to the safety of your place beside your mother—had it not been for the sound that broke the stillness.

Steel striking wood.

You paused, listening. The sound came again—steady and rhythmic. Curiosity stirred, and you found yourself following it through the shadowed corridors and out into one of the training yards, half-shrouded in darkness.

There, beneath the pale light of the moon, was a young man. He moved with focus, each swing of his wooden practice sword fluid and measured, the sort of precision that spoke of years of learned discipline. He was focused, wholly absorbed in his task, his strikes landed with a steady rhythm against the straw dummy. He was breathing heavy, every breath came in soft, visible clouds, rising and vanishing into the cold air. Despite the chill, he wore only a simple tunic, the thin fabric clinging faintly to his skin with the sheen of exertion.

The soft sound of your steps must have given you away. He turned sharply, the sword rising instinctively in his hand, and you startled, taking an instinctive step back.

“Apologies,” you blurted, raising your hands slightly. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I was only taking a breath from the feast and seem to have lost my way.”

He blinked in surprise, eyes widening as recognition dawned. Even in the low light, you could see the resemblance to Robb Stark—the same sharp lines of the jaw, the same quiet intensity—but his hair was darker, brown like Lord Stark’s, and there was a softness to his gaze that Robb did not possess.

“No, it is I who should apologize, Your Grace,” he said quickly, lowering the sword. “I didn’t expect anyone to be out here.”

“There’s no need to apologize,” you replied, your tone gentle as you stepped closer. “I didn’t expect to find anyone either. I thought I was the only one hiding from the noise.” You hesitated, studying him for a moment. “In fact, I don’t recall seeing you there. I thought all of Lord Stark’s children were present.”

Something flickered across his face at that—an emotion you couldn’t quite place. His jaw tightened slightly, and his eyes dropped to the ground. “I… am not officially considered as such,” he said quietly. “Jon Snow is my name.”

Realization struck, sharp and unbidden. “You’re his bastard,” you said before you could stop yourself. The words slipped free like a breath, unthinking—and the moment they did, you saw the subtle hardening in his eyes, the stiffness in his shoulders.

“Apologies,” you said quickly, your voice softening. “I meant no offence.”

He exhaled through his nose, the tension in his shoulders easing only slightly. “No need, my lady. I’ve heard worse.”

Something in his tone—half resignation, half acceptance—made your chest tighten. 

“Still, it was rude of me to say it as such. It is not a child’s fault for the sins of their father,” you murmured, your voice soft against the quiet of the yard.

He blinked, as though the thought itself surprised him. The training sword in his hand lowered slightly, his fingers flexing around the hilt.

“Most highborn don’t bother to make excuses for bastards,” Jon said at last, the corner of his mouth twisting—not quite a smile, not quite a sneer. “They just pretend we don’t exist.”

You tilted your head, studying him in the dim light. “Pretending seems to be a southern pastime,” you said dryly. “One I’ve never been very good at.”

That earned you a flicker of amusement—brief, but genuine. The tension in his shoulders eased, his guardedness softening into something closer to curiosity.

“Why are you out here?” he asked after a moment, breaking the silence. “You should be inside—warm, with the rest of them.”

“Yes, I should,” you agreed bitterly, your breath ghosting in the cold. “I should be with everyone, watching my father drink himself into a stupor and insult my mother and his marriage every chance he gets.” You exhaled, a short, humourless laugh escaping you. “Or perhaps I should’ve stayed so I could be congratulated on my upcoming betrothal to your brother.”

Jon’s eyes widened in surprise. “Robb?”

You nodded once, your mouth twisting faintly. “Yes. The King saw it quite fit to announce the offer among everyone in attendance.”

Jon hesitated, his expression unreadable. “You don’t sound very happy about it,” he said finally.

You gave a quiet, mirthless laugh. “Would you be?”

When he didn’t reply, your shoulders lifted in a small shrug as you looked away. “I mean no insult to your brother for my bitterness, but when you’re offered like a broodmare, with no inclination or choice in the matter, I think anyone would find it hard to be happy.” The words left your lips without hesitation. “Sometimes I wish I was a bastard. At least then my father would have ignored me, the way he’s ignored the hundreds of other children he’s sired.”

You hesitated, your voice softening, though the bitterness beneath it remained. “You’re lucky Lord Stark is your father, Jon Snow. At least he seems to care for his children. My father only sees us as bargaining chips—useful when needed, forgotten when not.”

Jon’s grip tightened around the hilt of his training sword until the leather creaked. For a heartbeat, he seemed unsure of what to do with his hands. Then he set the blade aside, the tip sinking soundlessly into the snow.

“That’s… a harsh thing to wish for,” he said quietly. There was no judgment in his tone—only pity and sadness. 

You let out a dry, humourless laugh, your breath curling white in the cold. “Harsh, perhaps. But honest.”

Your gaze lifted toward the sky. The stars here seemed closer, brighter—so unlike the smog-veiled heavens of King’s Landing. “I used to think being royal meant freedom,” you murmured. “That power could buy choices. But I grew old enough to realize it only meant I was shackled to duty and expectation higher than most. And for a highborn lady, that will always mean being owned.”

Jon studied you for a moment, the way your voice softened around the edges of those words, as though you’d long since grown tired of speaking them aloud.

“I’ve often thought about what it might mean to be born properly a Stark,” he admitted quietly. “What it would be like to be seen. Properly. To belong somewhere.” His lips curved into a faint, self-mocking smile. “You want to be invisible, and I’d give anything not to be.”

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. The cold bit at your cheeks, but neither of you seemed to mind it. The silence was strangely comfortable—a bubble of calm in a world that demanded too much of both of you.

At last, you broke it. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” you said softly. “How both of us want what the other has. You’d give anything to be acknowledged, and I’d give anything to be forgotten.”

Jon’s lips curved faintly, but there was little amusement in it. “Seems the gods have a sense of humour,” he murmured.

“Or cruelty,” you countered, your gaze turning skyward again. “They give us everything we never asked for and keep what we want just out of reach.”

Jon followed your gaze, his expression thoughtful. “Perhaps they think it makes us stronger."

You huffed a quiet laugh, the sound soft in the cold air. “Then the gods have made philosophers of us both.”

Your laughter seemed to ease something in him. The stiffness in his shoulders melted away, and for the first time, the heaviness in his eyes lifted. When he looked at you again, there was no trace of wariness, only quiet understanding.

“You don’t talk like the other highborn ladies I’ve met,” he said finally.

You smiled faintly. “That’s because most of them are taught to be silent. They’re there to be admired, not heard.”

He tilted his head, considering you. “And you?”

“Oh, they tried to teach me the same,” you said, a touch of dry humour in your voice. “But I’m a shit listener.”

Jon blinked, startled at the sound of you cursing—and then, to your surprise, he barked out a laugh. A real laugh. You found yourself laughing along with him. 

When his laughter finally faded, he studied you again—longer this time, as though seeing something he hadn’t before. “You know,” he said quietly, “I think Robb might like you.”

Your smile faltered at that, the words cutting through the brief ease between you. The reminder of your betrothal fell heavy in the still air.

Jon seemed to realize it, because his tone softened. “Robb will be good to you,” he said gently. “He won’t see you as a thing to be bartered.”

You looked away, the flickering torchlight catching in your eyes. “Maybe not,” you murmured. “But that doesn’t change what I am. I’m a commodity—something to be given to strengthen the ties between the crown and the North.”

The words hung in the cold air like mist. You exhaled slowly, something between a sigh and a laugh escaping you. “You know,” you said, voice quieter now, “I don’t even know if I’ll be good for him. He looks to be a steady man, one born of duty and hard work. I am a daughter of duty, too, but of a different kind. We both know my southern softness would have no place among the strength you Northerners carry.”

Jon’s brows knit slightly as he studied you. For a moment, he seemed to weigh your words, the silence stretching between you before he finally spoke. “You sell yourself short, my lady. The North doesn’t measure strength by calloused hands or sword arms. We measure it by what a person endures.”

You blinked, surprised by the quiet conviction in his tone. The night air curled white from his breath, and for the first time you noticed how young he really was—a couple years younger than you, but already worn by truths older than his years.

“From what I can see,” he said, his gaze steady on yours, “you’d survive Winterfell just fine.”

The sincerity in his tone caught you off guard. For a moment, you couldn’t quite find your voice. You had expected pity, perhaps—politeness, or some attempt to comfort a princess who had never known real hardship. But there was none of that in his eyes. Only truth. Quiet, unwavering truth.

Something in your chest tightened, a strange ache blooming where defensiveness had lived for so long. You found yourself smiling faintly, though it didn’t quite reach your eyes. “You say that now,” you murmured. “You haven’t seen me try to walk on ice.”

Jon’s lips twitched, the ghost of amusement playing there. “The North has a way of humbling everyone. You’d learn.”

That made you laugh—soft and breathy in the chill, the sound a wisp of warmth in the frozen air. “Still,” you said after a moment, “your brother deserves a wife who belongs here. One who doesn’t flinch when the wind bites or stumble over snow. I’m afraid I’ll be more trouble than treasure.”

Jon studied you, the faintest edge of warmth in his eyes. “You might be surprised what the North considers treasure.”

When you finally spoke again, your voice was quieter, more certain. “You’re far too kind, Jon Snow.”

He gave a faint shrug, the corner of his mouth curving just slightly. “Only honest.”

You smiled then—truly smiled—and this time it reached your eyes. The tension you hadn’t realized you’d been carrying began to ease. “Then perhaps that’s why the gods sent me outside tonight,” you murmured. “To find a bit of honesty.”

Jon opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, a familiar voice broke through the night.

“Jon.”

Both of you turned. Robb stood a few paces away, his cloak clasped at the throat, the faint firelight spilling from the hall behind him. It caught the edge of his hair, gilding it copper in the dark, and cast a soft glow over the snow-dusted stones at his feet. His gaze shifted between you and Jon, pausing on you for a heartbeat longer than propriety allowed.

“Princess,” he said at last, his voice steady but gentler than before. “The King will start a hunt if he finds his daughter missing.”

You straightened, the quiet spell of the courtyard breaking as reality swept back in. “I didn’t mean to worry anyone,” you said softly. “I only needed air.”

Turning to Jon, you dipped your head politely. “It was nice to meet you, Jon.”

He inclined his head in return, that faint half-smile still ghosting his lips. “You as well, Princess.”

With a final, lingering smile, you turned and began the slow walk back toward the hall. “My lord,” you murmured in passing, offering Robb a polite nod as you brushed past him.

Robb hesitated, his mouth parting as if to speak, perhaps to offer his arm or escort you inside. But you were already moving, your crimson cloak trailing behind you like a flicker of fire in the cold.

He watched you go until you disappeared around the corner, the sound of your footsteps fading into the night. Only then did he turn his gaze back to his half brother.

Robb stepped closer, folding his arms across his chest, the faintest trace of a smirk tugging at his mouth. “You seem to have made quite the impression.”

Jon snorted, bending to retrieve his training sword from where it rested in the snow. “She made one on me first.”

Robb’s brow arched, his tone teasing but edged with curiosity. “Oh? And what’s your judgment then? She seems as prideful as the rest of the lions. You should’ve seen her when the king announced the offer of her hand—it was as if she’d just tasted bad wine.”

Jon shook his head, straightening. “She’s… not like that,” he said quietly, his voice carrying an unexpected defensiveness. “She’s kind, Robb.”

Robb’s smirk faltered in surprise.

Jon went on, his tone steady but earnest. “She knew nothing of the king’s plans. She was caught unawares—same as you. And still, she spoke kindly of you.” He hesitated, then added, “You know what she said? That you deserve better than her. That you should have a northern wife.”

Robb blinked, caught off guard. “She said that?” He frowned slightly, his tone softening as he considered it. “That’s… not what I expected,” he admitted after a moment, the sharp edge of his usual composure dulling. “Most highborn would rather choke than admit weakness.”

Jon huffed a quiet laugh, the sound low and almost bitter. “She hides it well enough,” he said. “But it’s there. She’s not proud, Robb—she’s trapped. There’s a difference.”

Robb’s frown deepened, though not from doubt. The words settled somewhere deep, unwelcome in how true they felt. “And she told you all this?” he asked finally.

“Not all,” Jon replied, leaning lightly on the training sword. His voice was steady, deliberate. “But enough to see she’s not like the others in her family. She’s weary of being used as a piece in her father’s game, and yet—she still spoke well of you. I think she would be a good match for you. Maybe better than you think.”

Robb’s head turned sharply at that, his brows lifting in disbelief. “Good for me?” he echoed, half a scoff, half a laugh that didn’t quite land. “Jon, she’s the King’s daughter. A lion in silk. I doubt she’s ever known a day’s true labour in her life. The North would swallow her whole.”

Jon’s lips twitched, the faintest hint of a smile, but his eyes stayed steady. “Maybe,” he allowed. “Or maybe she’d learn to thrive in it.”

Robb exhaled through his nose, running a gloved hand through his hair. The movement was restless, betraying more unease than he intended. “You’ve spoken to her once, Jon.”

“Aye,” Jon agreed, his tone even. “Once. And in that one talk, she showed more heart than half the court’s done in a lifetime. She looked at me—me, a bastard—and saw a person. You think someone with kindness like that wouldn’t make a good lady for Winterfell?”

Robb looked away, jaw tightening as he tried to process that. “I don’t even know what to say to her,” Robb admitted finally, his voice softer, almost reluctant.

Jon smirked faintly, leaning back on his sword. “Try starting with something that isn’t about her family’s reputation.”

That earned a quiet, reluctant laugh from Robb—low, almost self-deprecating. “Seven hells, you make it sound simple.”

“It is,” Jon said, his tone calm, almost knowing. “You’re just too proud to see it. Stop judging her by her name, and you might realize it too.”

Robb didn’t answer, but his silence said enough. His gaze lingered on the snow where your footprints still marked the ground, the faint imprints already fading beneath the falling flakes. 

By the next morning, Winterfell was alive with whispers.

Every corridor hummed with speculation, every corner seemed to hold a conversation half-hushed when you entered. Apparently, in you and Robb’s absence, another offer had been made—one that set the Great Hall aflame with rumour. A match between Sansa Stark and Prince Joffrey.

Now, the question that hung over every mouth and meal was simple: who would it be?

Would the King and Lord Stark bind their houses through you and Robb—the eldest daughter and the eldest son—or through their younger, more fitting pair?

No one knew which way the coin would fall.

As you made your way to the morning meal, the murmur of voices followed you like a shadow.

“A Lannister queen in the North?” one servant whispered, their words sharp in the cold air. “The wolves won’t stomach it.”

“Better the Sansa with the prince,” another replied. “Leave the lioness where she belongs.”

You kept your chin high, every inch the King’s daughter despite the sting of their words. The hem of your crimson cloak trailed behind you, its rich colour out of place among the muted greys and browns of Winterfell.

You had grown used to whispers in King’s Landing—court gossip was as common as breath but for some reason hearing the negative gossip about you here couldn’t help but sting. Still, you did what you always did, you kept your chin high and your steps even, even as the truth settled deep inside you. You were unwanted amongst the northerners.

At breakfast, your mother barely looked at you. The flicker of candlelight caught the hard gleam in her eyes. Her hands were perfectly still on the table, though you could see the faint strain in her knuckles—the only sign of the storm simmering beneath the surface.

It was clear both choices displeased her. Yet you couldn’t tell which she detested more: the idea of her daughter bound to the North, far from her control, or her son tied to a wolf’s daughter and forced to share his throne with the Starks.

Across the table, Jaime lounged with his usual easy poise, though his golden eyes flicked toward you, taking in the deep circles around your eyes. “You look as though you haven’t slept,” he murmured.

You forced a small smile, fingers curling around your cup. “Perhaps. I still haven’t gotten used to the northern chill,” You lied.

“Well,” Jaime drawled, tilting his head, “you’ll have to get used to it soon—if you are to become the new Lady Stark.”

His tone was light, teasing, but you could only muster a forced smile finding no amusement in the situation.

“Don’t tease her, Jaime,” came Tyrion’s voice from further down the table. He was already swirling wine in his cup, despite the early hour, his tone dry as ever. “I imagine it’s difficult to rest when your hand may be sold without so much as a whisper of choice in the matter.”

He lifted his eyes to you then, and for a fleeting moment, his usual mockery softened into something resembling sympathy. “My condolences, niece. The North is cold, but at least the Starks have honour—a rare currency in this family.”

Cersei’s head turned sharply, her voice cutting through the air like a blade. “Enough, Tyrion.”

Tyrion only raised his cup in mock salute, a faint smile curling his mouth. “Merely admiring our king’s fine sense of timing. Nothing warms the heart like watching a daughter offered off between wine and roast boar.”

Your mother’s glare could have frozen the sea, but Tyrion only smiled into his drink.

Marcella, ever the softest of your siblings, shot him a reproachful look. “Sansa seems sweet,” she spoke up softly, almost to herself. “I think she’d make a good queen.”

Joffrey scoffed, rolling his eyes. “She’s a northern savage,” he declared. “If it were up to me, I’d choose a proper southern lady—someone who knows how to behave at court. Still,” he added, smirking, “she is beautiful. A fine thing for our future heirs.”

A quiet scoff escaped you before you could stop it—sharp, disdainful. It cut through the your brother’s laughter like a blade.

Joffrey’s head snapped toward you, his expression hardening, but before he could speak, your mother’s voice filled the silence.

Cersei’s gaze flicked between her children, then landed on you, her voice deceptively soft. “It doesn’t matter what any of you think. The King will make his decision, and we will abide by it.”

Her eyes lingered on you just long enough for the meaning to sink in: you will abide by it.

You inclined your head slightly, every inch the dutiful daughter she demanded you be. But as you lifted your cup, the faint tremor in your hand betrayed the truth.

At that moment, the heavy doors opened, and Robert entered the hall. His steps were uneven, his crown was once again askew, and his cheeks were flushed still bleary from the night of wine and laughter. The sight of him was enough to sour the air.

Cersei’s mouth tightened, the barest flicker of disgust ghosting across her face before she rose in one graceful, practiced motion. “I will take my meal elsewhere,” she said, her voice like ice.

Without another glance, she swept from the room, her gown trailing behind her like a crimson wound, the sound of her heels echoing sharply against the stone until it faded into silence.

You didn’t blame her for her fury—how could you? Your father had humiliated her before half the realm for years, and now he was doing the same with you. But you couldn’t share her anger either.

You’d seen enough of King’s Landing to know that power was never clean, and marriage least of all. Every alliance was a transaction to gain more power. And yet… something about the North unsettled that certainty. There was no pretension here, no gleaming façade to hide behind. The people spoke plainly, worked until their hands were raw, lived and died by loyalty.

It was harsh—but it was honest.

And though you hated the lack of choice forced upon you, though you despised being bartered like coin, there was a small, treacherous part of you that wished your father would choose the match with Robb Stark.

When you slipped away later, wandering through the Godswood, the cold seemed to clear your thoughts. The stillness of the place—the way the wind whispered through the Weirwood branches, the sound of water lapping against ice—was almost kind.

You didn’t realize you weren’t alone until you heard the sharp snap of a branch. Your breath caught, a gasp escaping you as you turned, cloak swirling around your legs.

“Lady Y/N,” Robb greeted, stepping into view, his breath visible in the cold air. A small grey pup padded beside him, tail wagging hesitantly, its eyes bright with curiosity.

“Forgive me,” Robb said, pausing a few paces away. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

You exhaled slowly, the rush of surprise fading. “You didn’t,” you lied softly, though your heart was still racing.

You gave him a small polite smile, though it didn’t quite reach your eyes. The pup gave a soft whine and trotted toward you and you knelt to meet the little creature. “And who might this be?”

“Greywind,” Robb replied, a trace of pride threading through his voice. “A Direwolf pup—from the litter my siblings and I saved.”

You reached out your hand, letting the pup sniff your fingers before you gently scratched behind his ear. “Greywind,” you repeated fondly, your tone softening. “A noble name for such a handsome little one.”

The pup leaned into your touch, tail swishing through the snow, his small whines muffled by your gloved fingers. Robb watched in silence, something unreadable flickering in his eyes.

He hadn’t expected you to kneel in the snow without hesitation—your silks brushing against frost as though you didn’t care, your expression alight with genuine fondness. Greywind sniffed your hand again, ears perked, tail twitching in excitement before pressing his small head into your palm.

A quiet laugh escaped you then—soft, airy, real. The sound startled Robb more than he cared to admit.

“He’s beautiful,” you murmured, stroking the pup’s fur as he licked at your fingers. “So gentle. I thought Direwolves were meant to be fearsome.”

“They will be,” Robb said, and the corner of his mouth lifted into a faint smile. “He’s only a few moons old. But he’ll grow fast. Father says the bond between a Stark and his wolf runs deep—that they’re born to protect us.”

You looked up at him from where you knelt, your breath clouding in the cold air. The light caught in your eyes then, and something about the way you gazed at him—curious, open, wholly unafraid—made his words falter for just a moment. “That sounds like a rare gift,” you said softly. “The gods don’t give such bonds freely.”

The words lingered between you, carried by the quiet hush of the Godswood. Robb found himself wanting to say something—anything—to keep you speaking, to keep that faint warmth in your voice filling the cold space between you.

“My father says they were born for us,” he said at last, nodding toward Greywind. “To remind the Starks of who we are.”

“And who is that?” you asked, tilting your head slightly, genuine curiosity in your tone.

Robb hesitated, his breath misting in the air. “Honourable,” he said finally. “Loyal. Perhaps too much so.”

You smiled faintly, the expression small but sincere. “Those sound like virtues, my lord.”

“They can be the kind that get men killed,” he replied simply.

Your expression softened, your gaze thoughtful as it lingered on him.  “Then I suppose they’re also the kind that make sure your names are passed down through the history books,” you murmured.

He blinked, caught off guard by the quiet conviction in your voice. For a long moment, neither of you spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable—it was something gentler, fragile and new. Robb was still watching you when you finally rose, brushing the frost from your skirts. Greywind gave a soft whine in protest as your hand left his fur, his small tail sweeping the snow.

“Well, Greywind,” you said, your tone light and warm as your gaze flicked between wolf and man. “It was lovely to meet you both.”

You turned to go, the snow crunching softly beneath your boots. Robb’s eyes followed the sweep of your cloak, deep crimson against the white—like fire cutting through frost. Something in him stirred before he could stop it.

“You don’t need to leave,” he said, his voice careful as if not to startle you away. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I often come to the Godswood to think.” He paused, his mouth twitching faintly. “I didn’t expect that you—or your family—might visit this place.”

You gave a soft huff of laughter, your breath curling white in the cold air. “I doubt my mother would step foot in this place unless the gods themselves demanded it.”

Robb’s lips twitched, amusement flickering there for a moment. “Aye,” he said. “I imagine the Old Gods wouldn’t care much for southern prayers.”

You glanced over your shoulder, the faintest trace of a smile tugging at your lips. “Or southern pride,” you added, voice light but tinged with truth.

Robb’s mouth curved faintly, but his eyes didn’t waver from you. “There’s much being said about us,” he finally brought up after a pause. “More than either of us asked for.”

“I noticed,” you murmured, your gaze lowering to the snow-dusted ground. “Apparently I’m the North’s next great insult—or its salvation, depending on who’s gossiping.”

He hesitated, as though weighing whether to press further. “And what do you think?” he asked finally, his voice quieter now.

You lifted your head, meeting his eyes. “It’s no matter what I think,” you said evenly. “If my father and yours decide on our betrothal, then I will do my duty.”

He studied you for a moment, his expression unreadable, before nodding once—slowly, as if he understood more than he cared to admit. “My father would say duty is the only thing that keeps us honourable.”

You straightened. “And my mother would say it’s the only thing that keeps us useful,” you replied, your tone steady but tinged with quiet bitterness. “Either way, there’s little choice in what we would want.”

Robb tilted his head slightly, eyes searching yours. “And what is it you want, Princess?”

The question caught you off guard. Such a simple thing—and yet, no one had ever asked it before. Not your father, who spoke of alliances and bloodlines as though you were part of his crown’s ledger. Not your mother, who viewed choice as an illusion beneath the weight of duty. Never anyone who cared for you beyond what you represented.

Your breath misted in the cold as you turned your gaze toward the heart tree, its red leaves whispering softly in the wind. “I’m not sure I’d know how to answer that,” you admitted after a moment. “I’ve spent my life doing what’s expected of me. Perhaps what I want…”—you hesitated, voice softening—“…is a chance to know what freedom might be like. To make a choice for myself—not because it’s required, but because it’s mine.”

Robb was quiet for a long moment. Then, softly, he said, “You’d fit the North better than you think.”

You glanced back at him, one brow arching, uncertain if he was teasing. “Would I?”

“Aye,” he said, and there was no jest in it. “You value freedom, and you speak plainly. You’d find honesty here, even if it’s cold and rough-edged. And I think you’d hold your own against it.”

Something unguarded flickered in your eyes as you looked at him. You hadn’t expected kindness from him—not the sort that saw beyond your name. “You and your family are kinder than I expected, Lord Stark.”

A small smile touched his lips. “And you,” he said quietly, “are not what I expected at all, Princess.”

You looked back toward the pool of still water, its glassy surface reflecting the red of the Weirwood leaves. Your voice was soft when you finally spoke. “Do you think your father will agree to it?”

Robb was quiet for a long moment, the weight of your question settling in the still air between you. His gaze drifted toward the heart tree, its carved face solemn and knowing. “I think he’ll do what he believes is right for the realm,” he said at last. “As will the King. The rest of us will learn to live with their choices.”

You met his eyes again, and for a fleeting heartbeat, the rest of the world seemed to fall away—the crown, the politics, the heavy chains of your parents’ expectations. In that stillness, you could almost imagine another life. One where you weren’t a Baratheon princess bartered like gold, but a woman who chose her own path. A woman who could stay here, in this quiet northern stronghold, where the air was pure and the people were honest. 

You could almost see it—a future with Robb Stark. You’d be lucky, you thought, to be his wife. He wasn’t much older than you, and unlike the courtiers you’d grown up around, there was nothing false in him. He was kind, and honest, and strong in the quiet way that made others listen. If the betrothal fell through, you knew your next match would likely be some aging lord looking to get his hands on a young Highborn wife, grasping for status through your name.

“I should return before someone notices I’ve vanished,” you said at last, drawing your cloak around your shoulders. “If my mother realizes I’ve been out here, she’ll lecture me about the impropriety of frolicking out in the wild.”

Robb’s expression softened. “I won’t keep you, then.” He hesitated, his voice lowering. “But you’re welcome here, whenever you need quiet. The Godswood belongs to no one.”

You paused at that, turning back to him. The smallest smile curved your lips, faint but genuine. “Thank you, Lord Stark.”

“Robb,” he corrected. “I’m not Lord Stark yet—and I think we’re past the point of formalities.”

You held his gaze for a moment, something unspoken passing between you, before nodding. “I’ll see you later, Robb.”

It was the first time you’d said his name without title. The sound of it on your sweet lips, felt like a spark in his heart, a warmth that lingered long after you turned and walked away.

Days passed, and with each one, Robb found it harder to ignore what Jon had said that night in the training yard.

You weren’t like the rest of your family. There was no sharp vanity in your tone, no hunger for control in your gaze. You carried yourself with quiet poise, yes—but it wasn’t born from arrogance. It was the kind taught through years of lesson. The kind a person learned when they’d been watched all their life, weighed and measured against what they could offer.

He saw it in the way you walked through Winterfell’s courtyards, shoulders straight but eyes watchful, politely enduring the stares and whispers that trailed after you. He saw it when you stopped to help and speak with the servants, asking—not out of idle curiosity, but genuine interest—about life in the North, about the work and the weather and the long winters to come. And when you bent to greet a stablehand’s hound, unbothered by the mud on its fur, Robb found himself watching longer than he should have.

There was kindness in you—a gentleness he hadn’t expected from a lioness raised among vipers. But there was something else, too. A restlessness. A spirit that longed to stretch its wings, to break free of gilded walls and southern expectations you’d grown up with. You looked at the North not with disdain, but with wonder. This was a world you had been raised to look down upon, yet you seemed intent on understanding it.

The decision of your marriage still lingered in the air like the heavy promise of a storm. The King and his father had yet to speak it aloud, though everyone knew it was coming. 

Sansa, for her part, had taken to her chambers most evenings, whispering fervently to her mother about her destiny to be beside Prince Joffrey. Robb had passed their door more than once, catching the sound of her pleading voice—soft, desperate—begging Catelyn to convince their father to agree to the match.

Robb tried not to listen. Tried harder not to imagine the kind of life his sister would have beneath that boy’s thumb. He’d seen Joffrey’s nature, clearer than most. Beneath the polished manners and perfect smile lay something rotten. He was spoiled, vain, cruel in ways that made Robb’s skin crawl. He treated the servants as though they were less than human, mocking them when they stumbled, taking pleasure in their punishments when he thought no one else was watching.

The thought of Sansa bound to him—chained to that kind of arrogance and cruelty—made Robb’s stomach twist. No. He would rather sacrifice his own happiness, his own future, than see her endure that fate.

And though he would never say it aloud, the more he thought of it, the clearer it became: if someone had to be bound to the lions, he would rather it be him than his sister.

The truth was… the more time he spent near you, the less that sacrifice felt like one.

He had begun to seek your company without meaning to. Somehow, you always seemed to find your way to the Godswood or the courtyard, and more often than not, Greywind was padding loyally at your side. You had taken to feeding the wolf treats when you thought no one was watching—though Robb had noticed, more than once.

He pretended not to notice the first few times, content just to watch from a distance. You would look around before crouching down in the snow, your crimson silks brushed pale white at the hems, your voice gentle and cooing as you murmured to the growing pup as if he were a child. Greywind, though already larger than most hounds, behaved with startling gentleness around you—ears low, tail wagging, his enormous head nudging against your arm in quiet affection.

You smuggled bits of bread or dried meat from the kitchens, unbothered by the dirt or the snow that clung to your gloves. Each time, Greywind would take the food delicately from your palm, his golden eyes softening before he devoured it, tail thumping against the frozen ground.

Robb decided to approach you finally and the way you startled at being seen nearly made him laugh.

“Does my lord intend to scold me?” you’d asked, voice carefully measured, though your cheeks were pink with embarrassment.

He’d shaken his head, a small smile curving his lips. “Hardly. Greywind seems to like you more than he does most of my kin. I’d be a fool to interfere.”

You’d relaxed then, your shoulders easing as you looked down at the wolf nuzzling your hand, his great head pressing insistently into your palm.

Robb leaned back against the cold stone of the courtyard wall, arms loosely crossed, watching you toss a small scrap of meat into the air for Greywind to catch. The wolf snapped it up easily, rumbling in satisfaction. Robb wasn’t entirely sure when it had begun—these moments, these quiet meetings—but he realized he had come to anticipate them.

He told himself it was curiosity. That he only wished to understand the woman who might one day be his wife. But the truth was simpler—and far more dangerous.

You had begun to occupy the corners of his mind in ways he couldn’t quite name.

You laughed softly as Greywind pawed at your cloak, demanding another treat, and Robb found himself smiling despite the strange tightness that bloomed in his chest. You weren’t the woman he’d imagined when the King had first spoken your name that night at the feast. There was no hauteur in you, no cold detachment born of noble breeding. You were earnest, curious—so very alive.

He’d heard the whispers, of course. That you were a lioness raised in gold, your mother’s beauty and your father’s temper wound into one. But he had seen no cruelty in you, no vanity. Only a quiet grace—and a loneliness that, to his surprise, mirrored his own.

“You know,” you began, brushing snow from your gloves, a hint of playfulness threading through your voice, “you seem to be making a habit of finding me in the cold.”

“Or perhaps,” Robb countered easily, “you’re making a habit of keeping company with my wolf.”

You smiled faintly, eyes glinting. “Then I suppose we’re both guilty.”

Greywind trotted between you then, tail wagging, as though satisfied with the truce. Robb hesitated for a heartbeat, then gestured toward the path that lead to the Godswood. “Walk with me?” he asked, a trace of warmth softening his tone. “Before he decides to eat your hand next.”

You laughed—soft and breathy—before straightening and accepting his arm. Your personal guard fell into step a few paces behind, close enough to preserve propriety but far enough to grant you both the illusion of privacy.

“Does it ever stop snowing here?” you asked after a moment, genuine curiosity lacing your tone.

He grinned, the corners of his mouth lifting boyishly. “Not long enough for us to forget what it feels like.”

You smiled in return—small, unguarded—and for a fleeting heartbeat, it made Robb forget himself.

You brushed a light dusting of snow from your sleeve, still smiling faintly. “I enjoy it here,” you admitted. “The cold is… refreshing.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Robb said, amusement colouring his voice. “Most southerners start complaining before they’ve been here a day.”

“I’ve done enough complaining for a lifetime,” you replied softly. “It doesn’t change much.”

Robb turned his head slightly, studying you. Though your voice remained light, there was something in your eyes—a quiet, familiar sorrow you rarely let show. “You don’t seem the sort who sits idle,” he said carefully. “If you wanted something changed, I think you’d find a way.”

You glanced at him then, the corner of your mouth curving in faint amusement. “You think too highly of me, my lord. My father can move armies with a word. I, however, can’t even choose my own husband.”

The words hung between you, sharper than you meant them to be. Robb’s smile faltered slightly. “If our fathers do decide it,” he said after a pause, his voice low and measured, “I’d hope you’d never feel caged here.”

You tilted your head toward him, curiosity softening your features. “You’d let me speak freely? Do as I wish? Hunt, ride, even argue?”

He grinned, the boyish spark returning to his eyes. “Only if you promise not to best me at any of those.”

That earned him another laugh—brighter this time—and the sound carried through the Godswood, breaking the quiet like sunlight through clouds. Even Greywind perked up, trotting ahead before circling back to brush against your skirts, his tail sweeping the snow.

“You’ve a charming wolf,” you teased, reaching down to scratch his head as he leaned eagerly into your touch. “I think he’s taken a liking to me.”

Robb’s smile deepened before he could stop himself. “I’m beginning to think,” he said quietly, “he has a good choice.”

You looked up at him, surprised, and for a moment neither of you spoke. The words hung between you, fragile and too honest.

Robb cleared his throat and turned away toward the heart tree, his cheeks colouring deeper beneath the cold. “He doesn’t warm to strangers easily, I mean.”

“Of course,” you said softly, though the faint curve of your mouth betrayed your amusement. “I’ll take it as a compliment nonetheless.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. You walked side by side beneath the red canopy of the Godswood, your cloaks brushing with each step, the snow falling in soft, lazy flakes around you.

Finally, you broke the quiet. “Do you ever grow tired of this place?” you asked. “Of duty? Of… being what’s expected?”

He thought for a long while before he answered, his voice low. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “But the North doesn’t change for us. It’s not meant to be easy.”

You smiled faintly at that, your gaze sweeping over the snow-dusted branches before landing on the faces carved in the tree. “I think that’s what I like most about this place. In King’s Landing, everything is handed to us with a single word. Here, everyone needs to help to earn their keep, otherwise they answer to the unforgiving winter.”

Robb nodded, thoughtful. “That’s true enough. Up here, a man’s worth is in his work, not his name.”

“And in the South,” you murmured, “it’s the opposite. A man’s name can make him a saint or a monster before he ever opens his mouth.”

Robb’s gaze lingered on you, studying the way your expression shifted as you spoke — not bitter, only weary. “You don’t sound proud of the place you come from.”

You hesitated. “Pride’s a dangerous thing in the capital,” you said at last. “It makes fools of even the clever ones.”

Robb’s steps slowed, his eyes tracing the curve of the heart tree’s pale trunk. “And yet,” he said, voice quieter now, “you don’t strike me as a fool.”

You gave a small laugh. “Then perhaps I’ve fooled you into believing that.” you said lightly.

Robb’s mouth curved faintly. “Perhaps,” he allowed, “but I don’t think so. You see too clearly for it. You… question things that most highborn don’t.”

You turned to look at him then—truly look—and found that he was already watching you. The torchlight from the path flickered across his face, catching in his eyes and making them seem even lighter, like a storm breaking at sea.

Something in your chest tightened. You’d spent your life surrounded by men who wanted to possess or impress you, to see only what they wished to believe. But this—this was different. Robb Stark looked at you as though he were trying to understand you.

“Most people see what they want to see,” you murmured, meeting his gaze. “You, however, seem to see past that.”

Robb swallowed, the movement subtle, his eyes steady on yours. “Perhaps, I just take the time to look,” he said quietly.

The air between you shifted, the silence thickening like the hush before snowfall. There was something disarming in the way he said it—earnest and unguarded. It slipped past your defences before you could stop it.

“You shouldn’t,” you murmured, though the words lacked conviction. “It’s dangerous to look too closely at people. You might not like what you find.”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “I think I’d rather see the truth than live blind to it.”

You looked away then, your gaze drifting to the Weirwood’s bleeding face. The red sap glistened like tears frozen mid-fall. “Truth is rarely kind,” you said softly.

“No,” he replied, his voice low and even. “But neither is the North. We endure both just the same.”

For a time, neither of you spoke. Your steps slowed until you stood before the great heart tree, its red leaves whispering faintly in the cold wind. The face carved into its bark watched over you. You stared at it in silence. It was strange, haunting, but somehow… comforting.

“The Old Gods are different from the Seven,” you murmured, studying the weathered lines of the carving. “They don’t promise mercy.”

Robb nodded once. “No,” he agreed quietly. “But they don’t lie either.”

You turned to him, catching the flicker of reverence in his expression as he looked up at the tree. In that moment, he seemed bound to this place in a way you could only envy. “You have faith in them,” you said, your voice softer now.

“I have faith in what endures,” he replied. “The Old Gods don’t demand our prayers. They aren’t cruel or kind. They just watch. Judge us by what we do. We live and die beneath their eyes.”

You considered that, your breath clouding in the air. “Perhaps that’s why your people are so honest,” you said quietly. “You live with eyes always watching.”

He looked at you then, and for the briefest moment, his gaze felt like one of those eyes— seeing far more than you wanted to reveal. You felt warmth bloom under your skin despite the chill.

You dropped your gaze first, brushing a stray snowflake from your glove. “Perhaps I should start praying to them,” you murmured. “The gods in the south have never listened.”

Robb’s voice softened, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. “If you do, be careful what you ask for. The Old Gods don’t always give what we want—but they give what we need.”

For a long heartbeat, the only sound was the wind threading through the red leaves above you. Then, in a voice barely louder than the whisper of snow, you asked, “If the gods do will it—this betrothal—would you… resent it?”

Robb was quiet, his breath misting in the cold air as he turned toward you. When he finally spoke, his words were measured, honest. “No,” he said, almost gently. “I don’t think I would.” He took a slow step forward, the snow crunching beneath his boots. “Would you?”

You swallowed, your heart beating far too fast. “I think…” Your voice faltered, softer now, meant only for him. “Perhaps our union wouldn’t be such a terrible thing, after all.”

You took a step closer—closer than propriety would ever allow—but your guard stood a few paces off, mercifully distracted. The world around, you and Robb seemed to vanish.

You looked up at him, meeting his eyes—grey and steady as winter skies. You weren’t sure who leaned in first, only that suddenly you could feel his breath on your lips, the warmth of it sharp against the chill. Your heart pounded, the space between you shrinking until there was almost nothing left.

And then—

Something struck the side of your head with a sharp thud.

You gasped, stumbling back as snow splattered across your cloak. Robb’s hand shot out instinctively, steadying you before you could fall. For a heartbeat, you were too stunned to speak.

Then a young girl’s voice rang out, “Got you, Robb!”

“My lady!” your guard exclaimed, rushing to your side. “Are you hurt?”

You stood frozen for a heartbeat, snow sliding down your cheek and into the collar of your cloak. The chill hit you, sharp enough to draw a startled laugh from your lips—a breathless, unguarded sound that startled even your guard. You lifted a gloved hand to wipe the melting snow away, still half laughing.

“I’m quite alright, ser,” you said, waving him back. “No need to defend me from such a fearsome assault.”

Robb, meanwhile, had already spun toward the voice, a mix of horror and exasperation crossing his features. His cheeks were red—whether from the cold or embarrassment, you couldn’t tell.

“Bloody hells, Arya!” he shouted. “You got the princess!”

From behind a snow-covered tree, a small head of tangled brown hair appeared, her wide eyes flicking between you and her brother as she tried—unsuccessfully—to hide her grin. “I was aiming for you!” Arya protested, brushing snow off her gloves.

Robb shot her a look caught somewhere between disbelief and scolding. “And missed by half a godsdamned courtyard!”

Arya only shrugged, utterly unrepentant. Then her attention turned toward you, and her grin faltered. “Are you—are you all right, princess? I didn’t mean—”

You interrupted her with a laugh, brushing melting flakes from your cloak. “It’s quite all right,” you said, still breathless with amusement. “I’ve survived far worse than snow, I promise you.”

Arya blinked, startled by your good humour. “Really?”

“Really,” you confirmed with a smile, crouching just enough to scoop up a small handful of snow. You shaped it deftly between your gloves, your tone turning playfully curious. “Though I am curious, what exactly is this game?”

Robb frowned, instantly suspicious. “Wait—“

But before he could finish, you let the snowball fly. It struck him squarely in the chest, bursting into a spray of white powder that clung to his cloak and furs.

You lowered your hands delicately, schooling your face into mock innocence. “Did I do it right?” you asked, your tone light, almost teasing.

Arya’s mouth dropped open—and then she burst into delighted laughter.

“Did you see that!” she crowed, spinning to where Jon was standing a few paces behind his sister, his arms crossed and a smirk tugging at his mouth. “She got him!” Arya grinned, looking back to Robb. “You should’ve seen your face!”

Robb wiped the snow from his chest, a mock glare darkening his features as he turned toward you. “You—” he sputtered, disbelief warring with amusement, “you threw that at me?”

You lifted your chin, maintaining your imitation of innocence. “Well,” you said easily, “it was meant for you originally, wasn’t it?”

Jon chuckled. “Seems fair to me, brother.”

“Fair?” Robb scoffed, though he was already crouching, his gloved hands gathering snow with a practiced ease that should have warned you. A mischievous grin—far too much like Arya’s—curved his lips. “I call that an act of war.”

You gasped, taking a hasty step back, your eyes widening. “You wouldn’t dare—”

But he did.

The snowball left his hand in a perfect arc and struck your shoulder with a soft, satisfying thwack. Cold flakes burst across your cloak, sliding down your arm as you let out a shocked laugh.

“You—!” you began, your voice caught between outrage and laughter, brushing snow from your shoulder as he stood there looking entirely too pleased with himself.

Arya whooped from somewhere behind him, already ducking for cover. “Get her, Robb!”

That was all the encouragement you needed. You bent swiftly, scooping up a handful of snow of your own, the grin breaking across your face nothing short of wicked. “You’ve declared war, my lord,” you said, shaping the snow between your palms. “Don’t think I’ll yield easily.”

Robb’s grin widened. “I’d expect nothing less, princess.”

In a matter of seconds, the solemn Godswood had transformed into a battleground—snowballs flying, laughter echoing through the air. Arya and Jon took sides without hesitation—Arya with Robb, Jon with you—each barking orders like rival commanders on the field.

Your poor guard stood frozen at the edge of the clearing torn between his duty and self-preservation. He looked utterly bewildered, his hand halfway to his sword as if expecting real danger. He ducked as another snowball hurtled his way—Arya’s, if you had to guess—and let out a startled yelp when it exploded across his chest.

You were laughing so hard you could hardly breathe, snow tangled in your hair, your cheeks flushed from the cold and the sheer absurdity of it all. The world felt lighter—freer—than it ever had before. And through the laughter, the flying snow, and the chaos, Robb’s eyes found yours again—bright, warm, and utterly alive.

For that fleeting moment, it didn’t matter who you were or what fate awaited you.

Greywind barked, bounding between you, snapping playfully at the flying snow as though torn between sides. The four of you spilled from the Godswood into the courtyard, boots crunching over the frost. The few onlookers who happened to pass froze where they stood, blinking in disbelief at the sight of the royal princess and the heirs of Winterfell engaged in a full snow-fight.

At one point, Arya came darting after you, laughter bubbling from her lips as she took aim. You turned to flee—just in time to duck. The snowball soared past you in a perfect arc—right toward the open archway of the courtyard steps, where Sansa and Joffrey had just stepped outside.

Sansa shrieked as the snow splattered across her auburn curls, while Joffrey froze mid-step, flakes clinging to his ornate collar. For a heartbeat, everything went still. Then Sansa was already brushing the snow from her hair, her cheeks burning red with fury and embarrassment.

“Arya!” she cried, her voice shrill and scandalized. “What’s wrong with you?!”

Joffrey rounded on Arya, his face twisted in disdain. “Do you have any idea who I am?” he spat, stepping forward. “You dare to attack the prince?”

The playfulness drained from the air as quickly as the colour from Arya’s face.

She stumbled back, torn between defiance and panic. “It—it was an accident!” she stammered. “I didn’t even see you there! I was aiming for Y/N!”

Joffrey’s eyes cut toward you, his expression souring further. “Aiming for her?” he repeated, voice sharp with disbelief. “You dared to throw snow at a princess?”

Arya blinked, realizing too late what she’d just said. “I—”

But Joffrey was already advancing, his hand twitching at his side, his words venomous. “You filthy little savage,” he spat. “Do you have no respect for your betters? I should make you beg for forgiveness—on your knees.”

Before Robb or Jon could react, you were already moving—swift and steady, the remnants of laughter still dying in your throat as you stepped between them.

“That’s enough,” you said firmly, your tone sharper than anyone had ever heard from you.

Joffrey’s head snapped toward you, disbelief flashing across his face. “Enough?” he repeated, the word spat like venom. “You mean to defend her? She hit me!”

“She’s a child,” you interrupted coolly, your tone calm but edged in steel. You stood tall, unflinching despite the prince’s fury. “And we were playing. You’ve been struck by snow, not steel. I think you’ll live.”

A collective gasp rippled through the onlookers. Sansa’s eyes went wide with horror. “Y/N—it was her fault!” she blurted, desperate to smooth the tension.

“Princess,” You corrected, “Do not think you can speak to me so familiarly,” you said, your voice dropping, cold as the northern winter. The sharpness of it startled even you. A little of your mother’s ice—your father’s command—cut through the air as you turned your glare on both of them. “She is your sister. And she has done nothing to warrant your insults or your temper.”

Sansa flinched, her face colouring as she bowed her head. “I—I didn’t mean—”

“She attacked us!” Joffrey snapped, indignant fury twisting his features. “It’s an insult!”

You arched a brow, every inch the queen you were born to be. “If you cannot tell the difference between an insult and a game, then perhaps you are the one who should be sent to the nursery.”

His face turned crimson. “Watch your tongue,” he hissed, stepping closer. “I am your prince!”

You didn’t move. “And yet you act like a spoiled child,” you stated calmly. “Titles don’t make men, Joffrey. Actions do.”

He froze, his pride striking like a wounded animal. The sneer crept back onto his lips, his voice thick with spite. “You forget your place, sister. I’ll not be shamed before these northern savages—”

“Enough!” The single word cut through his rant like a blade. “You will hold your tongue,” you said, your composure trembling on the edge of fury. “Or I swear by every god—old and new—you’ll prove yourself as much a fool as people already whisper you are.”

Joffrey’s face went red, then pale, the edges of his mouth curling in silent outrage. “You—”

And that was when his hand moved.

He didn’t think—he simply reacted, his pride goading him further. The sound of his glove cutting through the air was sharp as a whip as he raised his hand to strike you.

But Robb was faster.

He caught Joffrey’s wrist mid-swing, his fingers locking around it with unyielding strength. The motion was so swift, so instinctive, that even the prince seemed stunned by it. Robb’s grip tightened—not enough to harm, but enough to make Joffrey wince.

“You’ll lower your hand,” Robb said, his voice low and edged with danger. “Before you do something very, very stupid.”

Joffrey glared up at him, his mouth twisting into a snarl. “Unhand me,” he spat, his voice cracking with indignation. “You’ve no right—”

Robb’s jaw clenched, the muscle in his cheek tightening as his voice cut through the cold air. “You’re standing in my home,” he said evenly, each word heavy with command. “And in my home, you will not lay a hand on a woman—” His voice dropped an octave, a warning growl. “My woman.”

The words had your heart stuttering in your chest. You’d danced around the prospect of marriage, nearly kissed beneath the red leaves of the Godswood, but you’d never let yourself believe he wanted you, not truly. Not beyond duty.

Yet now there was no denying it.

Joffrey froze, his outrage faltering beneath the weight of something colder—fear, maybe, or the realization that Robb Stark was not a man he could cow with titles or threats. Robb was everything Joffrey wasn’t: grounded, unyielding, and very much in control. A man defending what was his.

The courtyard had gone utterly still. The only sound was Greywind’s low, guttural growl rumbling through the air from where he stood protectively by your side. The Direwolf’s hackles stood high, his teeth flashing white as he took a single step forward, golden eyes locked on the prince.

“Call off your beast,” Joffrey spat, his voice cracking, his earlier confidence bleeding into panic.

You stepped closer, your shoulder brushing Robb’s as you met the prince’s glare head-on. “Then perhaps you should return inside, Joffrey,” you said, your tone calm but laced with quiet authority. “Before you embarrass yourself further.”

Joffrey’s mouth twisted, fury flashing in his eyes. For a heartbeat, you thought he might try again—but then his pride faltered beneath the combined weight of Robb’s unflinching stare and Greywind’s low, rumbling growl.

He yanked his arm free, his movements jerky, his voice trembling with barely-contained rage. “You’ll regret this,” he hissed, each word dripping venom.

He turned sharply, cloak snapping behind him as he stormed toward the keep, boots crunching furiously in the snow. Sansa scrambled after him, her face pale and stricken. “Joffrey, wait—please, he didn’t mean—” Her voice faded into the cold as the great doors slammed shut behind them, leaving the courtyard in breathless silence.

The courtyard seemed to exhale all at once. You stood there, heart still pounding, the wind tugging at your cloak.

Robb hadn’t moved either. His hand was still half-raised from where he’d stopped Joffrey, his chest rising and falling steadily beneath his furs. His gaze shifted from the closed doors to you, softening the instant your eyes met.

The world around you was cold, but his voice, when it came, was not.

“Are you all right?” Robb asked quietly. The edge of command that had cut through his tone moments ago was gone, replaced by something gentler—concern, threaded with the faint tremor of leftover anger.

You swallowed, willing your pulse to steady, and nodded. “Yes,” you said softly, exhaling a shaky breath. “Thank you. But I’ve grown up dealing with Joffrey’s tantrums.”

The words came out lighter than you felt, but Robb’s expression didn’t ease. His brow furrowed, his gaze searching your face as if to make certain you spoke the truth.

“No one should have to,” he said finally, his voice low but steady. “You shouldn’t have to grow used to that kind of behaviour.”

You gave a faint, humourless smile. “You’ll find that my brother believes the world bends to his will. He’s never been told otherwise. My mother turns a blind eye, my father laughs it off. He was born thinking he could do no wrong.”

Robb’s jaw tightened. “Then perhaps it’s time someone did.”

Despite yourself, a small giggle slipped past your lips—a soft, incredulous sound. “Careful, my lord. If the king hears you’ve manhandled his heir, there might be a war before dinner.”

Robb huffed a quiet laugh, the tension in his shoulders finally easing. The corner of his mouth curved, but before either of you could say more, a small voice broke through the quiet.

“I… I didn’t mean to.”

You turned to find Arya standing a few paces away, Jon protectively beside her. Snow clung to her hair and lashes, her brown eyes wide with guilt. The defiance that had burned so brightly during the snowball fight was gone—what stood before you now was a child afraid she’d started something terrible.

“Hush now, Arya,” you said softly, your tone gentling as you crossed the snow toward her. “There’s no need to fret.”

You knelt so that your eyes met hers, your cloak pooling around you in the snow. “My brother has always been quick to anger,” you murmured, offering her a reassuring smile. The girl’s lip trembled, her gloved hands still clutching a half-formed snowball she’d long forgotten to throw. “It wasn’t your fault. You were only playing, and he—” You hesitated, searching for the right words. “He doesn’t yet understand the difference between pride and respect.”

Arya frowned, her brows knitting together. “But he almost struck you,” she said in a small voice, glancing between you and Robb. “Because you wouldn’t let him punish me.”

You met her gaze steadily, your tone quiet but firm. “Because you did nothing wrong,” you said.

The simplicity of your words made Arya blink, her wide eyes searching your face. “You’re not like the other southerners,” she said at last, almost accusingly.

A small laugh escaped you. “Is that a compliment?”

Arya’s mouth curved into a tentative grin. “Maybe.”

You reached out and tapped the tip of her nose lightly, dislodging a flake of snow. “Then I’ll take it as one.”

Robb watched the exchange in silence, his expression softening as he saw Arya’s tension dissolve beneath your words. When you rose to your feet, brushing the snow from your skirts, he found himself smiling without meaning to. His gaze drifted to his brother, who was sending him a knowing look. Jon was right. You didn’t belong to the same world as Joffrey.

As you turned to look at him, a faint smile still lingering on your lips, Robb felt something settle deep in his chest—steady and certain. He didn’t know what the King would decide, nor what his father would say when the time came. But for the first time since the betrothal had been spoken of, he knew what he wanted.

He wanted you to stay.

Not out of duty. Not out of command. But because he’d begun to believe the gods themselves had sent you north—not to bind two houses, but to give him something he hadn’t known he was looking for.

And perhaps, if the gods were listening, they would give him that chance.

The day had come grey and cold, a thin veil of snow drifting lazily through the air. Winterfell’s great hall, usually alive with the hum of conversation and clatter of dishes, was subdued—its vast stone walls echoing only with the low murmur of men awaiting the will of kings and lords.

Robb stood a few paces behind his father, his hands clasped neatly behind his back, every muscle in his body drawn taut. To his right, Lady Catelyn sat composed and still, though the flicker of worry in her eyes betrayed her calm. Beside her, Sansa’s expression was bright but anxious, her fingers twisting the silken folds of her gown in her lap.

Across the hall, the King’s court stood in stark contrast—southern finery gleaming beneath the gray light. Your father slouched in his chair, broad and imposing even in his half-sober state. His laughter, usually loud enough to fill any room, had quieted into a gruff patience he seldom possessed.

Beside him, your mother sat like a statue carved from cold marble. Her green eyes gleamed with restrained disdain. She looked every inch the queen, every inch the lioness who would rather be anywhere else than here in the wolf’s den.

And behind her, you stood.

Your head was bowed in perfect decorum, but Robb noticed the subtle tremor in your hands where they clutched your cloak. You looked small beneath the vaulted ceiling, framed by the grey stone and the banners of House Stark. 

Robert’s booming voice filled the hall, breaking the quiet. “Well, Ned,” He said, leaning forward with a weary grin, “we’ve danced around it long enough. You know why I came—to bind our houses once and for all. Lions and wolves, standing together. I’ll not have it wait another day.”

Lord Stark’s expression was calm, thoughtful. “Aye, Your Grace. But the choice must serve both houses—and the children themselves. This isn’t a decision to make lightly.”

Cersei’s lips curved in a thin, cutting smile. “The realm has little patience for northern hesitation, Lord Stark,” she said coolly. “The match must be worthy of the crown.”

Robert waved a hand dismissively. “Gods, woman, enough of your prattle.” His attention swung back to Ned, his heavy voice echoing off the stone. “We’ve two fine children from each house. My son Joffrey, and daughter Y/N. Your son Robb, and daughter Sansa. Either match would serve well enough—but which one, that’s the question.”

The silence that followed seemed to stretch.

Robb felt Sansa’s gaze flick toward their father—wide, pleading, hopeful. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap, knuckles white against the fabric of her gown. She had dreamed of this match since the day the royal party had arrived, and though Robb wanted to look away, he couldn’t.

His father’s voice broke the stillness. “My daughter Sansa is of age to wed the prince, should it please the crown,” he said, the words falling with measured restraint. “It would be a great honour.” 

Robb’s stomach twisted. He could feel every word land like a blow. The image rose unbidden in his mind—Sansa’s soft smile turned toward Joffrey, the way her cheeks flushed when he looked her way. She saw a golden prince; Robb saw the cruelty that gleamed behind those same golden eyes. The thought of his sister bound to that… boy made his chest tighten until it was hard to breathe.

But worse still was the image that followed—one he hadn’t meant to summon, one that struck deeper.

He imagined a life without you.

You, standing beside some nameless lord in King’s Landing, your fire dimmed beneath the weight of courtly duty. You, smiling that polite, practiced smile that never reached your eyes. You, turning from him in the Godswood for the last time.

The thought clawed at him, sharp and cold as the northern wind. He had told himself it was folly to think of you—to imagine a future that might never be—but now, as the King’s words echoed through the hall, the possibility of losing you settled in his chest like a stone.

You were duty, yes. But you were also more.

And for the first time, Robb Stark found himself praying—not to the Old Gods for strength or guidance, He prayed that fate would be kind.

He drew a slow breath through his nose, forcing his shoulders to remain square, his expression composed even as his heart hammered in his chest.

Across the hall, Robert leaned back in his chair, his heavy crown tilting slightly as he studied the two families before him. “Aye,” he said after a long pause, nodding once. “A fine match indeed.”

But then his gaze shifted—first to you, then to Robb.

He lingered on the sight of you, head bowed in quiet poise, the faint tremor of unease in the way your fingers tightened around the edge of your cloak. And then his eyes flicked to Robb—rigid, jaw clenched, blue-grey eyes stayed fixed on you. 

Robert recognized that look. He’d worn it once himself—long ago, for Lyanna Stark.

His brows drew together, voice lowering into something more thoughtful. “And yet…” he murmured. “There’s sense in matching the North with my daughter, too.”

Your head snapped up, hope flickering across your face as your gaze darted between your father and Robb.

Meanwhile, your mother’s head turned sharply toward your father, her eyes flashing with cold fury. “Your Grace—” she began, her voice tight with warning.

But Robert ignored her. His eyes were on Ned, a small, knowing smirk playing on his lips. “Tell me, old friend,” he said, his tone deceptively casual. “What does your boy think of the matter?”

The hall went still.

Ned hesitated, his gaze flicking briefly toward his son. “He will obey his duty,” he said at last, his voice even. “Whatever is decided.”

Robert barked a laugh, the sound echoing off the stone walls. “A true Stark answer!” he said, raising his cup in mock salute. “But I didn’t ask for duty, Ned. I asked for thought.”

All eyes turned to Robb.

The hall seemed to narrow around him, every sound fading until all he could hear was the rush of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. Slowly, he looked toward his father, seeking steadiness in the familiar lines of his face—but his gaze didn’t linger there.

It found you.

Your gaze met his, uncertain but searching. The flicker of hope shifting something in his chest shifted. 

And before he could stop himself, he spoke. “I would marry her.”

The words rang out clear and steady, but his heart hammered behind them. He barely saw the flicker of shock that crossed Ned’s face or the sharp intake of breath from his mother. His eyes were only on you—your parted lips, the way your breath caught, the hesitant, hopeful smile that followed.

A low murmur rippled through the hall like wind through dry leaves. Cersei’s expression hardened, the colour draining from her cheeks, while Sansa made a small, strangled sound beside her mother — disbelief and hurt mingling in her wide blue eyes.

Robert’s brows lifted, amusement flickering across his face. “You would, would you?” he rumbled, leaning back in his chair, half in jest and half in curiosity.

Robb nodded once, never taking his eyes off you as he addressed your father. His voice was calm but resolute. “Aye, I would,” he said. “We remember those who stand with honour, and she has done that since the day she rode through our gates. She’s shown nothing but grace and courage since she arrived. The North could ask for no finer lady—” he hesitated, his breath catching for the briefest moment before he finished, softer, “—I could ask for no finer lady. If it please Your Grace, and with my father’s blessing, I would be proud to call her my wife.”

Your eyes widened slightly, a faint breath slipping from your lips. You could feel every gaze on you, but all you could see was him as he stood tall and unflinching in the centre of the hall, the firelight catching the auburn in his hair and tracing the proud lines of his face. His voice had stilled a room full of royalty and lords, yet his eyes were fixed only on you—as though the rest of the world had fallen away.

“Seven hells, Ned,” Robert said at last, a booming laugh rolling from his chest, breaking the tension like thunder. “You’ve raised yourself a proper lord.” He turned his grin toward Robb, still chuckling. “You sound more like your father than you know.”

Then his gaze shifted to you. “Well, girl? You’ve heard the lad. Would you have the wolf for a husband?”

Your lips parted, your breath trembling in your throat. You had been promised, paraded, spoken of your entire life but never once had anyone spoken for you like this. Never once had you felt as though the choice might truly be your own.

And now, for the first time in your life, you knew exactly what you wanted.

You drew a slow breath, steadying the frantic beat of your heart. “If it please Your Grace,” you said softly, your voice clear despite the thundering in your chest, “then I would.”

The hall erupted — some gasping, some murmuring, a few already clapping — but all of it faded into a distant hum. Robb’s eyes found yours again, and this time, you smiled — small, genuine, and full of something neither of you dared name.

Robert leaned forward, grin wide beneath his beard. “Ned?” he prompted.

For a long moment, Lord Stark said nothing. His gaze rested on his son, studying him—not as a father scrutinizing a boy, but as a man weighing the measure of another and his gaze seemed to soften with pride at what he saw.

Finally, he inclined his head toward the King. “I think the matter is decided, Your Grace.”

Robert roared with laughter, the sound booming off the stone walls. “Good! It’s settled then! The lioness of the South and the wolf of the North!” He lifted his cup high, wine sloshing over the rim. “May the gods damn well bless this union—and grant them strength enough not to tear each other apart!”

The crowd broke into applause, the tension snapping like a bowstring. But amid the noise and the celebration, not all faces shared in the joy.

Cersei rose sharply, her chair scraping against the floor, fury flashing in her green eyes. “You cannot be serious,” she hissed, her words cutting through the laughter. Her gaze burned into Robert’s, venom barely restrained.

“Silence, woman!” Robert bellowed, turning on her with a thunderous glare. “You’ll not sour this moment with your scheming tongue. The matter’s settled.”

Cersei’s lips pressed into a bloodless line as she sat, the gold of her crown catching the firelight like a warning.

And you—your breath trembled, your pulse a storm beneath your skin—but when Robb’s gaze met yours again, something steady flickered there.

A strange, unexpected calm.

Because in that moment, for the first time since the betrothal had been mentioned, you didn’t feel like a pawn in your father’s game.

You felt seen. Not as a daughter of the throne, not as a prize to be bartered, but as yourself.

And across the hall, Robb Stark’s hand curled at his side. For him, too, the weight of duty—the burden of blood, of family, of expectation—suddenly didn’t feel quite so heavy.

For the first time, it felt like choice.

━━━━⊱༒︎ 𐂂 ༒︎⊰━━━━

Daella,

My dearest, beautiful sister, how have you been? 

Is it true our brothers have been lost? I have been praying every night toward their safe return under our father’s gaze. Daeron is a bigger fool than I thought, to have taken little Aegon with him as well! I have half a mind to slap him dry myself when he finally appears. Daella, do not listen to the cruel, mercurial whispers of the court, for you know how they slither. Our brothers are safe. I know it to be true. I would ride out myself, if needs be, to meet our father halfway and scour the lands together. I shall try my hardest to stay his hand from beating Daeron senseless, though I make no great promise.

I also write to tell you that my heart knows no beauty like the verdant lands of my husband, Lyonel. He loves me with a fire that verily rivals our own dragon blood, and I find myself returning that heat in kind. He has gifted me a coal-black mare from the Dornish borders; she has kind eyes and a stalwart gait that carries me from the deep shadows of the rainwood to the salt-sprayed cliffs of Shipbreaker Bay. When the household duties are settled, I lose myself in the Lysene scrolls and histories from the Free Cities. Daella, all my fears have been for naught. The people I now watch over are like their lands, strong and indomitable, yet they do not look upon my silver hair and black clothes in fear, they look to me in awe and respect. A few squire boys tripped over their own two feet as they pushed each other to give me your letter from last time! As the days passed I have found myself to regard this stormy land around me as my own.

Daella, after you meet your betrothed, please do tell me that you will visit my formidable home. As my husband is the Lord Paramount of the Stormlands, many great houses have now pledged their allegiances to me as well, one of them being House Tarth of Evenfall Hall. I know of your love for the Sapphire Isles and you must come and meet them, for their stentorian stories rival that of Lyonel himself. My dear sister, Lord Tarth’s eyes never left me as he kissed my hand. He whispered that his great-grandmother once saw the titanic Vhagar pass overhead and whilst growing up in her stories, he had remained in monolithic respect towards our family. The noble houses of my husband’s lands are nothing like the vipers that haunt King’s Landing. They are a true, honest people.

Soon we will make haste to the tourney at Ashford. I am so incandescently happy to finally witness a tourney with my very own eyes! Lyonel says he, too, will fight, but I am so scared that something might befall him that I have been constantly pestering him to stand down. 

Alas, House Baratheon’s stubbornness rivals our own!

Please do send a raven as soon as you can for I miss you dearly and long to read your thoughts.

I remain your loving sister.

━━━━⊱༒︎ 𐂂 ༒︎⊰━━━━

The ink barely dried on the paper as you heard the grand oak door to your chambers creak open.

“There you are!” Lyonel beamed at you. He had traded his heavy armor for a soft tunic of black linen, laced at the throat with yellow cords that stayed loose and casual. He looked every bit the stalwart lord, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. He had a spring in his step as he came closer to your desk. “What is my dragon doing?”

You folded the letter neatly in your hands and smoothed out the dark silk of your sleeves embroidered with subtle silver dragons and smiled. You had a wolf pelt to your shoulders that brought out your eyes.  “Writing to my sister.” The thoughts of your brothers, lost on the road somewhere, have plagued you day and night since you heard of it.

You crossed the oak and kissed him as his hands found your waist. His beard rubbed your own chin and you almost giggled like the maid you no longer were. “You taste sweet, have you tried that apple cake in the hall?” 

“Nay, my Lord. I think that is just the natural taste of your wife’s lips.” Lyonel let out a boisterous bark of a laugh. He delighted in your witty quips, finding more joy in your sharp tongue than in all the flattery of his bannermen. 

“Oh, yes! I must beg your forgiveness, my Lady!” He bowed like a squire despite his frame and you laughed. The fire in the hearth cracked with the noise of wood. Your stag decorated bed had been covered with as many furs as possible, for the nights were cold and the storms could rise the sea to the windows. 

Though you were never afraid of it sweeping in.

━━━━⊱༒︎ 𐂂 ༒︎⊰━━━━

The carriage that brought you to the tourney rocked to the side and back again in a near nauseating rhythm and you stared longingly through the curtains at the sight of Lyonel on his great warhorse, his cloak billowing like a storm cloud. You knew it would have been better, cleaner and way faster to ride your Dornish mare at his side, but you were a Princess of the Blood. To ride astride in the view of a thousand smallfolk would have invited whispers that would stain your reputation deeper than any joy the wind could bring. So, you endured the velvet-lined cage.

The countryside had transformed as you traveled west, the green rainwood given way to the golden field of the Reach. The air no longer smelt of salt and was now replaced by the smell of wheat and wildflowers. You passed through villages where children ran alongside your carriage with bare feet, some with toy dragons made out of carved wood, laughing and kicking up dust as they waved at you. Lyonel would toss away gold coins, laughter booming across the yellow fields.

“You better be back before the sun sets, or I’ll go mad.” Lyonel whispered in your ear the next morning as you told him you wanted to walk around the grounds alone, and see the splendor and the depravity with your own eyes.  You loved your husband fiercely, but the "Anvil" and the "Storm" both shared a common trait: they tended to crowd the air around you.

You shifted in the cocoon of his arms, turning to face him. His eyes were slowly opening, their hazel color peeking through at you. You smiled at him as he kissed your nose, then your forehead. He smelled of the ambergris he used in his bath and the distinct, heavy scent of your own perfume, from your affections towards him the night before. You toyed with his earring, turning the gold in your fingers.

“I swear I will do so.”

The grounds had a great cacophony of noise and people mingling about, a swirling vortex of boisterous knights and desperate merchants. Men yelled over the din of clashing practice steel, while others bartered for pungent spices and low-born comforts. You moved through with a secret delight, the tempestuous energy of the crowd a far cry from the quiet halls of Storm's End. Closely behind you walked two guards, stalwart and silent as stone pillars, their presence was a silent vow that any man brave, or foolish enough to insult you would find his life forfeit before he could blink.

You felt the weight of your gown as you walked, its deep obsidian hue a stark contrast to the muddy rags of the smallfolk. 

The Ashford hall came into view and your heart fluttered in your chest. You wanted to see if your family had arrived, so you bid your guards to stay watchful at the gate as you went to the main entrance. 

Mayhaps, you were too focused on the doors, maybe too excited to catch sight of your father or uncle that you bumped into a wall! 

Nay, not a wall. Into a man!

“Pardon me-” his voice was thick and low.

“Oh!” he looked into your eyes, then at your hair, and your clothes as he slammed down one knee in front of you. His voice shook. “My Lady, I humbly beg for your forgiveness…I did not see you-”

“Rise, ser, it is I who was unaware of your presence.” You laughed, for how could you not see him? He was a formidable tower of a man, yet he stood there trembling as if he were a page boy caught stealing tarts. Lyonel would roar with laughter at your retelling of this. 

He looked at you like you barked or neighed like a horse, before your words and jolly nature settled in his brain. He stood once more, eclipsing the sun from behind him. He looked at a complete loss of words and you wondered if any noble had ever treated him kindly.

“Were you going somewhere?” You tilted your head up towards him, much like when you spoke to your own man.

“Yes…uh, no-n-no, My Lady. I wanted to ask for an audience with the Lord of Ashford.”

“Oh, I’m sure he will see to you.” A lady called for a maid to be brought, the princes needed their hands washed. Your heart leaped into your throat. They were here! Your father and uncle were just beyond those doors.

“Good morrow, Ser,” you said, already gathering your skirts to depart.

“Go-good day to you, My Lady.” He bowed his head again, his hand white-knuckled as he gripped the hilt of his sword for strength, as if he expected you to transform into a dragon and take flight.

Well, that was endearing. Truly so.

Inside, the Great Hall was cooler, smelling of beeswax and expensive oils. Your uncle had his back to you, washing his hands. His brown hair so unlike that of your own that he scarcely resembled a Targaryen, albeit his clothes had every bit the royal grandeur the heir to the Iron Throne should bear. 

“Good day to you both.” 

The servants and lord bowed before you as your uncle and father looked to the door. 

“Good day. I was just thinking about you.” Baelor came to you and caught your face in his hands with a smile in a soft, paternal gesture as pressed a bearded kiss to your temples. He smelled of travel,responsibility and the weight of the crown. 

Maekar came to you after. His kiss upon your cheek was cool, almost formal, yet in the way his hand lingered on your shoulder, you felt the love he had for you. You stood in front of them as you started talking of the tourney, then the weather. And finally your brothers-

“You! Who are you? What do you mean by spying on us?” Maekar, always looking for traitors in the dark, looked next to you, towards the door. Someone was there. Your father stood, passing you as if to protect you from any sort of ill-meaning intruders.

His red hair came first into your view and then his clothes, worn down and ripped apart. The man from outside.

Surely the Lord’s Audience can wait your conversation with your family.

His face was pale and he looked as if he was dropped in a cage with hungry beasts.

“I do apologize for my interruption,” he said, taking a few tentative steps forward. He was trembling, yet there was a stalwart honesty in his eyes. “I’ve… I’ve asked for Ser Alfred Dondarrion to vouch for me so that I might enter the lists, but he has refused…”

He looked into your eyes like he was seeking an ally as you tilted your head, so this is why he wanted an audience. 

Maekar looked at you, then at Baelor.

“Who? What the fuck is going on?”

“We are the intruders here, brother,” Baelor interrupted, his voice like liquid silk, instantly cooling the heat in the room. He beckoned the knight forward with a sovereign grace. “Come closer, Ser.”

“-and others too. You see, they say that they know not of Ser Arlan of Pennytree, but he served them.” The hour was already growing late and your belly was restless as you had yet to break bread. You gave your father a kiss on the top of his head and nodded to your uncle as you passed the man on your way out. 

The time for talking would arrive, mayhaps tomorrow you and your father could look for Daeron and little Aegon.

━━━⊱༒︎ 𐂂 ༒︎⊰━━━━

The tent was positively bursting with laughter and song! 

Your husband’s counselors and bannermen were deep in their cups, their voices rising like a storm as they traded jests and war stories.

You sat beside Lyonel, your ears burning with a delicious heat as he showered you with his neverending attentions. Between bites of rich venison, he pressed bearded, wine-stained kisses to your neck, murmuring words that promised a very different kind of celebration later. His stag crown was passed from his head to yours at some point, though you already forgot when it happened. It was heavier than it looked. Your silver hair was unbraided. Lyonel liked it best that way as he kept running his large, calloused hands through the strands whenever he leaned back in his chair, as if to remind the room that the dragon was his.

You were both dressed in black, twining shadows draped in heavy mantles of Baratheon gold. 

A sea of knights and minor lords swirled before the high table, all vying for a nod of acknowledgment from the "Laughing Storm." 

You don’t know when, but after the main course, you spotted it. No, him.

The great “wall” moved through the crowd. And you, who usually kept these sort of exclamations to yourself, were emboldened by the wine and the atmosphere that you completely disregarded your sweet husband’s hushed words in your ear: 

“When we get back to our tent, I’m going to take you like-”

“Ser!” you waved at him, wishing he could see you. You giggled at the sound of your own voice, loud, but drowned in the sea of people. That “Arbor gold” was truly something else! 

Lyonel’s steward, a man with a big grey beard and a somber expression, noticed your intentions and caught the man’s gaze as he was eating some cake. He and you both motioned to the man to come closer.

The giant froze, pointing a thick finger to his own chest in disbelief, his eyes wide as if there were other men the size of a carriage in the tent.

“Yes! You!” you cried, laughing at his bewildered expression.

When he finally reached the high table, “Have you received what you sought? I realize now I never caught your name.” you said.

The giant looked at your husband, and his body went rigid, as if some unseen hand had pulled him taut. You heard the ominous creak of wood as Lyonel leaned back in his great chair, the legs protesting beneath his weight. The warmth that had filled his eyes moments before vanished entirely, snuffed out like a candle caught in a sudden draft. You hiccuped.

“Yes, ma’a- Your Grace. I have,” the giant stammered. He offered you a small, shaky smile.

“This is my Lord husband, Lyonel of House Baratheon,” you said, remembering your manners even through the wine haze. “And I-”

“You’re a Targaryen,” he interrupted earnestly.

There was no insolence in it. Only unguarded awe.

You beamed despite yourself: “That I am.”

“What is your name, man? Or are you as deft as you are tall?” Lyonel’s voice had changed. The lust was gone, replaced by the timber of the Storm Kings of old.

“Dunk- Ser Dunk, my Lord.”

Lyonel scoffed, a sharp, derisive sound. You turned your silver head toward your husband, confused by his sudden bite. He didn't look at you. His eyes were locked on Dunk.

“That’s ridiculous,” Lyonel dismissed. “Is that the noise your head makes when it bumps into the ceiling?”

The table erupted in cruel laughter from the counselors, a cacophony of sycophants eager to please their lord. You whispered a soft ‘Lyonel” trying to soothe the tempest rising in his chest, but he was beyond hearing.

“Why do you cower like a maiden on her wedding night?” Lyonel, mocked a punch toward his own jaw. “So you don’t get punched?”

“No, my Lord,” Dunk said, his voice low, trying to find his words. “From where I come from, one learns to make himself small. That’s all.”

You reached up to fix the antlered crown as it slipped forward, the heavy gold sliding over your brow.

“The Seven Above gave you tallness…” He let a moment pass, “so be tall. Or I will name you a heretic and burn you, or drown you, or- whatever is it we do to heretics?” Dunk looked into your eyes, his gaze pleading and raw. Was this why you had beckoned him? To be a sacrificial lamb for your husband’s pride? Anger began to simmer in your gut.

“Burn them, my lord.” 

“What have you brought us?” He sighed as he tossed the dagger he received earlier that evening from a minor lord.

“Um” he thought about what he might say “Begging your pardon ser, I di-din’t realise.” All men must pay their due, yet this was a celebration, and you were sure Dunk didn’t have much to bring anyway. You sank back into your chair, the wood hard against your spine. You bit back the urge to intervene, knowing that to challenge Lyonel in front of his bannermen would invite scrutiny. You held your tongue, though it felt like a lead weight in your mouth.

“You wish to curry my favor some, yet you come with an empty hand?” 

You wondered if it was better to have just enjoyed the celebration quietly, not bring the man to your husbands’ attention so crudely. Leave it to you to destroy someone’s night on the one time you actually raised your voice.

“Lord Caffron, the smug cunt in red,” he pointed with the dagger from the table, “he is scarce to pay his rent. His people starve each winter, yet even he shinied up this bauble from his family’s cellar for he understands that all men, in their way, wish only for your help…or your head.”

He paused a beat. “You’ve come for my head then.” 

You looked to the wooden floor, not believing the words coming out of his mouth. Lyonel was trying to scare this man senseless.

“No-n-no..Gods no.” Dunk stammered.

“Then why the fuck are you in my tent?” 

You couldn’t take this any longer.

“I’ve called for Ser Dunk.” All eyes snapped to you. Your husband turned a bit to the side, to see you better. You looked at him and said “We’ve bumped- well, I’ve bumped into him, on my way to see my father. My Lord, you shouldn't be so crass with him, as he is my guest.”

Lyonel regarded your face, looking all over for anything that might prove your words a lie.

Someone fell down somewhere in the tent. A definite crash accompanied by the sound of laughter.

You looked at Dunk again, a silent wish for him to agree: “Yes, yes my Lord. Your be-beautiful wife had asked me to join you.”

You closed your eyes, already envisioning what Lyonel will say. Good Gods why must honest men be so dull.

“You think my wife beautiful?” Lyonel’s smile bore no happiness, his teeth bared under the hair of his beard akin to those of a wolf. 

“Your words are kind, Ser.” You replied. Good Gods. Leave, now. Bid your ‘goodnights’ and leave the tent. Say you have a stomach ache, say you are drunk, say you are slow in the head. Say anything so you may see the morrow with both your eyes!

“You think my wife needs remembering of her beauty by a lowly knight in rags?” Lyonel continued. 

Dunk took a deep breath, and it seemed he too, realized the extent of his remark. In what world does he live in, where he can compliment a Lord’s wife in his own tent? 

“Ser Dunk-” You rose, trying to catch your footing,  your obsidian dress swaying around you, the heavy antlered crown shifting once more. “Let me lead you outside. I think we have had our fill of the evening's excitement.”

Lyonel’s gaze went to you. You knew this cruelty was born of pride. He was usually the biggest man in every room. 

As you stepped out, the cool night air hit you like a blessing. The people could still be heard, albeit way quieter now. 

“I beg your pardon, Your Grace. I didn’t mean-” He bowed his head once more. He was still holding the piece of cake. 

“I know what you meant, Ser. It is my husband who was unbecoming towards you and it is I who must apologize, for I didn’t think anything of the sort might happen as I called you to me.” Dunk must’ve seen as many winters as you. You tried to put on a graceful face, already thinking about what Lyonel might say and what you might tell him. His humors were like the storm sometimes.

You bid him goodnight, and yet you didn’t return to the high table. You went to your own shared tent. 

You mustn’t have waited long for you to hear the strong footsteps of your Lyonel. You were taking your cloak off. Stag crown heavy on your head. You quite liked it, it made you look less like a princess and more like a conqueror.

You could feel his presence behind you, “You mock me.” 

“You mock yourself.” You turned around after you took your gold earrings off and nearly dropping one “Why have you been so cruel?” 

Your husband’s voice was sharp, though you knew he bore no ill intent. “What’s it to you?” 

Your candles illuminated his face, casting warm shadows over that black and grey hair of his. He was a very handsome man. With a comely smile and a deep voice, that vibrated through his chest when he spoke, especially when he would whisper as it would travel through your ears, to your belly and finally- What were you talking about?

“You were cruel to that man, for no apparent reason, my love. Why? For he had done nothing to you.” Your words came out softer than intended, dulled by the wine and your husband standing tall next to you.

“I’ll be as cruel as I wish in my tent.” His eyes tracked the slight sway in your stance.

“Untie my dress.” You turned as he moved to the back of you, fingers moving fast over your cotton laces. “That’s not the man I married. The man I married was kind. Strong, yes. Fierce, yes. But not cruel without cause.” You remembered his gentle attentions towards you the night you married.

“Who is that man to you?” 

“He is someone I encountered on the road to Ashford Hall, I was curious of his predicament. That is all.”

“Well, be curious no more.” Your dress pulled at your ankles and you placed it down on your wooden chest, your maids will take care of it tomorrow. 

The weather inside the tent was becoming hotter, be it because of the wine or the dragon blood in your veins you could not say. It boiled beneath your skin and prickled. You dressed into your nightshift as Lyonel sat down with a huff, unbuckling his boots. 

His eyes rose to continue the conversation but they caught sight of you, body barely concealed beneath your nightgown as you struggled to find the hairbrush. The light from the candles illuminating it and giving your husband plenty to look at from behind. 

“You know, Lady Swann had such an interesting story about her daughter. She told me-“ 

“I can’t hear you from over there.”

He was probably five hands away from you. 

“Come closer, so I may hear my wife's voice.” His eyes, hazel and bright like the great trees dominating his lands were filled with a mischievous glint. You knew he heard you well enough. He smiled, and the corners of his eyes wrinkled. “Come on.”

He looked at you as he beckoned you closer. And you made sure, easy steps towards him. His hand reached for your own and he brought it close to his broad chest. You let yourself be led to his strong leg, sitting down upon it as you have done so before. 

Lyonel adjusted the stag crown, murmuring a ‘it suits you’ as you continued your story. 

By the time you reached about the midway, he started kissing you with small noises of pleasure leaving him. First it was your cheek, then the side of your mouth as you told him how the Lady’s daughter had tried to run away with a knight. Remembering the story proved to be quite hard behind all the wine you drank.

Lyonel made small sounds of acknowledgement as he often mumbled ‘mhm’ and soft murmurs of ‘tell me more’ as you would stop to close your eyes. His arms held your waist and you knew even if you tried to get up, it was for nought, even if that was madness to you right about now. He brushed your silver hair back as his beard made contact with the soft skin of your neck, his lips were soft as he kissed you and you almost giggled a few times when he tickled you with it. 

You finally stopped telling the story after you moaned, “Please don’t stop, for I dearly need to know what happened to Lady Swann’s daughter Meredith-”

“-Margery-“

“Aye, Margery.” You kissed him as he groaned in your mouth. Lyonel pressed you tightly into him, like you might disappear any second. You could feel something pool in your belly and by the looks, and feel of it, your husband felt the same. You touched him beneath the leather as you opened your mouth to his. 

You must’ve stayed in his arms for what felt like an eternity, as you kissed each other and fondled one another like two teenagers. You could not, for the life of you, remember what you were talking about beforehand. He would push up into your hand and grab hold of your breast, telling you how beautiful you were and how much he loved you between feverish kisses. 

While his leg was sturdy enough, you desperately needed the attention towards another spot that your husband carried. He fell backwards on the bed, and you took the opportunity to finally rest your whole body on top his own. Lyonel seemed more great tower than man below you. 

He grabbed your waist and smiled, cheeks flushed and eyes glazed with your attentions and the promise of what is to come.  

 “You’re far too dressed.” You pressed your heat down on the spot between his legs, and he opened his mouth in a soundless gasp, eyebrows furrowed. 

“You are far too dressed.” He quipped back, arms holding you there. “Come up.” His smile was like that of a servant boy who just caught himself a pie for the night. 

You laughed, “I am up.” 

“Up I say. To my face.” A stone fell through your stomach and you felt its pleasure sweep right between your legs. “Come.”

You crawled to his face as he rose your nightshift up in desperation. You didn’t wish to hurt him, but he didn’t seem to care for your worries as he raised himself up and caught the taste of you. 

Your face snapped to the headboard and your eyes were glued shut. He had wanted you like this before, but never in this position. You slowly lowered down, so his head might be placed comfortably on the bed and moaned. 

You wished you could stay upright, but he bent you in two from his love below, your fingers in that thick nest he called hair as you moaned. You didn’t want to hurt him, but slowly moving your own hips against his face felt so good, you had to do so. His beard an almost scratch on your butt.

Your feet curled against his shoulders. You thought this pleasure must be what they wrote songs about, thought it could be much at times. When his tongue would brush against your flower too quickly and too eagerly, you would shoot up, wishing to put distance between you and keep away from the need to shake like an autumn leaf against your husband’s face. Lyonel had both his arms holding you there, both holding you tightly against him, so you may not run. You couldn’t help grabbing his hair like a rein. 

You thought it might be enough as you felt a simmering heat in your belly and even in your flower. This was too much. Your arms felt as if they were made of silk and your voice rose, tethering on the edge of someone standing on a cliff.

He would moan against you and you would close your eyes so tightly you saw little black spots when you opened them up again. You felt a layer of sweat pool on your body and it was becoming too much, the heat, the slight noise from outside and your husband. You felt tears prick at your eyes.

You shuddered and cried, a little tear escaping you as you tried to do so as well. He finally relented as you went straight to the pillows, slamming forward like a corpse and laughing. 

“Good Gods Lyonel.” You tried to catch your breath as you heard him undress, the sound of leather unstrapping the only thing in your ears, that and the ringing. You couldn’t move even if you wanted to, your heat pulsating down between your legs as your belly almost caught pain in it from the pleasure you received.

Lyonel was deathly serious as he lowered down on you. He took the stag crown and threw it somewhere in the room as you felt him raise your nightshift again. He pressed himself to you and you moaned into the pillows. 

“Kiss me.” he said, voice spent. You lifted and turned your head as he made you open your mouth. His beard was all wet from you and you tasted yourself on his tongue. Your heart felt warm with the thought of him being all yours when he dragged himself out and back in, only you would have him like this, only you. 

You tried to stay quiet, truly so, but he was everywhere and everything in the room and you drank enough wine to not care anymore. He pressed both elbows to your head as you lowered down a bit on the bed, his hairs tickling your face, his big hands sought your own soft ones. He intertwined your fingers as he pressed his other hand to your waist, then to your hair. You moaned into each other’s mouths, as you felt his body press up time and time again. 

He would reach so far you would feel him right in your belly and it made you squeeze his hand all the harder. Lyonel pressed his cheek to your own as he groaned, a grey hair fell across his brow like a stroke of lighting. You felt him lose the rhythm he built up so far as he rose to his knees and lifted the sweaty nightgown even higher on your body. He would grab and fondle you as you both moaned. The soft splatter of rain could be heard as it hit the tent. You felt a pleasant dizziness in you, from the wine and from the release you had. You must’ve been the happiest woman in all the Seven Kingdoms right now.

You heard him groan and whimper when his legs shook above your own, the same heat pulsing inside of you that did so every night. He pressed down once more into you as he made a sound of pleasure and whispered his ‘I love you’. You smiled with your head to the side. 

Lyonel’s heart was still beating fast as you both laid in the bed. The candles were still burning, but you surely wouldn’t have any problem sleeping with them. You turned to look at him. He had his eyes closed, hair sweaty and chest rising fast as he fought to find his breath. You chuckled as you looked at him.

“You have another grey hair… right here,” you pointed to the left side of your own temple “did you know?” 

“You better name it. For it is yours.” He breathed out through his nose and swallowed “You gave it to me.”

“By the time I’ll bear your first son, you’ll be as grey as a stormy cloud. They’ll call you Lord Lyonel “The Cloud” Baratheon”. Another loud hiccup left your chest and you pressed your hand to your mouth.

“You think you are mighty amusing, nay?” His eyes opened once more as he looked at you. Smiling, as he often did when he gazed at you.

“Oh so I do.”

As your dear husband’s breath grew slow and rhythmic beside you, his fingers still loosely encompassing your own beneath the cotton blanket, your mind wandered as it so often did in the quiet moments before sleep claimed you. Tomorrow, you would ride out with your father to search for dreamy Daeron and little Egg. If the Gods were good, you would find one drunk out of his mind and the other tucked somewhere safe, beneath another’s careful guidance and protection. You smiled faintly at the thought. You prayed then, once in the common tongue, and once more in the language of your ancestors, long dead and scattered to ash by the Ruin. You resolved to write to Aemon as soon as the dawn allowed it, for you wished with an almost painful longing to hear of his life at the Citadel. You thanked the Gods you had not yet crossed paths with Aerion as you would sooner eat grass and bleat like a sheep than endure your brother’s company. You prayed for the morrow’s tourney, for your stag would ride in it, and for the safekeeping of your family. You had ruled these lands for hundreds of years, surely your guidance still held weight, even if the dragons had deserted your kind. Even if you did not know whether you would ever be worthy again of their return.

Sleep found you gently.

And in it, you dreamt the strangest thing!

You dreamt of beasts and banners, of the great animals of the mighty houses of the realm locked in battle, claw and horn and tooth. When you woke with the pale morning light, a smile curved your lips and a quiet flutter stirred in your chest as Lyonel gently snored in your ear.

In your dream, the stag had won.

━━━━⊱༒︎ 𐂂 ༒︎⊰━━━━

Author's note: Part 2 is here yall and I hope it is to your liking. I have managed to get it to you in time and i am so so happy. I cant wait to see what my husband Lyonel does next. I got the nastiest exam tomorrow and i reallyyyy gotta go study. You can write to me whatever whenever u wish and I will try to get back as soon as possible to u, thank u for reading my story and if you remained patient enough to let me finish part two, you have my deepest gratitude. HAVE A GREAT DAY BABES ily <3

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